How many people lived in ancient rome

Of this 45 million people, Augustus declared within his own census information that:. By contrast, in the census of 70 BC, prior to the major civil wars of the late Republic and considerably more conquests in Gaul and the East , some have estimated the population of the 'Empire' at a more considerable 55 to 60 million people. This falls more in line with estimates at the height of imperial power in the mid 2nd century AD, and might be inflated considering the lack of the previously mentioned expansion.

The census of 70 BC showed , men held citizenship, which is far short of the Augustan citizen numbers roughly 4 million , but more than the overall numbers roughly 45 million just a century later. The large discrepancy would seem to account for the fact that Augustus probably counted more than even citizen men and related family members including women.

He may have included non-citizen freemen, freedmen and slaves as well, but this we can never be certain of. A Claudian census in 47 AD places citizen population at just under 7 million people. This, despite its near unbelievable rate of growth from just 50 years prior, can be partially attested by the great vilification of Claudius for including Gauls and other provincials in the Senate, as well increasing the citizen roles.

In fact, citizen growth was more a measure of Romanization than it was of birth rate. By this time, Roman citizenship was experiencing its first major shift from something of Italian origin, that would continue to evolve over the next few centuries. Any large Roman city had public baths where people would go to bathe. Bathing was a popular pastime for the Romans. They would hang out with their friends and even hold business meetings at the bathhouses. How many people lived in a Roman city?

Rome was the largest of the cities. New slaves were primarily acquired by wholesale dealers who followed the Roman armies. Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search. Press ESC to cancel. Skip to content Home Popular articles How many people lived in ancient Rome? To help put an end to the debate, University of Connecticut theoretical biologist Peter Turchin and Stanford University ancient historian Walter Scheidel focused on the region's prevalence of coin hoards, those bundles of buried treasure that people hid to protect their savings during times of great violence and political strife.

If the people who hid these bundles were killed or driven off, they wouldn't have been able to retrieve them, leaving them for archaeologists to find. According to the researchers, mapping out the times when the coins were buried is a good indirect method for measuring the intensity of internal warfare and unrest , and therefore a key indicator of population demographics.

The model the two developed using the coin distribution and less controversial census data from earlier periods suggests that the population of Rome did in fact decline after B.

By these estimates the entire population of the Roman Empire — and not just its male population — was somewhere around 4 million to 5 million people by the end of the first century B. I'm not sure that by itself it has absolutely proven it, but it certainly provides additional evidence for the low-count hypothesis. The findings are detailed in the Oct.