the population of augustan and severan rome

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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 The Population of Augustan and Severan Rome (Unpublished master's thesis).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

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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

ii

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.

iii

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

iv

Secondary Sources 104

Appendix I: Staircase indicators of the Forma Urbis Romae 112

Appendices II: Tabernae on the Forma Urbis Romae 116

v

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

1

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.

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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.

3

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. Even when not direct, however, Latin literature still presents many

indications of the vastness of Rome. An account of Ammianus, for example, in describing a food

shortage at Rome remarks that the city contained “tria milia saltatricum … cum choris

totidemque remanerent magistris.”5 Surely, any city and especially any preindustrial city

capable of supporting 3,000 dancing girls and their entourages is substantial. Such observations

were both natural and expected, for, at the height of its power, Rome sat at the center of one

of the largest and most enduring empires the world has ever known. Even conservative

estimates suggest that she held sway over tens of millions of people throughout its vast

holdings in the lands of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.6 It is thus fitting that Rome’s

grandness express the grandiosity of its achievements.

These statements and stories give us a sense of the grandeur of Rome, a sense which is

strengthened by observations of some of the remaining physical evidence within the city. Chief

among these are the great sporting arenas, which were built to accommodate tens of

thousands. Indeed, according to Pliny the Elder, the Circus Maximus held 250,000 souls.7 John

Humphrey, working from archaeological remains and measuring the area total seating area, has

downgraded Pliny’s estimate to 150,000 spectators, albeit still a great number.8 The Flavian

4 Scriptores Historiae Augustae, Elagabalus, 26. 5 “three thousand dancing girls […] with their choruses, and an equal number of dancing masters remained”: Ammianus Marcellinus. Rerum Gestarum. 14.6.19. Unless otherwise stated, all translations are my own. 6 Scheidel summarizes the evidence well. The ‘low-counters’ offer 60-70 million, whereas ‘high-counters’ suggest 100 million: Walter Scheidel. “Population and Demography”, Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics, April 2006, pp. 1-14, p. 9. 7 Pliny the Elder. (tr.) John Bostock; (tr.) H.T. Riley. Historia Naturalis (London: Taylor and Francis, 1855), 36.24.102. 8 There may be a way of reconciling Pliny and Humphrey’s calculations if we allow for some events in the Circus Maximus to have required spectators to stand instead of sit: Pliny, NH, 36.24.102; John Humphrey. Roman Circuses: Arenas for Chariot Racing (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1986), p. 126.

4

Amphitheatre, commonly known as the Colosseum similarly held many thousands, as many as

50,000 to 100,000, if David Bomgardner is to be believed.9 Rome’s hydro-infrastructure is also

telling. According to the work of Gerda de Kleijn, Rome’s aqueducts brought in 191 million

liters of water each day in 34 BCE, an amount which continued to increase until 97 CE, when

the city consumed 635 million liters daily.10 And though De Kleijn is careful to point out that

there is no way of knowing if an increase in water supply indicates an increased population, we

might nonetheless surmise that the population must have been great to warrant so much water

usage.11

The above impressionistic statements are the only types of declarations that one can

make about the size of Rome’s population with absolute certainty. Classical demographers,

however, seek more precision than the above generalized approaches can provide. We crave

numbers, hard statistics on which we can make social, economic, and demographic statements

and calculations. Although the evidence is far too sparse to ever offer definite population

figures and so efforts have instead focused on finding plausible ranges of population.

As a consequence of this impulse, the population of Rome has been the topic of debate

for more than a century, with many and varied approaches having been undertaken to

appraising its size and character. The vast majority of scholarship takes one of two of the

above-mentioned methodological approaches. The first attempts to discern the population of

Rome from statistics in the ancient sources concerning the supply and distribution of grain

within the capital. Within this spectrum, there are two approaches that predominate the

scholarship. The first and less popular of the two systems seeks to combine references in the

sources concerning the importation of foodstuffs into the city of Rome from its provinces. Not

9 David L. Bomgardner, The Story of the Roman Amphitheatre (Routledge, 2013), p. 62. 10 De Kleijn arrives at his estimates through archaeological work and an examination of the De Aquaeductu of Sextus Julius Frontinus in the first century CE: Gerda De Kleijn, The Water Supply of Ancient Rome: City Area, Water, and Population. Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben, 2001. p. 47-60. 11 There are simply too many factors in water consumption: personal consumption, animal consumption, cleaning,

baths (private and public), fountains, evaporation, gardens, and agriculture. Moreover, water from the Tiber, cisterns, and wells would have increased the available water supply, though we know not by how much: Ibid, p. 61-74.

5

all of the sources on the subject agree, however, and two readings predominate. A reading of

Aurelius Victor’s Epitome de Caesaribus 1.6 (fourth century CE) and Josephus’ De Bello Judaico

2.383-386 (first century CE) offers 60,000,000 modii per year, about 517,200,000 liters of

grain.12 A reading of the Severus, 23.2 in the SHA (fourth century CE) and the ad Pharsalia

1.319 by the scholiast on Lucan (Lucan wrote the Pharsalia in first century CE and the scholiast

wrote the ad Pharsalia in the Medieval period), on the other hand, produces 27,375,000-

29,200,000 modii a year, around 235,972,500-251,704,000 liters.13 From here, so the

supporters of this theory suggest, all one must do to come to a population for the city of Rome

is to divide the grain importation figure by the average annual consumption of grain per head,

generally estimated by proponents at 48 modii/414 liters a year. Resultant populations are

1,250,000 for the reading of Aurelius Victor and Josephus and 570,313 and 608,333 for the

readings of the SHA and the scholiast on Lucan respectively.

The more popular method based on food consumption within the city was initially

developed by Justus Lipsius in 1605, though made famous by Beloch in his seminal 1886 work,

and modified by scholarship in the intervening hundred and thirty years. This method seeks to

extrapolate Rome’s population from figures representing the plebs frumentaria, a subset of the

plebs urbana who qualified for the state-sponsored grain dole. The size and character of this

group is best attested in the late Republican and early Imperial periods, especially 46 BCE-15 CE

by a number of our literary sources, especially the Res Gestae Divi Augusti, which offers our

best evidence for the size of the plebs frumentaria. Beloch began with this core of 200,000-

320,000 grain recipients, who he supposed were male citizens, and constructed his all-inclusive

estimate based on suppositions concerning the numbers of children, women, soldiers, the elite,

and slaves that such a male population implied.14 Having reckoned with these subsets of the

greater population, Beloch first came to a population for Rome of around 870,000, a figure

12 Aurelius Victor, Thomas M. Banchich (tr.). Epitome de Caesaribus (New York: Canisius College, 2000), 1.6; Flavius Josephus; William Whiston (tr.). The Wars of the Jews (1895), 2.383-386. 13 Scriptores Historia Augusta, Severus, 23.2; The Scholiast on Lucan, ad Pharsalia, 1.319. 14 Later authors added freedmen and foreigners to these groups.

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which he raised to one million in a subsequent work. Remarkably, in spite of manifold instances

of dubious methodology, this latter estimate has stood the test of time and scholarship.

The second approach oft employed for reconstructions of Rome’s population is based

on an entirely different data set, namely evidence of the physical city, both archaeological and

literary. By far the most popular systems in this branch of Roman population methodology are

those utilizing documents originating in the fourth century CE known separately as the

Curiosum and Notitia, and collectively, as the Regionaries. These documents purport to give

information on the number of insulae (44,300) and domus (1,790) within the fourteen Augustan

sectors of the city.15 There are nonetheless problems with this evidence insofar as the

traditional definition of insula means a building akin to an apartment complex in modern

terminology.16 Had this been the case, there simply would have been too many insulae within

the walls of fourth century Rome. The attempts to deal with this apparent discrepancy are

manifold, but, as I will argue, ultimately unnecessary.

This dissertation critically investigates the primary means by which ancient scholars

have attempted to reconstruct the population of Rome and offers new interpretations of the

existing evidence. Population figures will be offered for two eras of the Roman Empire. The first

follows Beloch’s method, reckoning the population of Rome in the time of Augustus from the

number of the plebs frumentaria. The time of Augustus is a natural choice and has been

deliberately selected as the period in which our figures for the plebs frumentaria, the core

group of citizens in receipt of the grain dole on which this method is absolutely dependent,

originate, are strongest, and most consistent. Furthermore, the last years of the Roman

Republic and subsequent reign of its first emperor, Augustus, are the most well attested years

of Roman history in our literary sources. Thus we have a more analytically reasonable basis for

our supposition about the lives of women, slaves, freedmen, and foreigners in this time period

than in any other. While our estimate will broadly speaking be based on Beloch’s method, it will

nonetheless be heavily informed by the many and diverse scholarly contributions to

15 Both figures are approximations. Disagreement in the manuscript tradition belies more precision. 16 This is discussed in chapter II, section 2.3.

7

demographic history that have followed since Beloch’s formative study and will question the

conclusions of previous scholarship.

The second method for reckoning the population of Rome offered here will engage with

the population of the Eternal City in the time of its twenty second emperor, Septimius Severus.

As a counterpoint to the Augustan period, this time holds our surest evidence for the material

culture of Rome. In large part our knowledge of the capital at this time comes from the Forma

Urbis Romae (FUR), a marble map of Rome that was commissioned by Septimius Severus and

probably completed sometime between 203 and 208 CE.17 When finished, the map was incised

on 150 marble slabs. Together these measured roughly 18m in height and 13m in breadth,

covering some 234m2. The scholarly consensus accepts 1:240 as the best fit for the scale of the

Severan map, though rare instances of distortion form exceptions to this general rule.18

Originally, the FUR was placed on an interior wall of the Templum Pacis in central Rome

with its southeasterly portion placed at the top.19 Over the centuries, however, the temple fell

into disrepair and the FUR was severely damaged, the map fragmenting and the pieces falling

to the ground. There, many of the fragments remained for centuries until they were discovered

by Giovanni Antonio Dosio in 1562.20 The intervening period has seen much of the map lost,

destroyed or reappropriated.21 Today, a little over a tenth of the map remains available to us in

17 David Reynolds, Forma Urbis Romae: The Severan Marble Plan and the Form of Ancient Rome (PhD dissertation, University of Michigan, 1996), p. 45-46. The bracketing of 203-208 CE is founded on two pieces of evidence. The date of 203 CE for the map is firm, because of the presence of the Septizodium on the map, a Roman building that was not finished until 203 CE. The date of 208 CE is made probable, though not absolutely certain, by a building,

completed in 208 CE that is marked as incomplete on the map itself: O.A.W. Dilke. Greek and Roman Maps (London: Thames and Hudson, 1985), p. 104. 18 Tina Najbjerg, Jennifer Trimble. “The Severan Marble Plan Since 1960”, in: Roberto Meneghini; Riccardo Santangeli Valenzani; Formae Urbis Romae: Nuovi Frammenti di Piante Marmoree Dallo Savo dei Fore Imperiali

(Rome: “L’ERMA” di Bretschneider, 2006), pp. 75-101, p. 94. But there are some fluctuations in the scale: Dilke (1985), p. 105; Najbjerg; Trimble; (2006), p. 94; Rodriguez-Almeida (2002). 19 Jennifer Trimble. “Process and Transformation on the Severan Marble Plan of Rome”, in: Richard Talbert;

Richard Unger. Cartography in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Boston: Brill, 2008) pp. 67-98, p. 68-69, with notes. 20 Trimble (2008), p. 68-69. 21 Marble was highly valued as a building material and doubtless the occurrence of fragments being used in the construction of a Farnese garden is not all together unusual. Another reason for missing fragments is the high

percentage of calcium carbonate in marble, which when superheated makes it a great material in the production of lime. This process, of course, destroys the marble: Tina Najbjerg, “The Severan Marble Plan of Rome (Forma Urbis Romae).” http://formaurbis.stanford.edu/docs/FURmap.html (accessed: June 16th, 2016).

http://formaurbis.stanford.edu/docs/FURmap.html

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1,186 marble fragments.22 The map, probably engraved in situ on its 150 marble slabs,

displayed the ground-floor plans of every building in the city, warts and all. Neither the loftiest

temple nor the humblest taberna was excluded. Mounted on a wall, the FUR rises vertically

eighteen meters. Though quite detailed, it was ungainly and therefore probably not intended

for intensive practical use.23 For purposes of consultation, Reynolds is doubtless correct in

supposing that the urban praetor had records which were far less cumbersome, perhaps the

very records utilized in the construction of the FUR.24

Portraying the ground floor plans of Severan Rome, the surviving fragments of the FUR

depict thousands of tabernae, dozens of insulae, as well as a handful of domus and are our best

source for Rome’s residential housing. This information, when combined with literary evidence

and the archaeological data both from Rome and from smaller urban areas, such as

Herculaneum, Pompeii, and especially Ostia, although they all have different economic

backgrounds than Rome, allow us to reconstruct Rome’s residential context by providing

evidence of Roman buildings.25 With data from these sources I shall explore factors that are key

to understanding Rome’s residential makeup and population in the Severan period. The first of

these is the amount of space given over to residential habitation within the city and how this

was appropriated between its two primary forms of residential housing—insulae, apartment

buildings, and domus, the palaces of the wealthy, usually large—along with some reckoning of

the population of Rome’s tabernae, small usually rectangular architectural units with wide

street-side openings. The second key factor is the average number of stories in each building

type. With these first two sets of data, it will be possible to reconstruct the total floor area of

insulae and domus. Our third factor is the average amount of floor space per person that a

22 Thanks to the Stanford Digital Forma Urbis Romae Project, all 1,186 surviving fragments are now available in the

form of highly detailed photographs and digital three dimensional images: Najbjerg (2016). In addition there are also 87 drawings done in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries CE of map fragments that have since been partially or wholly lost or disfigured. These are generally quite good, though small details and issues of scale sometimes arise. 23 Trimble (2008), p. 67-98 24 Reynolds (1996), p. 116-123. Pliny the Elder seems to have had access to plans similar to these when discussing the streets of Rome: Pliny the Elder, NH, 3.5.66. 25 The value of Ostian buildings, especially insulae as comparative models for their Roman counterparts has long

been recognized: G. Calza. “La preeminenza dell’ Insulae nella edilizia Romana.” MA 23 (1914), pp. 541-608.

9

typical occupant would have in domus and insulae. Due to lack of evidence concerning their

areal foot print, such a process will not serve in reconstructing the population of Roman

tabernae. In this case, I shall use the FUR to estimate the number of tabernae within the city of

Rome and from there approximate an average inhabitance rate.

Of course, sure knowledge of these factors is impossible to ascertain, for no sure figures

survive from antiquity. I shall therefore offer two ranges for the population of Severan Rome,

which shall henceforward be known as the range of the possible and the range of the probable.

The former will provide a population estimate that allows for every reasonable possibility that

the evidence allows, producing a range between the maximum and minimum figures that is

very large, accommodating the vast majority of possible results. In this way, I hope to say with a

degree of definitiveness what Rome’s population could have been in the time of Severus, given

what can be known to be true. The latter, the range of the probable, will seek to narrow this

data to a more manageable and analytically valuable figure by applying a more severe analysis

of the evidence, not merely finding all that was possible, but finding that which was probable.

Of course, none of this can be known for certain, but if, in the absence of sure knowledge,

these factors can be understood with a reasonable degree of probability, then a functional

population of Severan Rome will be closer to hand. While a definite population total will still

certainly prove elusive, exploration of these methods will allow for the construction of a range

of what is possible, and perhaps even, what is probable for the Eternal City.

Since Beloch’s 1886 and 1903 studies, most scholars have been tentative in offering a

population of over one million people for Rome in the Imperial period. This is especially true of

those scholars seeking to extrapolate Rome’s population based on the core body of citizens

comprising the plebs frumentaria. The appropriation of Beloch’s figures by subsequent scholars

continues despite the fact that little is known about the proportions of women, children,

foreigners, freedmen, and slaves in Augustan Rome. Accounting for such information is

particularly poignant where freedmen and slaves are concerned, as these groups must have

been quite large and, and consequently even small variations in proportion, could produce

vastly different population totals. The possibility that Beloch’s figure of one million from the

early days of the twentieth century has come to predominate the literature through its sheer

10

age and the frequency with which it is repeated must be taken seriously. This thesis will amend

the accepted figures while broadening how demographers think about population in Rome and

in preindustrial cities more generally.

11

Chapter II: Review of the Literature

The majority of studies on the population of Rome fall into two broad methodologies.

The first, and most popular, seeks to estimate the population of Rome based on the distribution

and consumption of food, especially grain. In turn, this has manifested itself in two approaches,

the approaches of Beloch and Whitney Oates.26 The former primarily seeks to calculate Rome’s

population based on estimates of women, children, soldiers, slaves, and the elite in relation to

the plebs frumentaria, a privileged adult male subset of Rome’s greater population. The latter

attempts a reconstruction of Rome’s population through the amount of grain imported into the

city annually, a figure which is obtained by a combined reading of Aurelius Victor’s Epitome de

Caesaribus 1.6 and Josephus’ De Bello Judaico 2.383-386.27 Another similar method proffers a

reading of Severus, 23.2 by the SHA and the ad Pharsalia 1.319 by the scholiast on Lucan.

In addition to these grain-centric approaches is a methodology seeking to reconstruct

the Roman Imperial population from descriptions of the physical city in the literature and

archaeological evidence. Most attempts in this vein of Roman demography center around

evidence presented in the Regionaires, fourth century CE documents that appear to give a

detailed catalogue of the city’s buildings and neighbourhoods. Specifically, the population is

seen to hinge upon the number of insulae and domus present in these documents. Another

approach has been taken by Glenn Storey, who attempts to estimate Rome’s population using

evidence from the archaeological remains of Ostia and Pompeii combined with a cross-cultural

study of population density in contemporary and preindustrial cities.

26 Beloch (1886), p. 392-412; Whitney Oates, “The Population of Rome”, Classical Philology, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Apr., 1934), p. 101-116. 27 Aurelius Victor, Epitome de Caesaribus, 1.6; Josephus, Bell. Jud., 2.383-386.

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2.1– Food Supply and Consumption.

Whitney Oates, in his 1934 article, offers an argument for a Rome of 1,250,000 souls. His

argument pivots on two contentions. The first is posited on the strength of a passage from

Aurelius Victor stating that Egypt supplied Rome with 20,000,000 modii of grain yearly in the

time of Augustus.28 He couples this with another passage from Josephus’ De Bello Judaico,

stating that Egypt was responsible for one third of all grain imported to Rome.29 Oates

accordingly multiplies Victor’s figure for the grain contribution of Egypt by three, coming to

60,000,000 modii of grain imported to Rome annually.

Oates’ second contention is that four modii represented the average monthly consumption

of a typical Roman. This is argued on the strength of several sources indicating the monthly

allowance of grain doled out to peoples of various professions, though a preponderance of

soldiers and slaves are in evidence.30 Consequently, if we assume four modii per person per

month and 60,000,000 modii a year, the total population of Rome would be 1,250,000 in the

time of Augustus in Oates’ hypothesis.31

The problems with these assumptions and their resulting computations are manifold,

however. Most obvious and most important is that there are no grounds for accepting the

accuracy of either Aurelius Victor’s statement concerning Egypt’s grain production or Josephus’

28 Aurelius Victor, Epitome de Caesaribus, 1.5-6. Whitney Oates, “The Population of Rome”, Classical Philology, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Apr., 1934), p. 101-116, p. 104. 29 Josephus, Bell. Jud., 2.383-386. 30 Soldiers received two thirds of an Attic medimnus (roughly four modii): Polybius. Evelyn S. Shuckburgh (tr. ). Histories. New York: Macmillan, 1889. 6.39.12-15; Cato the elder allows 4-4.5 modii for his agricultural slaves and three for his other slaves: Cato the Elder. (tr.) W. D. Hooper; (tr.) H. B. Ash. On Agriculture. Loeb Classical Library edition, 1934. 56; Seneca, a little more generous, gives his slaves five modii: Seneca, Epistulae Morales, 80.7; a

fragment of Sallust gives five modii to recipients of the grain dole: Sallustius. J.C. Rolfe (tr.), Historiae, Loeb Classical Library, 1931. 3.48.19; finally there are numerous ostraca and papyri originating in Egypt indicating four modii as the amount

given per month: For soldiers: U. Wileken, Griechische Ostraka (Leipzig: Giesecke & Devrient, 1899), II, Nos. 1130, 1131, 1132, 1137, and 1140. For slaves: D. Comparetti and G. Vitelli, Papiri Greco-Egizii (Milano: Ulrico Hoepli, 1915), Vol. III, No. 322, Col. V. 31 Oates (1934), p. 105. It is interesting to note here that the Scriptores Historae Augusta claim that grain

consumption in Rome in the time of Septimius Severus was 27,375,000 modii: Scriptors Historiae Augusta, (tr.) David Magie, The life of Septimius Severus. Loeb Classical Library, 1921. 23.2. In Oates’ scheme this would mean 570,312 inhabitants of the city.

13

contention that Egypt provided a third of Rome’s grain. Furthermore, Oates is certainly on thin

ice when he uses the sources to complement one another. For one, these two passages were

written years after the periods they claim to represent; Josephus’ writings come from the reign

of Vespasian, while Aurelius Victor was writing many centuries later in the 300s CE. Oates tries

to argue that Josephus was quoting an Augustan era source, but is essentially unconvincing.32

Oates arrives at his figure for Egypt’s grain production from a speech attributed to Agrippa by

Josephus and it follows that factual accuracy has likely given way to rhetorical embellishment.33

Furthermore, the facts contained therein, if indeed they are claims to be trusted, would most

likely represent the situation of Josephus’ own day and not the conditions in place when the

speech was set.34

Even allowing for the accuracy and dependability of Josephus, Aurelius Victor, and the

interplay between them, Oates’ hypothesis still does not stand. Why, for instance, should we

accept, as Oates does, that four modii of grain a suitable average volume of consumption per

person? It is true that Oates provides numerous sources that suggest a monthly ration of four

to five modii, with one exception, the non-agricultural slaves of Cato (who incidentally received

three modii). All of the people receiving four to five modii, however, were exclusively or nearly

exclusively men and working highly calorific jobs. This works out to be in excess of 3,000

calories a day just from grain and we know that Romans did have other foodstuffs, including

32 Oates (1934), p. 104; Morley (2002), p. 33-35. 33 Josephus, Bell. Jud., 2.383-386. 34 This sense is increased in the highly dubious population of Roman Egypt claimed in the very same speech, some 7,500,000 Egyptians, excluding those in Alexandria. Rathbone, perhaps the foremost demographer of Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, postulates an Egyptian population of 4.5-5 million including the great city of Alexandria, perhaps

500,000 strong: D. Rathbone. “Roman Egypt”; in Walter Scheidel (ed.), Ian Morris (ed.), Richard Saller (ed.), The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 699; D. Rathbone, “Villages, Land, and Population in Graeco-Roman Egypt”, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological

Society, Volume 36, 1990, p. 123-124. For agreement see: Walter Sheidel. Death on the Nile. Disease and the Demography of Roman Egypt. Leiden: 2001. p. 184-250; J. Russel, “Late Ancient and Medieval Population”, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series, Vol. 48, No. 3 (1958), p. 78-80; Roger Bagnall; Bruce Frier; The Demography of Roman Egypt. Great Britain: University Press, Cambridge, 1994. p. 53-56; Beloch

(1886), p. 258. For disagreement see: Van Minnen; “Roman Hermopolis: a Study of the Social and Economic History of an Egyptian Town in the First Four Centuries AD” (Leuven: unpublished doctoral dissertation, 1997) p. 40; E. Lo Cascio “La popolazione dell’Egitto romano,” Studi storici 2, 1997: pp. 425–47.

14

most notably olive oil, legumes, meat (or fish) and wine.35 Further, considering the average

Roman man was just 162-168 cm (5’4”-5’6”) tall, probably weighing somewhere between 60-66

kg, and the women smaller still, we quickly see that consumption of four modii per person per

month is simply too much for an average Roman.36 Garnsey is probably right to assign an

average grain consumption of two and a half modii per person per month.37 In this scheme,

though, we arrive at a Roman population of at least 2,000,000 according to Oates’ theory,

displaying a very wide margin of error.38 On the strength of the above, I must despair of Oates’

estimate based on the combined reading of Josephus and Aurelius Victor.

Another similar approach, having originated in Beloch’s 1886 work, analyzes a passage

in the SHA in which it is stated that Septimius Severus granted 75,000 modii of grain and some

portion of oil to the city each day for five years following his death.39 A passage in the scholiast

on Lucan gives a similar daily consumption of 80,000 in the time of Pompey.40 Now, 75,000-

80,000 modii a day works out to 27,375,000 and 29,200,000 modii a year, respectively. Beloch,

like Oates, opts for a pattern of consumption in line with four modii a month. The resulting

population of the city is therefore at least 570,000-608,000. If we substitute Garnsey’s two and

a half modii per person per month hypothesis, on the other hand, a population between

913,000 and 973,000 people is in evidence. This reading is less problematic than Oates’, but is

still unsatisfactory. Most troubling is that both source passages were once again written long

after the events they claim to describe. Lucan wrote in the mid first century CE and is related to

us by the scholiast in the Medieval period, while the SHA was most likely writing in the fourth

century CE. Moreover, the sources for both passages are unknown and as Morley points out it

35 Peter Garnsey. "The Land"; in: Cambridge Ancient History: The High Empire A.D. 70–192, vol. 11 (Cambridge

University Press, 2000), p. 681. 36 Averages of height and weight are derived primarily from skeletal remains, especially those found in Herculaneum and Pompeii: Laurence, Ray; Helen King (ed.), "Health and the Life Course at Herculaneum and

Pompeii." Health in Antiquity. London: Routledge, 2005. Roth, Jonathan. “The Logistics of the Roman Army at War: 264 BC-AD 235”, Columbia studies in the classical tradition, Vol. 23. Brill: 1999. p. 9-13. 37 Peter Garnsey, Cities, Peasants and Food in Classical Antiquity: Essays in Social and Economic History (Cambridge, 1998), p. 229-230. 38 The reason this is too large will be explained in a later section of this paper. 39 Scriptors Historiae Augusta, Septimius Severus, 23.2; Beloch (1886), p. 410-412 40 Lucan, Pharsalia, 1.319

15

is doubtful whether any such official Roman statistics ever existed.41 Additionally, there are

risks in relying on any figures in a literary source, given the very real possibility of them being

miscopied in the process of transcription and transmission. Attempts to reconstruct Rome’s

population from the amount of grain imported into the city, therefore, can hardly be taken as

accurate. With this in mind, it is time to move onto to Beloch’s study of the plebs frumentaria.

2.2– Karl Beloch and the Plebs Frumentaria.

The most popular method for calculating the population of ancient Rome in relation to

food distribution and consumption is the method pioneered by Justus Lipsius, but given real

academic legs by Beloch in his influential 1886 study.42 In Rome, from 58 BCE, when it was

ratified into law, there existed a grain dole and periodic largesse for a certain segment of the

city’s population, the plebs frumentaria.43 The number of those in this group vacillated between

150,000 and 320,000 in the time of Julius Caesar’s dictatorship and Augustus’ reign, though

during the latter it generally became more stable, usually 250,000. The question Beloch asks is

what segment of the population did the plebs frumentaria represent?

In tackling the population of women and children in relation to male recipients of the

grain dole, Beloch decided on a slightly modified reading of Suetonius, Divus Augustus, 41.2

that males under ten were not granted grain.44 Then, by looking at the population of Rome in

his own day, Beloch finds that for every 1,000 males there were 796 females and 137 male

children under ten years of age.45 Taking three different plebs frumentaria figures—320,000,

250,000, and 200,000—Beloch calculates three resultant populations for the plebs frumentaria,

41 Morley (2013), p. 37. 42 Justus Lipsius; Admiranda sive d e magnitudine Romano. 3rd edition (Antwerp, 1605), p. 113-120; Beloch, Karl. Die Bevölkerung der griechisch-römischen Welt (Leipzig: Ferlag von Ducker & Humblot, 1886), p. 392-412. 43 Cassius Dio, 38.13. 44 Beloch corrects the “undecimo” of Suetonius’ text to mean ‘ten’. I find no reason to follow this correction. Either

way, this is only a minor issue and makes little difference to the totals: Beloch (1886), p. 400-401; Suetonius, Divus Augustus, 41.2. 45 Beloch (1886), p. 392-412.

16

of 666,100, 520,550, and 416,200, respectively.46 One might question, however, the

appropriateness of using Rome’s population in the 1880s to represent Rome’s population in the

time of Augustus. The closest reliable statistics for the population of Rome that we have come

from 1881, when the census return recorded 276,473 inhabitants, clearly not on the same

order of magnitude as ancient Rome, where even the grain dole recipients approached this

figure.47 The age structure is also likely different. Rome in 1881 had an average life expectancy

at birth of 35.2 for males and 35.7 for females, whereas the Rome of Augustus’ day was

probably closer to 26 years.48 A population that skews younger will have more children, so

Beloch’s estimate for boys under ten is likely off. His statistic for women is also troubling, for

there are significant cultural differences between the Rome of 1881 and that of the first century

BCE. Age at marriage, infanticide exposure/abandonment, a different disease environment as

well as medical knowledge and infrastructure, and differing levels of resource availability were

all likely to produce a different population of women as well as men.

While the above estimates are problematic, Beloch’s estimate of Rome’s slave and

foreign populations is still more troublesome. He postulates that there was a slave component

within the city of around 280,000 and a foreign population of 60,000-70,000. His supposition

concerning the slave population, in the main, is based on a remark in Galen that one third of

Pergamum’s population was slave.49 In Beloch’s thinking, Rome could hardly have had a lower

proportion of slaves than Pergamum and hence he arrives at his slave figure of 280,000. As

Hopkins has pointed out, however, Galen likely did not have access to census figures and so his

statement should hardly be taken literally.50 Rather, what Galen likely meant, was that

Pergamum had a great many slaves. Moreover, even if Galen’s statement were literal and

46 Ibid. 47 Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce. “Table 2.20: Total Resident Population and Population in Localities of the Greatest Municipalities at Censuses 1861-2001 (a) and year 2009, reference year borders.”

Accessed from: http://search.istat.it/search?q=cache:234KLLvIQMgJ:timeseries.istat.it/fileadmin/allegati/Popolazione/tavole_inglese/Table_2.20.xls+population+of+Rome+1881&output=xml_no_dtd&client=istat_fe_en&proxystylesheet=istat_fe_en&ie=UTF-8&site=istat_en&access=p&oe=UTF-8 (last accessed: March 25, 2016). 48 See notes 118 and 120. 49 Beloch (1886), p. 404 50 Keith Hopkins (1978), p. 99, with notes.

17

accurate, then it would apply to Pergamum and not necessarily to Rome. Even this evidence,

scanty and problematic though it may be, is still more than Beloch offers for the 60,000-70,000

foreigners, which seems to be plucked from thin air.51 In coming to a total, Beloch appears to

calculate his estimate based on the assumption that there were 250,000 male members of the

plebs frumentaria over the age of ten, though he arbitrarily lowers his original estimate of

520,550 to 500,000 and then adds his foreigners, as well as slaves, and a contingent of soldiers

(20,000), coming to a total population of 870,000.52 Beloch, in a later work, raises this estimate

to one million inhabitants presumably on a whim, for he offers no real justification.53

Other holes in Beloch’s theory are also evident. He does not include any reckoning of

freedmen, surely a large portion of Rome’s population, for example. Beloch additionally fails to

offer any figure for the elite, the equites and senators of Rome. This would have been a small

segment, perhaps 5,000-10,000 people, but if Beloch is going to account for a 20,000-man

garrison, presumably the elites should also be enumerated.

Numerous problems notwithstanding, Beloch’s method has remained the dominant one

in the literature for calculating the population of Augustan Rome. This is because the basic idea

behind his method, that the population of ancient Rome can be extrapolated from the core of

its citizens who received the grain dole, is a persuasive one. What was lacking in Beloch’s 1886

study was a lack of good evidence and the willingness to thoroughly question the available

evidence. As a consequence, scholarship since Beloch have sought not to replace but to

improve upon his method with new techniques and sources of evidence.54

Morley offers an excellent summary of the trends and challenges of the Beloch method

as they stood in 2013. Perhaps the most radical change has come from the recognition of

freedmen as a distinct, and in fact, quite large segment of the population.55 The evidence of the

51 Beloch (1886), p. 404 52 Ibid. 53 Beloch (1903), p. 471–490, p. 489-490. 54 Keith Hopkins (1978), p. 97-99, with notes; Lo Cascio (1999), pp. 161-171; Morley (2002) p. 33-35.; Morley (2013), pp. 29-44. 55 Morley (2013), p. 29-44.

18

slave population as offered by Galen’s reading has quite rightly been discarded and the servile

population is now hypothesized with historical precedents and genuine Roman evidence in

mind. Similar totals nonetheless result, despite the fact that the evidence has very little to say

on the matter, other than implying that the total was large.56 For calculating the segment of

the plebs frumentaria which was under eleven, scholars now have access to demographic tools

including the Coale and Demeny life tables for preindustrial populations, in addition to life

tables constructed using the life spans of Roman emperors, senators, and their families.57 Using

these, more reasonable estimates of the female and child cohorts of this group can be

offered.58 The foreign population is also given a more thorough reading.59

Despite the new and more reasonable treatments of the evidence, Beloch’s population

of one million inhabitants remains as a maximum figure for those engaged in the Beloch

method.60 It is almost as if there is a conceptual glass ceiling, through which scholars look but

do not pass. The reasons for this are largely obscure. It may be that Beloch’s figure of one

million, in having endured so long, has taken on an aura of venerability. It may be that Roman

demographers simply prefer to work with round figures. Or it may be that no city in the

western world for which there is hard data achieved a million people until inner London in

around 1811.61 Whatever the reason, there is a danger that Beloch’s figure of one million

inhabitants for Augustan Rome has become so ingrained in the collective imagination of Roman

scholars, that it is instinctively accepted, thus making all exercises in population studies in Rome

circular at least to a certain degree. This is not to say, of course, that the population of Rome

could not have been one million in the time of Augustus, but merely that we should be on

56 Ibid. 57 Ibid, p. 40-41; Ansley J. Coale, Paul Demeny, Barbara Vaughan. Regional Model Life Tables and Stable Populations, Second Edition (New York: Academic Press, 1983). 58 Morley (2013), p. 40-41. 59 Ibid, p. 39-40. 60 Brunt offers 750,000 people in Rome in the late Republic and time of Augustus: Brunt (1971), p. 376-383; Hopkins concludes that a population of 800,000-1,000,000 was probable: Hopkins (1978), p. 98; Morley gives a wider range of 650,000-1,000,000+: Morley (2013), p. 43-44. However, also see Storey, who offers 450,000: Glenn

R. Storey. "The Population of Ancient Rome." Antiquity 71, 1997: pp. 966-78. 61 Great Britain Historical GIS. "London through time: Population Statistics: Total Population". A vision of Britain through time. Accessed from: http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/data_cube_page.jsp?data_theme=T_POP&data_cube=N_TOT_POP&u_id=1009

7836&c_id=10001043&add=N (last accessed: April 8th, 2016).

https://www.google.ca/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%2522Ansley+J.+Coale%2522

https://www.google.ca/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%2522Paul+Demeny%2522

https://www.google.ca/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%2522Barbara+Vaughan%2522

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Britain_Historical_GIS

http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/data_cube_page.jsp?data_theme=T_POP&data_cube=N_TOT_POP&u_id=10097836&c_id=10001043&add=N



19

guard not to approach the issue with preconceived notions, but rather to follow the evidence to

their most natural conclusions. This is the aim of Chapter III of this work, in which we will offer

a new interpretation of Beloch’s method, one that embraces the margin of error inherent in our

the method’s treatment of the sources.

2.3– The Physical City

The other set of proxy data for calculating the population of Rome concerns the physical

city rather than the consumption of resources. There are numerous attestations in the ancient

sources to the size, grandeur and excellence of ancient Rome, many of which have been

covered in the introduction. Very few of these offer anything more than impressions. The most

notable exceptions are the fourth century CE catalogues known separately as the Curiosum and

Notitia and collectively as the Regionaries.62 In these documents, the architectural contents of

the fourteen Augustan regions of Rome are recorded.63 The list of every region follows the

same basic formula: first, documenting monuments in the region, then the numbers of vici,

aediculae, vicomagistri, curatores, insulae, domus, horrea, balinea, lacus , pistrinae, and, last of

all, the pedes, or circumference, of each region. From all of this, two of the data sets provided

in the Regionaries have garnered by far the most attention. Here, I refer to the purported

number of insulae, and domus, which I have provided in Table 2.1 and Table 2.2. The totals vary

slightly between the Curiosum and the Notitia, with the Curiosum figures generally lower in

respect to domus, albeit slightly, and with the conspicuous absence of both domus and insulae

figures for region VI. The numbers for domus and insulae in the Notitia are 1,781 and 44,300

respectively. For the Curiosum 1,525 and 40,897, though if we borrow the region VI data from

the Notitia and apply it to the Curiosum, we instead have agreement concerning the number of

insulae and only slightly fewer domus, 1,671.

62 The Notitia and the Curiosum denote two different manuscript traditions of the supposed Regionaries. 63 G. Hermansen, “The Population of Imperial Rome: The Regionaries”, Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, Bd. 27, H. 1 (1st Qtr., 1978), p. 146-148; Glen R. Storey, “Regionaries-Type Insulae 1: Architectural/Residential Units at

Ostia”, American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 105, No. 3 (Jul., 2001), pp. 389-401.

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Curiosum

Region domus insula

I 120 3,250 II 127 3,600

III 60 2,757

IIII 88 2,757 V 180 3,850

VI missing missing VII 120 3,805

VIII 130 3,480 IX 140 2,777

X 89 2,742

XI 88 2,500 XII 113 2,487

XIII 130 2,487 XIIII 140 4,405

Total: 1,525 40,897

Notitia

Region domus insula

I 120 3,250 II 127 3,600

III 160 2,757

IIII 87 2,757 V 180 3,850

VI 146 3,403 VII 120 3,805

VIII 130 3,480 IX 140 2,777

X 89 2,642

XI 89 2,600 XII 113 2,487

XIII 130 2,487 XIIII 150 4,405

Total: 1,781 44,300

Table 2.1: Insulae and Domus on the Curiosum.64 Table 2.2: Insulae and Domus on the Notitia.65

Considering that these catalogues purport to provide evidence of Roman housing that is

otherwise sorely lacking, it is not surprising that many have sought to utilize this information to

hypothesize a population of Rome. The theory is that if you can know the average number of

occupants in the average insula and domus, then all you need to do is multiply the averages by

their respective statistics. In practice, however, this seeming simplicity obscures a considerably

more complex reality. Most obviously, there are issues of determining the occupants in both

domus and insulae, as well as considerations of verticality, as an insula with five stories is likely

to have a larger number of inhabitants than an insula with two stories. While these are

64 Curiosum, in: Henri Jordan, Topographi der Stadt Rom in Alterthum, Zweiter Band (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1871), p. 539-574. 65 Notitia, in: Henri Jordan (1871), p. 539-574.

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important questions and integral to any method that would use the Regionaries statistically,

they are ultimately secondary to the veracity of the Regionaries themselves. Indeed, the

majority of the debate surrounding the Regionaries in the last fifty years has turned about

issues of their authenticity.66

The main point of contention understandably comes from the insulae statistics; namely,

there has been considerable effort expended in trying to prove that there could have been

44,300 insulae in the proportions recorded for the various regions of the city. The problem,

briefly outlined, is one of arithmetic. The area of intramural Rome has been measured by Lugli

Calza, and Gismondi in their 1942 paper to be 13,868,750m2, a figure which is accepted by

Gerkan and Hermansen.67 What is more, having measured domus and insulae from Pompeii,

Herculaneum, Ostia and Rome, average sizes of 431m2 and 266m2 have resulted for domus and

insulae respectively.68 If there were 1,790 domus of this size, then together they would cover

approximately 990,000 m2 of Rome, whereas 44,300 insulae of 266m2 would cover nearly the

rest of the city, with 11,783,800m2. No scholar, despite significant effort, is able to assign less

than 35 per cent of Rome’s space to non-residential or lightly residential features, such as

swamps, monuments, temples, thermae, castra, waters, and the Imperial palace on the

Palatine. Obviously, there is not enough room within the walls of Rome to accommodate the

66 Hermansen and Storey sum up the debates well: Hermansen (1978), p. 129-168; Storey, “Regionaries-Type Insulae 2: Architectural/Residential Units at Rome”, American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 106, No. 3 (Jul., 2002), pp. 411-434. 67 G. Calza; I. Gismondi; G. Lugli, "La popolazione di Roma antica," Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica del Governatorato di Roma, 69 (1941), p. 142-165; Armin van Gerkan, "Die Einwohnerzahl Roms in der Kaiserzeit", Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Römische Abteilung, 55, 1940, p.149-195, p. 159; Hermansen, G., "The Population of Imperial Rome: The Regionaries." Historia Zeitschrift fur Alte Geschichte 27 (1),

1978: p. 129-168, p. 147. 68 Regarding the size of Roman insulae, Lugli identified 38 examples of this building type on ten fragments where the footprint of the building can be measured: Najbjerg, (2016), 138a, 165abcd, 40abc, 37Ad, 582. Lugli, however,

uses Carettoni’s FUR numbering system whereas I am using the Stanford numbering system. These are generally the same, but Carettoni’s 285a-c and 524 have become 40 a-c and 37Ad, respectively. His average is 249m2: G. Lugli, “D valore topografico e giuridico dell'insula in Roma antica,” Rendiconti della Pontificia Accademia Romana d’archeologia 17 (1942), pp. 191-208. To these I would add three more insulae that I have noticed: Najbjerg (2016),

273d, 496a, and 538ab. The average of these three insulae is 487m2; when combined with Lugli’s 38 examples, the average size raises somewhat to 266m2. For the average size of Roman domus, see Chapter IV, section 4.9 of this work.

22

features that were known to be there—whether monuments, temples, thermae, and so forth—

and the things that the Regionaries say were there.

Despite all efforts, the Regionaries remain essentially irreconcilable in the most

problematic areas, those found in the city center: regions VIII, X, and XI. Even a cursory

examination of ancient Rome will show the city center to be full of monuments and public

buildings, a point that leaves little space for the thousands of insulae attested in the

Regionaries. Indeed, as Homo has shown, once one has provided suitable space for public

buildings, monuments, and domus of the Regionaries, there is no room to accommodate even a

fraction of the insulae supposedly in these regions.69

Understandably, scholars have been reluctant to give up on the Regionaries and thus

many have sought a way to reinterpret the definition of ‘insula’ in Roman residential

terminology. This has led to a number of inventive ‘solutions’.70 Broadly speaking, these

strategies take two forms. The more popular approach attempts to define an insula not as a

self-contained freestanding structure, but as some constituent part of this, whether that be a

room, a suite, a floor, or some other sub-division. Homo, for instance, sees the number of

insulae represented in the number of on-the-street door openings from private buildings.71 This

scheme, were it true, would indeed allow for multiple ‘Homo-insulae’ to be contained in one

building and therefore may make the Regionaries possible. There are problems, however. Most

obviously, as Hermansen notes, Homo provides no compelling precedent in the literature for

this definition; it is essentially made up for the purpose of salvaging the Regionaries.72

Furthermore, there is the problem of tabernae, these units are small, often one-room shops

with a wide street side opening, which appear on the FUR lining nearly every residential,

commercial, and industrial building in the city. Now, if we were to accept Homo’s criteria for

69 Leon Homo. Rome imperiale et l'urbanisme dans l'antiquite (Paris 1951). 70 Below I present only the theories I consider to be most important and representative. For excellent and succinct summaries of the historiography see: Storey (2002), p. 414; Hermansen, (1978), p. 146-48; G. Hermansen. “Domus and Insula in the City of Rome”, pp. 333-341, in: O. S. Due (ed.); et al. Classica et Medaevalia F. Blatt Septuagenario

Dedicata (Copenhagen: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, 1973), p. 333-334. 71 Ibid. p. 646-648. 72 Hermansen (1978), p. 153-154.

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defining an insula, then we must accept tabernae into this number and as a consequnece can

we can quickly see that the number of ‘Homo-insulae’ would far exceed the 44,300 insulae

offered in the Regionaries.73

Gerkan also tries to rescue the Regionaries by interpreting ‘insula’ to mean not its

traditional definition, as some form of apartment building, but merely one floor of a multi-

floored structure.74 In Gerkan’s view, each insula was, on average, three stories in height, so

there would have been around 14,800 buildings, with three insulae to each. This method

produces a far more manageable figure, but once again, the definition lacks in theoretical

credibility given the fact that it is created to save the Regionaries, not becuase it is warranted

by the evidence.75

Storey offers our second major method employed to reconcile the Regionaries when he

takes insula to be what he calls an architectural/residential unit (ARU), a somewhat nebulous

term defined as “separate, architecturally closed-off units…[where]…someone even if only a

slave, could have lived”.76 This would include any unit of any size or characteristic, from a

palatial domus to a diminutive taberna, so long as it could have housed a person or

household.77 In this estimation, the insula statistic that appears first in the enumeration of

buildings in the Regionaries represents the total number of such units. The list then goes on to

enumerate domus, horrea, balinea, lacus, and pistrinae. So the pattern for region one, for

example, would be 3,250 insulae/total units, of which there are 120 domus, sixteen horrea, 86

balinea, 87 lacos, and 20 pistrinae.78

73 The overwhelming presence of tabernae are discussed more completely in Chapter IV, section 4.10, but suffice it to say that the FUR suggests a very high number of tabernae in Rome, on the order of 50,000. 74 Gerkan (1940), p. 149-95. 75 Even with this new definition, Gerkan still struggled to fit the Regionaries’ insulae into regions VIII, X, and XI, especially X, which despite his best efforts still could not account for 20 per cent of the insulae in these regions: A. von Gerkan. “Grenzen u. Grösse der vierzehn Regionen Roms”, BJ 149, 1949, pp. 1-65. 76 Storey, (2001), p. 391. 77 Storey, (2001), p. 391; Storey (2002), p. 411, 414; Glenn Storey; “The Meaning of "Insula" in Roman Residential Terminology”, Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, Vol. 49 (2004), pp. 47-84. 78 Regionaries, Regio I.

24

The tabernae were likely so common, however, that 44,300 units may not even suffice

to describe this one architectural type.79 Further, against this hypothesis, is the evidence from

the Regionaries themselves, where the Felicles insula, a massive apartment block of no small

notoriety, is described in the list of monuments for region IX as a singular entity, even though it

must certainly have contained many of Storey’s ARUs. Why, then, was it not the “Felicles

insulae”?80 Indeed, if this building, which appears to be an apartment complex, is called an

insula in the Regionaries, it stands to reason that ‘insula’ means ‘apartment building’ in this

document. A final point should be made: if insula did not mean ‘apartment building’, then what

was the name for such buildings? The sources offer no other.81

Hermansen contends, however, that no reinterpretation of the ‘insula’ is warranted or,

in fact, necessary, because one already exists in the legal documentation.82 In Hermansen’s

view, the law offers a clear and unambiguous definition. On this point, two passages of

Justinian’s Digesta, one concerning gifts between husbands and wives and another concerning

the culpability of freedmen for actions undertaken during their previous servitude, are

enlightening. The former passage clearly indicates that an insula is a self-contained building on

its own piece of land, “Si vir uxori aream donaverit et uxor in ea insulam aedificaverit”.83 The

second passage enforces the sense of the first in very similar language, “si tempore seruitutis

aream emerit et in ea insulam aedificaverit”.84 Furthermore, another excerpt shows the

necessity of a designated empty space between insulae. When describing the rights of an

owner to build on vacant property, Ulpian in the Digesta explains: “posse dominum vel alium

79 This is discussed more completely in Chapter IV, section 4.10. 80 Regionaries, Regio IX. The Felicles insula is described elsewhere by Tertullian as a massive structure of residential

use: Tertullian, Against the Valentinians, 7. Storey even recognizes that the Felicles insula was most likely a self-contained and separate apartment building: Storey (2004), p. 77-79. 81 Occasionally ‘taberna’ or even ‘vicus’ can be used in a residential capacity to indicate rented units but they do

not seem to indicate an apartment buildings. For the use of ‘vicus’: Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares, 14.1.5; for the use of ‘taberna’ in this sense, see: Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares, 14.9.1. 82 Hermansen (1973), p. 335; Hermansen, (1978), p. 130. 83 “If a man gives a site to his wife with the result that she builds an insula on it”: Justinian, Digesta 24.31.2;

Hermansen (1973), p. 335. 84 “if during the term of his servitude he bought a plot and on it he built an insula”: Justinian, 3.5.16; Hermansen (1973), p. 335.

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voluntate eius aedificare intermisso legitimo spatio a vicina insula.”85 A passage in Aulus Gellius

is equally suggestive, in which a group of men walking down a street see “insulam quondam

occupatam igni multis arduisque tabulatis”, thus stating that the conglomeration of stories and

rooms contained within the building were collectively known as an insula.86 The evidence,

therefore, supports a reading of ‘insula’ as a self-contained and freestanding structure, as

opposed to a floor, a room or any other subdivision of a building.

Storey attempts to defend his reinterpretation of ‘insula’ by claiming that “no ancient

source explicitly explains the peculiar usage of the term insula in the Regionaries.”87 This

reveals a fundamental flaw in Storey’s methodology, however. Although he is correct that the

term ‘insula’ is not explained in the Regionaries, he is incorrect in assuming that the term has a

‘peculiar usage’ in this instance. In all likelihood, ‘insula’ was not ambiguous to Romans in

residential terminology, but had a clear and regular definition that is most likely the one that

Hermansen has shown. ‘Insula’ is not explained because it requires no explanation.

Having established a definition of ‘insula’ as an ‘apartment complex’, I return to the

problem of what to do with the Regionaries statistics. As Hermansen points out, it seems that

the insulae statistic of the Regionaries could not have existed in the exact proportions in which

they are recorded.88 This has caused Hermansen to throw the insulae figure out as impossible.89

He does this for three reasons. First, Hermansen views all numbers in ancient texts with a

degree of skepticism, because the faithful reproduction of numbers by copyists is notoriously

poor.90 Second, Hermansen determines that the insula figures for regions VIII, X, and XI must be

exaggerations, which by definition calls all the stated totals into question. Third, Hermansen

finds many parallels between the Regionaries and ancient tourist brochures, most notably the

85 “the owner, or anyone else with his permission, is allowed to build on it, so long as they leave the required space between for the neighbouring insula”: Justinian, 8.2.14. 86 “an insula with many high stories already seized by flame”: Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae, 15.1.2-3. 87 Storey (2002), p. 414. 88 Hermansen (1978), p. 163. It should be said that Hermansen is working from a different manuscript reading of the Regionaries with a different total for insulae, around 46,000, though this revision does intensify the problem, it

changes very little in practice. 89 Storey, (2001), p. 391. 90 For the full debate see Hermansen, (1978), p. 165-8.

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one from Constantinople, the Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae.91 Viewed in this light, the

Regionaries, their catalogue of public monuments and sights, as well as their statistics, become

means of aggrandizing Rome. Like Herodotus when he exaggerated the numbers of the Persian

forces at Marathon, the Regionaries are not using numbers in a strictly representational

fashion, but as a means to awe their readers with the magnitude and majesty of the city.

As a result of these contentions, Hermansen tosses out the insulae figures. He curiously

accepts the figures for domus and apparently feels no need to provide justification.92 It is

possible to go further and toss out all building statistics found in the Regionaries. In part, this is

done because of the general problems associated with the recording of numbers in ancient

texts. To be sure, there are apparent record-keeping errors, as a number of statistics do not line

up between the Notitia and the Curiosum.93 Some duplication also appears to have occurred in

the insula recordings for regions three and four, and twelve and thirteen, where the insulae

figures are 2,757 and 2,487 respectively for these consecutive groups, an exceedingly odd

coincidence, if true.

Moreover, Hermansen has convinced me that the meaning of insula is that of a

freestanding structure. Why need we adopt an entirely new definition just to fit the

Regionaries? That is, Storey’s, Lo Cascio’s, Gerkan’s, and all other contentions

notwithstanding.94 This being the case, certain regions of Rome simply could not fit the number

of insulae suggested by the Regionaries. Furthermore, there is no reason to take the

Regionaries to be accurate. Even if we accept that ‘insula’ must mean something other than

‘apartment complex’, the evidence does not firmly establish what this may be, whether it is a

room, a floor, a suite, a door opening on the street or some other sub-division of a building. If

‘insula’ means something other than ‘apartment complex’ and we know not what, then we are

unable to assign an average number of persons to each. This renders the figures in the

Regionaries useless from a population studies point of view. This is not to say that we must

91 Hermansen (1978), p. 165-8. 92 Ibid. 93 Hermansen (1978), p. 145-46. 94 Ibid. p. 129-131.

27

despair of the physical evidence as a means of engaging with the population of Rome in

general. As will be shown in Chapter IV, the evidence of the FUR, when taken together with the

literary and archaeological evidence, will allow us to proffer a reconstruction of the residential

reality of the city. In so doing, both a possible as well as a probable range for the population of

Rome in the Severan period will be offered. A word remains to be said, however, concerning

Storey’s treatment of the physical evidence and his rather singular conclusions concerning the

population of Rome.

2.4 – The Cross Cultural Approach

Investigations of the physical evidence are not limited to inquiries into the Regionaries,

however. Indeed, there are those who, in looking at Rome’s building technology and at the

relatively small size of the city, nearly 14km2, find it hard to believe that such an urban center

could have achieved a population of one million. In part this is because the first city to

definitively reach one million people was inner London, which reached this milestone in around

1811, during industrialization.95 Such considerations have prompted Storey to compare the

population density of a Rome with a million people (about 70,000 people per km2) to other

ancient as well as modern cities. He claims that, since he could find no example of a city with

densities approaching 70,000 people per km2, Rome could not have approached such a

density.96 Population estimates grounded in archaeological work in Pompeii and Ostia—and

with comparative evidence from a United Nations study of 531 sample populations, of which

425 were preindustrial and 106 were postindustrial—proffer a maximum population of Rome of

440,000.97

This is a flawed methodology, however. Of course, if one has established an average and

works with the axiom that a particular datum cannot deviate too far from that average, then

one will never accept a far outlier like Rome appears to be. Storey’s contention is in grave

95 See note 61. 96 Glenn Storey, “Population”, p. 974-976. 97 Glenn Storey (1992), p. 973-975.

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danger of being circular. Furthermore, there are instances where ancient and modern cities

either approached or surpassed 70,000 people per km2. Berlin in 1852 was 4.6 km2 and held

426,600 people; the ratio here is nearly 93,000 people per km2, enough to read 1.75 million

people into Rome.98 Diana Delia’s estimate of 500,000-600,000 for the population of Roman

Alexandria is generally accepted amongst ancient demographers.99 In 8.25km2, this is a density

of 60,600-73,000 people/km2, right in the range of a Rome with a million people.100

The facts on the ground show that Rome was an exceptional city. Premodern cities were

limited in the population that they could support by two factors above all others: securing

access to sufficient food and attaining clean water. In the ancient world, Rome was unique in its

ability to satisfy both of these criteria. In securing sufficient foodstuffs, Rome enjoyed a status

that made it capable of importing huge quantities of grain. Rome had a unique position of being

able to draw on the resources of a vast empire to support its population. As a result, it enjoyed

the ability to grow larger than other cities with more limited access to the resources that

expansion requires.101 Rome was equally unique in its hydro infrastructure. As mentioned in

Chapter I, Rome, through its various aqueducts, was able to bring in around 635 million liters

daily by 97 CE.102 No other preindustrial urban environment ever matched this infrastructure. It

is safe to say, therefore, that Rome was capable of supporting a population of a million or

more. The next step is to examine our methods for estimating the population of Rome, to see

what populations these approaches yield in relation to the city.

98 Statistichen Bureau zu Berlin. Tabellen und amtliche Nachrichten über den Preussischen Stadt für das Jahr 1852 (Berlin: A.W. Hayn, 1855). 99 Walter Scheidel. “Demography.” In: Walter Scheidel (ed.), Ian Morris (ed.) and Richard Saller (ed.). The Cambridge Economic History of the Graeco-Roman World (New York: Cambridge University Press.) pp. 38-86, p. 78,

with notes. 100 Diana Delia, “The Population of Roman Alexandria”, Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974), Vol. 118 (1988), pp. 275-292. 101 Throughout its history Rome is seen to draw upon the resources of Egypt, Africa, Sicily, Gaul, the Chersonese, Cyprus, Boeotia, and Spain in assuring a grain supply for its populace. For Egypt: Aurelius Victor, Epitome, 1.6; for Africa: Josephus, Bell. Jud., 2.383, 2.386; for Sicily, Gaul, the Chersonese, Cyprus, Boeotia, and Spain: Pliny, NH, 18.3.12. 102 De Kleijn arrives at his estimates through archaeological work and an examination of De Aquaeductu of Sextus Julius Frontinus in the first century CE: Gerda De Kleijn. The Water Supply of Ancient Rome: City Area, Water, and Population. Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben, 2001. p. 47-60.

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Chapter III: The Plebs Frumentaria and the Grain Dole

The previous chapter addressed Beloch’s method for calculating the population of

Augustan era Rome, wherein the population of the city was estimated based on the plebs

frumentaria, a subset of the population who were recipients of the state-sponsored grain

dole.103 In this chapter, I offer my own interpretation of this method. To this end, I draw on

literary sources, inscriptional evidence, and archaeological data, as well as cross cultural

comparisons, to supplement the Roman data where appropriate or necessary. The goal is to

consider the numbers of roman citizens, foreigners, slaves, and freedmen that are implied by

the number of grain dole recipients stated in the literary sources. My aim is to evaluate past

scholarship on the subject, especially the contention that one million inhabitants represents a

functional maximum population for the city.

3.1 The Plebs Frumentaria

The figures for the recipients of the grain dole are probably our strongest evidence for

the population of Rome in the late years of the Republic and early years of the Empire. A word

must be said concerning which numbers we mean to use. From 46 BCE to 15 CE, the numbers of

grain dole recipients are definitively given for three dates: 46 BCE (320,000 lowered to

150,000), 23 BCE (250,000), and 6 CE (lowered from 320,000 to 200,000).104 In addition to these

figures, we have seven references to Roman citizens receiving largesse in the form of cash gifts

ranging approximately between 60 and 400 sesterces a man.105 These figures are important

103 This is the method pioneered by Lipsius at the turn of the seventeenth century and made famous by Beloch

over a hundred years ago. Justus Lipsius; Admiranda sive de magnitudine Romano. 3rd edition (Antwerp, 1605), p. 113-120. Beloch, Karl. Die Bevölkerung der griechisch-römischen Welt (Leipzig: Ferlag von Ducker & Humblot, 1886), p. 392-412. 104 For 46 BCE: Cassius Dio, Earnest Cary (tr.), Roman History (Loeb Classical Library, 1914-27), 43.21.3-4; Suetonius,

Divus Iulius, 41.3; for 23 BCE: Augustus. (tr.) Frederick W. Shipley. Res Gestae Divi Augusti (Loeb Classical Library 1924) 15.1; 15.2, and for 6 CE: Cassius Dio, 55.10.1. 105 Augustus, RGDA, 15; Cassius Dio, 55.10.1, 55.26.3; 57.14.1-2.

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because it appears that largesse was granted to the very same people that were in receipt of

state-bought grain.106

The largest and the smallest issuances of grain recorded in our sources come from the

dictatorship of Caesar, when the grain dole was supposedly reduced from 320,000 to

150,000.107 This 320,000 was probably the result of abuses on behalf of the slave-owning

populace. This is evident from the mass manumissions of slaves that followed shortly after

Clodius instituted the system of free grain.108 Caesar performed this drastic reduction by

carrying out an intensive, door-to-door census of those eligible and attempted to implement

measures against future abuses.109 Part of Caesar’s reduction can surely be accounted for by his

transportation of some 80,000 coloni away from Rome.110 Despite his efforts, however, the

recipients of the dole and general largesse crept back up to 250,000 upon Caesar’s death,

where it remained for the majority of Augustus’ reign.111 In reckoning the population of Rome

in the Augustan period, I will rely on the most common of the varying grain/largesse recipients,

namely 250,000.

As stated, the Augustan period saw 250,000 Romans receiving largesse and grain. The

two main questions which have necessarily followed in all population estimates based on this

evidence are: who received the dole and what proportion of the population did the dole

recipients represent? The answer to the first of our questions seems relatively straightforward:

citizen men of eleven years of age and older were the initial beneficiaries of the dole with their

dependents, families, slaves, and even perhaps freedmen benefiting indirectly.112 Furthermore,

106 Cassius Dio explicitly states that Caesar granted largesse to the recipients of the grain dole: Cassius Dio, 43.21.3-4, 55.26.3; Augustus likewise links these two groups multiple times: Augustus; RGDA, 15. 107 Suetonius, Divus Julius, 41.3. 108 Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Earnest Cary (tr.), Roman Antiquities (Loeb Classical Library, 1937-50) 4.24.5; Cassius Dio, 39.24.1. 109 Ibid. 110 Suetonius, Divus Iulius, 42.1 111 From 44 BCE to 11 BCE the recipients of the grain dole numbered 250,000: Augustus, RGDA,15.1; 15.2; Beloch (1886), p. 392-412; in 5 BCE this shot back up to 320,000, but was soon lowered to 200,000: Augustus, RGDA, 15.4; Cassius Dio, 55.10.1 112 The term ‘men’ is used relatively loosely here as it seems recipients of the dole were registered at the age of eleven, though later in its history the grain dole was extended to children and women in some exceptional circumstances: Suetonius, Divus Augustus, 41.2. That they were citizens is suggested by a passage in Appian

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in the time of Caesar and Augustus, there does not appear to have been any property

qualifications for grain receipt. This has been the consensus among scholars of the grain dole

essentially since Beloch.113

The result is that any man, if he was a full citizen of Rome, could potentially enjoy the

dole. This is made clear in the descriptions of Cato and Clodius’ grain measures. According to

Plutarch, Cato introduced his measure for state subsidized grain, fearing a revolution amongst

the poorer classes of the plebs urbana.114 The demagogical Clodius also has this group in mind

when he moved “τόν τε σῖτον προῖκα εὐθὺς διένειμε ῾τὸ γὰρ μετρεῖσθαι τοῖς ἀπόροις,”

completely free of charge.115 This, furthermore, is supported by evidence from Oxyrynchus,

which, like Rome, had free grain distribution based on male citizenship with no property

qualifications in evidence.116

3.2 – Age Distribution and Boys under Eleven

What citizen population follows, if the 250,000 grain recipients of Augustus’ reign

represent the vast majority of the male citizen population of Rome eleven years or older? In

this case, we must grapple with the number of slaves, women, children (all boys younger than

eleven), as well as a relatively small group of elites (both senators and equites). This last group

describing Gaius Gracchus’ measures to subsidize grain, the forebearer of Clodius’ grain dole: Appian; Horace White (tr.), Civil Wars (Loeb Classical Library: Harvard University Press, 1912-1913), 1.21; M.I. Finley, The Ancient

Economy (Berkley: University of California Press, 1999), p. 170-171; Suetonius. Divus Iulius, 41.3; Plutarch, Bernadotte Perrin (tr.). Plutarch’s Lives: Marius (Loeb Classical Library, 1923), 4.4. Coen van Galen argues that, if nothing else, it was possible for women to be included in the grain dole from its origin, but the evidence for this hyposthesis rest on the presence of women and girls on the lists in the first and second century CE as well as an

inscription from the second century CE indicating that a woman may have been a recipient of the grain dole. The evidence, therefore, is tenuous: Coen van Galen, “Grain Distribution and Gender in the City of Rome.” In: Emily Hemelrijk (ed.); Greg Woolf (ed.). Women and the Roman City in the Latin West (Brill, 2013), pp. 331-347, p. 331-

336. 113 Beloch (1886), p. 392ff; Brunt (1971), p. 382; Hopkins (1978), p. 97; Morley (1996), p. 36-38; Morley (2013), p. 38. 114 Plutarch, Caesar, 8.6. 115 “that grain be granted without reserve to those in need”: Cassius Dio, 38.13.1. 116 Robert J. Rowland Jr. “The 'Very Poor' and the Grain Dole at Rome and Oxyrhynchus”, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, Bd. 21 (1976), pp. 69-73.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=to%252Fn&la=greek&can=to%252Fn1&prior=katerga/sesqai

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=te&la=greek&can=te2&prior=to/n

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=si%253Dton&la=greek&can=si%253Dton0&prior=te

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http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=eu%2529qu%255Cs&la=greek&can=eu%2529qu%255Cs0&prior=proi=ka

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=die%252Fneime&la=greek&can=die%252Fneime0&prior=eu%2529qu%255Cs

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=%2528to%255C&la=greek&can=%2528to%255C0&prior=die/neime

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http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/books/9789004255951;jsessionid=11d4g03ogiaq7.x-brill-live-03

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is included here because although they were Roman citizens and therefore could have qualified

for the dole, they certainly did not need it and consequently likely did not avail themselves of

it.117

When it comes to the proportion of male children—and children generally—within the

greater population of Rome, there really is only one method available to us, namely, to extract

statistics from the adult population and apply them to one the Coale and Demeny model life

tables for preindustrial populations. There are three datasets that are useful in this approach

with respect to the Roman population. First, there are the life spans of the Roman emperors

and their families, discounting those who died of unnatural causes.118 Second, there are the life

spans of numerous senators and members of their families, again discounting those having died

of unnatural causes.119 Finally, there is evidence from Roman Egypt, where the results of

censuses performed there by Roman magistrates have survived on papyri.120 The life table

derived from these data sets has a life expectancy at birth in the upper mid-twenties. The

evidence from Roman Egypt is particularly telling, as it also allows Bagnall and Frier to

reconstruct the percentage of Roman Egypt’s population in the various age groups.121 Using this

evidence, male children 0-10 years old can be found to account for around 26 per cent of the

entire citizen-male population. With 250,000 males over eleven, there would be around

338,000 citizen males in total.122 With this number in mind, we may now move to hypothesizing

the size of the female contingent of Rome’s citizenry.

117 In a city where conspicuous consumption was heighted nearly to an art form and integral to one’s dignitas, we

should not expect the wealthy to partake. Could one imagine a Cicero waiting in line for his monthly allotment of grain? I think not and in agreement with Finley, I downplay the importance of the occasional aristocrat receiving state-funded grain to the point of near imperceptibility: Finley (1999), p. 170-171. Moreover, even if every senator and equites did indulge in free grain, these two groups are small enough numerically, perhaps in the single digit

thousands, that they are well within our margin of error and thus make little effective impact on our totals. 118 Hin (2013), p.104-106. 119 Ibid. 120 Roger Bagnall, Bruce Frier. The Demography of Roman Egypt. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994. p. 91-110. As Scheidel has established, the high mortality regimes experienced in Roman Egypt probably provide a fair comparison: Walter Scheidel. Death on the Nile Disease and the Demography of Roman Egypt. Boston: Brill, 2001. p. 116. 121 Ibid. p. 104. 122 It is worthy of note to mention that I am assuming a stable population, that is, a population that was neither growing nor declining significantly. I do this tentatively based on the evidence of RGDA, which displays a stable

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3.3 – The Citizen Female Population

What can be said about the male to female ratio? It is probably the case that men and

women had gender-specific health risks in the ancient world.123 Men were generally subject to

greater rigors in manual labour, as well as the exigencies of war; included here are both deaths

in battle and increased mortality whilst on campaign due to unfamiliarity to regional sicknesses.

In relation to the population in the early imperial city of Rome, however, deaths caused directly

or indirectly by warfare were likely few, as soldiers largely ceased to be enlisted in the city of

Rome after the Hannibalic wars.124 Marius’ recruiting of the capite censi in Rome during his

conflicts with Jugurtha as well as against the Cimbri and Teutones was probably a rare

exception brought on by the massive losses sustained by the Roman military during this period.

Indeed, Brunt, in compiling every literary reference to Rome’s military recruiting stations in the

late Republic, has found that it was almost exclusively practiced in rural settings.125

Women, on the other hand, undoubtedly faced higher mortality rates than men in the

same age cohorts during their fertile years, as they contended with the possibility of death in

childbirth and the infectious diseases which could often result from childbearing and

breastfeeding.126 Unlike men in relation to warfare, residence in the city likely would not bring

Roman women any relief from these dangers and, considering the general squalor attested by

our sources, probably increased the rate of mortality, though the actual impact of such factors

on the gender ratio is completely unknown.127

citizen population of 250,000 from 44-11 BCE: Augustus, RGDA, 15.1, 15.2, which was not being allowed to be inundated too much by freedmen: Suetonius, Divus Augustus, 40.3-4, 42.2. 123 George Alter et al; “Gender Differences in Mortality”, found in: (ed.) T. Bengtsson. Life Under Pressure. Mortality and Living Standards in Europe and Asia, 1700–1900 (Cambridge Massachusetts: MIT, 2009) pp. 327–57. 124 Indeed, even before the Social War, we are told by Veilleus that the country was the main recruiting ground for

Roman soldiers: Velleius Paterculus; Frederick W. Shipley (tr.), Vellei Paterculi historiarum ad M. Vinicium consulem libri duo (Loeb Classical Library, 1924) 2.15.2. 125 P.A. Brunt, The Fall of the Roman Republic: and Related Essays (Oxford: Claredon Press, 1988), p. 276-278. 126 Though not specific to the Roman context, Alter and his colleagues find across a broad spectrum that women of

preindustrial societies tend toward higher death rates, especially in the child-bearing years: Alter et al (2009), p. 327–57. 127 Alex Scobie; “Slums Sanitation, and Mortality in the Roman World” Kilo 68.2 (Jan 1, 1986), p. 400-433.

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Other factors that might confuse the issue are seen in the cultural, economic, and

domestic contexts. One theory posits that boys in near-subsistence level cultures tend to be

depended upon to support their parents in old age and therefore were the recipients of more

of life’s resources, such as food. This pattern is made more acute in cultures like that of Rome,

where daughters were understood to leave the household of their parents in marriage, and

therefore—at least in theory—cease to contribute to the family’s welfare.128 There is also a role

played by the domestic and economic work of men and women. Men of preindustrial societies,

for instance, tend to be killed or seriously injured in labour-intensive jobs whilst women, usually

with a domestic focus, were more susceptible to disease. Female vulnerability was likely not as

significant in Rome as in other cultures, however, as women were not as restrained in their

labour in this locality than in other pre-industrial cultures.129 Of course, it is impossible to say

with certainty that all or any of these factors were important to Rome’s demographic

development, but their near ubiquity in other preindustrial urban environments suggests at

least some influence.

Infanticide, exposure, and abandonment of children must also be treated. A full

treatment here is impossible for lack of sure evidence. The problem, briefly stated, is that

nearly every aspect of exposure, infanticide, and abandonment in the ancient Mediterranean

generally and in Rome specifically is subject to debate. Nonetheless, there is general consensus

that exposure and/or abandonment was practiced in ancient Rome and that it was not

uncommon; skeptics, however, are not unheard of.130 Particularly pertinent to our own queries,

the death rate of exposed children remains a topic of debate, as does the gender imbalance for

128 Alter; et all (2009), p. 332-333. 129 Ibid. p. 331; Inscriptional evidence from Rome suggests that women were, by and large, occupied in the textile

industry: Cameron Hawkins, “Labour and Employment”, in: Paul Erdkamp (ed.), Cambridge Companion to Ancient Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013) pp. 336-351, p. 336-338. 130 Though the debate continues to march on, Engels is probably the most notable exception: D. Engels, “The Use of Historical Demography in Ancient History”, Classical Quarterly 34 (1984), pp. 386-393. Though in relation to

Athens and not Rome, Mark Golden comes down somewhat on the fence, expressing that there is “reasonable doubt” concerning the incidence rate of exposure: Mark Golden, “Did the Ancients Care when their Children Died?” Greece & Rome, Vol. 35, No. 2 (Oct., 1988), pp. 152-163, p. 158.

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victims of exposure/abandonment.131 The issue is exceedingly complex, and ultimately,

definitive answers are elusive. In a recent work, Judith Evans Grubbs has done an admirable job

of synthesizing the various debates here referenced. Following Grubbs, what can be said with a

reasonable degree of certainty about Roman exposure and/or abandonment is that it probably

did result in the death of the exposed child in some cases. More often, the child would be

reared as a slave.132 There was additionally most likely some gender bias against girls, causing

them to be exposed if not abandoned more frequently. Be that as it may, gender was likely not

the primary factor for most exposure, nor was the practice among girls as extreme as some of

the Roman literature has led scholars to believe.133 Quantification of this is impossible with our

current evidence, but it may be inferred that Rome, like other cultures that have practiced

infant exposure, saw relatively more girls exposed than boys.134

131 It seems, in Rome at least, that death from exposure was rare: R. Motomura, “The Practice of Exposing Infants and its Effects on the Development of Slavery in the Ancient World”, in: T. Yuge (ed.); M. Doi (ed.); Forms of Control and Subordination in Antiquity (Tokyo: Brill, 1987), pp. 410-415; J. Boswell, The Kindness of Strangers: the

Abandonment of Children in Western Europe from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance (Pantehon, 1988), p. 128-131. Based on evidence in Seneca and Quintilian, we might surmise that some, perhaps even many exposed children were brought into other households and raised. There is a further complication, however, in estimating what percentage of these recovered children were brought up in the slave trade. If the experts in the field of exposure

study are to be believed, the majority if not the vast majority of exposed children would have been reared as slaves, thus exiting the citizen population that we are trying to calculate: Seneca the Elder. Controversiae, 9.3; Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, 7.1.14; I. M. Biezunska-Malowist, “Die Expositio von Kindern als Quelle der

Sklavenbeschaffung im griechisch-römischen Aegypten” Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte 2, 1971, pp.129-133; Judith Evans Grubbs “Hidden in Plain Sight: Expositi in the Community”, in: V. Dasen (ed.); T. Späth (ed.); Children, Memory and Family in Roman Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 293-310; W. Harris, “Child Exposure in the Roman Empire.” Journal of Roman Studies 84 (1994), pp. 1-20, p. 9-11, 18-19; Walter Scheidel,

“The Roman Slave Supply”, in: K. Bradley (ed.); P. Cartledge (ed.); The Cambridge World History of Slavery vol. 1: The Ancient Mediteranean World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 287-310, p. 298-299. 132 Judith Evans Grubbs, “Infant Exposure and Infanticide”, in: Judith Evans Grubbs (ed.); Tim Parkin (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Childhood and Education in the Classical World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp.

83-107, p. 83, 93; Hanne Sigismund-Nielsen, in investigating the experience of poor and lower-class children, goes through some of the legal implications of freeborn children raised as slaves and argues that it could not have been an entirely uncommon phenomenon, though she questions the orthodox opinion that alumni (literally nurslings,

refers to foster children) were overwhelmingly exposed or abandoned children: Hanne Sigismund-Nielsen, “Slave and Lower-Class Roman Children”, in: Judith Evans Grubbs (ed.); Tim Parkin (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Childhood and Education in the Classical World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 286-301, p. 287-289. 133 Gender, specifically femininity, was likely secondary to the family’s circumstances, both financial, and natal:

ibid, p. 90-92. 134 E. Eyben, “Family Planning in Greco-Roman Antiquity”, Ancient Society 11-12 (1980), pp. 5-82, p. 26-27; Harris (1994), p. 5.

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The problem of male to female ratios amongst the Roman full-citizen class is a complex

one, but it is probably not too far from the mark to say that men made up some 50-55 per cent

of Roman citizens amongst the plebs frumentaria. With the male population of 338,000

hypothesized above for the full-citizen population of 614,545-676,000 citizens of Rome results.

This is somewhat higher than Brunt’s estimate, who opts for a doubling of the male adult male

cohort, but our evidence suggests that such would be too simplistic a reading. 135 Methods

comparable to our own that rely upon Coale and Demeny life tables and other similar

information tend to present similar proportions of women and children in relation to the males

over ten years of age.136

To our aggregate citizen population we ought to add ten thousand to account for the

elite segment of the population, who were citizens but did not avail themselves of the grain

dole.137 This may well underestimate Rome’s citizen population; indeed, this reconstruction is

based on the segment of the citizenry enrolled in the state sponsored grain dole. The presence

of 320,000 recipients in the time of Caesar and the reappearance of 320,000 in one of

Augustus’ issuance of largesse suggests a citizen population that was significantly larger.

Though as Hopkins points out, it is not unlikely that some Romans would have made the trip

from the countryside to procure their monthly grain. Perhaps the 250,000 represents some of

these men.138 For the sake of prudence, I will contend with the lower estimates, which at any

rate find more support in the evidence.139 The proportions of aliens, both resident and

temporary, as well as freed people and slaves must still be factored into our holistic population

estimate of Rome.

135 Brunt (1971), p. 383. 136 Hopkins (1978), p. 97; Morley (1996), p. 37; Lo Cascio (1999), p. 166. As we have seen in Chapter II, Beloch attempted a very rudimentary version of this method, though he based his calculations not on preindustrial model

life tables, which did not exist in 1886, when his work was published, but rather on the age and sex ratios evident in the Rome of his own day. His method, however, is erroneous: Beloch (1886), p. 392-412. 137 For an estimate of the Roman elite, see notes 165, below. 138 Hopkins (1978), p. 97-98. 139 Suetonius, Divus Iulius, 41.3; RGDA, 15.

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3.4 – The Servile Population

We turn now to slaves. There are no ancient figures that directly attest the number of

slaves within the city of Rome or indeed any reliable sources of slave numbers in any ancient

Mediterranean society. Even ancient impressions concerning the number of slaves in the city of

Rome are rare, though luckily for this study the vast majority of these come from the Augustan

time period and thus fit our study well. Unluckily, however, they are concerned almost solely

with the upper classes and are often anecdotal in nature.

One set of evidence that can provide a sense of scale are the numbers of slaves that

accompanied various senators in their travels. As Shatzman shows, in the late Republican

period, senators routinely traveled with 10-15 slaves in their entourage.140 It is telling too, that

Augustus, in attempting to make the punishment of exile more onerous to those being

chastised, stipulated that a man may go into exile with no more than 20 slaves and freedman,

supposedly not many for a man of means.141 Seneca, though more vague, conveys much the

same sentiments when he remarks that a cartload of slaves is considered not many to go

travelling with.142 If a senator of the late Republican period had 10-15 slaves as travelling

companions, then how many did he leave at home? Of course, such evidence is highly

imprecise and therefore does not give us a clear sense of slave proportions within the city of

Rome as a whole; for this we must turn to the anecdotes of Roman writers.

Seneca, for instance, writing in the first century CE, balks at a proposal to make slaves

wear distinguishing clothing out of fear that they would recognize their numbers and incite

revolution against their masters.143 Surely the number of slaves must be great to warrant such

a fear even if it were feigned for rhetorical effect. The sentiments of Pliny the Elder, who, like

Seneca, wrote in the first century CE, though probably somewhat later, increase this sense,

when he laments the condition of his time, when a wealthy man would have so many slaves

140 It is hard to know whether these 10-15 slaves represented the total number of slaves used as travelling companions or merely some portion of these: Israël Shatzman, Senatorial Wealth and Roman Politics. Brussels: Revue D’Études Latines, 1975. p. 481-2. 141 Cassius Dio, 56.27.2. 142 Seneca, Epistulae Morales, 87.2. 143 Seneca, De Clementia, 1.24.1.

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that a nomenclator must be employed to remember all the names.144 Indeed, Martial, another

first century CE writer, in his Epigrammata, presents a slave as basic property for a man:

Focus nec tritus cimice lectus Nec tibi de bibula sarta palude teges, Nec puer aut senior, nulla est ancilla nec infans, Nec sera nec clavis nec canis atque calix.145

Martial is most probably indulging in hyperbole here and I would hesitate to suggest that

ownership of a slave was equal to that of a wine-cup or toga. Nor would I suggest that

everyone could afford a slave, for surely they could not. This passage is nonetheless valuable in

showing how natural the ownership of a slave was in the minds of upper class Romans.146 To

them, it likely was as natural as a bed or a beaker or a dog. Given these impressions it is

perhaps unsurprising that Strabo, who lived and wrote in the first centuries BCE and CE, implies

that Romans generally were the foremost consumers of slaves in the world.147

Gaius the jurist, though living in the second century CE, writes about the lex Fufia

Caninia, a law enacted in the Augustan period. In this law, there are six categories of slave

ownership:

Nam ei, qui plures quam duos neque plures quam decem seruos habebit, usque ad partem dimidiam eius numeri manumittere permittitur; ei uero, qui plures quam X neque plures quam XXX seruos habebit, usque ad tertiam partem eius numeri manumittere permittitur. at ei, qui plures quam XXX neque plures quam centum habebit, usque ad partem quartam potestas manumittendi datur. nouissime ei, qui plures quam C habebit nec plures quam D, non plures manumittere permittitur quam quintam partem; neque plures quam D habentis ratio habetur, ut ex eo numero pars definiatur, sed praescribit lex, ne cui plures manumittere liceat quam C. quod si quis unum seruum omnino aut duos habet, ad hanc legem non pertinet et ideo liberam habet potestatem manumittendi.148

144 Pliny the Elder, NH, 33.6.92-93. 145 “you have neither toga nor hearth nor an infested bed/nor a sewn up mat of marshy reeds/nor a boy or old man, no maid or a babe/ nor a lock, nor a key, nor a dog, nor a wine-cup”: Martial, Epigrammata, 11.32. 146 Many and diverse forms of slave ownership surely existed. Evidence in inscriptions shows that slave ownership could be split amongst multiple owners and such is referenced by Gaius the jurist: CIL VI 15732; Gaius, Institutiones, 3.59. 147 Strabo. (tr.) H.C. Hamilton; (ed.) W. Falconer. Geographica (London: George Bell & Sons, 1903), 14.5.2. 148 “An owner who has more than two slaves and not more than ten is allowed to manumit as many as half that number; he who has more than ten and not more than 30 is allowed to manumit a third of that number; he who has more than 30 and not more than a hundred is allowed to manumit a fourth; lastly, he who has more than a

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=nec&la=la&can=nec2&prior=est

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=tritus&la=la&can=tritus0&prior=nec

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=lectus&la=la&can=lectus0&prior=cimice

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=Nec&la=la&can=nec3&prior=lectus

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=tibi&la=la&can=tibi0&prior=Nec

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=de&la=la&can=de0&prior=tibi

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=bibula&la=la&can=bibula0&prior=de

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=palude&la=la&can=palude0&prior=sarta

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=teges&la=la&can=teges0&prior=palude

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=Nec&la=la&can=nec4&prior=teges

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=puer&la=la&can=puer0&prior=Nec

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=aut&la=la&can=aut0&prior=puer

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=senior&la=la&can=senior0&prior=aut

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=nulla&la=la&can=nulla0&prior=senior

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=est&la=la&can=est1&prior=nulla

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=ancilla&la=la&can=ancilla0&prior=est

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=nec&la=la&can=nec5&prior=ancilla

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=infans&la=la&can=infans0&prior=nec

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=Nec&la=la&can=nec6&prior=infans

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=sera&la=la&can=sera0&prior=Nec

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=nec&la=la&can=nec7&prior=sera

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=clavis&la=la&can=clavis0&prior=nec

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=nec&la=la&can=nec8&prior=clavis

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=canis&la=la&can=canis0&prior=nec

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=atque&la=la&can=atque0&prior=canis

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=calix&la=la&can=calix0&prior=atque

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The sources, however, give very little idea of how many in Rome fell into these categories, nor

how many of the slaves lived with their masters in the city. There are some indications of who

populated the upper echelons of slave ownership. When he was murdered by one of his slaves,

the household of Lucius Pedanius Secundus, a suffect consul in 43 CE and urban prefect in 56

CE, contained 400 slaves, the number to be executed in accordance with the Roman law, which

stated that should a slave murder his master, then all slaves in the household must be put to

death as accomplices in the act.149

Horace, providing a first century BCE perspective, when referring to a wealthy man of

inconstant demeanor, who often vacillates between extremes of behavior, assigns him at one

point 200 slaves and at another just ten.150 This should hardly be taken literally, but Horace’s

reflection that 200 comprised a great number and ten a small number of slaves for a wealthy

man is still suggestive of the ubiquity of slave ownership among upper class Romans. Two other

passages in Horace maintain this picture. When describing the simplicity of his carefree life,

Horace remarks that he has but three slaves to serve him dinner, presumably a very low

number when contrasted with a certain praetor, Tullius, who has five slaves just to follow him

around during the day.151 Nor is Horace alone in giving the impression that numerous slaves

were the norm at least for the wealthy. Diodorus Siculus, also writing in the first century BCE,

while discussing the pecuniary straights of Ptolemy VI Philometor during his exile in 164 BCE,

mentions that the outcast had only three slaves and one eunuch attendant, clearly implying

that this was far too low a number for a man of his station.152 If we were to follow this evidence

we might be lead to believe that Roman senators had hundreds of slaves each, but I agree with

Wiedemann’s remarks concerning references to slave ownership in our sources that “what was

hundred and not more than five hundred is allowed to manumit a fifth: and, however many a man possesses, he is never allowed to manumit more than this number, for the law prescribes that no one shall manumit more than a

hundred”: Gaius the Jurist; E. Poste (tr.), Institutiones (Oxford, 1904), 1.43. 149 Cornelius Tacitus, Annals, 14.42-45. 150 Horace, Satires, 1.3.11-12. 151 For Horace’s own three slaves: Horace, Satires, 1.6.116; for the five slaves accompaniments of Tullius: ibid.

1.6.108. 152 Diodorus Siculus; C.H. Oldfather; Charles L. Sherman; Russel M. Geer; Francis R. Walton; C. Bradford Welles; W. R. Paton; Bibliotheca Historica (Loeb Classical Library, 1917-1967) 31.18.2.

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thought worth noting down was almost always what was exceptional”.153 For the vast majority

of Romans, including even senators, the 400 domestic slaves of Lucius Pedanius Secundus must

have been exceptional. Likewise, the three slaves of Horace must have been just as

exceptional.

The Julio-Claudians for whom we have substantial inscriptional evidence likely owned

thousands of slaves.154 Livia and Augustus alone probably held over a thousand domestic slaves

and freedmen between them. Indeed, in the epigraphic evidence, of which probably only a

small percentage survives, we see at least four hundred domestic slaves and freedmen in the

imperial house of Livia and Augustus.155 One would expect that the Emperor and his household

might engage higher numbers of slaves than the average. Though it is impossible to extrapolate

hard figures from this evidence, the Julio-Claudian data, especially when combined with the

anecdotes concerning slave ownership among the senatorial class discussed above, provides us

with the order of magnitude that we should expect when looking at Rome’s exceptionally

wealthy residents.

The number of distinct job titles for servile occupations in elite households in Rome’s

epigraphic tradition is also telling. Of 365 individual epigraphs from Roman tombstones where

153 T.J. Wiedemann, Greek and Roman Slavery (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981), p. 100. 154 Tiberius had 176 dependents, 172 of which were either slaves and freedmen and four others: Lindsay Rae Penner; The Epigraphic Habits of the Slaves and Freed Slaves of the Julio-Claudian Households. Thesis: University of Calgary, 2013. p. 264-266; Caligula, who only reigned for three years and ten months, nonetheless has 47 dependents in the epigraphy, all of whom were slaves or freedmen: Ibid. 271-275; Claudius had 133, 128 of whom

were slaves or freedmen: Ibid. p. 283-286; Nero has only 63 dependents: Ibid. p.292-294. Antonia the Younger has 63 slaves and freed people attested in the epigraphical evidence: Ibid. p. 317-320; Germanicus had some 31 slaves and freed people in his employ: Ibid. p.325-327; Octavia the Younger has eighteen slaves and freed people attested in the evidence: Ibid. p. 327-329. Worthy of note is that Antonia the younger, Germanicus and Octavia the

Younger were not running their own households, as they lived within the house of Livia and Augustus and so we can quickly see that the total ownership of slaves of the Julio-Claudians is very large indeed. Furthermore, there are some 329 individuals who, due to similarities in nomenclature between all the Julio-Claudians, we know

belonged to a Julio-Claudian emperor, though we cannot say which: Ibid. p. 295-299. Finally, I would be remiss if I did not mention that our epigraphical data surely underrepresents the actual total, due to some slaves and freed people not leaving epigraphs and due to destruction, loss, or lack of recovery of those epigraphs made. 155 In epigraphic data, 279 people attest Augustus as their owner or patron, 271 of these were slaves or freedmen,

who at death were owned or had been owned by Augustus. Of this household, 82% were located in Rome: Ibid. p. 253-256. Livia had some 196 dependents, 192 of whom were owned or had been owned at their death: Ibid, p. 302-310.

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the occupation of domestic slaves is recorded, there are no less than 98 unique job titles. The

differentiation of eleven distinct varieties of room-servants and fifteen different types of

household administrative slaves bespeaks a substantial number of slaves in the houses of the

wealthy.156 As Joshel puts it, clearly those who could afford it had every domestic and personal

need seen to by some slave or other, but the sheer number of slaves suggests another motive,

quite probably conspicuous consumption.157 To name just one example, it seems that many

wealthy Romans appear to have gone around in litters despite being perfectly able to walk,

probably as a way to display their wealth.158 In Petronius’ Satyricon, written in the first century,

this last point is taken to exaggerated heights, as Trimalchio has a multitude of slaves to wait on

his every whim.159

In interpreting the archaeological findings of Carandini, Storey claims that the Roman

elite (senators and equites) did not have enough room within their domus for large numbers of

slaves, but he fails to consider several possibilities. One of the few archaeological examples is

telling on this point. The house of Marcus Aemilius Scaurus, who was a statesman of the late

Republic, located at the southwest corner of the intersection of the Clivus Palatinus and the

Sacra Via, has a footprint of roughly 1,200m2 and a basement containing what appears to be 45

cellae with bed supports.160 To my mind, 45 such basement rooms, when one considers that

slaves must have slept in other parts of the house as well and may have shared rooms, speak to

a capacity of at least 55 slaves in the house as a whole and perhaps many more. This is not to

mention other slaves employed by Scaurus elsewhere in the city in his business ventures.161 If

the large domus size indicates a correspondingly high number of slaves, then we should

156 Sandra Joshel, Work, Identity, and Legal Status at Rome: A Study of the Occupational Inscriptions (Norman:

University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), p. 73-76. 157 Ibid. 158 Ibid. p. 74-75; Juvenal, 1.64-68; 7.137-143; Martial, 2.81; 6.77. 159 Petronius, Satyricon, 27-40. 160 Eva Margareta Steinby, Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae, Volume 2, D-G (Rome: Edizoni Quasar, 1995), p.392, fig. 8. 161 We know slaves were made to sleep in warehouses, for example: Justinian, Digesta, 1.15.3.2.

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recognize that many of the excavated houses of the wealthy in Rome are larger than the house

of Marcus Aemilius Scaurus.162

Scheidel, following the census returns of Roman Egypt, estimates that the 1:5.8 ratio of

slaves to free born people present in this area could serve as an absolute minimum figure for

Rome.163 Such a ratio would result in 96,000-105,000 slaves in Rome given our other

calculations. This is a large number to be sure. What would slave ownership on this scale look

like? What follows is purely a hypothetical construction, but is valuable in showing how such

large numbers of slaves could be accommodated within Rome. Perhaps the top few percent of

the senatorial class, the Emperor and men like Lucius Pedanius Secundus, commanded urban

slaves in the hundreds. If it were, say, 5 per cent of senators with an average of 200 slaves each,

we would see 6,000 slaves. Let us say that the next 50 per cent held 80 each on average, for

24,000 slaves. If the final 45 per cent held an average of 50, then 13,500 slaves populate these

ranks. The senatorial class would hold 43,500 of Rome’s slaves in such a scheme, almost half of

the total number of slaves in a 1:5.8 construction.164 If there were approximately 2,000 equites

with 15-20 slaves each, then another 30-40,000 slaves would be counted, which in conjunction

162 There are fifteen including the house of Scaurus, mostly found in upper class neighbourhoods, the average size is 2,716m2: E.M. Steinby, Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae, vol. 2 (Rome: Edizioni Quasar, 1994), p. 391-426. 163 Walter Scheidel; “Human Mobility in Roman Italy, II: The Slave Population”, The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 95 (2005), p. 66-68. 164 There is no specific evidence supporting my figure of 80 slaves as an average, except for general impressions

and assumptions. Lucius Pedanius Secundus, for example, was probably not the only one of his kind among senators. Indeed, for every man who, like Lucius Pedanius Secundus, owned 400 domestic slaves, there could be four senators with no slaves whatsoever and an average of 80 slaves per senator would still be maintained. Pliny the younger famously manumitted one hundred of his slaves upon his death, which, by Augustus’ manumissions

law, would mean he owned in excess of 500 slaves, though we do not know how many of these lived in Rome and how many on Pliny’s various properties: CIL V.5262 = ILS 2927. Also in a society like Rome, where conspicuous consumption is practiced on all levels we should expect the wealthy to have a plethora of slaves in order to display their wealth. Such, at any rate, is the picture painted by Seneca, in his description of ostentatious parties and in

describing the travelling retinues of wealthy men: Epistulae Morales, 110.14-15; 17.3. Plato, when talking about Athens, assumes 50 or more slaves for his hypothetical wealthy man and though the Athens of Plato’s day was a rich state it did not approach the scale at Rome: Plato; James Adam (tr.); The Republic (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1902) 578 d-e. It is telling, too, that in Medieval England, a significant lord may have hundreds of retainers and though these are not slaves or servants, they indicate the kind of infrastructure the service industry can support: Mary H. Perkins, The Servant Problem and the Servant in English Literature (Boston, 1928), p. 14. In the 1300s, for instance, the Earl of Warwick was accompanied by 600 servants. But even in the early modern

period, when elite households began to shrink considerably, houses of 100 or more servants were not uncommon, such as the Earl of Northumberland, who had 166 and Bishop of Ely, who held 100: J. Jean Hecht; The Domestic Servant Class in Eighteenth-Century England (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1956), p. 3-4.

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with our senatorial slaves, account for almost the entire servile population assuming the ratio

0f 1:5.8 evident in Roman Egypt.165 This suggestion must be viewed as untenable. There are

simply not enough slaves for the entire population.

As with much else, the foundational servile figure for Rome, 50 percent of the citizen

population or one third of the core population, goes back to Beloch, who only has a flimsy

passage from Galen purporting that one third of Pergamum’s population was servile as the sole

evidence.166 Brunt proposes a slightly larger 40 percent estimate of the core (citizen men,

women and slaves), and much like Beloch, feebly offers the evidence of Pergamum as

justification. Though Brunt contends that Italy would have had more slaves than Pergamum,

which accounts for his seven per cent increase.167 Finley followed in the same vein, though he

used the comparative evidence of the antebellum southern United States, where 33 per cent of

the population was servile.168 Scheidel does an admirable job of showing the fundamental

weakness of these arguments and how 33 per cent has become a sort of catchall percentage for

slaves in cases where “the actual share of slaves is thought to be significant but is actually

completely unknown”.169 Even if these estimates had not been proven erroneous, it is

nonetheless dubious that the servile proportion of the population would be the same in Rome

as it was in Italy as a whole.

Estimates for the servile population of Rome proliferate. As mentioned Brunt, with a

total population of 750,000, estimates 100,000-200,000 as a reasonable figure for slaves for

example, thus supporting a thirteen to 27 per cent servile presence.170 Hopkins uses a very

simplified model in which “resident aliens, soldiers and slaves” are combined into one group

165 Notice that the 2,000 equites and 600 senators, with wives and children included still only make up perhaps one

per cent of Rome’s freeborn population: Scheidel (2005), p. 66. Consider also the wealth qualifications for senators and knights: 1,000,000 and 400,000 sesterces, respectively. If slave ownership scaled with wealth and a senator owned 80 urban slaves then an eques could reasonably be expected to own 32 and so hypothesizing 20 is

extremely fair. 166 Beloch (1886), p. 415-418. 167 Brunt (1976), p. 124. 168 Moses Finley; Brent Shaw (ed.), Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers,

1998), p. 148. 169 Scheidel (2005), p. 65. 170 Brunt (1971), p. 382-383.

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numbering 300,000 of an estimated total population of 800,000-1,000,000; we may imagine

that the bulk of these must have been slaves in Hopkins’ opinion.171 Lo Cascio also groups slaves

with foreigners, and though he admits that any guess as to their number is highly speculative,

he seems to think that they accounted for 200,000 of a population roughly 800,000 strong.172

Morley has most recently attempted to show that 50,000-200,000 slaves are plausible minima

and maxima in a population bracketed between 650,000 and 1,000,000 (or perhaps a little over

one million), thus offering between five and 31 percent.173 Of all secondary literature on the

subject, Scheidel is most persuasive to my mind. After admitting that we cannot know the

percentage of slaves to any great degree of certainty, he works from impressions derived from

the literature as well as census returns from cities of Roman Middle Egypt to come to a

minimum and maximum of 220,000 and 440,000, respectively.174 Scheidel’s interpretation

perhaps fits our evidence best, though admittedly, the evidence is so scant that any conclusion

drawn from it is highly speculative and little more than an educated guess.

Nonetheless, in this scheme of 220,000-440,000 slaves within Rome, we allow the elite

to hold the considerable numbers of slaves they surely had, while also affording Rome enough

slaves to populate some of the houses of lesser magistrates and the lower classes. As noted

above, Gaius the jurist mentions six tiers of slave ownership (1, 2-10, 11-30, 31-100, 101-500,

and over 500) and whatever scheme is conjured, it must allow for all six to exist in probable

portions.175 Some may balk at such a high level of slaves, but there is near historical precedent

in Rio de Janeiro for similarly high proportions. The 1849 census indicated that slaves comprised

38 per cent of the overall population within this city.176 Another example can be found in

Charleston, South Carolina, the center of the slave trade and paramount city of the antebellum

and civil war southern United States. Charleston is perhaps a reasonable analogue to ancient

Rome, which was the foremost city and primary consumer of slaves for the ancient

171 Hopkins (1978), p. 97 172 Lo Casio (1999), p. 166 173 Morley (2013), p. 40-42. 174 Scheidel (2005), p. 66-68. 175 Gaius the Jurist, Institutiones, 1.43. 176 M.C. Karasch; Slave Life in Rio de Janeiro 1808-1850 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987) p. xxi.

45

Mediterranean.177 The population of this city was nearly half slave.178 Though none had quite as

intense a concentration of slaves as Charleston, other major southern cities of the United States

also had a high percentage of servile inhabitants. Savannah, for instance, was 40.9% servile in

1820, while Mobile, Richmond, and Norfolk, all counted enslaved populations in excess of 30

per cent.179 Assuming 220,000-440,000 slaves, we are not supposing proportions without

historical analogues.180 With the addition of the servile contingent of Rome to its citizenry,

there is now an estimated 844,545-1,126,000 Romans. Doubt is already cast on the one million

figure that has become orthodoxy amongst the likes of Beloch, Brunt, Lo Cascio, Hopkins, and

Morley. And this is without accounting for freedmen and foreigners within the city.

177 For Rome’s status: Strabo, 14.5.2. 178 7,684 of 16,359 or 47% of Charleston population was enslaved in 1790. This percentage increased to 52% of 18,824 in 1800, but returned to the 1790 levels in 1810, when there were 11,671 slaves in a population of 24,711:

Population Division, U.S. Bureau of the Census; Population of the 100 Largest Cities and Other Urban Places in the United States: 1790-1990, accessed from: https://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/twps0027.html#urban (last accessed 11, March, 2016), Table 2, Population of the 24 Urban Places: 1790; Table 3, Population of the 24 Urban Places: 1800;

and Table 4, Population of the 24 Urban Places: 1810. Rachel N. Klein; Unification of a Slave State: The Rise of the Planter Class in the South Carolina Backcountry, 1760-1808 (Williamsberg, Virginia: University of North Carolina Press, 1990), p. 253, table 13; Sandra Joshel also uses the slavery of the antebellum Southern United States as a

comparative model for Roman slavery, though not in relation to population as I have done, nor without due caution: Sandra Joshel (1992), p. 163; Sandra Joshel, Slavery in the Roman World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 156-159. 179 Of the ten largest Southern cities, as represented in the 1820 census, the slave population was smallest in

Baltimore, where it was just seven per cent of the total. The average slave population of these ten cites (Baltimore, Charleston, Mobile, New Orleans, Norfolk, Richmond, St, Louis, Savannah, and Washington D.C.) was 23.6 per cent: Richard C. Wade. Slavery in the Cities: 1820-1860 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967), p. 325-327. 180 We have primarily followed Scheidel’s reading of the evidence, but other scholars generally present similar proportions of slaves. Brunt hypothesizes 100-200,000 slaves in a population of about 750,000: Brunt (1971), p. 382-383; as mentioned, Hopkins uses a very simplified model which combines “resident aliens, soldiers and slaves”

into one group numbering 300,000 of an estimated total population of 800,000-1,000,000: Hopkins (1978), p. 97; Lo Cascio also groups slaves with foreigners and admits that any guess as to the number of said group is highly speculative, though he seems to think that they accounted for 200,000 of a population roughly 800,000 strong: Lo Casio (1999), p. 166; Morley, in attempting to show the plausible minima and maxima, suggests 50,000-200,000

slaves in a population of bracketed between 650,000 and over 1,000,000. Our population figure, being somewhat higher than his 1,000,000 total could well have accommodated 188,000-205,000 here put forward: Morley (2013), p. 40-42.

46

3.5 – The Number of Freedmen Excluded from the Dole

The number of freedmen not in receipt of the grain dole is perhaps the most

problematic of all our subsets of Rome’s population, for its contingent seems to have been

large, though few figures and indeed hardly any impressions are forthcoming. Moreover, there

is a fundamental confusion as to which freedmen received grain and which did not. In the most

radical scheme, that of van Berchem, no freedmen regardless of status received grain and only

those with Roman origo were eligible.181 Morley, however, questions this hypothesis as he does

most schemes.182 In all likelihood the situation was similar to that described by Purcell, wherein

the native Roman citizenry was in a constant state of depletion, only buoyed up to a condition

of sustainability by the influx of freedmen into its ranks.183

It is nonetheless obvious by Clodius, Pompey, Caesar, and Augustus’ organizations, and

revisions of the grain dole recipients, that freedmen were initially accepted onto the dole in

great number, but that some portion of them were subsequently cut off the lists.184 The

question becomes: who among the freedmen were cut from the lists and who were retained?

We know that legally speaking, there was a fundamental difference between freedmen who

were manumitted formally and freedman manumitted informally. The three formal methods of

manumitting one’s slave, manumissio censu, maunmissio testament, and manumissio vindicta,

made the manumitted party into part of the cives Romani.185 In addition to these somewhat

cumbersome legal procedures, slaves could be and apparently quite often were informally

manumitted, a process which permitted them certain rights and freedoms, but did not confer

upon them full citizen status.186 This distinction of citizenship between formally and informally

manumitted freedmen led Brunt to argue that Caesar, in his census of the dole recipients in 46

181 D. van Berchem, Les distributions de blé et d’argent à la plèbe romaine sous l’Empire (Geneva: Georg et Cie

1939), p. 34-45. 182 Morley (1996), p. 36. 183 Purcell (1994), p. 657-658. 184 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 4.24.5; Suetonius, Divus Iulius, 41.3; Suetonius, Divus Augustus, 42.2 185 All three required the presence of some Roman official: Susan Treggiari, Roman Freedmen during the Late Republic (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), p. 20-31. 186 This process was called manumissio inter amicos and did not require any Roman magistrate.

47

BCE, removed some 170,000 informally manumitted freedmen from the list, 80,000 of whom

he deported as coloni.187 This would recommend that Rome had at least 90,000 freedmen who

were excluded from the grain dole in the time of Augustus. This is merely conjecture, however,

and it is entirely possible, as Morley suggests, that first generation freedmen were also

excluded from the issuances of grain and largesse, whether they were formally manumitted or

not.188 Morley’s scheme in his 1996 work, then, proposes that the plebs frumentaria consisted

of freeborn citizens, a term which included second and further generation freedmen as well as

other Roman citizens.189 Both of these hypotheses seem equally valid given our evidence and

thus our estimation of the number of freedmen not in receipt of the grain dole must represent

this uncertainty.

As evidence of this, Brunt points to two events from our sources. The first dates to 56

BCE and records that Pompey took a census of recently manumitted freedmen in order to

assure that grain was distributed to them with order and efficiency.190 Brunt argues that under

the supervision of Clodius many thousands of these freedmen were in fact those who had been

informally manumitted and thus had no legal claim to the free grain. The majority of those

whom Caesar expunged from the grain dole when he reduced the number of recipients from

320,000 to 150,000 persons in 46 BCE were, in Brunt’s view, these informally manumitted

freedmen.191 Morley, on the other hand, proposes that Caesar was too hawkish in his

reduction, a point represented by the increase in recipients under Augustus to 200,000 just two

years later.192 Therefore Morley proposes that there were only 120,000 freedmen.193 This is

187 Suetonius, Divus Iulius, 41.3; 42.1; Brunt: Brunt (1971), p. 379-381. 188 This is the opinion of Treggiari, who points to Augustus’ refusal to allow recently manumitted freedmen onto the lists of largesse recipients, perhaps one had to be born a citizen: Treggiari (1969), p. 16. 189 Morly (1996), p. 36-37. 190 Brunt (1971), p. 379-380. 191 Brunt argues that of the 170,000 expunged people, informally manumitted freedmen accounted for all those who were not sent out in Caesar’s colonization effort. Therefore, Brunt argues that there were 100,000 informally manumitted freed people at this time, who accounts for about thirteen per cent of his total population for the city:

Brunt (1971), p. 380-383. 192 Morley (1996), p. 37-38 193 Ibid.

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merely conjecture, however, and we do not know that first generation freedmen were included

at all, given that Augustus seemed reluctant to include them in at least one instance.194

The sources offer some indications of the size of the freedmen population. In this case,

we may avail ourselves once again of the social reforms of Augustus concerning the limitations

on slave manumission. If Augustus had to limit the number of slaves that could be freed in

one’s will, then it is strong evidence that great numbers were being freed.195 With regards to

the late Republican period, one theory approximates the number of freedmen in Rome by

figures hinted at during the installation of free grain by Clodius.196 The theory’s genesis depends

on three pieces of evidence. There is the evidence of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who tells us

that Roman masters freed many of their slaves so that they could indulge in the benefits of the

grain dole.197 A sentiment which is supported by Cassius Dio, who tells us that Pompey “ἔσχε

μὲν καὶ ἐν τῇ τοῦ σίτοῦ διαδόσει τριβήν τινα· πολλῶν γὰρ πρὸς τὰς ἀπ' αὐτοῦ ἐλπιδάς

ἐλευθερωθεντων. ἀπογραφήν σφων, ὅπως ἔν τε κόσμῳ καὶ ἐν τάξει τινὶ σιτοδοτηθῶσιν,

ἠθέλησε ποιήσασθαι”.198 Finally, there is an episode that sees slaves freed in order to receive

largesse from Augustus, though they were found out and promptly denied.199

One important inscription depicting the benefactions of Pliny the Younger records that

he had at least one hundred freedmen charges.200 Now, Pliny was a wealthy man, perhaps

worth as much as 20,000,000 sesterces, if Duncan-Jones is correct, but he was far from the

wealthiest of his day.201 Indeed, Duncan-Jones has found that a fortune of four million sesterces

was at the low end of what one could possess and still be able to pursue a senatorial career in

194 Suetonius, Divus Augustus, 40.4, 42.2. 195 Gaius, Institutions, 1.43. 196 This is the route taken by Brunt: Brunt (1976), p. 380-383. 197 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 4.24. 198 “encountered some delay in the distribution of the grain. For since many slaves had been freed in anticipation of the event, he wished to take a census of them in order that the grain might be supplied to them with some order

and system”: Cassius Dio, 39.24.1. Pompey’s census was destroyed in a fire set by a Roman mob: Cicero; Albert Curtis Clark (tr.), Pro Caelio (Oxford: Claredon Press, 1908) 78; Cicero; C. D. Yonge (tr.), Pro Milo (London: George Bell & Sons, 1891) 77. 199 Suetonius, Divus Augustus, 42.1-2. 200 CIL V 5262 201 Richard Duncan-Jones. “The Finances of the Younger Pliny”, Papers of the British School at Rome, Vol. 33 (1965), pp. 177-188, p. 178.

49

the early imperial period, though eight million was more usual.202 As Shatzman has shown, the

most powerful men of the late Republic and early empire held spectacular wealth. This group

included men such as Sulla, Octavian/Augustus, Agrippa, Antony, Crassus, Pompey, and Caesar,

as well as much noted persons such as Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus, Lucius Tarius Rufus, Gaius

Passienus Crispus, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Marcus Antonius Pallas, Gaius Julius Callistus, and

Tiberius Claudius Narcissus.203 All of these men and their households likely held properties

totaling in the hundreds of millions of sesterces each; Crassus, well known for his extreme

wealth and avarice, was said to have an estate totaling 200 million sesterces; Pompey, Caesar,

and Augustus at the peak of their wealth probably had more.204 If the number of one’s

freedmen could be expected to scale with one’s wealth, then the inhabitants of Rome’s top

echelons of power and wealth should be expected to have hundreds of freedmen each. It was

surely with such wealthy men and families in mind that Augustus enacted the laws prohibiting

the manumission of more than one hundred slaves at death.205

Some estimates, based primarily on epitaphs, imagine very high figures. Brunt, for

instance, is convinced that slaves and freedmen made up the majority of the urban population,

a sentiment shared by Treggiari.206 Purcell goes further still and imagines the freedmen not

merely to be the majority, but the vast majority of plebs.207 By and large, as Brunt argues, these

hypotheses rest almost solely on the thousands of urban epitaphs uncovered in Rome and

other Italian cities, which display a marked preponderance of freedmen.208

202 Duncan-Jones (1965), p. 178, n. 11. 203 Duncan-Jones (1965), p. 178; Pliny, NH, 33.47.134. Augustus’ wealth, if Suetonius is correct must have been truly stupendous, for we are told that he had spent the better part of 14,000 million sesterces in the last 20 years of his life, with still some 150,000,000 left over for his family and another approximately 50,000,000 paid to Roman citizens and soldiers: Suetonius, Divus Augustus, 101.2. 204 Pliny, NH, 33.47.134; Shatman, Senatorial Wealth, p. 36. 205 Gaius the Jurist, 1.43. 206 P.A. Brunt (1971), p. 382-383; Treggiari (1969), p. 31-36. 207 Purcell argues that Augustus was coercing the freedmen population, but what we in fact see in the sources is every attempt being made by Augustus to curb the presence of freedmen: Nicholas Purcell “Rome and its development under Augustus and his Successors”; in: (ed.) Alan Bowman; (ed.) Edward Champlin; (ed.) Andrew Lintott. Cambridge Ancient History X, Second Edition. Cambridge University Press, 1996. p. 796-797. 208 The levels of freedmen on the epitaphs in Rome according to Mouritsen is very high, 75%: Henrik Mouritsen, The Freedman in the Roman World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 123-127. Mouritsen’s hypothesis hinges upon the contention that Greek or “foreign-sounding, ‘barbaric’ names” on inscriptionary

50

Of course, finding any definite answer as to the number of freedmen and freedwomen

living in Rome seems to be an elusive task. Some data from the epigraphic tradition may

nonetheless give us an impression. Following Mouritsen, we see that Collegia inscriptions from

Roman Ostia indicate that 26-30 per cent of these bodies consisted of freedmen.209 In

Herculaneum, too, by way of a lengthy list of male inhabitants (nearly five hundred of an

estimated thousand names survive), we see that roughly three quarters of those recorded were

freedmen.210 Again, discerning between the recently freed and those whose families have a

long history of freedom and subsequently have become full citizens in every sense is

impossible.

Year Total

Population

Slave Non-

White

Free Non-

White 1790 46,310 8,887 3,899

1800 49,852 6,153 8,268 1810 55,361 4,177 13,136

1820 55,282 4,509 12,958

1830 57,601 3,292 15,855 1840 58,561 2,605 16,919

1850 71,169 2,290 18,073 1860 90,589 1,798 19,829

Table 3.1: Slave and Freedmen in Delaware, 1790-1860.211

What can be said is that all of this evidence seems to point to a great many freedmen

and women. Comparative evidence may be helpful once again in establishing what is possible, if

not what is probable. The 1790-1860 United States censuses of Delaware, with the relevant

information collected in Table 3.1, predated countrywide emancipation and show the numbers

of slaves, free white and free non-white (a population which was almost exclusively black,

former slaves). Delaware, with relatively high levels of manumissions in wills in the years

leading up to full manumission, emerges as the state with the highest proportion of freed

evidence, especially epitaphs, indicate the presence of freedmen. This argument is not certain, a fact which

Mouritsen admits: Mouritsen (2011), p. 126. 209 Mouritsen (2011), p. 129. 210 Ibid. p. 129-30. 211 Constructed with census information from: The United States Census Bureau. “Census of Population and

Housing: 1790-1860.” Accessed: http://www.census.gov/prod/www/decennial.html (last accessed April 17, 2016).

51

blacks. In 1790, Delaware had 3,899 of said in a population of 59,096, or nearly seven per cent

of the whole. This grew substantially in the following years, peaking in 1840, 25 years before

official countrywide manumission, when 22 per cent of Delaware’s population was made up of

free non-whites. That antebellum Delaware could represent Rome is evidently problematic. In

Delaware in the early to mid-nineteenth century, just as for the rest of United States of this

period, slavery was inextricably linked with race-based prejudice, which surely acted as a

cultural impediment towards largescale manumissions across all states, even where

manumission levels were high.212

Rome had no such racially based prejudices inhibiting manumissions; in fact, the only

impediments in the Roman system seem to have been economic and legal, though the second

impediment only came into being when Augustus implemented his limitations on

manumission.213 Furthermore, it appears that in Delaware the freed population grew at the

expense of a quickly shrinking slave population. Indeed, when at its peak proportion of freed

non-whites, Delaware’s population was only a little over three percent slave. This was not the

case in Rome, where slaves and freedmen coexisted in large numbers.

One modern population that maintained large numbers of slaves and freed people

simultaneously is Rio de Janeiro from the late eighteenth to mid-nineteenth century. In Rio,

1799 saw the peak proportions of freed persons in relation to the population as a whole with

20 per cent freed blacks and Pardos (mixed race peoples).214 This had dropped by 1849,

however, to just five per cent, when economic hardships and the threat of statewide

manumission conspired to drive up slave ownership.215 The evidence of Rio is once again

problematic due to the role of inherent racism in the system. Ultimately, neither Rio nor

Delaware is an inherently good analog for Augustan Rome, but the peak number of freed

people in these populations may, nonetheless, give us some insight into the proportions of

212 Alfred H. Conrad; The Economics of Slavery and other Studies in Econometric History (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1964), p. 103-105. 213 See note 148, above. 214 Karasch (1987), p. 62. 215 Ibid, p. 66.

52

freed people that could be supported in slave based economies. So then, the evidence is such

that little more can be offered than an educated guess and due to the ambiguity in our sources

as to whether informally manumitted freedmen or all first generation freedmen were excluded

from the dole, this figure must allow for a considerable number of possibilities. A range of

perhaps 5-20 per cent of the population is all we can hypothesize in representing the freedmen

excluded from the dole, though again, no proportion can be known with certainty and any

estimate will come down to little more than an educated impression.

Of our authors who treat freedmen as a distinct category while using the Beloch

method, Brunt, investigating the reduction of 170,000 men from the grain dole by Caesar in 46

BCE, estimates that freedmen excluded from the dole represented 100,000 of an approximate

750,000 Romans in the time of Augustus, thirteen percent of the whole.216 Morley argues that

the number of excluded freedmen was somewhat higher in total, though perhaps a lower

proportion of the whole. He hypothesized that Augustus’ reduction of the list in 5 BCE, wherein

the number of recipients of public grain was slashed from 320,000 to just 200,000, represented

a culling of freedmen unqualified to be on the list.217 This 120,000 represents 12-14 per cent of

Morley’s hypothesized 850,000-1,000,000 inhabitants of Augustan Rome.218 Our estimate

allows for both a much higher and a much lower percentage of freedmen who were excluded

from the dole than do the estimates of Brunt and Morley. This appropriately represents our

lack of knowledge concerning the status of freedmen in relation to the plebs frumentaria. As

will be seen in the conclusion of this chapter, the presence of freedmen here hypothesized,

namely 5-20 per cent of the whole population, will account for 46,919-346,461, thus raising our

cumulative total to 891,464-1,472,461. As we can see, the long-held conceptual maximum of

Augustan Rome’s population of one million people is now seriously questioned and must be

reevaluated. This opinion will only be strengthened once we include the foreign population of

the city.

216 Brunt (1976), p. 380-383. 217 For the reduction see: Augustus, RGDA, 15; Morley (1996), p. 36-38. 218 Morley (1996), p. 36-38.

53

3.6 – The Foreign Population

No encompassing figures exist for the foreign population of Rome, but there are some

references that should give us an idea of scale. There is the much-cited embassy, made up of

magistrates from all over Italia, which came to Rome in 187 BCE to complain to the Senate,

“magnam multitudinem civium suorum Romam commigrasse”.219 In all, 12,000 of these Italian

allies were sought out and compelled to leave the city.220 Just nine years later, in 178 BCE, fresh

embassies from the Latin allies came once again to Rome with complaints identical in content

to those of the 187 BCE, though in this instance it is the Samnites and Paelignians who

specifically claim that a deficit equal to 4,000 families (perhaps 10,000-12,000 total people) had

moved from their lands.221 Once more in 173 BCE, Latins were expelled, though no figures are

given.222 We have three references, then, to the denuding of the Italian countryside caused by

immigration to Rome. These are only the instances that we hear about; as Brunt points out,

there were probably others.223

Two points are worth noting in relation to the foreigners of Rome discussed by Livy.

First, it must be recognized that these are only the Italian foreigners within Rome, and what is

more, only the Italian foreigners that were noticed by the Roman praetors tasked with expelling

them by the Italian embassies. Second, Livy is describing the Rome of the early second century,

which was before the period of serious expansion that led to the Rome of Caesar and Augustus.

If we follow Cornell in estimating the population of early second century BCE Rome at 200,000,

then 12,000 Italian foreigners alone would account for six per cent of the city’s population.224

This is nonetheless of limited value, for all three of our references to Italian immigration into

219 “a great number of their citizens had migrated to Rome”: Titus Livius; Evan T. Sage (tr.), Books XXXVIII-XXXIX. (Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1936) 39.3. 220 Ibid. 39.3. 221 Ibid. 41.8. 222 Ibid. 42.10. 223 It is worth mentioning on this point that our primary source on this subject, Livy, is missing for many years after 168 BCE and therefore offers us no picture of immigration for the late Republican or early Imperial periods: P.A.

Brunt “Italian Aims at the Time of the Social War”, The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 55, No. 1/2, Parts 1 and 2 (1965), p. 90. 224 T.J. Cornell, “The Conquest of Italy”, in: Cambridge Ancient History, Volume 7.2, p. 408.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=magnam&la=la&can=magnam0&prior=querentibus

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=multitudinem&la=la&can=multitudinem0&prior=magnam

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=civium&la=la&can=civium0&prior=multitudinem

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=suorum&la=la&can=suorum0&prior=civium

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=Romam&la=la&can=romam0&prior=suorum

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=commigrasse&la=la&can=commigrasse0&prior=Romam

54

the city of Rome are from the second century BCE, predating the time period of our study,

Augustan era Rome, by a century and a half.

On the strength of evidence from Rio de Janeiro and early modern London, Noy

postulates five percent or so for the foreign element at Rome in the time of Augustus. This is

problematic in the case of London, when time lapse is taken into account. When the English city

was expanding very quickly, it was indeed 5.3 per cent foreign, as in 1573.225 In 1635, after

seventy-two years had elapsed, however, the foreign population had shrunk considerably to

just one per cent. We see substantial variation according to historical variables. Rio similarly

displays a wide deviation. In the 1800s, Rio depended heavily on overseas emigration to sustain

and grow its population. In 1834, Rio’s foreign population totaled 6,727 of 97,599 or nearly

seven per cent of the population.226 Just four years later, in 1838, this had climbed to almost

ten per cent.227 The next eleven years show yet more increase and the census of 1849 shows

that nearly eighteen per cent of Rio de Janeiro’s population was foreign.228 Whether the alien

populations of either London or Rio represent the experience in Rome is doubtful, but they

nonetheless establish what ranges of emigration were possible in large, economically

prosperous urban areas. Their evidence is important in displaying that immigration is rarely

static or regular, but constantly shifting, now up, now down. This truth is lent even more

credibility by the likelihood of seasonal migration among Rome’s foreign contingent, which

could cause significant variability even between the summer and winter presence of foreigners

in the city.229 For these reasons, any estimate of Rome’s foreign population is difficult to

ascertain.

One piece of evidence is very helpful in providing a sense of the scale of this foreign

population. In 4 BCE, a Jewish embassy was sent to Rome to petition Augustus. The embassy

consisted of 50 men, but when they came to speak with Augustus and the other heads of state,

225 David Noy, Foreigners at Rome: Citizens and Strangers. London: The Classical Press of Wales, 2000. p. 15-19. 226 Karasch (1987), p. 63. 227 Ibid. p. 65. 228 Ibid. p. 66. 229 Hawkins (2013), p. 347-349.

55

they were accompanied by 8,000 of the Jewish inhabitants of Rome. From this episode, scholars

have estimated that there were perhaps 30,000-50,000 Jews within the city.230 How many of

these would have been first generation immigrants is impossible to guess, but of all the Jewish

families present within Rome, it was probably the case that many had come since the conquest

of the East undertaken by Pompey some sixty years previously, which implies a considerable

level of immigration.231 One can imagine the Gallic population of the city rose similarly in the

years following Caesar’s conquests. To this must be added foreigners from long-held Roman

territories, such as Spain and Numidia, as well as Italians. This last group, due to its close

proximity to and similarity in language with Rome was probably the most numerous. All in all, a

guess is all we can reasonably offer, perhaps as low as five per cent or as high as fifteen

percent. Again, Beloch’s 1886 study set the trend in his estimate of 60,000-70,000 foreigners

within Rome, 7.5-8.75 per cent of his total in that work.232 Morley despairs of finding an

estimate based on the evidence and, following Friedländer, accepts a doubling of Napoleonic

Paris’ 30,000 estimated foreign population, thus arriving at 60,000 for Rome. This 60,000

represents 6-7 per cent of Morley’s estimate for the city.233 My estimate of 5-15 per cent marks

an improvement upon these estimates in that it allows for a range of foreigners within Rome

that does not try to achieve a level of specificity not supported in the sources. In conjunction

with our other estimates for the citizenry, slave, and freedmen hypothesized above, our

estimate of 5-15 percent for the foreign population accounts for 46,919-259,846 and raises our

aggregate population of the city to 938,383-1,732,307. Clearly the population paradigm of

Beloch, supported by Brunt, Lo Cascio, Hopkins, Morley, and scholarship generally with its

maximum of one million people, ought to be fundamentally questioned, as a core group of

250,000 full citizen Roman men can easily imply a total population far larger than this sum.

230 Harry J. Leon, The Jews of Ancient Rome. Massachusetts: Henrickson Publishers Inc., 1960. p. 135; Ramsay Macmullen, “The Unromanized in Rome; in: S. H. D. Cohen (ed.); E. S. Frerichs (ed.). Diasporas in Antiquity. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993. pp. 47–64. 231 Ibid. 232 Beloch (1886), p. 404 233 Morley (1996), p. 37-38.

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3.7 – Findings

Based on a core citizen male population of 250,000 recorded in our literary sources, we

have hypothesized a citizen population of 624,545-686,000.234 This has been accomplished

through comparative evidence in Roman Egypt and life tables constructed from the lifespans of

Roman emperors, senators, and their wives. The slave population, following Scheidel, has been

calculated at between 220,000 and 440,000. Further, impressions from Roman literature and

inscriptions combined with comparative evidence from nineteenth century Delaware and Rio

de Janeiro have led us to hypothesize an acceptable range for freedmen of between 5 and 20

per cent of the total population. Finally, foreigners have been conjectured at five to fifteen per

cent of the population, founded on literary sources and comparative evidence from nineteenth

century London and Rio de Janeiro. These hypotheses result in a total Roman population

ranging roughly from 938,282-1,716,923. Of course, this is a very large range, but as such, well

represents the unsatisfactory nature of our sources, especially where slaves and freedmen are

concerned in which available cases reveal a wide range of figures.

The sheer suggestion that Rome was inhabited by 1.7 million people will no doubt give

some scholars pause. This impression is intensified given the content of Beloch’s 1903

contribution to the debate, when he revised his estimate of the population of Augustan Rome

to one million inhabitants. The one million figure has been so normalized as to form a sort of

glass ceiling for demographers of Rome. Despite the generally accepted unsatisfactory nature

of the evidence, scholarship seems content to accept the oft-repeated figure of one million as a

functional maximum. The great fear is that Beloch’s estimate, in enduring so long, has assumed

a sort of venerability, accepted almost unquestioningly merely because it has been around so

long, repeated so often, and is aesthetically pleasing as a large-yet not-too-large figure that is

nicely rounded for ease of use. What our reading of the evidence has shown, however, is that

one million, far from inhabiting the high end of Rome’s population, may well be better suited as

a functional low end figure for the Eternal City. This contention challenges the orthodoxy

234 This is the citizen population when combined with ten thousand elites, primarily senators, equites, and their

families.

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established by Beloch and propagated by Brunt, Hopkins, Lo Cascio, Morley, and scholarship

generally.

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Chapter IV: Floor Area per Person and the Population of Severan Rome

We turn now to an estimate of Rome’s potential population in the time of Septimius

Severus. This estimate is based on evidence of the physical city, including literary descriptions,

actual physical remains of the city, archaeological data from Herculaneum, Pompeii, Ostia, and

especially the depictions of residential housing on the FUR. Using this data I will build a model

that estimates the size, character and occupancy of Rome’s three primary housing types,

tabernae, domus, and insulae.

Rome possessed three forms of residential housing: tabernae, insulae, and domus. The

first two forms were primarily the housing of the poor and middle-class segments of Rome’s

population, whereas the domus were generally the prerogative of Rome’s wealthy. If we can

know the average occupancy of these residential units, we can come closer to a population of

Severan Rome. However, given that none of these factors can be known with certainty, we

shall offer not only a range of what was probable concerning the size of Rome’s population in

the Severan period, but also a range of what was possible. These two estimates will serve

distinct, but equally useful functions. Our range of the possible will allow us to establish the

upper and lower limits that were possible given what we know about Roman society and

material culture. The hope here is that in doing this we will be able to eliminate the highest

and lowest population figures offered by scholars while simultaneously establishing a

conceptual framework in which scholars may operate in the future.

Showing, as it does, the complete spectrum of possibilities, our range of the possible will

inevitably have a great amount of volatility and will therefore be functionally useless when it

comes to providing scholars with a reasonable impression as to what Severan Rome’s

population actually may have been. For this task we require a different range, the range of the

probable. In this we shall endeavor to provide scholars with a population figure for Severan

Rome which seems likely given our evidence and which will be exact enough to provide scholars

of Severan Rome with an analytical tool for further socio-economic, cultural, and political study

of the city at this time.

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4.1– Methodology and Definitions

The method that will be used here to estimate Rome’s population in the time of

Septimius Severus is a new one of my own design. In it, I depart from the number of the plebs

frumentaria, the insulae and domus statistics of the Regionaries, and estimates concerned with

people per kilometer rules of thumb. Instead, I focus on the residential realities of Severan

Rome, reckoning the size and height of its buildings and the average floor area per person for

the occupants of these. To accomplish this the area of the city must be ascertained and in

addition to this the proportion of this area that was dedicated to residential housing,

overwhelmingly represented by two building types, domus and insulae. Having determined the

area of the city dedicated to insulae and domus, there are four impediments to arriving at a

population figure. First, the ratio of insulae to domus must be investigated, ascertaining how

much of Rome’s residential area was consumed by either building type. Second, the verticality

of Roman buildings must be found, namely the probable average number of floors in insulae

and domus respectively. Third, the respective average floor area per person in the two

residential types must be determined. To these must be added some approximation of the

population within tabernae, which shall be measured by estimating the number of said and

their average occupancy rates. With these data sets it will be possible construct a population of

Rome using the following formulas:

𝑇𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑃𝑜𝑝𝑢𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 = 𝑃𝐼 + 𝑃𝐷 + 𝑃𝑇

Where: 𝑃𝐼= (𝑇𝐴 × 𝑅𝐼−𝐷)𝑁𝐹𝐼

𝐹𝐴𝐼 , 𝑃𝐷=

(𝑇𝐴 × 𝑅𝐷−𝐼 )𝑁𝐹𝐷

𝐹𝐴𝐷 , and 𝑃𝑇= (𝑁𝑇 × 𝑂𝑇)

And where:

𝑃𝐼 - Population of all Insulae 𝑃𝐷 - Population of all Domus

𝑃𝑇 - Population of all Tabernae 𝑇𝐴 - Total area in residential use (m2)

𝑅𝐼−𝐷 - Ratio of Insulae to Domus

𝑅𝐷−𝐼 - Ratio of Domus to Insulae 𝑁𝐹𝐼 - Number of floors per Insula

(average)

𝑁𝐹𝐷 - Number of floors per Domus (average)

𝐹𝐴𝐼 - Average Floor Area per person for Insulae (m2)

𝐹𝐴𝐷 - Average Floor Area per person for

Domus (m2) NT - Number of Tabernae

OT - Occupants of Tabernae (m2)

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Floor area is chosen as the metric of measurement here for two reasons. First, methods

of measurement such as persons per room and households per dwelling require more

information to be applied than our evidence allows. Second, in the surveys of the United

Nations Center for Human Settlements, when compared to other methods, floor area per

person has shown itself to be the most precise measurement, accounting for a wider variety of

residential accommodations and situations, while also providing the best indicator of social

phenomena like overcrowding.235 This, then, is also insightful on socio-economic grounds,

broadening the application of this study.

But what exactly do we mean when we say ‘floor area’? The United Nations defines

the term as all “living space, along with bathrooms, internal corridors and closets […as well

as,…] Covered semi-private spaces, such as corridors, inner courtyards or verandas”.236 Any

space ought to be included in this statistic, so long as it was used for “cooking, eating, sleeping

or other domestic activities”.237 ‘Floor area’, as the UN defines it, is measured to the outer

surface of the outside walls and includes all walls in its statistic.238 I will follow this practice in

my own calculations.

4.2– The Residential Area of Rome

This study will begin, then, by looking both at the area of Rome and the proportion of

this area that was appropriated for insulae and domus, respectively. Surveys of Rome within the

Aurelian walls, a space which encapsulates the fourteen regions of Augustan Rome, denote an

intramural city size of 13,868,750 m2.239 Naturally, there is debate as to how much of this space

was occupied by residential buildings. The arguments are best represented in the debate

235 United Nations Department of Economics and Social Affairs, Indicators of Sustainable Development: Guidelines and Methodologies (New York: United Nations, 2001), p. 121. 236 UNPD (2001), p. 83. 237 UNPD (2001), p. 83. 238 The United Nations, Monthly Bulletin Online Dictionary – Floor Area, accessed from: http://unstats.un.org/UNSD/mbs/ddform.aspx?getitem=26 (last accessed March 21, 2016). 239 Calza ; Gismondi; Lugli (1941), p. 142-165.

http://unstats.un.org/UNSD/mbs/ddform.aspx?getitem=26

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between the German scholar, Armin van Gerkan against the Italian scholars Lugli, Gismondi,

and Calza. Gerkan would have a little under 50 per cent of the city as inhabitable, with the rest

consumed by swamps, temples, monuments, thermae, castra, horrea, waters, and the Imperial

palace on the Palatine.240 Lugli, Gismondi, and Calza, on the other hand, opt for roughly 65 per

cent as a more accurate figure for residential space.241

As Hermansen suggests, the truth probably lies somewhere between these two

estimates. Gerkan is too rigid in his definition of what is residential and what is not; his

measurements of buildings, especially temples are liberal, for instance, and he does not

recognize that public lands, monuments and horrea were inhabited, albeit probably at a lower

density than were residential areas holding insulae or tabernae.242 Lugli, Gismondi, and Calza go

too far in the other direction and would have a city where absolutely every empty square meter

of space must be filled with some form of housing.243 Moreover, Lugli, Gismondi, and Calza give

no account of streets. Perhaps this is because the exact area is hard to determine, but in all we

would not be far off if we include 500,000 m2 for Rome’s streets.244 I agree with Hermansen,

that despite the problems mentioned above, Gerkan is closer to the mark.245 Although, to

correct for his shortcomings, I would posit a figure of perhaps 55 per cent of the city as being

primarily residential. Of course, this is merely a best guess and as such should be treated with

240 Gerkan (1940), p. 149-195, p. 157-158. 241 See Hermansen for a summary of the evidence and the debate: Hermansen (1978), p. 146-148. This 65 per cent of intramural residential space is in line with Ostian evidence, where roughly the same proportion of uninhabited

or lightly inhabited areas is in evidence: Russell Meiggs, Roman Ostia (Oxford: Claredon Press, 1973), p. 532-533. 242 Calza; Gismondi; Lugli (1941), p. 147ff; for evidence of inhabited horrea, see: Justinian, Justinian’s Digesta, 1.15.3.2; Hermansen (1978), p. 166-167. The problem posed by horrea to the method explored in this chapter is an interesting one. We know that horrea must have been inhabited someone, though probably at a near negligible

rate. We also know that some horrea on the FUR have upper stories sometimes many upper stories. To reconcile this to the method of this chapter I will include all multi-story horrea within my insulae statistic 243 Hermansen (1978), p. 166-167. 244 According to Pliny, who seems to have access to imperial documents or their conclusions, there were some 89 km of streets in Rome and from the work of Carcopino, we see that most of these were at least 3m in width, with rare larger roads attaining no more than 6.5 m: Pliny, NH, 3.5.66; Jérôme Carcopino; (tr.) E. O. Lorimer; Daily Life in Ancient Rome: The People and the City at the Height of the Empire (England: Penguin Books Ltd. 1964), p. 57-60.

From this evidence a network of streets covering some 350,000 square meters seems likely. Back streets and impromptu paths between buildings may account for another 150,000 square meters. 245 Hermansen accepts Gerkan’s total in his own calculations: Hermansen (1978), p. 166-167.

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some skepticism. So then, tentatively allowing for 55 per cent of Rome to be residential, we

see roughly 7,478,000m2 dedicated to the domus and insulae of Rome.

How much of this 7,478,000m2 should we allow for each of our two primary housing

types? When it comes to the ratio of insulae and domus, we have no solid evidence for Rome

and therefore it would seem that the Ostian remains are our best evidence.246 Packer, in his

study of multiple dwellings, has found the ratio of domus to insulae to be 22:184 or 1:8.4.247

Now if, as the evidence suggests, the average Ostian domus was about 600m2 and the average

Ostian insula was 239m2, then 76 per cent of residential Ostia was inhabited by insulae and 24

per cent by domus. If we allow a similar ratio for Rome, then there would have been

5,757,601m2 for insulae and 1,720,399m2 for domus. This is highly uncertain, however, and so

we will give the results of what Rome may have looked like with different proportions of domus

and insulae, a range of what is possible may include 20-30 per cent domus and 70-80 per cent

insulae, much less or much more seems highly doubtful. Working from these estimates for the

areal footprint of Rome’s two major housing types, it is now crucial to approximate the number

of floors typical and the average floor space per person that should be expected in either type.

4.3 – The Roman Insula

Of Rome’s two main housing types, insulae are far and away the more important from a

sheer numbers perspective and so I shall begin with them. Two cities embody the importance

of the insula in the residential fabric of Roman urban life. In Ostia and in Rome, the insula was

the typical form of residential housing. As can be seen in the archaeological remains of Ostia

and on the FUR, the vast majority of buildings of insulae can be placed in one of the three

categories outlined by Packer, though numerous minor variations proliferate in practice. Of the

184 structures classified as multiple dwelling by Packer, type one, a ground-floor predominantly

populated with tabernae, often surmounted with mezzanines and floors rising above, is by far

246 Our other two main sources for archaeological data from this era, Pompeii and Herculaneum, had very few insulae and are therefore not good simulacrums for Rome. 247 Packer (1971), p. 70.

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the most common.248 In Ostia, this first type accounts for the majority of insulae, some 59.8 per

cent, a feature that was likely true for Rome as well, if the preponderance of tabernae on the

FUR is any indication.249 The second type sees apartments on the ground floor as well as above

and represents 31.5 per cent of all Ostian insulae.250 Working from archaeological remains in

Ostia, Packer classifies a third type of insula, characterized by a large workshop or some other

industrial space sharing the first floor with tabernae, often with mezzanines and apartments

above.251 This last type accounted for only 8.7 per cent of Ostian insulae; it is similarly rare on

the FUR.252

The most expensive and coveted rooms in Roman insulae were those of the ground

floor, with accommodations becoming cheaper and less desirable the higher up one went. The

very cheapest were those found at the top, rooms that were referred to with distaste as being

‘under the tiles’ in the work of Juvenal and Suetonius; the former actually having purported to

have lived in such a room.253 The reasons for this are many. Roman commercial activity took

place at street level, for example, and so ground-floor space was highly valued for its

commercial utility.254 Additionally, the convenience of first floor dwellings raised their

desirability.255 Furthermore, the lower floors were safer from the exigencies of fire and

collapse, real problems in the insulae of Rome.256 Finally, suites lower down in insulae were

desirable simply because they were expensive for the above mentioned reasons, as displays of

wealth and standing. For those who were relatively wealthy, but could not afford a domus, the

ground floor or second floor of an insula offered the next best thing.257 Indeed, this is what we

248 Packer (1971), p. 6-7, p. 65. 249 Packer (1971), p. 66. 250 Packer (1971), p. 7-14; 66 251 Packer (1971), p. 14-15. 252 Packer (1971), p. 68 253 ‘Under the tiles’ is in reference to the bare roof tiles that topped the highest rooms of some insulae: Suetonius,

De grammaticis et rhetoribus, 9; Juvenal, 3.193-202. 254 Clare Holleran; Shopping in Ancient Rome: The Retail Trade in the Late Republic and Principate (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 118-119. 255 Martial, Epigrammata, 1.117; 7.20. 256 Juvenal, 3.193-202; Plutarch, Crassus, 2.4-6; Strabo, 5.3.7; Suetonius, Augustus, 25; Cassius Dio, 55.26.4; Ulpian, Digesta, 1.15.4; 9.2.49; 43.24.7.4; 47.9.3.7. 257 Packer (1971), p. 71-72.

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see in Ostia, where the archaeological remains imply that the upper middle class lived in the

bottom floors of insulae, decorating their abodes in imitation of domus.258

Though the higher rooms offered lower rents, large spaces on these floors were still well

beyond the means of many insulae inhabitants and as a consequence the upper stories, so

Vitruvius tells us, were “ad summas utilitates perficiunt dispertitiones.”259 The resulting

subdivisions generally denoted single rooms partitioned off from neighbours with wattle and

daub walls. According to Martial and Juvenal, these were depressing places: high from the

ground, dark, dank and cramped with cracked walls and peeling paint, and filled with meager

possessions.260 Even so rents were high and many Romans struggled to make ends meet.261

Naturally, these economic difficulties led to room sharing.262

So, then, we have a general sense of the layout and inhabitants of an ancient Roman insula.

What remains is to turn back to our goal of calculating the population of Severan Rome. To do

this, two objectives remain to us. First, we must approximate the average number of floors for

Roman insulae. Next, we need to offer the average floor area per person of Roman insularii.

4.4 – The Literary Evidence for Tall Buildings in the Ancient Mediterranean

In the search for the average number of floors per insula, a number of different

estimates have been offered by scholars varying from 2-6 floors.263 The evidence upon which

these estimates are based is chiefly literary and archaeological in nature. Beginning with the

literary evidence we see that tall buildings with multiple stories were not entirely uncommon in

258 Ibid. 259 There are two manuscript traditions for this passage. One reads “dispertitiones” while the other reads “despectationes”. The difference in meaning can be boiled down to “they achieve views to the highest advantage”

or “they achieve divisions to the highest advantage”: Vitruvius, de Architectura, 2.8.17. 260 Martial, Epigrammata, 1.117; 2.53; 3.30; 8.14; 11.32; 11.56; 12.18; Juvenal Satires 3.164-170; 3.190-211; 3.268-73. 261 Juvenal, 3.164-170. 262 Apuleius, Metamorphoses, 4.26; Philogelos, 117. 263 For the high end estimate: Carcopino; (1964), p. 35-38; for the low end: Stroey (2003), p. 3-26; for many in between: Hermansen (1978), p. 129-168.

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the ancient Mediterranean world, even outside of Rome. Herodotus speaks of three and four

storied buildings in fifth century BCE Babylon, for example.264 Diodorus Siculus too, in his

account of the siege of Motya, describes a siege tower built to six stories which was the height

of the houses next to Motya’s walls.265 Byrsa, the citadel of Carthage, had tightly packed

buildings of six stories as early as 146 BCE, if Appian is to be believed.266 Strabo attests high-

rises in Tyre and Aradus in Asia Minor, with Tyre being said to have even higher buildings than

those at Rome.267 Finally, Philostratus, writing in the third century CE, describes a portico

outside of Naples that was four or five stories tall.268

Showing that such buildings existed in the ancient world establishes a context and is

valuable in showing that Rome was not entirely exceptional, but the question of importance

remains: to what extent did insulae with multiple stories exist in Rome? A look at the literature

suggests that Rome’s residential identity was intrinsically linked with tall buildings. On this point

we can see that Rome is depicted as having multi-floor dwellings very early in her history, as

according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, there was multistoried housing in Rome as early as

455-454 BCE, when the Aventine hill was given over to people for the purpose of building

houses and families joined together to build one large house of many stories, with each family

receiving its own floor.269 Of course, as Storey is keen to note, the number of floors is not

directly attested here, but the passage must mean at least three stories and quite probably

more.270 Livy, describing Rome of the mid-Republic during his account of the Hannibalic wars,

mentions a presumably unremarkable building of at least three floors near the forum bovarium,

in which an escaped cow climbs three flights of an insula and, becoming frightened by the

occupants, throws itself out the window.271 Naturally, there is a danger that Dionysius and Livy

264 Herodotus, 1.180; Strabo agrees that the buildings of Babylon were high: Strabo, 16.1.5. 265 Diodorus 14.51.1 266 Appian, Punic Wars, 19.128. 267 For Tyre: Strabo, 16.2.23; for Aradus: Strabo, 16.2.13. 268 Philostratus, Imagines, 1.1. 269 “occasionally two, three, or even more joined together to build one house, and drawing lots, some had the lower and others the upper stories”: Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 32.5. 270 Glenn Storey, Preindustrial Urban Demography: The Ancient Roman Evidence (Pennsylvania State University Dissertation, 1992), p. 284. 271 Livy: 21.62.2-4.

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are merely reading the phenomena of tall buildings in their present time into the past, but if so,

then the passages still may stand as a reference of the ubiquity of such high buildings in the

times in which these various authors write. For buildings that are surely of a later period, Aulus

Gellius tells us of a small party of Romans viewing a fire amongst insulae of “multis arduisque

tabulatis”, which is probably referring to buildings of three stories or more.272 There may even

be a reference in Tertullian to an eight story insula, the famous insula Felicles.273

The testimonies of the poets similarly reference multi-story insulae. Martial lamented

his apartment, “Longum est…Et scalis habito tribus, sed altis”, indicating a building of four

floors at the very least.274 Martial’s fellow poet, Juvenal, also talks of living in an insula, though

he is at the top of a third-story building.275 One particularly thrifty tenant in a Martial poem

scales two hundred steps to get to his apartment.276 If each step were 12cm, then a structure of

over 24m results. Of course, it is very unlikely that Martial was referring to a literal two hundred

steps, instead we should take this “ducentas […] scalas” simply to mean a great many.277

Nonetheless, the implication is clear.

A Roman architect and civil engineer of the Augustan period, Vitruvius, refers to the

necessity of high-reaching insulae to house the masses of Rome and gives us some sense of the

scene in the great city:

latericii vero nisi diplinthii aut triplinthii fuerint, sesquipedali crassitudine non possunt plus unam sustinere contignationem. in ea autem maiestate urbis et civium infinita frequentia innumerabiles habitationes opus est explicare. ergo cum recipere non possent areae planatae tantam multitudinem ad habitandum in urbe, ad auxilium altitudinis aedificiorum res ipsa coegit devenire. itaque pilis lapideis structuris testaceis parietibus caementiciis altitudines extructae et contignationibus crebris coaxatae cenaculorum ad summas utilitates perficiunt dispertitiones. ergo moenibus

272 “with many high stories”: Aulus Gellius, Noctium Atticarum, 15.1. 273 Tertullian. (tr.) M.T. Riley, Adversus Valentinianos. Dissertation, Stanford University, 1971. 7.1-3; Storey believes Tertullian to be making a joke between the eight major deities and eight stories of an insula: Storey (2004), p. 77. 274 “It is a long way…And I live up three flights of stairs, high ones too”: Martial, 1.117. 275 Juvenal, 3.190-211. 276 Martial, 7.20. 277 Ibid.

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e contignationibus variis alto spatio multiplicatis populus Romanus egregias habet sine inpeditione habitationes.278

That Vitruvius presents the upper floors of the insulae as excellent places in which to live

smacks of upper class naiveté, but his mention of buildings with many stories is certainly

accurate. Indeed the passage is in line with the impression we gather from other authors of the

period, both those mentioned above and others. Cicero, however, is more critical than

Vitruvius, when he compares the height and density of Roman buildings with the more pleasant

and spacious town of Capua, though he may be exaggerating for effect, “Romam in montibus

positam et convallibus, cenaculis sublatam atque suspensam, non optimis viis, angustissimis

semitis”.279

Cicero, again, in his De Officiis describes how the augurs commanded a certain Tiberius

Claudius Centumalus to destroy the upper sections of his insula, because it blocked the augurs’

view of the sky and therefore inhibited them in their religious and prophetical duties.280 Indeed,

ancient authors comment on the darkening effects of tall buildings and narrow streets in Rome

relatively frequently. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, for instance, records that a certain district of

the Carinae was permanently darkened by tall buildings.281 This sentiment is echoed by

Vitruvius who blames a confluence of tall buildings and narrow streets for a darkness that

endures even in the day time.282 For Seneca the Elder, darkness was not the main concern, as

he laments the narrow streets and high buildings, because they increase the incidence and

278 “Now brick walls, unless two or three bricks thick, cannot support more than one story; certainly not if they are

only a foot and a half in thickness. But with the present importance of the city and the unlimited numbers of its population, it is necessary to increase the number of dwelling-places indefinitely. Consequently, as the ground floors could not admit of so great a number living in the city, the nature of the case has made it necessary to find relief by making the buildings high. In these tall piles reared with piers of stone, walls of burnt brick, and partitions

of rubble work, and provided with floor after floor, the upper stories can be partitioned off into rooms to very great advantage. The accommodations within the city walls being thus multiplied as a result of the many floors high in the air, the Roman people easily find excellent places in which to live.”: Vitruvius Pollio; Morris Hicky

Morgan (ed.), The Ten Books on Architecture (London: Oxford University Press, 1914.), 2.8.17. Note that the reading of “dispertitiones” is not certain, see: note 246, above. 279“Rome, situated among mountains and valleys, stuck up, as it were, and raised aloft, amid garrets, with not very good roads, and with very narrow streets”: Cicero. C. D. Yonge. On the Agrarian Law. London, 1856. 2.22. 280 Cicero, De Officiis, 3.66 281 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 1.68.1. 282 Vitruvius, De Architectura, 6.6.6.

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inhibit the prevention of fire.283 Plutarch, too, claims that in the late Republican period

conflagration and collapse were the result of buildings being too large and too closely

situated.284

The evidence supports Strabo, indicating that fires were a major problem in Rome.285

We know that the issue was serious enough that it was one of the chief reasons prompting

Augustus’ formation of the vigiles, Rome’s equivalent to a fire brigade and night’s watch, as a

preventative measure. This was no token force, either, for there were seven cohorts of 560

men each, for a total of 3,920 vigiles in the city. These were divided equally around the city, a

fact which suggests that fire was a severe problem everywhere, which may indicate similar

levels of residential development throughout the city.286

We further have some insight into the vigiles fire prevention and fire-fighting strategies

which are suggestive concerning the character of Roman buildings. As a preventative measure,

one of the duties of the prefect in charge of the vigiles was to warn all inhabitants that “aquam

unusquisque inquilinus in cenaculo habeat”.287 The language, especially the use inquilinus to

describe a resident and cenaculum to indicate a room suggests an insula-dweller; an impression

that is confirmed in the discussion of penalties for non-compliance amongst “Insularii” or

‘insula inhabitants’.288 This suggests that fires were primarily a problem in insulae, probably

because of the density of people and the small dark rooms, which increased candle and brazier

use. Furthermore, we know that their usual strategy once a fire had taken root, was to deprive

it of further fuel by tearing down adjoining buildings, suggesting that buildings were built close

upon one another.289

283 Seneca the Elder, Controversies, 2.1.11; Vitruvius also mentions this phenomenon in his discussion of the fire-

proof qualities of larch wood: Vitruvius, De Architectura, 2.9.16. 284 Plutarch, Crassus, 2.4-6. 285 Strabo, 5.3.7. 286 Strabo, 5.3.7; Suetonius, Augustus, 25; Cassius Dio, 55.26.4-5. 287 “every tenant should have water in their room”: Justinian, Digesta, 1.15.3. 288 Ibid. 1.15.4. 289 Ibid. 9.2.49; 47.9.3; 43.24.7.

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Some of the other measures of the emperors are also telling. The first attempt to place

a limit on Roman building height was made by Augustus, who imposed a limit of 70 roman feet

(20.7 m) on all buildings.290 Nero, too, in the aftermath of the great fire of 64 CE, set a limit on

building height, though we know not what that limit was.291 Trajan, moreover, attempted to

legislate a maximum height of 60 roman feet (17.7 m) after a period in the second century CE

fraught with natural disasters and fires which caused numerous tenement collapses.292

Presumably, if the emperors were placing and repeatedly having to reinforce such limits, it

means that there were a significant number of insulae exceeding these heights.

Storey, on the contrary, makes much of these limits, supposing that they were in fact

policed, but the evidence seems to suggest that they were not.293 One building from the

Trajanic period, for instance, had five or six stories and clearly exceeded not only the

contemporary Trajanic, but also the more forgiving Augustan limit. This building, known as the

Ara Coeli insula, resided on the north western corner of the Palatine, was six stories high and

reached at least 22m and perhaps even 24m into the air when it was in its original condition.294

Moreover, the FUR, though displaying the Severan period, clearly shows nine story structures, if

Pedroni is correct.295 To accommodate nine stories in the Trajanic limit of just 17.5 meters, one

would have only a little under 1.94m per story and once one factors in the thickness of the

floors and joists this would shrink further. The result is untenable; at 22-24m the Ara Coeli

insula accommodates only six floors and one of these is the mezzanine apartments above the

tabernae of the first story. What can be said in summation of the literary evidence, in my

opinion, is that it tends to support the existence of tall buildings in Rome. To this must be

added the caveat, however, that there is almost no indication as to what was typical, excepting

290 Strabo 5.3.7. this law saw several reiteration, apparently Roman builders did not abide: Scobie; “Slums”, p. 405. 291 Tacitus, Annals, 15.43. 292 Aurelius Victor, Epitome, 13. 293 Storey (1992), p. 294-295. 294 Scobie (1986), p. 406-407. 295 Luigi Pedroni, “Per una lettura verticale della Forma Urbis Marmorea”, Ostraka, No. 1, 1992, p. 223-230. The origin of the idea that the bisecting bars may indicate floor height came in: Pavils Ziçans, “Über die Haustypen der Forma Urbis”, Opuscula Archaeologica 2, 1941, p. 183-94. A method similar to Pedroni’s, though less refined, was also used in: J.C. Russel, The Control of Late Ancient and Medieval Population (Philadelphia: American Philosophical

Society, Memoris Series 60, 1985).

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the impression that insulae of three or four stories, like those of Juvenal and Martial, were not

uncommon and that the possibly eight story Felicles insula was unusually tall.

4.5 – Floors per Insula, the Archaeological Evidence

Perhaps the archaeological record will allow a more certain basis for conjecturing the

height of Roman insulae. On this point we may start by recognizing that the physical remains of

high-rises have been discovered in Carthage, Alexandria, and Syria, therefore showing that the

Italian peninsula was not unique in this regard.296 Packer, working from the hypothesis that wall

thickness can predict building height, established 3.7 as the average number of floors in 167

insulae of Ostia, the primary port of Rome.297 Storey, however, has shown that wall thickness

does not consistently predict building height. This is because the wall thicknesses of different

sized buildings are not distinct enough to differentiate, say, between a two or three story

building.298 Moreover, as Meiggs has pointed out, the Roman engineers and builders tended to

opt for thicker walls than was strictly necessary. Though Meiggs nonetheless agrees that the

average height was probably closer to four floors than three among Ostian insulae.299

The Ostian evidence, then, offers no hard data on building height, though the

impression of experts in Ostian archaeology is that the insulae of that town were probably

three or four floors high. There are a handful of Roman insulae that have survived in one form

or another into our own time which Packer identifies. In all, he finds evidence for seven insulae

that have survived long enough to provide an archaeological record, though one of them which

was found on the Via della Lungarina is no longer existent, having been demolished in 1877.300

Of these seven, two were at least three and quite possibly four stories high, three were four or

296 McKay (1975), p. 83-85. 297 Packer (1971), p. 80-90. 298 In Pompeii there is an example where the wall thickness of a two and three story structure was different by only 1 cm. Part of the problem is that the function seems to have played an important role in wall thickness as did building techniques. Industrial uses, for example, could require thicker walls: Storey (1992), p. 348-352. 299 Meiggs (1973) p. 241, 533. 300 James E. Packer, “Housing and Population in Imperial Ostia and Rome”, The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 57, No. 1/2 (1967), p. 80-81.

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five floors high, and two were at least five stories in height.301 It may be telling that no surviving

insula remains are under three floors, while the average height of the surviving insulae is four

or more floors high. Nonetheless, seven examples are far too few to extrapolate to the entire

city.302

Our most plentiful evidence on the height of Roman buildings comes from the depiction

of staircases on Roman maps, especially the Forma Urbis Romae (FUR). For comparison in

relation to the city of Rome, we have four surviving sources: the FUR, a drawing of a map

fragment showing a portion of a Roman town, now lost, that was found in Amelia in Umbria, a

marble fragment probably depicting a section of Ostia found in the cemetery of Portus-Isola

Sacra, and an urban map fragment depicting the temple of Castor and Pollux in Rome found on

the Via Anicia in Rome in 1983.303 It was a common practice of ancient Roman marble maps to

depict internal staircases, that is, staircases that are indoors, with a V-shaped symbol as

opposed to those outside, which were denoted by a rectangular figure with numerous

lengthwise lines.304 The V-shaped internal staircases are of particular importance to our present

investigation, especially the possibility that the number of bisecting lines in the triangular

staircases denote the number of floors present in the buildings where they appear. There are

examples of these staircases with multiple bisecting lines in all three of the above mentioned

301 Our shortest structures are possibly two though more likely three or four story insulae off the Via Nova near the

forum Romanum: ibid. p. 81. There is a structure of at least four stories visible within the remains of the Church of SS John and Paul: G. Calza, 'La preeminenza dell' "insula" nella edilizia romana', Mon. Ant. 23 (1916), pp. 544-608, p. 575-6; Ernest Nash; Pictorial dictionary of ancient Rome (London: 1968), p. 232-3, 357-61. The imprint of a four or five story structure is left in the Aurelian wall near the Porta Tiburtina: Packer (1967), p. 77. One structure of at

least four stories was discovered by Girri in the Galleria Colonna: E. Gatti, “Scoperte di antichit'a a Piazza Colonna”, NSc (I9I7), pp. 9-20. The first of the insulae with a confirmed fifth floor is located near the Trajanic market: Glenn R. Storey, “The ‘Skyscrapers’ of the Ancient Roman World.” Latomus, 1 (2003), pp. 3-26, p. 9. Finally, there is the Ara Coeli insula, a building of at least six stories: Packer, “Housing”, p. 81. 302 Further effecting the representativeness of these Roman insulae is the fact that they were all brick buildings, whereas, as Graham points out, at least some insulae in the city of Rome were partially or wholly of wood construction: Shawn Graham, “Counting bricks and stacking wood: providing the physical fabric”, in: Paul Erdkamp

(ed.), Cambridge Companion to Ancient Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 278-296, p. 282. 303 Jennifer Trimble. “Process and Transformation on the Severan Marble Plan of Rome.” in: Richard Talbert; Richard Unger. Cartography in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Boston: Brill, 2008). Pp. 67-98, p. 68-69, with notes; for the Via Anicia fragment: Emilio Almeida, Formae Urbis Antiquae: Le Mappe Marmoree di Roma Tra La

Repubblica e Settimio Severo (Rome, 2002), p. 45, fig. 15. For the Umbria fragment: ibid, p. 52, fig. 17. For the Ostian fragment, ibid. p. 58, fig. 19. 304 Ibid, p. 79, with notes.

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map fragments (one internal staircase with six bisecting lines on the Via Anicia fragment; one

internal staircase with four and one with five on the Umbria fragment, and one staircase

marker with at least three in the Ostia fragment as well as two staircases with one bisecting

line).

Both on the FUR and on the other Roman maps, some of these triangular staircase

markers have horizontal bisecting lines. As Pedroni argues, these lines seem to designate the

number of floors within the buildings where the staircase is present.305 A triangle with no lines

represents only a second story; a triangle with one line, a second and third; a triangle with two

lines, a second, third and fourth, and so on. In my findings, collected in appendix I, I discovered

evidence for staircase indicators with zero, one, two, three, four, five, and seven horizontal

bars. These translate to two, three, four, five, six, seven, and nine story buildings respectively

according to Pedroni’s hypothesis. In all, I have found 304 staircases on the FUR (results

collected in Appendix 1): 221 with no horizontal bars, thirteen with one, 24 with two, 21 with

three, thirteen with four, nine with five, and three with seven. The average height of internal

staircases as indicated by the surviving FUR data, therefore, is 2.8 floors.

The FUR staircase data requires some interpretation, however. For an example of just

how tenuous the FUR data is we may see that one of the larger fragment sets, 37Aa-l, accounts

for two per cent of our two story, 31 per cent of three story, 29 per cent of four story, 40 per

cent of five story, 31 per cent of six story, and eleven per cent of seven story structures.

Without this one fragment cluster, our average floors for buildings with staircase indicators

goes from just under 2.8 to 2.6, whereas if we add another fragment set like this, our average

becomes 2.9. These may not seem like tectonic shifts at first glance, but when applied to the

entire city, a .1 alteration in the average number of floors can result in a difference of tens of

thousands of residents. Nor are these empty hypotheses, for we do indeed lack evidence for

areas of the city that are described in the literary sources as densely populated.306

305 Pedroni (1992), p. 223-230. 306 The Carinae is probably the best example of this. The ancient sources complain that the buildings in this area were so high that they enshrouded the area in a permanent darkness: Livy 36.37.2; Dionysius of Halicarnassus,

1.68.1.

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I have a suspicion that the FUR data, as we have it, underrepresents the reality. There

are many buildings that have no staircase indicators for instance, a phenomenon which seems

inexplicable. In the existing fragments of the Subura region, very few of the buildings have

internal staircase markers, despite the reputation of this region as being densely populated.307

In Ostia, the physical remains show that the majority, if not the vast majority, of Ostian

tabernae were part of an insula structure, with rooms integrated around and above them.308

Are we to imagine that this was not the case in Rome? Did Rome have more room to spare, that

they could afford to have single-story tabernae without rooms above? I find such notions hard

to credit.

I would be remiss if I did not mention a comparison between the Via Anicia fragment

and the FUR that may be relevant on this point. The FUR fragments 32ghi corresponds with the

same space as the surviving fragment of the Via Anicia, yet on the latter there is an internal

staircase with seven bisecting lines, indicating in Pedroni’s theory a nine story structure.309

These maps may not have been created in the same time period and the discrepancy between

them could be explained by the fact that the tall building in the Via Anicia fragment simply did

not exist in the time when the FUR was constructed. Nonetheless, the foot print of the buildings

appears identical and the possibility remains that the creators of the FUR left it out, either by

error or by design.

Also, the staircase data from the FUR seems inconsistent and I fear that our 304

staircase sample that the FUR offers may not be representative. This is because the distribution

does not fit what one would expect. There are more four, five and six story structures than

three story structures, for instance, which intuitively does not sound right. If Rome was going to

tend toward buildings with fewer floors, would we not expect to have a somewhat inverted

exponential progression? Instead, what we see is a preponderance of two story buildings,

307 The Subura is depicted on a number of fragments: Najbjerg (2016), 10aa, 10Aab, 10abcde, 10f, 10g, 10h, 10 lm, 10n, 10opqr, 10tu, 10v, 11a, 11b, 11c, 11d, 16a, 26. Admittedly, our picture of the Subura is mediated primarily

through poets such as Martial and Juvenal and so exaggeration is a real concern: Martial, Epigrams, 7.31, 12.18; Juvenal, 11.50-51, 3.5-9. 308 Claire Holleran; Shopping in Ancient Rome: The Retail Trade in the Late Republic and the Principate (United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 109-110, with notes. 309 For the correlation of the Via Anicia fragment and the FUR 32 ghi see: Trimble (2008), p. 73.

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almost no three story buildings and then a roughly inverted exponential progression thereafter

with the exception of eight story buildings, which do not appear on the surviving portions of the

FUR. The drop off between buildings with two and three stories is so drastic that it is difficult to

reconcile the data. To attain something resembling an inverted exponential progression we

would need many more three story buildings on the FUR, somewhere in the neighbourhood of

80.

So then, our evidence for the height of Roman insulae may be summed up. In

connection to multiple dwellings, the literary sources never explicitly mention an insula with

less than three stories, though examples of buildings with as many as eight stories are alluded

to. The archaeological remains, though severely limited, strengthen this image somewhat with

an average of around four floors for the seven Roman examples. The FUR data, probably our

strongest evidence, presents a wide range of building heights from one to nine stories, with an

average of slightly under three stories for Roman staircases, the vast majority of which seem to

have been connected to insulae. Some key factors do call this data into question, though, and

suggest a higher, all be it slightly higher average. Informed by such considerations, I would

place the probable Roman norm at three floors.

Seeing as how most estimates for Ostia offer a four story average, however, and given

that the literary evidence paints a cityscape of tall buildings, we might assume that an upward

range of four to be possible. Conversely, Storey is certainly correct that the FUR represents

many buildings with no staircases, a fact which may imply single-floor structures; it is therefore

conceivable that two floor structures represent the Roman insula average.310 Consequently, we

have a range of the possible consisting of two to four floors, with a probable three floor

average. Now, by multiplying the areal footprint of Roman insulae by the number of floors

typical to this building type, the total indoor residential space of Rome’s insulae can be

ascertained. The range of the possible supports an indoor space between 10,469,200m2 to

23,929,600m2, with a probable estimate approximating 17,272,803m2.

310 Storey (2003), p. 16-23; Glenn Storey. “Housing and Domestic Architecture.” In: Paul Erdkamp (ed.). Cambridge

Companion to Ancient Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 151-168, p. 156.

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4.6 - Floor Area per Person Statistics in Comparative Cultures and their Application in Rome

Our next hurdle is to conjecture an average floor area per person for Roman insulae.

Whereas little work has been done on the floor area statistics of preindustrial cities, much has

been done on estimating the use of floor space in hunter-gatherer cultures. Naroll’s pioneering

study, measuring eighteen such groups, estimated 10m2 as an approximate constant.311

Kramer’s work in the Middle East substantiates Naroll’s hypothesis, finding 9.75m2 per person

in the domiciles of a Kurdish village, Shāhābād, in western Iran.312 Others place the figure

lower, however; at 6m2 and 6.12m2 by Brown and Kolb respectively. 313 A still lower space

figure is imagined by Casselberry, who finds that the Iroquois housed 35 people in their 130m2

wooden long houses, just 3.7m2 per person. Cook and Heizer yield 3.02m2 in their study of the

impermanent housing of some 30 Native-American tribes of the California region.314 Of course,

while I do not think it appropriate to apply the floor space statistics of hunter-gatherer societies

to Severan Rome this evidence is nonetheless valuable in that it shows us how little space

people actually need when the majority of their lives were lived out of doors in much the

manner that many Roman’s lived.315

Scholarship has provided some estimates of floor space per person for two Roman

cities, Rome itself and Ostia. Beginning with Ostia, we see in the work of Calza an estimate of

311 Raoul, Naroll; "Floor Area and Settlement Population." American Antiquity. 27(4), 1962; pp. 587-589. 312 Carol Kramer. "An Archaeological View of a Contemporary Kurdish Village: Domestic Architecture, Household Size and Wealth." In Carol Kramer (ed.). Ethnoarchaeology: Implications of Ethnography for Archaeology (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979), pp. 139-163, p. 158. 313 B. M. Brown; "Floor Area and Population Size: A Worldwide Cross Cultural Study." Paper presented to the 48th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1983; C. Kolb; et all. "Demographic Estimates in Archaeology: Contributions from Ethnoarchaeology on Mesoamerican Peasants."

Current Anthropology. 26(5), 1985: pp. 581-599, p. 590. 314 S. F. Cook; and Robert F. Heizer. "Relationships among Houses, Settlement Areas, and Population in Aboriginal California." In K.C Chang (ed.), Settlement Archaeology. (Palo Alto, California: National Press Books, 1968), pp. 79-116, p. 90-94. 315 As Packer points out, Roman’s, especially poor Romans, did not live in their houses during the waking hours. These they spent working at their jobs, eating in restaurants, enjoying themselves in the numerous baths, theaters or they may while away the hours chatting in the forum and listening to court cases: Packer (1971), p. 74.

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26m2 of indoor space per person.316 It is imperative to point out that this estimate includes

walls, rooms, halls, open courts and gardens; essentially any domestic space.317 Calza’s 26 m2

per person figure is somewhat arbitrary, however, so it would be useful to contextualize it. For

comparison, we may look to the United Nations Population Division (UNPD), which, working

from data collected from 188 cities in 1990-1995, undertook to gather the floor area per person

for 37 countries with sufficient data. 318 As noted above, the UNPD calculates floor area by

measuring all in-door space (inclusive of walls) as well as courtyards and verandas.319 So then,

Calza’s estimate of 26m2 per person for Roman Ostia displays levels of space only equaled by six

countries in the UNPD study. Denmark (51m2), Germany (36.2m2), Greece (26m2), Hungary

(29.4m2), Norway (38.3m2), and Sweden (50m2) and approached by two more, the Czech

Republic (25.5m2) and Spain (25.6m2).320 This would suggest that Calza’s Ostia was on par in

terms of floor space per person with many modern European countries circa the 1990’s, a

contention which this author finds highly dubious.321 Indeed, Angel and Mayo have found that

floor area per person tracks with economic development. The higher the development, the

more floor area per person. Are we to think, then, that Roman Ostia approached the economic

development of many modern European countries? I think not. Furthermore, in those

countries with more than 20m2 per person, Angel and Mayo found that the vast majority in

industrialized states, which ancient Rome certainly was not.322 Calza’s estimate for Roman

Ostia, then, is problematic in its own right and certainly should not be applied to Rome, the

population density of which was proverbial in the ancient world. We must, therefore, disregard

it.

316 The estimate is a guess: Meiggs (1973), p. 532-534; This space statistic, like the UNPD floor area per person metric, includes all walls, courtyards and the like: Calza; Gismondi; Lugli (1941), p. 150-2, 156-159. 317 Ibid. 318 United Nations Population Division, “Charting the Progress of Populations: XII. Floor Area per Person”, p. 79-83. The study could not offer more comprehensive data for lack of evidence in many countries and it is worthy of note

that many of the regions that probably have the most area per person, such as North America and Western Europe, are only lightly represented. 319 UNPD, “XII”, p. 83. 320 See table XX 321 For one thing, modern residences in the western world almost universally have washrooms, kitchens, and often recreation room/s in addition to sleeping quarters. Moreover, people in modern-day Europe, with the exception of couples, tend to have their own bedrooms, which was probably not the case in Rome. 322 Shlomo Angel; Stephen K. Mayo. “ASEAN Urban Housing Sector Performance: A Comparative Perspective”, in: T.

G. McGee; Ira M. Robinson; Mega Urban Regions of Southeast Asia (UBS Press, 1995), pp. 109-132, p. 117-120.

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Table 4.1: United Nations study of floor area per person, 1990-1995.323

323 UNPD (2000), p. 85-96.

Continent Location Area per Person (m2)

Africa Cameroon 9.6

Africa Congo 12.6 Africa Djibouti 13.1

Africa Ghana 5.5 Africa Madagascar 5.8

Africa Morocco 10

Africa Namibia 3.5 Africa Tunisia 12

Africa Zambia 6.4 Asia Azerbaijan 12.3

Asia Georgia 18.2 Asia Indonesia 14.4

Asia Israel 28

Asia Nepal 14.4 Asia Pakistan 1.3

Asia Philippines 22.8 Asia Turkey 18.2

Europe Albania 8 Europe Belarus 19.5

Europe Bulgaria 16.7

Europe Croatia 22.1 Europe Czech Republic 25.5

Europe Denmark 51 Europe Estonia 21.3

Europe Germany 36.2 Europe Greece 26

Europe Hungary 29.4

Europe Latvia 19.4 Europe Lithuania 16.2

Europe Norway 38.3 Europe Poland 18.2

Europe Republic of Moldova 18.4 Europe Russian Federation 17.7

Europe Slovakia 22.3

Europe Spain 25.6 Europe Sweden 50

Latin America Chile 14.4

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Another estimate, this time directly concerning Rome, is offered by Storey, who

recognized a peculiar relationship in Native-American tribes of California studied by Cook and

Heizer. Namely, Storey noticed that in the data provided, as the spatial footprint of a building

increased, so too did the average floor area per person for those living in that building.324 In

demography, this is called an allometric relationship. Allometry defines the relationship

between two variables, say y and x, where y is a constant fraction of a relative change in x. In

this specific example, y is floor space per person and x is building size; as x goes up, y, too,

increases. He therefore hypothesizes that if larger buildings have more space per occupant,

then Rome, with buildings that were much larger than other preindustrial societies, should

have a correspondingly larger average floor area per person. Now Storey, applying this theory

and following Shea, further applies the statistical technique of bootstrapping to come to a

spectrum of floor space figures ranging from 4.57m2 to 19.39m2 with an average corresponding

to Naroll’s 10m2.325 In Shea’s opinion, this spectrum ought to cover the vast majority of spatial

arrangements.326 The former of these, Shea posits, represents preindustrial settlements, while

the latter signifies the floor space per person of what he calls complex societies. Storey in turn,

rounds this figure to 20m2 for ease of use and applies it to Rome.327

Is Shea’s method born out in the evidence? Upon the first contention, that a larger

building should, on average, have a higher floor area per person, we have recourse to

Schwerdtfeger’s study of three African cities: Zaria, Ibadan, and Marrakech.328 What we see in

these cities does not bode well for Shea’s theory and in turn Storey’s application of it. In Zaria,

a household of one or two people is 17.2m2 (8.6-17.2m2 per person), whereas a house of eleven

324 Storey (1992), p. 93-94; Cook and Heizer (1968), p. 94. At the one end of the house-size spectrum there are six

persons with 1.8 square meters floor area per person, but as residents are added the floor area does not increase at a rate of 1.8m2, but rather 9.3m2. 325 Daniel Shea (1985), p. 594. 326 Ibid; Storey (1992), p. 93-96. Bootstrapping is a method of computer statistics that tests the accuracy of a given data set through random sampling: Bradley Efron; Robert J. Tibshirani; An Introduction to the Bootstrap (New York: Chapman and Hall, 1993) p. 10-15. 327 Storey (1992), p. 94-97. 328 Storey, himself, argues that these cities are good models for preindustrial urban centers, because of their traditional housing style and lack of modern facilities and amenities, a fact which was truer in 1982, when Schwerdtfeger’s study was published: Storey (1992), p. 89-90.

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or twelve occupants is 118.4 m2 (9.9-10.8m2). In Ibadan one to two people share a 13.6m2

house (6.8-13.6m2 per person) and eleven to twelve have 106.4m2 (8.9-9.7m2). Marrakech sees

one or two inhabitants having 27.7m2 (13.85-27.7m2 each person), whereas households of nine

or ten have 69.3m2 (6.93-7.7m2). Even in Zaria where there is some potential of increasing

space with the increased building size, the difference is small, and therefore indicates little

validity in Shea’s model. Moreover, in the case of Ibadan and Marrakech, it appears that the

average floor space per person directly invalidates the model, with the statistic actually

decreasing as the building size grows.329

But what of the second tenant of Shea’s theory, namely the cross-cultural floor area per

person statistic for complex preindustrial societies of 19.39m2? To check this we can look once

again at the 37 countries with floor area per person statistics in the UNPD study. Taken in

aggregate, the average floor area per person of these places is 19.03m2, remarkably close to

Shea’s ‘complex society’ figure, which Storey would have us apply to Rome. This may seem

more powerful than it actually is, however, for there are only seven countries (Georgia, 18.2m2;

Turkey, 18.2m2; Belarus, 19.5m2; Estonia, 21.3m2; Latvia, 19.4m2; Poland, 18.2m2; and the

Republic of Moldova, 18.4 m2) that are well represented by Shea’s figure. Indeed, the average

of 19.03m2 in the UNPD study represents a wide spectrum of disparate values. Pakistan exists

at one end of the spectrum, with very cramped conditions, just 1.3m2 per person, a value which

is smaller even than the floor area per person of the preindustrial hunter-gatherers in the

studies of Naroll, Casselberry, and Cook and Heizer, while Denmark populates the other end of

the scale, enjoying an average of 51m2 of floor area per person. Moreover, the African evidence

of Schwerdtfeger, which Storey champions as excellent comparative material for preindustrial

cities, refutes Shea and Storey’s claim, as averages are under 10m2 across the board.330 We

must, therefore, abandon Shea’s ‘one size fits all’ approach and conclude that Rome’s domestic

floor space per person was likely under 20m2 per person.

329 For a brief analysis of the trend: Friedrich W. Schwerdtfeger, Traditional Housing in African Cities: A

Comparative Study of Houses in Zaria, Ibadan, And Marrakech (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1982), p. 285. For Zaria: Ibid. p. 60-61; for Ibadan: ibid, p. 150; for Marrakech: ibid, p. 243. 330 Storey (1992), p. 89.

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Perhaps the aforementioned African evidence as interpreted by Schwerdtfeger will

provide some insights for the situation in Rome. Of the three cities studied by Schwerdtfeger,

the floor area statistic was highest in Zaria, where it was 9.8m2 per person.331 Whereas Storey

is correct to point out that Zaria, Ibadan, and Marrakech are similar to Rome in their use of

traditional housing and in the general lack of modern amenities, the comparison is still far from

perfect.332 The primary form of housing in these African states is a square or rectangular

compound, usually without a second story, with primary doors opening onto a courtyard.333

Therefore, there are three main barriers to using the African evidence as representative of

Rome; namely: the percentage of the population which was made up of children,334 the lack of

any insulae-esque buildings in the African evidence,335 and the lower commercial presence in

the African states as compared to Rome.336 All three of these factors would produce a lower

population figure. In consideration of this, we should conclude that Rome’s average floor area

per person was probably larger than Zaria’s 9.8m2, but how much larger is still at issue.

What conclusions can we draw so far? Rome’s insulae were probably less spacious than

the cities of Europe in the 1990s, which are around 20m2 and higher. At the same time, Roman

insulae were probably more spacious than the African cities of Schwerdtfeger’s study, which

were 10m2 and lower. These, then, shall suffice to bracket our range of the possible. Perhaps

331 Schwerdtfeger (1982), p. 25. 332 Storey (1992), p. 89. 333 Almost all housing follows this basic model, though minor variations are numerous: Schwerdtfeger (1982), p. 215-222. 334 Using the same life structure table referenced above in our study of the plebs frumentaria, we see that around 31 per cent of Rome’s population was likely fourteen years of age or younger: See notes 118 and 120. In Zaria, on the other hand, the percentage is much higher, 46.7 per cent in 1968, Schwerdtfeger’s most recent data. Similar levels are seen in the other cities studied, with Ibadan showing 41.3 per cent and Marrakech 44.6 per cent

fourteen or under. This, I believe, would have the effect of shrinking the average floor space per person in comparison to Rome as children are not likely to have their own apartment or room amongst low income people; rather, space would have been made for them in the room of their parents. Also the very young, those under five

years of age for example, probably shared the bed of their parents. For Zaria: Schwerdtfeger (1982), p. 25; Ibadan: ibid. p. 120; Marrakech: ibid. p. 212. 335 Schwerdtfeger (1982), p. 215-222. 336 We see that in none of the three African cities did the space dedicated to commercial activities exceed four per

cent. Commercial activities in Rome, conversely, were ubiquitous. This would have the effect of producing more cramped living condition in the African cities, because there is less space being taken up by non-residential activities.

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engaging with the Roman evidence may suggest a figure between these two that can act as our

range of the probable by embracing the socio-economic and cultural peculiarities of insulae-

living in the Eternal City.

4.7 - Floor Area per Person Statistics for Insulae, the Roman Evidence

We have every reason to believe that Rome’s population density was quite high. There

are numerous indications of this. For one, rent was high and there was no legal limit to the

number of occupants who could share a room.337 Further, demand for space appears high as is

attested by the plethora of improvised shelters, in which Rome’s destitute were forced to

house themselves. These came in many shapes and sizes. There were boarding houses as well

as the self-made tuguria and casae, which approximate what in modern parlance would be

called a ‘shanty’ or ‘lean-to’. These could pop up in any nook or cranny, even on top of public

buildings.338 Furthermore, people were found to sleep in the more spacious tombs of the

wealthy339 and, weather permitting, outside, perhaps like Ammianus suggests, under the

awnings of a theater.340

Of course, we lack hard figures for the population of Rome at the turn of the third

century CE, the Severan period. Much can be inferred, however, from the literary and

archaeological evidence. Martial, though writing in the late first century CE, is keen to tell us

337 Scobie (1986) p. 430-31. There are many indications that Roman rent was high. Diodorus explicitly evokes the high rents of Rome when he mentions that an exiled Ptolemy, with three slaves and one eunuch attendant, was forced to share the rent of a small place with a Greek scholar: Diodorus 31.18.2. Moreover, ownership of insulae were viewed as highly profitable: Plutarch, Crassus, 2.5; Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae, 15.1.3; Juvenal, 3.164-170. If

Caesar’s remittance of rent to a maximum of 2,000 sesterces per person for Rome and only 500 sesterces for the rest of Italy is any indication, the average rent in Rome was higher than elsewhere in the peninsula: Suetonius, Caesar, 38.2; Cassius Dio, 42.51.1. 338 G., Hermansen. Ostia: Aspects of Roman City Life (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 1982) p. 190-210; for the turguria and casae: Dio Chrysostom; Earnest Cary (tr.), Discourses (Loeb Classical Library, 1946) 40.8-9; Justinian, Digesta, 43.8.2.17; Theodosius; Clyde Pharr (tr.), in collaboration with Theresa S. Davidson and Mary B. Pharr, The Theodosian Code and Novels and the Sirmondian Constitutions, a Translation with a Commentary,

Glossary and Bibliography (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1952) 15.1.39. 339 Justinian, Digesta, 47.12.3.6; Russell Meiggs (1973), p. 460-462. 340 Ammianus Marcellinus, 14.6.25.

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just how cramped and small the accommodations of these insulae could be. He describes them

using the word, cella, which, in this context, denotes a small single room apartment.341 These

cellae could be located on any and all floors of an insula, though we may imagine that these

were most prevalent in the upper stories, especially the third or higher, which, as we have

established, were the least desirable.342

Though not actually an insula, the aforementioned domus of Marcus Aemilius Scaurus

contains many good examples of small rooms (10m2 or under), possibly cellae in its basement,

which, considering what we have discussed about room sharing, were probably occupied by

multiple people.343 This is highly conjectural but seems likely given our evidence.

Scobie, studying the unhygienic conditions of ancient Rome’s slums, shows supporting

evidence.344 The smallest rooms in Ostia were only 10-12 m2, similar to the smallest rooms

located on the second floor of the House of Diana, perhaps the most intact insula of Roman

Ostia.345 Reynolds finds the vigils, Rome’s night watchmen, housed ten men to 36 m2 (3.6 m2

each of sleeping area).346 Such a floor area statistic is quite low, but was probably not

uncommon amongst Rome’s poor. Indeed, Martial describes a room where even the height of

the ceiling was limited, as one had to stoop when entering it.347

The Ara Coeli insula, the only substantially intact insula within the city of Rome, was at

least six stories high. Four of these six remain intact enough to offer a layout and definitively

show that cramped accommodations similar to those just described or worse existed in Rome.

On the first story of this insula there are seven, mezzanine-topped tabernae. The second floor is

a number of multi-room suites, around 60m2 in size each. Above this, on the third floor, there

are six medium-sized units of around 50m2. While on the fourth floor, which is preserved very

341 Martial, 3.30; 3.48; 7.20; 8.14. 342 Suetonius, De grammaticis et rhetoribus, 9. 343 Eva Margareta Steinby, Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae, Volume 2, D-G (Rome: Edizoni Quasar, 1995), p.392, fig. 8. 344 Scobie (1986), p. 427-433. 345 Giancarla Girri, La Taberna nel Quadro urbanistico e sociale di Ostia, Rome. L'Erma di Bretschneider, 1956. p. 6. 346 P.K. Baillie Reynolds, The Vigiles of Imperial Rome (London: Ares Publishing, 1974) p. 110-112. 347 Martial, Epigrammata, 2.53.

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well, we see eleven small cellae and one larger room. The largest room was around 40m2 and

the smallest 11m2 with the majority being perhaps 12 or 13m2 each.348 Packer, in his study of

this building, imagines 130 people on the first four floors.349 Packer came to this total by

applying a blanket average of four people to each room/suite. Storey argued against this model

on the grounds that the cellae on the fourth floor and the multi-room suites of the second floor

would probably not have had the same number of occupants, a contention which I endorse. For

the larger rooms of the lower stories, Storey envisions one or two families to each, ranging in

size from three to seven.350 For the cellae of the fourth story he envisions “single occupants,

couples, or very small families”, a group that may have slaves included easily enough.351

Perhaps 1-4 occupants, tending toward the lower end, is fair.352 All in all, Storey suggests that

we bracket the likely number of occupants of these floors as between 100 and 150.353 Now, the

surviving portions of Ara Coeli insula have an approximate collective floor area of 2,000 m2,

which, when inhabited by 100 and 150 souls, produce a floor space per person of 13.3 and

20m2, respectively. Packer’s estimate of 130 people produces a 15.4m2 per person. Storey’s

range is a reasonable one to my mind and Packer’s estimate falls between these extremes,

perhaps representing a fair compromise.

So far we have focused on the compact and cramped accommodations of Rome’s poor,

which speak to an average floor area per person of perhaps 15m2, though this figure is

tenuously based on limited evidence. Further considerations are necessary, however, for Rome

was a dichotomous city, where the ancient world’s wealthiest men lived right alongside the

severely poor of Rome’s slums. In one of his many letters, Seneca describes the experience of a

certain Pedo Albinovanus, who lived over the home of a Sextus Papinius, neither of whom could

348 Amanda Claridge. Rome: An Oxford Archaeological Guide (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 233, fig. 107. 349 These inhabitants would have had some access to other living area such as courtyards and other common areas, but this would not likely have a tremendous effect. James Packer. "La casa di Via Giulio Romano," Bullettino della Commissione archeologica comunale di Roma 81 (1968-1969), pp. 127-148, p. 147. 350 Storey (1992), p. 366-7. 351 Storey (1992), p. 366-7. 352 Storey (1992), p. 366-7. 353 Storey (1992), p. 366.

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have been poor.354 One imagines something like the house of a wealthy gentleman in Ostia,

which Hermansen describes. In one two-floor suite there were large rooms, ample windows,

marble floors, and running water.355 Such suites were not uncommon in Ostia, nor, surely,

could they have been in Rome.356 Indeed, the second and third stories of the Ara Coeli insula,

which we have just described contained larger accommodations, probably populated by

wealthier tenants. We must keep in mind, as Vitruvius comments, that it was the higher

portions of buildings that tended to be partitioned off into smaller rooms.357 Seneca, during a

stay at the villa of a certain Vatia in Baiae, imagines himself living above a bath and we should

not make the mistake of supposing that he thinks of a 10 m2 room, like the paupers of those

insulae discussed above.358 Sulla, too, during the pecuniary difficulties of his youth, lived in an

apartment costing 3,000 sesterces, no average insula-dweller could ever hope to afford such

accommodations and we should suppose that they were relatively spacious, albeit not

luxurious for a man of Sulla’s birth.359

What might we expect to find in the insulae of wealthier Romans? To a certain extent

the near ubiquitous presence of tabernae on the ground floors of insulae and the presence of

slaves in the richer insulae suites will limit how spacious these structures can be, even for

wealthy Romans. Let us imagine a hypothetical three-story insula, a square ten meters on a side

for 100 m2 to each floor.360 Let us further imagine that the first floor had four tabernae, plain

single room affairs. Given that these are single-room tabernae and therefore must be expected

to hold goods or a workshop as well as their inhabitants, it is fair to reckon their occupancy at

one to three persons. This makes for a population on the first floor of between four and twelve

or 8.3-25m2 per person of floor area. The second floor contains a well-off family unit of four to

354 Seneca, Epistulae Morales, 122.14-16. 355 Hermansen (1978), p. 39-41. 356 Packer (1971), p. 7-14; 66. If we were right to place around 2,000 equites in Rome, then we must imagine some upper class insulae dwellings, for so many could not all have had domus. See note 165, above. 357 Vitruvius, de Arhitectura, 2.8.17. Note that the reading is not secure, see note 259, above. 358 Seneca, Epistulae Morales, 56. 359 Plutarch, Life of Sulla, 1.4. Marcus Caelius rented an insula of Publius Clodius for 10,000 sesterces, a fantastic sum to most classes: Cicero, Pro Caelio, 17. 360 It ought to be mentioned too that the wealthier insulae within the Ostian evidence, the garden houses, appear to have had fewer floors than their more economic counterparts, but I assume that such buildings were probably

less prevalent in Rome than in Ostia, hence my assumption of three stories here.

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seven, once family members and slaves are included, for 14.3-25m2 per person. The third floor

contains some poorer members of society and consequently space begins to become more

cramped, perhaps like the fourth floor of the Ara Coeli insula, say 14m2 to a person. In such a

scheme we have an overall floor area range of 11.5-20m2 per person, yet we have still allowed

for the elements that we typically see in the Roman and Ostian evidence of insulae as well as

accommodation for wealthier inhabitants. All in all, one may take the higher end of the

spectrum here offered, 20.5m2, to imply a significantly higher average scenario, but we must

recognize that the vast majority of Rome’s inhabitants were certainly not wealthy and thus the

true impact of upper-class insulae will necessarily be circumscribed. With all this in mind, even a

generous estimate of the floor area per person for an average insula could not much exceed

17m2 per person and was probably somewhat closer to 15m2. Of course, our evidence is limited

and so any estimate that goes beyond our range of the possible (10-20m2) requires substantial

speculation. This said, to my mind 15-17m2 well represents a probable range, based on the

impressions garnered from the evidence available to us.

In conjunction with our contentions enumerated above concerning the areal footprint

and verticality of Roman insulae, it is now possible to conjecture population totals for the

inhabitants of this building type. Considering what we have established for our range of the

possible, a population of 523,460 to 2,392,960 insularii results. Our range of the probable

predicts a far more circumscribed total, 1,016,047 to 1,233,772 insularii. It is immediately

apparent, then, that like my estimate for the population of Rome derived from the number of

grain dole recipients, my estimate based on the physical evidence of the city, primarily the FUR,

questions the orthodox opinion established by Beloch and propagated by later scholars that

Rome did not far exceed one million people, though such a condition is certainly within the

realm of the possible. This impression will no doubt be intensified when the populations of

tabernae and domus are added to our insulae figure.

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4.8 – The Number of Floors in Roman Domus

Moving from the population of Rome’s insulae to the population of its domus, the

number of floors in the latter housing must be known. It is probably the case that most domus

were single story affairs, though we do know of some two story domus.361 Cicero, for example,

in a letter to Atticus, makes the upper floor of his domus available to a certain Alexis, a slave

and the amanuensis of Cicero’s dear friend Atticus who had fallen ill.362 Additionally, according

to a drawing of FUR fragment 20b, though the imperial palace should not be taken as

representative, there was at least one staircase in that domus.363 As George points out,

evidence of upper stories either in the form of partial surviving floors or surviving staircases is

relatively common in the domus of Pompeii and Herculaneum.364 This evidence requires some

caution, however, as the second story is not usually over the whole house, but only some

portion of it.365

We must also reckon with basements. Though Rome’s subterranean buildings are

woefully under-explored there remains two examples of domus basements, the domus of

Marcus Aemilius Scaurus, which shows no less than 45 small cubicles with bed supports. As

conjectured above, these may well have been slave sleeping cellae; and there is a domus

basement near the Forum Romanum, with eight small rooms of 6m2 or less.366 With all this in

mind we know that the average domus must have somewhat more than one story. Due to the

partial nature of second stories and basements in our evidence, however, we may conclude

that very few domus, if any, had a full extra floor. We may safely say that a possible range

includes 1.1-1.9 stories, though the high end is extremely unlikely in my opinion. One and one

361 Such is the impression we can get from the Ostian evidence at any rate: Meiggs (1973), 252-262. 362 Cicero, Letters to Atticus, 12.10; the multiple stories of Cicero’s house on the Palatine are also mentioned in: Cicero, de Domo, 44.116. 363 Najbjerg, (2016), FUR 20b. 364 Michele George, “Servus and Domus: The Slaves in the Roman House”, in: Laurence, Ray; Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew. Domestic Space in the Roman World: Pompeii and Beyond (Rhode Island: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 1997), pp. 15-24, p. 20-21. 365 The house of Menander in Pompeii is a good example, where a few slave quarters were relegated to an upper story area. Meiggs discusses the problem generally: Meiggs (1973), p. 259. 366 For the basement of Marcus Aemilius Scaurus: Steinby; Lexicon, Volume 2, D-G, p.392, fig. 8. Also see: Carandini, A., Schiavi in Italia: Gli strumenti pensanti dei Romanifra tarda Repubblica e medio Impero (Rome, 1988),

p. 370, fig. 2a. For the basement near the Forum Romanum: Ibid. p. 362, n. 14.

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half floors, the middle of this range, would likely capture the probable figure for Severan-era

domus, though the sketchy archaeological record and the scarcity of domus on the FUR make

this little more than an ill-defined guess. Nonetheless, in conjunction with the heretofore

established estimates for the areal footprint of Roman domus, a range of the possible

extending from 1,645,160m2 to 4,262,460m2 for the indoor floor area of this building type

results. A range of the probable exists between these poles, namely 2,580,599m2 of indoor

space. What remains is to estimate the possible and probable average floor space per person

that might be expected in domus and to divide our indoor floor space figures by these sums.

4.9 – Floor Area per Person in Roman Domus

With estimates of the total indoor floor space of Roman domus, the average floor area

consumed per person in this housing type is needed. As Wallace-Hadrill argues in relation to

Pompeii and Herculaneum, the archaeological evidence cannot be expected to give us exact

information concerning the size of families and households.367 This is equally true, I think, in

relation to the literary evidence. This is because the question is very much influenced by the

presence of slaves and freedmen within Roman domus.368 How many servants were there in

the average domus, for example, and where did they sleep? Michele George sums up the

problem nicely, remarking that while we know that servants were present in Roman domus,

often in quite large numbers, they are mentioned almost not at all in the literature. What is

more, archaeology has produced little concrete evidence to define and describe their lives.369 In

the many domus that have been excavated in Pompeii, Herculaneum, Ostia, and in Rome itself,

for example, anything that could definitively be designated as servant quarters or even spaces

that could function as such are rarely in evidence.370 As I see it, there are two explanations of

367 Wallace-Hadrill (1991), p. 225. 368 Richard Saller, Patriarchy, Property and Death in the Roman Family (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 74; Justinian, 33.2.34. Both freedmen and slaves were housed in Roman domus it would seem, so in

discussions of this I have opted for the umbrella term servants. 369 George (1997), p. 16-24. 370 George (1997), p. 16-19, 24.

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servant sleeping conditions. First, we may imagine, as Storey does, that servants were given

sleeping accommodations within the domus of their masters and their numbers were few

enough that they leave very little archaeological record.371 In contradiction of this, however, it

must be said that our literary and epigraphic evidence suggest a situation wherein there were

many slaves in the domus of wealthy Romans.372 Second, we may imagine as Michelle George

does, that servants were often not assigned sleeping quarters per se, but either slept where

they worked or were accommodated wherever they would fit within the domus.373 I find

George’s hypothesis more believable. In all likelihood, some servants had designated sleeping

areas whereas others slept wherever there was room.

What floor area this bespeaks is still not clear. For only one house, that of Marcus

Aemilius Scaurus, do we have enough evidence to suggest even a conditional floor area per

person statistic.374 Only the foot print and the basement of this domus survive to the present

day. The domus’ spatial footprint measures roughly 1,180m2 (1,900m2 of floor area when the

basement is included). Now, looking at the study of some 234 domus in Pompeii and

Herculaneum, Wallace-Hadrill compiles thirteen size classifications for domus and finds the

average number of rooms for each size cohort; if we may accept a Pompeian or Herculanean

domus as a rough approximate of a Roman one, the main floor of Scaurus’ house may be

estimated to have had 20 rooms.375 These 20, when added to the 50 or so rooms of the

basement give us a picture of roughly 70 rooms for the house as a whole. Assuming one person

per room, a 27m2 per person average results, though depending on the existence and ratio of

room sharing this statistic could be modified considerably.376

371 Storey (1997), p. 972-973. 372 See notes 118 and 120 above. 373 When we consider that tabernae and horrea were inhabited in addition to their other commercial or industrial functions, it is perhaps easier to imagine George’s contention: see note 161. 374 George (1997), p. 16-24. 375 Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 79, table 4.1. 376 Considering what we have already seen concerning the possibility of occupants sharing rooms or beds, it is probable that some or all of the basement quarters accommodated more than one person. Many rooms on the

main floor, on the other hand, may not have accommodated anyone, so one to a room seems a reasonable guess.

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Now, as we have seen, a very large domus might have approached 3,500m2; if one of

these had one and half floors, inclusive of the ground floor, as we have supposed was typical,

then the total area of the house might be 5,250m2. Was it in such a house that Lucius Pedanius

Secundus laid his head, with his four hundred household slaves? Assuming a family size of no

more than ten, perhaps a married couple with children and a limited extended family of

grandparents and siblings, such a house would have had only around 12.8m2 per person.

Though such a low statistic is likely untypical for domus.

The evidence for the size of Roman domus is chiefly archaeological, coming from

excavations as well as the FUR. Together there are fifteen examples of excavated and mapped

domus giving a relatively large average size of 2,716m2.377 Additionally, there are three

townhouse-esque domus in a row on the FUR that are sufficiently intact to be measured, these

are quite a bit smaller, measuring an average of only 675 m2 each.378 Therefore, from our

eighteen cases which can be positively located within the city, an average of 2,377m2 results.

Such statistics may skew the results high, however. It is the nature of archaeology to uncover

large buildings more frequently than small ones, for instance.379 Moreover, certain areas

inhabited by the wealthy, such as the Palatine, have received preferential attention from

archaeologists as a result of their prevalence in our ancient sources.

As a way of supplementing this we may turn to Pompeii and the nearby Herculaneum,

for example, where Wallace-Hadrill has measured 234 domus, finding only two with footprints

exceeding 2,000m2 and only eleven exceeding 1,000m2.380 The average in Walace-Hadrill’s

study is in fact quite small, just 273m2.381 Ostian evidence would corroborate a sub-1,000m2

average domus. In that town, Becatti has measured twelve examples of this building type,

finding an average of roughly 600m2. I have found also that FUR fragments 95a, 95d, and

415abc contain buildings with similar layouts and width, though they do not survive sufficiently

377 E.M. Steinby (1994), p. 391-426. 378 Najbjerg, (2016), FUR 11e. 379 Many small domus such as those examples under 200m2 discovered by Wallace-Hadrill in Pompeii and

Herculaneum would be very difficult to discern in the archaeological remains of modern-day Rome. 380 Wallace-Hadrill (1994), p. 81, table 4.2. 381 Ibid.

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to be measured precisely. Of these 415abc is the largest and is the most intact, indicating a

domus of around 900m2. One fragment appears to depict a large domus, easily exceeding

1,000m2 though any precise measurement is impossible.382 Therefore, in 264 cases where it is

possible to measure domus from the Italian peninsula, there is an average size of 431m2. Now

the range of the possible has hypothesized that there was collective areal footprint of Roman

domus was 1,495,600-2,243,400m2, whereas the range of the probable put this statistic at

1,720,399m2. Therefore, the range of the possible would suggest 3,470-5,205 domus, whereas

the range of the probable would indicate 3,992 buildings of this type within the city.

According to the work of Wallace-Hadrill in Pompeii and Herculaneum, there were

nineteen houses in the 400-499m2 size range, averaging 435m2, very close to the 431m2

average found for domus in Rome, Ostia, Pompeii and Herculaneum. This size cohort averaged

twelve rooms per domus, which could probably be increased somewhat in order to account for

the missing basements and second stories. Perhaps eighteen to 22 rooms per domus of this size

would be a fair range. What average floor space these suppositions denote is unclear, however;

all we can really offer are a series of educated guesses. Though there can be no certainty,

perhaps one person per room may represent the reality; this would mean eighteen to 22

occupants in the average, 431m2 domus. The average domus further has a probable one and a

half stories, thus making 646.5m2 of indoor space and an average space per person of 29.4-

35.9m2.

This figure may well represent a range of the probable, but what would encompass all

reasonable possibilities? As has been noted, the evidence on second stories and basements,

though scant, suggests that average building height among Roman domus varied between 1.1

and 1.9 floors, which translates to 474.1-818.9m2 of indoor floor space. If there was half the

usually hypothesized number of occupants (i.e. one person to every two rooms), then an

average floor area of 43.1-91m2 results, levels which are very high even by modern standards of

space and almost certainly did not exist in Severan Rome. A ratio of one and a half occupants to

every two rooms (.75 persons per room) provides a more manageable, though still quite high

range of 35.1-49.6m2. Conversely, we know that the occupancy rate could not have gone far

382 Najbjerg, (2016), FUR 365.

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over two people per room, a ratio that would produce an average floor space per person of

10.8-22.7m2, for the low end of this hypothesis displays levels not even evinced in insulae,

which were almost surely more densely populated than were domus. Tentatively, then, I would

offer 10.8-49.6m2 as a range of what was possible in regards to the average floor space

consumption in Roman domus.

With such information it is possible to check these ranges against other evidence that

we have from Rome. In an earlier section of this work, it has been conjectured that Augustan

Rome supported, at a maximum, 600 senators and perhaps 2,000 equites along with their

families and extended households, including resident slaves and freedmen.383 Cumulatively, this

group may well have numbered around 80,000.384 It is probably safe to assume that this

situation had not greatly changed in Severan Rome. I further contend that of these 80,000 or

so, the majority would have lived in domus of some description. Assuming that I am correct in

my contention, this would mean that whatever domus floor area statistic is settled upon for

Rome within the Aurelian walls, it ought to allow for around 80,000 people to be housed in the

2,580,599m2 that has been established as the probable collective indoor space of domus. This

could be done with the floor area statistic of around 32.3m2, a number that fits nicely into the

29.4-35.9m2 range of the probable argued above.

Naturally, the guess work involved in this is fundamentally unsatisfying, but no better

method or evidence is readily apparent. Taken with the cumulative indoor space conjectured

above, a possible population range for Roman domus in the time of Septimius Severus between

33,168 and 394,672 results. The range of the probable, on the other hand, is represented by

71,883-87,775 people. These sums, even the low end figures, when combined with the above

hypothesized insularii numbers, enhance our impression that the hypotheses of previous

scholars, which champion one million people as a functional maximum population for the city

of Rome, must be seriously questioned.

383 See notes 118 and 120. It is highly probable, I think, that not all equites owned domus, but there are others that could have made up the difference, such as wealthy freedmen and foreigners. 384 See notes 164 and 165 above.

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4.10 – The Population of Rome’s Tabernae

In addition to the population of domus and insulae, significant numbers of Romans likely

lived in a third housing type, the taberna, a small rectangular or rarely triangular unit with a

wide street side opening. The taberna construction is nearly omnipresent on the FUR, where

tabernae line the street-side outer walls of almost every building depicted thereon. Indeed,

tabernae incase residential, commercial, and industrial buildings; the only structures around

which tabernae appear less frequently are certain major temples and other religious centres

along with some sporting venues, such as the Colosseum. In estimating the population of this

building type, I have counted the tabernae on the surviving 878 incised fragments of the marble

map. In doing so I have classified 5,043 as tabernae units.385 Of course, with the fragmented

nature of the map and with many of the map fragments being in disrepair, there are some

instances of ambiguity, such as in the case of tabernae-esque units that are only partially

present on the fragments which bear them. In instances such as these I have generally erred on

the side of caution and not counted the unit or units in question, despite the fact that they

appear very similar to other tabernae. This is because these ambiguous units could be other

building types that merely look like tabernae in the sections that remain of the FUR, most

notable inner rooms of larger buildings and storage units within horrea. There are occasions,

however, when the context of a fragment strongly suggests that a given unit, though not

absolutely identifiable as a taberna, ought nonetheless to be classified as such; in these

circumstances, I have accepted incomplete tabernae. All in all, I get the impression that my

estimate of 5,043 units is a somewhat low count, but considering that my figure could be high

due to the difficulties of distinguishing between indoor rooms, storage units, and tabernae, all

of which can at times look indistinguishable on the map. I therefore tentatively accept 5,043 as

a reasonable figure. For comparison’s sake we may see that in Ostia, Girri has positively

385 See Appendix II.

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identified 806 shops in the excavated two-thirds of the city, around .45km2, providing a ratio of

1,791 tabernae per km2 for Ostia.386 This is roughly half the ratio I have supposed for Rome.387

Now, considering that we have roughly ten per cent of the original FUR, we might infer

from our 5,043 sample that Rome had somewhere in the neighbourhood of 50,000 tabernae.388

Of course, some might argue that there is no way to know for certain that our ten per cent of

the map is representative of its other areas and they would certainly be correct. Nonetheless, I

think that probability is on our side. The FUR, as it remains, depicts seemingly random

snapshots of neighbourhoods all over the city; such a situation would fit well as a random

sampling of what the city has to offer. Furthermore, the FUR contains numerous depictions of

temples, sporting venues, horrea, domus, insulae, castra, and many other architectural types.

Around all of these types, even integrated into them, tabernae proliferate and there is no

reason to suppose that this was not also true in the parts of the Severan map that have been

lost to us.

For our purposes, we must separate the tabernae that were part of insulae

constructions and the tabernae that lined non-residential buildings, because the former, insula-

type tabernae will be considered part of the insula to which they are attached in our

calculations, whereas the latter are residential units separate and distinct from the buildings

they are adjoined to. The fragmentary state of the FUR does not allow for definite proportions

to be ascertained, but there is a strong impression that the vast majority of tabernae on the

surviving FUR fragments were parts of insulae. Impressions from the FUR, while not able to

proffer exact figures, suggest that perhaps one in five or 1,000 tabernae of the approximate

5,000 sample could safely be classified as non-insula tabernae. This would translate to perhaps

10,000 separate tabernae in the city as a whole.

386 For Girri’s study: Girri (1956), p. 3-5. 387 This should not come as a surprise. It seems natural enough that Rome should be more commercial than Ostia. Space was certainly at a premium in Rome, probably more so than any other urban space in the Roman world; perhaps the only type of real-estate that could afford ground floor space in Rome was the commercial real-estate typical of tabernae. There is also the possibility that Girri failed to identify tabernae. 388 See Appendix II.

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Perhaps because of the ubiquity of the taberna construction, the term ‘taberna’ is

somewhat nebulous and encompasses a multitude of functions. Romans thought about space

in a way that is fundamentally different to our own, a fact which leads to problems of

translation. The separation of commercial, industrial, and residential space is a modern

phenomenon not present in ancient Rome. For example, ‘taberna’ can quite often capture the

sense of a commercial ‘shop’, but tabernae were not limited to retail functions.389 Their other

commercial and industrial purposes included acting as workshops and warehouses.390 Nor were

tabernae solely dedicated to commerce and industry, but could be used simultaneously or

exclusively as residences. In Cicero’s letters to Atticus, for instance, when discussing some

tabernae that he has inherited in the port-town of Puteoli, he refers to the renters of the

property as “inquilini”, which, as Holleran notes, is more often used to indicate a residential

renter, rather than a commercial or industrial one.391 Again, in his speech against Catiline,

Cicero proclaims that to many, tabernae represented “cubile ac lectulum suum”.392 Tacitus,

too, clearly evokes tabernae in a residential sense when, in describing the flooding of the Tiber,

he remarks that some unfortunate souls were caught sleeping “in tabernis et cubilibus”.393

Ulpian gives us the most encompassing and likely most accurate ancient definition in the

Digesta when he defines tabernae, thus “‘tabernae’ appellatio declarat omne utile ad

habitandum aedificium”.394 Finally, as Packer notes, the wooden shutters that were used to

shut up tabernae during non-business hours almost always have smaller, personal-use doors

built into them, probably to allow access for residents.395

389 Holleran (2012), p. 110-112. Also see: Rena Van Den Bergh “The Plight of the Poor Urban Tenant” (The University of South Africa), pp. 443-477, p. 447. 390 Ibid. 391 Cicero, Epistuale ad Atticus, 14.9; Holleran (2012), p. 154-155. Of course, even if these ‘inquilini’ refer primarily to commercial or industrial renters in this passage, this still does not preclude habitation. Indeed, the distinction between residential and commercial or industrial habitation may well not have been a real one for many Romans. 392 “their chamber and bed”: Cicero, Orationes in Catilinam, 4.17. 393 “in tabernae and chambers”: Tacitus, Ann. 1.86. 394 “The word ‘taberna’ denotes every building suitable for habitation”. Justinian, Digesta, 50.16.183; Helen Parkins, “The ‘Consumer City’ Domesticated? The Roman City in Elite Economic Strategies”, pp. 81-108, p. 103,

found in: Helen Parkins (ed.); Roman Urbanism: Beyond the Consumer City (London: Routledge, 1997); Storey (1992), p. 233-234 395 Packer (1971), p. 21-22; 69, with note 28.

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There are reasons for this that go beyond mere expedience or the economic advantage

of multipurpose dwellings. One is the presence of the criminal element in Rome. Juvenal in his

typical style laments:

Nec tamen haec tantum metuas; nam qui spoliet te non derit clausis domibus postquam omnis ubique fixa catenatae siluit compago tabernae. interdum et ferro subitus grassator agit rem:

armato quotiens tutae custode tenentur et Pomptina palus et Gallinaria pinus,

sic inde huc omnes tamquam ad vivaria currunt.396

It is true that Juvenal’s lines are hyperbolic and thus must be treated with some caution, but his

exaggeration surely hints at a genuine underlying problem. Indeed there are attestations in the

literature that explicitly speak to people residing in their tabernae in order to discourage or

defend their possessions against burglars.397 On the basis of this evidence, therefore, we should

reckon, I think, that taberna habitation was likely the norm, even if just one slave were the

occupant.

But to what extent were these units inhabited? Girri, having broadly outlined the

different types of tabernae in Ostia, shows that tabernae could take a number of forms. He

identifies four categories: single room tabernae, tabernae with mezzanines, tabernae with back

rooms, and tabernae with back rooms and mezzanines.398 In all, Girri has found that of the 806

positively identified shops in Ostia, 464 consist of a single room, while 141 had mezzanines, 155

backrooms and 46 had both back rooms and mezzanines.399 Rome may well have been similar.

Girri assumes that all these structures, regardless of features, housed a family averaging four

396 “Nor are these your only terrors. When your house is shut, when bar and chain have made fast your shop, and all is silent, you will be robbed by a burglar; or perhaps a cut-throat will do for you quickly with cold steel. For

whenever the Pontine Marsh and the Gallinarian Forest are secured by an armed guard, all that tribe flocks into Rome as into a fish preserve.” Juvenal; G. G. Ramsay (tr.), Satires (Cambridge University Press: Harvard University Press, 1920) 3.302-309. 397 In Justinian’s Digesta, for instance, we see that slaves were left on guard in warehouses to discourage burglary. We should imagine I think that shops, if not inhabited by their owners, would have been domiciled by the slaves of their owners in order to protect against theft: Justinian, Digesta, 1.15.3.2; T. Putzey; L. Lavan. “Commercial Space in Late Antiquity”, in: T. Putzey; L. Lavan; E. Swift. Objects in Context, Objects in Use: Material Spatiality in Late

Antiquity (Leiden: 2007), pp. 81-109. p. 83. 398 Girri (1956), p. 36. These types, with countless variations to be sure, must also have been present in Rome: 399 Girri (1956), p. 3-5.

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people, a contention which Packer accepts.400 It is true that any estimate comes down to a

guess, as no indicators of the level of taberna habitation exist. Seeing as how the majority were

probably single room properties, we know that occupation could be quite low, perhaps only

one or two people to guard the goods against thieves. On the other hand, a large taberna with

a mezzanine and a backroom or rooms could easily accommodate ten or more. Perhaps Girri is

not far wrong in his estimate of four people per taberna. However, while I would venture that,

say, three to five occupants may be a probable rate, two to six is certainly possible, more or

less, however, I find hard to credit.

14.11 – Findings

The vast majority of Romans lived in insulae. Reconstruction from Ostian evidence

suggests that perhaps 37-38 per cent of Rome’s 13,868,750m2 intramural space was dedicated

to this building type, some 5,234,600-5,982,400m2. Now the evidence of staircases on the FUR

and buildings in the archaeological and literary sources allow for a possible average insula

height of two to four stories, which equates to 10,469,200-23,929,600m2 of indoor space. The

body of literary evidence and reconstructions of insulae habitation numbers from

archaeological data in conjunction with comparative floor area statistics in both pre and

postindustrial societies argues that we bracket the range of possible floor area statistics at 10-

20m2 for Roman insulae. These data sets imply a population with a possible range of 523,460-

2,392,960. This, more than any other method, outlines what can be said about Severan Rome’s

population and is valuable not only for showing the unlikelihood of extremely low and high

estimates, but also as means of seeing that Beloch’s population of one million for the city, a

figure which has come to dominate the literature should not be accepted as the last word on

the subject.

This range is so large that it is too unwieldly to be applied in any analytically meaningful

fashion. We have endeavoured, therefore, to narrow this range of the possible to a range of

400 Packer (1971), p. 69.

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the probable. Based chiefly on the FUR evidence and Pedroni’s interpretation of said, we have

established three stories as the average for insulae within the city. Further, we accepted the

Ostian evidence for the ratio of insulae to domus, producing a 5,757,601m2 areal footprint for

this building type. This, when multiplied by the number of floors equates to 17,272,803m2 of

indoor floor area. My reading of the literary and archaeological sources has led me to settle

upon 15-17m2 of floor space per person as an average for insula-dwellers. These suppositions

produce a probable population range of 1,016,047- 1,151,520 insularii in the intramural space

of Rome. Already this supersedes Beloch, Hopkins, and Morley’s hypotheses that one million

was a practical maximum for the city of Rome and we have yet to grapple with the inhabitants

of domus and tabernae.

For domus we have assumed a possible range of floors from 1.1-1.9, based on the

archaeological evidence of partial second floors and basements dwellings in Rome, Ostia,

Pompeii, and Herculaneum. With our range of the possible estimate of 1,495,600-2,243,400m2

of Rome dedicated to domus, we see a total domus floor area of around 1,645,160-

4,262,460m2. Occupancy rates for Roman domus have proved troubling. We really have no

idea what to expect, though we shall be safe in bracketing the floor area statistics very broadly

between 10.8 and 49.6m2 per person. A range of the possible for the number of occupants in

Roman domus during the Severan period therefore equates to 33,168-394,672 people.

Again, much as with our range of the possible in regards to insulae, our domus figures

are too disparate for any practical use. So then, accepting the Ostian evidence, a 1,720,399m2

areal footprint results for domus in Rome. Moreover, with a number of floors per domus of 1.5,

we have a total indoor space of 2,580,599m2. Additionally, a fair look at the evidence, scanty

though it may be, suggests a range of 29.4-35.9m2 per person in these households. With this

minimum and maximum, a probable population of 71,883-87,775 people results for the domus

of Rome.

As is illustrated by the FUR, tabernae blanketed the streets of Rome. Inhabiting narrow

alley ways and wide thoroughfares alike, their city-wide number was surely in the tens of

thousands. In my own calculations based on the FUR I have estimated 50,000 within the

intramural space of Rome. Most of these, however, inhabited the bottom floors or street-side

98

frontages of insulae and therefore have been reckoned in our calculation of the population of

that building type. Impressions from the FUR suggest perhaps 10,000 might be a reasonable

figure for non-insula tabernae within Rome. With a possible rate of occupancy set at two to six,

a range of 20,000-60,000 Romans in this building type results, whereas a more probable rate

might be a range of 30,000-50,000.

Together, then, our three housing types recommend a possible population for the city of

Rome in the Severan period of between 576,628 and 2,847,632. A probable range of population

for this period, on the other hand, likely resembled something far less volatile; here, our

reading of the evidence has put forward 1,117,930-1,289,295. Based on this evidence, we must

discard the idea that Rome could not have exceeded one million inhabitants. Indeed, our range

of the possible refutes this claim, showing that Severan Rome could have accommodated many

more than this as well as significantly less depending on how densely its population inhabited

its buildings and how high those building rose into the air. Our range of the probable reinforces

this sense, showing that not only could Rome exceed one million people, it probably did exceed

one million people. This serves to strengthen the impression garnered from the interpretation

of the Beloch method presented in Chapter III of this work. There, too, it was concluded that

one million inhabitants did not serve as a viable maximum for Augustan Rome.

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Chapter V: Conclusions

In our study of the populations of Augustan and Severan Rome, we have utilized two

methodologies. In keeping with the general trends of classical scholarship, one of these was

based on the recipients of Rome’s grain dole in the time of its first Emperor, Augustus. While

the second method investigated here, estimates the population of Severan Rome through

literary and archaeological evidence from Rome and other cities of its residential buildings and

the conditions of their occupancy.

The first of these was based on the method of Beloch, wherein the population of the

city is extrapolated from 250,000 Romans who received state-bought grain in the time of

Augustus. We have argued that this core group represented the vast majority of male citizens

within the city aged eleven and older. Therefore, to come to an inclusive population total for

the city we have considered the number of citizen women and children along with slaves,

freedmen, foreigners, and the elite that 250,000 citizen men imply. This has been done through

a systematic reading of the literary evidence combined with numerous cross-cultural

comparisons, especially in ascertaining the presence of slaves and freedmen, whose numbers

were large, but who are poorly represented in the existing Roman evidence. As a consequence

of this effort, we have found a population for Augustan Rome that ranges from 938,383-

1,732,307.

This is a much higher level of variance between the maximum and minimum figures

than most estimates, which place the population of Rome in the 750,000-1,000,000 range. The

variance between the maximum and minimum statistics, however, while troubling from a

demographic perspective, is inescapable and outlines how unsatisfactory our suppositions are,

which in the end amount to little more than a series of best guesses based on scant evidence,

especially where freedmen and slaves are concerned.

For the population of Severan Rome we have taken a different approach. Grappling with

the physical evidence of the city, this estimate has resulted from an investigation of residential

housing and floor area per person statistics within the city of Rome. Three housing types have

100

been explored: insulae, domus, and tabernae. For the first and second of these types, three

data sets have been ascertained: the collective areal foot print of domus and insulae in the city,

the average number of floors present in each building type, and the probable average floor

space consumption of occupants in each. Where possible I have based my suppositions on the

Roman evidence, both literary and archaeological, especially the FUR. Where this methodology

has failed, however, I have considered other ancient sources, particularly archaeological data

from Ostia, Pompeii and Herculaneum, though modern statistics of floor area per person in a

number of countries have been relied upon as a way of constructing an analytical framework in

which we can check the likelihood of proposed ancient statistics.

Using this methodology, two ranges have been offered, which, for simplicity’s sake, I

have dubbed the range of the possible and the range of the probable. These two estimates tell

us fundamentally different things about the population of ancient Rome. The range of the

possible makes no attempt to come to a definite population of the city, but rather presents the

most radical estimates, both low and high, that the evidence allows. So then, while this method

produces an exceedingly large spread between the minimum and maximum figures (566,363

and 2,717,124, respectively), it nonetheless is very representative of the evidence, showing

how unsatisfactory it really is. The second range, the so called range of the probable, seeks a

smaller spread, but in so doing must make numerous assumptions and suppositions that,

though supported in the evidence, cannot be held with certainty. This has led to a population of

Severan Rome of 1,101,960-1,313,346.

Insulae were the primary housing of poor and middle-class Romans. In these residences

conditions were probably cramped, at least by modern standards of space and privacy. This is

especially true in the upper stories where whole families might share a room of just ten or

twelve square meters. Therefore the range of the possible has been located at ten to 20 square

meters, between the levels evinced by hunter-gatherer societies and those of modern Europe.

Reconstructions of insulae populations based on the literary and archaeological data, however,

have supported a range of the probable between fifteen and seventeen meters squared.

101

Perhaps surprisingly to some, space in Domus, while almost certainly more relaxed than

in insulae, could still be scarce. We have supposed that domus could not have surpassed ten

meters at the low end or 50 meters squared at the high end, thus bracketing our range of the

possible. A range of the probable, however, likely did not exceed 40 meters squared nor go

under 20 meters squared per person on average. In some instances even the houses of the

wealthy could be quite cramped. The house of Lucius Pedanius Secundus with its over 400

inhabitants, to name an extreme example, must have been nearly as or perhaps even more

cramped than the average insula, though, of course, what cramping existed was certainly born

chiefly by the slaves of the household and not the masters.

For tabernae, we are largely dependent on depictions of these units on the FUR and

surviving units from other Roman sites, especially Ostia. This evidence, however, has proven

insufficient to offer areal foot prints like we have done for our other housing types. Instead, we

have opted for a reading of the FUR that suggests there were perhaps 10,000 tabernae in the

city of Rome that were not attached to insulae, thus constituting distinct residential units. From

here I have supposed average occupancy rates of between two and six people per taberna to

constitute what is possible, while three to five represents the probable range.

The range of the possible and the range of the probable serve vitally different functions

in talking about the population of Severan Rome. The former provides a conceptual framework

in which to situate other population estimates. For example, we can see quite easily that

population estimates below 566,000, such as the 450,000 person figure advanced by scholars

like Packer and Storey are exceedingly unlikely, as they contradict even the most conservative

reading of the evidence. Our method, therefore, is valuable in its utility as a predictive tool. The

same goes for high estimates. Any hypothesis that would place Rome’s population as, say

3,000,000, like the estimates of Packer and Storey, must be discarded, because it similarly

exceeds the most liberal reading that the evidence will allow, though at the high end instead of

the low.

Our range of the probable, on the other hand, is valuable in that it narrows the very

large spread evident in the range of the possible to a figure more representative of a realistic

102

total. Furthermore, the range of the possible is so variable that it is essentially unusable as a

tool in any study that requires even the slightest degree of accuracy. If we wish to study the

urbanization rates of Roman Italy, for example, a population that can vary between 566,363

and 2,717,124 people does not allow for any reasonable conclusions to be reached. Economic

historians, too, need a smaller range if they are to make meaningful statements about the

consumption and distribution of resources and wealth.

So, then, what might we say about the population of Imperial Rome? By preindustrial

standards it was large, without a doubt surpassing roughly 550,000 in the time of Severus. How

large it may have been is principally a matter of conjecture, though an upward absolute limit

must be placed at around 2,700,000 and even anything approaching this is exceedingly unlikely.

That the population of the intramural city fell between these two figures in the time of Severus

is all we can know with any real certainty about the population of Rome.

Nonetheless, though not certain, our narrower estimates for the population of the

Severan and Augustan era may indicate that Rome’s population probably exceeded one million

people, perhaps rising as high as 1.3 or 1.7 million. Beloch’s arguments for a population of

Rome of one million people, with its manifold issues, need not be treated as a forgone

conclusion any longer.

It is clear, however, that the estimates here offered and, indeed, scholarly estimates of

Rome’s population in general are highly conjectural and dependent on unsatisfactory evidence.

This situation inexorably leads to assumptions that, though they certainly seem probable, are

impossible to validate. Yet no better evidence exists and therefore no surer conclusion can be

reached for either period. Were they buildings, our population figures would not pass the

inspection of any self-respecting engineer, so flimsy are the foundations on which they are

built. It seems that we, like the masses of Rome’s poor, are raised up and perched in

tenements, which could crumble down about our heads, though thankfully for us, we reside in

buildings of hypotheses and not of bricks.

103

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116

Appendix I: Staircase indicators of the Forma Urbis Romae*

Fragment #

1a 1 1

4b

1

6b 2

7a 1

7b 4

7c 2

7e

1

8g 2

10e 1

10f 2

10g 6

10h 1

10i

1

10Lm 1

1

10o 3

10v

1

11a 1

1

1

11d 1

1

11e 3

11g 1

11h

1 1

15a 1

20b 1

21b 2

21d 1

24a-c 13

1

24d 2

25a 1

1 1

25b 3

27a-f 13

1

28a 3

1 1

28b 6

1

28c 5

31a 1

31dd 1

33a 4

1

117

33c 1

35i 1

1

35q 1

37Aa 3

3 1

37Ac 1 1

37Ad

2 3 3

1

37Ae

1

37Af

1

37Ag

2 2

37Ah

1 1 1

37AL

1

37f

2

37gi

1 2

40h

1

55b 2

76b

1

81 1

86

1

87

1

89 1

92

2

95c 1

95d 2

99a

1

111a 1

111b 6

112

1

121b

1 1

121c

1

2

123

1

138a 2

1

138b 1

1

138c 2

138e 4

165a-d 2

166 2

175b 1

182 1

184 2

1

202 3

207 1

118

242 1

245 1

267 1

273d

1

281 1

300a 2

312 2

317 2

330 5

334 2

345

2

1

347 1

350a 2

350b 1

351 1

354 2

357 1

373a 2

373b 1

385 1

386

1 1

400 1

401

1

409b 1

422a 1

422b

1

426 1

437a 1

443 1

461 1

477 1

484 2

486

1

492 1

495f

1

496a 1

496b

1

498 2

504a 1

517a 1

517e 1

119

519a 1

527b 1

536 1

538a 1

538b 1

538d 1

538e 2

538f 1

538o 1

542 2

548b 1

551 2

564c 1

567 2

574b 3

576

1

582 5

588 1

596 1

599 1

613a 1

629 3

659 1

684 3

709

1

fn 8 1

fn 9 1

fn23 1

1

fn 26 1

fn 32 2

2

fn 35 1

fn 43

1

Total: 221 13 24 21 13 9 0 3

* All fragments are numbered using the Stanford numbering system: Tina Najbjerg, “The Severan Marble Plan of Rome (Forma Urbis Romae).”

http://formaurbis.stanford.edu/docs/FURmap.html (accessed: June 16th, 2016).


120

Appendix II: Tabernae on the Forma Urbis Romae*

Fragment Number Number of Tabernae

1abcde 79

3ab 8

4a 17

4b 11

5Aa-f 70

6c 33

7abcd 38 7e 16

8bde 25

8fg 7 8m 8

10aa 7

10Aab 11

10abcde 33

10f 8

10g 72

10h 6

10i 20

10lm 33

10n 2

10opqr 15

10tu 12 11a 47

11b 8

11c 20 11d 22

11e 45

11fgh 24

11i 10

14 14

15ab 24

18a 10

21b 43

22a 20

23 4

24a 148

24b 7 24d 8

http://formaurbis.stanford.edu/fragment.php?record=1




























121

25a 26

26 6

27b 183

28a 48

28b 70

29a 45

30abc 16 30def 62

31d 3

31dd 3 32gh 32

32i 11

33c 190

33d 6

34b 13

35ab 6

35cc 2

35cdefghi 5

35dd 3 35ii 4

35m 3

37Aac 53 37Ade 45

37Afghil 23

37Am 35

37e 5

37f 14

37gi 14

40ai 7

40b 2

40cdefgh 111

43ab 12

47 3

48 11

50 5

55a 13

63 2 74 3

76ab 21

80a 4

80b 4








































122

83 5

86 8

88ab 17

90 7

92 10

93 3

95b 4 95d 9

96 3

99a 3 101 7

102 3

104 1

108ab 11

111ab 25

112 3

114 4

118ab 13

119 2 121abc 32

123 10

127 4 128 3

129 8

132 6

134 5

137 4

138a 40

138bcde 38

138f 2

139a 11

141ab 17

144 8

149ab 5

156 1

157a 15

157bc 37 158 3

163abc 19

164 2

165abd 87









































123

172 4

175ab 14

180ab 12

180c 6

181 1

182 2

184 25 185a 6

191 3

193 3 194 2

197ab 7

202 19

204 2

205a 4

205b 4

207 1

208 3

209 6 212ac 4

217ac 37

217b 19 218 1

225 3

228 3

230 4

235 4

236 2

238b 4

240 5

242 8

245 15

248 1

249 4

250 1

251ab 13

255 3 259 30

264 1

266ab 5

267 2









































124

269ab 9

271 1

273abcd 22

274a 5

274b 6

277ab 2

278ab 11 279ab 13

280ab 29

281 25 283ab 8

284 4

286ab 11

288 3

289 4

291 1

292 3

295 4

296 7 298 3

300ab 10

301 10 302 5

304 3

305 14

306 3

307ab 19

311 10

312 15

313 5

315ab 6

317 8

320ab 22

323 5

324 5

326 4

328ab 12 329 14

330 20

331 4

333 1








































125

334 3

335 20

336ab 39

338 10

339 7

341 5

343ab 2 343c 2

343de 7

343fg 14 345 27

347 19

348 4

350ab 11

351 10

354 6

357ab 1

360 4

361 3 364 3

369 1

371 2 372 2

373a 12

373b 4

376 9

383ab 14

384 3

386 4

388a 1

388b 5

395 3

400 4

401 2

402 4

403 3

404 15 406 3

407 2

408 4

409a 3










































126

412ab 16

413 9

415abc 11

417ab 6

417c 2

418 2

419 15 420 2

421ab 34

421d 5 422ab 51

425 16

427 3

433 24

435 19

437abcd 9

438 3

442 4

443 9 445 4

448 3

451 3 452ab 14

452c 13

452d 3

453 6

455 11

459 1

461 5

474 4

475 9

477 8

478 4

483ab 10

484 15

485 19

487ab 5 492 4

494 6

495af 3

495c 7









































127

495de 16

496ab 52

497 4

498 4

501 7

505ab 4

506 7 508 3

509 2

517abcdef 40 519abc 21

519d 9

520ab 2

521 4

523 2

527b 9

529 2

530 2

533 3 535 4

536 8

537 5 538abdefg 61

538chijklmno 15

542 8

544 4

546ab 10

548ab 25

550ab 4

551 16

552a 9

552b 5

554 2

556 4

557abc 7

559 47

563a 55 563b 7

564abcd 27

567 1

573 2










































128

574ab 41

579 1

582 32

585 4

586ab 17

587 1

588 12 589 2

591 10

596 12 597 4

599 22

611 3

613a 11

619a 6

620 3

624 1

628ab 4

629 10 631 18

632ab 10

633 7 635 1

636 1

642 4

647 1

649 3

654 3

659 2

661a 4

664 3

665 3

667 2

671ab 6

675 4

676 26

679 4 684 25

695 6

700 4

709ab 19










































129

710 3

711b 10

fn23 15

fn24 3

fn26 6

fn28 7

fn29 11 fn30 11

fn32 14

fn34 20 fn35 2

fn37 12

fn38 14

fn40 4

fn41 6

fn42 5

fn43 9

fn44 21

fn8 21 fn9 19

Total: 5043 * All the fragment numbers are from the Stanford numbering system: Tina Najbjerg, “The Severan Marble Plan of Rome (Forma Urbis Romae).” http://formaurbis.stanford.edu/docs/FURmap.html (accessed: June 16th, 2016).






















the population of augustan and severan rome

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