University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository Graduate Studies The Vault: Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2016 The Population of Augustan and Severan Rome Carlyle, James Carlyle, J. (2016). The Population of Augustan and Severan Rome (Unpublished master's thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. doi:10.11575/PRISM/28276 http://hdl.handle.net/11023/3401 master thesis University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission. Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY The Population of Augustan and Severan Rome by James Laurie Carlyle A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS GRADUATE PROGRAM IN GREEK AND ROMAN STUDIES CALGARY, ALBERTA September, 2016 © James Laurie Carlyle 2016 Abstract The city of Rome was the capital of an empire that stretched from the Pillars of Hercules in the West to the Euphrates River in the East. This dissertation seeks to quantify the Augustan (27 BCE- 14 CE) and Severan (193-211 CE) populations of this city. For the time of Augustus, the population shall reckon from a group of 250,000 male citizens in receipt of state-funded largesse, estimating the number of women, children, slaves, freedmen, and foreigners that such a number may support. The Severan population will be measured using a statistical model estimating the floor area of all residential housing and dividing this total by the average floor area per person. A range of interpretations will emerge from this evidence, so I shall offer both a possible and a probable range of population, so that others can see the upper and lower limits allowed by the data. ii Table of Contents Abstract ii Table of Contents iii List of Tables v Chapter I: Introduction 1 Chapter II: Review of the Literature 10 2.1 Food Supply and Consumption 10 2.2 Karl Beloch and the Plebs Frumentaria 14 2.3 The Physical City 18 2.4 The Cross Cultural Approach 26 Chapter III: The Plebs Frumentaria and the Grain Dole 28 3.1 The Plebs Frumentaria 28 3.2 Age Distribution and Boys under Eleven 30 3.3 The Citizen Female Population 32 3.4 The Servile Population 36 3.5 The Number of Freedmen Excluded from the Grain Dole 44 3.6 The Foreign Population 51 3.7 Findings 54 Chapter IV: Floor Area per Person and the Population of Severan Rome 56 4.1 Methodologies and Definitions 57 4.2 The Residential Area of Rome 59 4.3 The Roman Insula 61 4.4 The Literary Evidence for Tall Buildings in the Ancient Mediterranean 63 4.5 Floors per Insula, the Archaeological Evidence 68 4.6 Floor Area per Person Statistics in Comparative Cultures 73 4.7 Floor Area per Person Statistics for Insulae, the Roman Evidence 79 4.8 The Number of Floors in Roman Domus 84 4.9 Floor Area per Person in Roman Domus 86 4.10 The Population of Roman Tabernae 90 4.11 Findings 94 Chapter V: Conclusion 97 Bibliography 101 Primary Sources 101 iii Secondary Sources 104 Appendix I: Staircase indicators of the Forma Urbis Romae 112 Appendices II: Tabernae on the Forma Urbis Romae 116 iv List of Tables Table 2.1: Insulae and Domus on the Curiosum 19 Table 2.2: Insulae and Domus on the Notitia 19 Table 3.1: Slave and Freedmen in Delaware, 1790-1860 48 Table 4.1: United Nations study of floor area per person, 1990-1995 76 v Chapter I: Introduction There are good reasons why historians and demographers have attempt to quantify the population of Rome, the greatest city of the Western world both in terms of political power and sheer size before the advent of industrialization. Indeed, knowing the population of this city is key to describing the lives and experiences of its inhabitants as well as its economic and demographic impact in the wider Mediterranean which it ruled. The population of the city is also a key factor in understanding the political decisions of Rome’s senators and emperors. As a result of this obvious importance, many and diverse efforts have been made toward measuring Rome’s population. Speaking in broad terms, the approaches of scholarship toward the population of Rome approaches fall into two categories. First are calculations based on physical aspects of the city, such as its size and the number of Rome’s buildings. The second comprises calculations based on food consumption within Rome. Of all attempts to determine Rome’s population in the late Republic and early Empire, one method has proven more enduring than others. Here I refer to Karl Beloch’s 1886 and 1903 studies, Die Bevölkerung der griechisch-römischen Welt and “Die Bevölkerung Italiens im Altertum” respectively. Beloch extrapolates Augustan Rome’s population from a core group of its citizens designated as the plebs frumentaria, which are Roman men in receipt of the state-sponsored grain dole. Not only has Beloch’s method of calculation remained the standard one, the demographic figures he has suggested of 870,000 (1886) and one million (1903) respectively set the template for modern scholars, most of whom arrive at similar totals and see one million as a conceptual maximum.1 1 Karl Julius Beloch, Die Bevölkerung der griechisch-römischen Welt (Leipzig: Ferlag von Ducker & Humblot, 1886), p. 392-412; Karl Julius Beloch. “Die Bevölkerung Italiens im Altertum.” Klio - Beiträge zur Alten Geschichte. Volume 3, Issue 3. 1903. p. 471–490, p. 489-490; P.A. Brunt. Italian Manpower 225 B.C.-A.D. 14 (Oxford: Claredon Press, 1971), p. 376-383; Keith Hopkins, Conquerors and Slaves (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), p. 97-99, with notes; Elio Lo Cascio, “Population of Roman Italy in town and country.” In: Bintliff, J. L. (ed.); Sbonias, K. (ed.) Reconstructing Past Population Trends in Mediterranean Europe (3000 B.C.–A.D. 1800) (Oxford, 1999), pp. 161- 171; Neville Morley. Metropolis and Hinterland: The City of Rome and the Italian Economy 200 B.C.-A.D. 200 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002) p. 33-35.; Neville Morley. “Population Size and Social Structure.” In: Paul Erdkamp (ed.); The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 29- 44. 1 This study will challenge these notions by offering two population estimates of Rome. The first will be a reinterpretation of the Beloch method, wherein I will seek to offer a population range that includes reasonable margins of error which have hitherto not been fully explored. The second population estimate offered, in keeping with the trends of Classical demography, will utilize a completely different set of data, namely evidence concerning the physical remains of the city in the time of Septimius Severus. With these data, the prevalence and character of Rome’s residential housing will be investigated. Using these two methodologies, I will show that the theoretical basis for using one million as a maximum figure for the population of Rome is extremely uncertain and that, if anything, one million is considerably closer to a minimum figure for the city in the time of Augustus and Septimius Severus. The preoccupation with the size and character of Rome is not a phenomenon exclusive to modern scholars. Writing in the sixth century CE, Cassiodorus, statesman and historian, marvels at the physical remains of Rome: Apparet, quantus in Romana civitate fuerit populus, ut eum etiam de longinquis regionibus copia provisa satiaret, quatenus circumiectae provinciae peregrinorum victui sufficerent, cum illi se ubertas advecta servaret. nam quam brevi numero esse poterat, qui mundi regimina possidebat. Testantur enim turbas civium amplissima spatia murorum, spectaculorum distensus amplexus, mirabilis magnitudo thermarum et illa numerositas molarum, quam specialiter contributam constat ad victum.2 Indeed, the size and extent of Rome’s population was proverbial in antiquity. To be sure, the descriptions of the vastness of Rome and its population, like that of Cassiodorus, became almost a trope of literature in antiquity. Martial, in his Epigrammata, remarks for instance, “Terrarum dea gentiumque Roma, / Cui par est nihil et nihil secundum”.3 The Scriptores 2 “The vast numbers of the Roman people in old time are evidenced by the extensive Provinces from which their food supply was drawn, as well as by the wide circuit of their walls, the massive structure of their amphitheater, the marvelous bigness of their public baths, and the enormous multitude of mills, which could only have been made for use, not for ornament”: Cassiodorus. Thomas Hodgkin (tr.), Letters of Cassiodorus (London: Horace Hart, 1886), 11.39. 3 “Rome, goddess of the world and its people,/for whom there is no equal nor second”: Martial; Wilhelm Heraeus (ed.); Jacobus Borovskij (ed.), Epigrammata (Leipzig. 1925/1976), 12.8.1-2. 2 Historiae Augustae (SHA), too, writing in the fourth century CE, record an anecdote in the life of Elagabalus in which the titular character sets his slaves the peculiar task of procuring 1,000 pounds of spider silk by going about the city, a sum humorous for its enormity. The true immensity of Rome is attested when Elagabalus’ slaves return not merely with their 1,000 pound-charge, but with ten times this amount.4 Of course, this passage is almost certainly not historical, but it is noteworthy, as it displays how the grandness of Rome inspired authors to write of its magnificence.