Debating Roman Demography

Front Cover
Walter Scheidel
BRILL, 2001 - History - 242 pages
In conjection with an extensive critical survey of recent advances and controversies in Roman demography, the four case-studies in this volume illustrate a variety of different approaches to the study of ancient population history. The contributions address a number of crucial issues in Roman demography from the evolution of the academic field to seasonal patterns of fertility, the number of Roman citizens, population pressure in the early Roman empire, and the end of classical urbanism in late antiquity. This is the first collaborative volume of its kind. It is designed to introduce ancient historians and classicists to demographic, comparative and interdisciplinary perspectives, and to situate and contextualize Roman population studies in the wider ambit of historical demography.
 

Contents

The seasonal birthing cycle of Roman women
83
Recruitment and the size of the Roman population from
111
some observations on the population
139
Urban population in Late Roman Egypt and the end
161
Bibliography
205
Notes on contributors
237
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About the author (2001)

Walter Scheidel, teaches ancient history at the University of Chicago. He has published widely on ancient social and economic history, including "Measuring sex, age and death in the death in the Roman empire: explorations in ancient demography" (Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplement Volume 21,1996)