Italian manpower, 225 B.C.-A.D. 14 9780198142836

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ITALIAN MANPOWER 225 B.C.—A.D. 14

ITALIAN MANPOWER 225 B.C.—A.D. 14

UNIVERSITY PRESS

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TO THE

PROVOST AND FELLOWS OF

ORIEL COLLEGE

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PREFACE HEN lecturing at Oxford in 1959 on the social and economic \ | \ | conditions of the late Roman Republic, I became aware of the need for a new account of demographic developments in Republican

Italy. Although in my view K. J. Beloch had discovered the essential truth as long ago as 1886, his findings had never been expounded in English, and more important, objections to them had not been fully answered, and rival hypotheses, based on erroneous arguments and assumptions, retained a delusive attraction for scholars. Moreover, Beloch himself, while relying in part on evidence about the number of men called up for military service, did not bring out the extent of the burden such service must have imposed

on the Italians (unless they were far more numerous than he supposed), and the significance of his population estimates for understanding general conditions in Italy was not appreciated. The society and economy of ancient Italy were moulded by war, with its concomitants of conscription, confiscations, devastations, and endemic violence. It was with the aim of linking the history of Italian population with the consequences of war that I undertook to write this book. The undertaking was larger than I foresaw. Pope has aptly described the scholar’s experience. Fired at first Sight with what the Muse imparts, In fearless Youth we tempt the Heights of Arts, While from the bounded Level of our Mind, Short Views we take, nor see the Lengths behind, But more advanc’d, behold with strange Surprize New, distant Scenes of endless Science rise! .. . Th’ tncreasing Prospect tires our wandring Eyes, Hills peep o’er Hills, and Alps on Alps arise.

New problems continually appeared, distinct from, yet in various ways essentially connected with, those which were my original concern. These connections, along with my main conclusions, I have tried to make plain in the first chapter, and perhaps the reader may find that the book is not such an ill-assorted congeries of material as a glance at its contents might suggest. But it was not easy to devise a title less than a page in length that

would fully cover those contents; Italian Manpower has the merit of brevity and was the best, after taking advice, I could think of. Retarded by teaching, administration, and research in unrelated subjects,

the book had to be laid aside for nine months almost every year and

viii PREFACE sometimes longer. It was almost complete when A. J. Toynbee’s vast work,

Hannibal's Legacy, was published in 1965. As an admirer of its range, erudition, and lucidity, I was gratified that he had anticipated some of my own conclusions (while leaving something more to be said to confirm them), but was forced to rethink some matters and to take issue with him on many important points. All this enforced delay, amendment, and enlargement, and delay enabled me to profit by other recent works, though only of those at my disposal by the summer of 1968. (The Addenda, and a few footnotes, refertosome more recent publications.) Probably I have missed much I should have read, but in any event I have aimed to present the ancient evidence rather than to burden the notes with references to scholars who have taken this or that view of a question; where a modern work is cited, it is generally for one of

two reasons; it will either be found to contain additional testimony or argumentation, or it will afford the reader the opportunity ‘audire alteram partem’. I hope that I have sufficiently acknowledged my more general debts to modern writers, often including those with whom I disagree. It will be clear that I owe most to Beloch. His contributions to Greek and Roman history are well known to all students of those subjects, his eminence in demographic study less familiar to them. Though not published until a generation after his death, his work on the population of medieval and early modern Italy could be regarded by experts as a classic, despite the advance that had been made in the interim in the techniques that historians of population can employ. If any respect is due to the authority a scholar may acquire from wide-ranging studies combined with acumen and prolonged reflection, in this field it belongs to Beloch, and no other is so likely to have had a feeling for the truth, even when the evidence is too meagre for demonstration. My work rests mainly on literary texts. Perhaps it is too narrowly based; some parts could have been the better for archaeological expertise. I am convinced that it is from archaeology that we can best hope to extend and deepen our understanding of social and economic conditions in ancient Italy. The investigations already carried out in Apulia and south Etruria by J. Bradford and J. B. Ward Perkins, or under their inspiration, have shown the way, and it is with diffidence that I have ventured to qualify

some of the provisional conclusions drawn. We also need more local histories or surveys of the kind admirably essayed by U. Kahrstedt, E. Magaldi, and E. T. Salmon for Magna Graecia, Lucania, and Samnium

respectively; it will be of the greatest advantage if the authors of such studies can not only draw on knowledge of the classical evidence, literary and archaeological, and of the topography of the country, but will consider what light may be cast from late antiquity and from medieval and modern

times on an earlier age; in so far as we can be sure that the material

PREFACE ix conditions of life cannot have greatly changed, it may be legitimate to retroject what is only attested centuries later, and local histories may be most valuable, if they bridge the periods conventional in general history.

Among contemporaries I must thank Professor Keith Hopkins and Dr. Israel Shatzman for reading and commenting on parts of the typescript; Dr. Shatzman also checked innumerable references. In correcting the proofs I had the invaluable assistance of Mr. G. E. M. de Ste Croix for the text and of Mr. and Mrs. M. H. Crawford for the Indexes. The vigilance of the readers of the Clarendon Press also detected some mistakes in my script. But my chief creditor is Mr. M. W. Frederiksen. Many years ago I learned much from discussing with him early drafts of some sections, and he finally read the entire script, removed numerous blemishes and gave me new and valuable information. Naturally he is not responsible for errors of detail that may remain, nor indeed are we necessarily in accord on major points. But [ shall continue to be greatly in his debt, even if he should later show that some of my principal conclusions are unfounded. The book was finished where I write, but almost wholly composed in the

Oxford college where I first learned and later taught ancient history. It would not have appeared even now but that Oriel College released me for

a year from my duties there, and it is to Oriel that it is dedicated most fittingly in gratitude and affection. P. A. B. Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge March 1970

NOTE TO THE REISSUE (1987) THE Postscript on pp. 717 ff. reinforces or modifies some of the views originally expressed in this book and calls attention to other revisions in the text. P, A. B. Brasenose College, Oxford September 1986

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PREFACE Vil LIST OF TABLES XVii LIST OF SHORT TITLES xix PART ONE

CENSUS FIGURES AND ITALIAN POPULATION

I, INTRODUCTION 3 II. WHAT DO THE CENSUS FIGURES REPRESENT? 15 III. HOW FAR ARE THE CENSUS FIGURES RELIABLE? 26

(i) Before c, 225 B.C. 26 (11) After c. 225 B.C. 33

IV, THE FREE POPULATION OF ITALY IN 225 B.C, 44 V. THE NUMBER OF CITIZENS FROM 225 TO 90 B.C. 61

VI. THE ITALIAN ALLIES FROM 225 TO Qo B.C, 84

VII, THE CENSUSES OF 86/5 AND 70/69 B.C. gt VIII, DEVELOPMENTS BETWEEN 80 AND 28 B.C. 100

IX, THE AUGUSTAN CENSUS FIGURES 113

225 B.C.-A.D. 14 121

X. THE FREE AND SLAVE POPULATION OF ITALY,

XI. REPRODUCTIVITY IN ANCIENT ITALY 131

(i) Expectation of Life 132

(ii)(a)Mortality 133 Urbanization 134 (6) Wars 134 (c) Undernourishment 135 (ii) Nuptiality 136 (iv) The Limitation of Families 140

xii | CONTENTS

, (v) Fertility of Freedmen and Freedwomen 143 (vi) Modes of Family Limitation 146

(a) Contraception 146

(6) Abortion 147 (c) Infanticide 148

(vii) Emigration 154 PART TWO CITIZENS OUTSIDE ITALY

, XII, ITALIAN EMIGRATION: GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 159

XIII, THE POPULATION OF CISALPINE GAUL 166

(i) The Enfranchisement of Cisalpina 166

(ii) Geographical Considerations 172 (iit) Population before the Roman Conquest 184

, (iv) Italian Immigration 190

, (v) The Population in the First Century B.c. 198

CAESAR 204 (i) Enfranchised Provincials 204

XIV. THE NUMBER OF CITIZENS OVERSEAS BEFORE }

(ii) Italic who Were not Citizens 205

(iii) Italian Men of Business in the Provinces 209

(iv) Peasant Emigrants 214

(v) The Size of Conventus 220

(vi) Mithridates’ Massacre of Italians 224 (vii) Recruitment of Italian Soldiers in the Provinces 227

(viii) Conclusions 233 XV. THE NUMBER OF CITIZENS OVERSEAS UNDER

_ CAESAR AND AUGUSTUS 234 (i) The Dating of Colonies and Muntcipia 234

(ii) The Policy of Enfranchisement 239

(iii) Old and New Emigrants 244

(iv) Natives in Colonies 246 (v) ‘Caesarian’ Colonies 255

(vi) ‘Augustan’ Colonies : 259

CONTENTS will

(vii) The Size of Colonies 259

(viii) The Size of Municipia 261 (ix) The Number of Citizens Overseas in 28 B.c. 262 (x) The Number of Citizens Overseas in 8 B.c. 264 (xi) The Number of Citizens Overseas in A.D. 14 264 PART THREE SPECIAL STUDIES OF ITALY

WAR 269

XVI. THE DEVASTATION OF ITALY IN THE HANNIBALIC XVII, THE EFFECT OF ROMAN ANNEXATIONS AFTER

THE HANNIBALIC WAR 278

CENTURY B.C, 285 CENTURY B.C. 294 (i) The Problem 294 (11) Modes of Settlement 294

XVIII, THE EFFECTS OF WARFARE IN ITALY IN THE FIRST XIX. LAND ALLOTMENTS IN ITALY IN THE FIRST

(111) The Sullan Allotments 300

(iv) Allotments between 78 and 49 B.c. 312 (v) Allotments between 49 and 42 B.c., 319

(vi) Triumviral Allotments 326

(vii) The Settlement of Soldiers, 30 B.c.-a.D. 14 332

(viii) Summary and Conclusions 342

(i) Latium 345 (ii) South Etruria 350

XX, ITALIAE SOLITUDO 345

(iit) The South 353 (a) Particular Regions 353 (5) Pasturage 370

REPUBLIC 376 (1) Numbers of Corn-Recipients 376

XXI, THE URBAN POPULATION OF ROME IN THE

(ii) Total Numbers, c. 58-52 B.c. 382

xiv CONTENTS (iii) The Growth of the City before 58 B.c. 383

(iv) Mortality and Fertility in the City 385 PART FOUR MILITARY

XXII. CONSCRIPTION 391

XXIII, MEN UNDER ARMS, 218-91 B.C. 416

(i) Prefatory Remarks 416

(ii) The Hannibalic War 417

(iii) 200-168 B.c. 422 (iv) 167-91 B.C. 426 XXIV. MEN UNDER ARMS, 90-80 B.C. 435

(i) The Social War 435

(ii) 87-83 B.c. 440 (iti) 83-81 B.c. 441

XXV. MEN UNDER ARMS, 79-50 B.C. 446

(i) Summary 446 (ii) Italy 448 (iii) Africa 451 (iv) The East 452 (a) 84-74 B.C. 452

(c) 68-67 B.c. 455 | (d) Pirate Wars 455 (6) The Legions of Lucullus and Cotta 453

(e) Pompey’s Army, 66-62 B.c. 457

(v) Gaul 463 (a) Before Caesar 463

(f) Legions in the East, 62-49 B.c. 460

(6) Caesar’s Army 466

(vi) Macedonia 468 (vii) Spain 470

XXVI. MEN UNDER ARMS, 42-29 B.C. 473

(i) Pompeian Legions 473 (ii) Caesar’s Legions 474

(iii) Legions, 44-42 B.c. 480

|(iv) CONTENTS xv Legions, 42-40 B.c. 488

(v) Octavian’s Legions, 40-30 B.c. 498 (vi) Antony’s Legions after 40 B.c. 502

(vii) Fleets, 49~30 B.c. 507

(viii) Summary: Italians in the Legions 509

PART ONE ! 1. Tabulae Caeritum 515 APPENDICES

2. The Table of Heraclea 519 3. Italian Municipal Autonomy before go B.c. 524

4. Lustrum and Census 536 5. Enfranchisements in Early Roman and Latin Colonies 538 6. Formula Togatorum 545

7. Vicesima Libertatis and Aerartum Sanctius 549

8. Violence in the Italian Countryside 551

9g. The Augustan Marriage Laws 558 PART TWO

10. Cisalpina as a Consular Province 567

11. Fora, especially in Cisalpina 570 12. The Supposed Settlement of Marian Veterans in Africa 5747

13. Pliny on Africa 581 14. Pliny on Spain 584 15. List of Provincial Colonies 589

16, List of Provincial Municipia down to A.D. 14 602 PART THREE

, 17. Triumviral and Augustan Colonies in Italy 608

18. Malaria in Ancient Italy 611 PART FOUR

19. How the Roman Levy was Conducted : 625

20. The Meaning of the Term ‘Dilectus’ 635 21. The Annalists on Conscription in Early Rome 639 22. Annalistic Evidence on Legions, 218-167 B.c. 645

23. Legions in Spain, 200-90 B.C. 661

24, Roman Fleets, 218-146 B.c. 666

8142888 b

xvi CONTENTS

25. The Size of the Pre-Marian Legion 671 26. The Ratio of Allies to Romans in Armies, 225-90 B.c. 677

27. The Size of the Post-Marian Legion 687

28. Some Casualty Figures 694

ADDENDA 700 POSTSCRIPT 717

29. Peregrinit in Republican Legions 698

I, INDEX LOCORUM 730 2. GENERAL INDEX 734 INDEXES

A. Persons 734 __ B. Places and Peoples | 741 i. Italy 741 ii. Outside Italy 749 c. Subjects 752

LIST OF TABLES

1. Roman Census Figures 13

11. Census, Land, and Colonies, 503-233 30 111, Men Under Arms in 225 (Polybius) 44 1v. (a) Men on the Registers in 225 (Polybius) 45 (b) Men on the Registers in 225 (Corrected) 45

v. Free Inhabitants of Italy in 225 54 vi. Analysis of Census Returns, 168-124 70 vii, Analysis of Corrected Census Returns, 203-124 92

viit, Conjectural Analysis of Census Return of 69 97 1x. Distributions of Money to Soldiers, 201-167 394

x. Legions in the Hannibalic War 418 x1. Men Under Arms (Excluding Fleets), 200-168 424

x11, Italians in Armies and Fleets, 200-168 425 x111, Number and Distribution of Legions, 167-91 432 f.

x1v. Number and Distribution of Legions, 80-50 449

Xv. Recruitment in Italy, 49-30 511

Xvi. Naval Effort in the Hannibalic War 668

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LIST OF SHORT TITLES THIS is not a bibliography, nor a complete list of books and articles used or cited,

but a list of works which I have found it convenient to cite by the name of the author alone, or by the author’s name with an abbreviated title, and of some other abbreviations that are not in general use. Standard works of reference and classical periodicals are cited in ways that need no explanation.

Afzelius I Afzelius, A. Die rémische Eroberung Italiens (340-264 v. Chr.), Copenhagen, 1942.

Afzelius II Afzelius, A. Die rémische Kriegsmacht wahrend der Ausetnandersetzung mit den hellenistischen Grossmachten, Copenhagen, 1944.

Alféldy Alféldy, G. Die Bevélkerung und Gesellschaft der rémischen Provinz Dalmatien, Budapest, 1965.

AL See Brunt.

Badian, Badian, E. Notes on Provincia Gallia in the Late Republic, Provincia Mélanges Piganiol, Paris, 1966, 902-18. Gallia

Beloch, Bev. Beloch, K. J. Die Bevdlkerung der griechisch-rémischen Welt, Leipzig, 1886.

Beloch, JB Beloch, K. J. Der italische Bund unter Roms Hegemonie, Leipzig, 1880.

Kriege, Berlin, 1926. :

Beloch, RG Beloch, K. J. Rdmische Geschichte bis zur Beginn der punischen

Botermann Botermann, H. Die Soldaten und die rémische Politik in der Zeit von Caesars Tod bis zur Begriindung des zwetten Triumvtrats, Munich, 1968.

Brunt, AL Brunt, P. A. ‘The Army and the Land in the Roman Revolution’, FIRS lii, 1962, 69-86.

Chilver Chilver, G. E. F. Cisalpine Gaul, Oxford, 1941. Clark Clark, Colin. Population Growth and Land Use, J.ondon, 1967. Crook Crook, J. A. Law and Life of Rome, London, 1967. Domaszewski Domaszewski, A. von. ‘Die Heere der Btirgerkriege in den Jahren 49-42 v. Chr., Neue Heidelberger Fahrbiicher, iv, 1894, 157 ff.

Duff Duff, A. M. Freedmen in the Early Roman Empire, 2nd edn., Cambridge, 1958.

ESAR Economic Survey of Ancient Rome, ed, 'T. Frank, 5 vols., Baltimore, 1933-9.

Ewins I Ewins, Ursula. “The Early Colonization of Cisalpine Gaul’, PBSR, (1952), 54-7!.

Ewins II Ewins, Ursula. ‘The Enfranchisement of Cisalpine Gaul’, PBSR, (1955), 73-98.

xx LIST OF SHORT TITLES FIRA Fontes Iuris Romani Anteiustiniant, ed. S. Riccobono, J. Baviera, V. Arangio-Ruiz, 3 vols.; vol. i in and edn., Florence, 1940-3.

Forni Forni, G. Il Reclutamento delle legioni da Augusto a Dioclextano, Milan, 1953.

Grant Grant, Michael. From Imperium to Auctoritas, Cambridge, 1946. Harmand Harmand, J. L’ Armée et le Soldat a Rome de 107 d 50 avant notre éve, Paris, 1967.

Hatzfeld, Hatzfeld, J. Les Trafiquants italiens dans l’ Orient hellénique, Paris, Trafiquants 1919.

Helleiner Helleiner, K. F. The Population of Europe from the Black Death to the Eve of the Vital Revolution, Ch. I of Cambridge Econ. Hist. iv, 1967.

Henderson Henderson, M. I. ‘Julius Caesar and Latium in Spain’, RS XXX1i, 1942, 1 ff.

Heurgon, Heurgon, J. La Vie quotidienne chez les Etrusques, Paris, 1961. Etrusques

Heurgon, Heurgon, J. Recherches sur Vhistoire, la religion, et la civilisation Recherches de Capoue préromaines des origines a la deuxiéme guerre punique, Paris, 1942.

Jacoby Jacoby, F. Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker. (1 cite these fragments by the number Jacoby assigns to the historian, followed by the number of the fragment.)

Jullian Jullian, C. Histoire de la Gaule, 8 vols., Paris, 1908-26. Kahrstedt Kahrstedt, U. Die wirtschaftliche Lage Grossgriechenlands in der Kaiserzeit, Historia Einzelschriften, Heft 4, Wiesbaden, 1960.

Kromayer Kromayer, J. ‘Die Entwicklung der rémischen Flotte vom Seerduberkriege des Pompeius bis zur Schlacht von Actium’, Philologus, 1897, 426-91.

Levick Levick, Barbara. Roman Colonies in Southern Asia Minor, Oxford, 1967.

Liebenam Liebenam, W. Stddteverwaltung im rémischen Kaiserreiche, Leipzig, 1900.

' Magaldi Magaldi, E. Lucania romana, Rome, 1947. Magie Magie, D. Roman Rule in Asia Minor, 2 vols., Princeton, 1950.

MRR Broughton, T. R. S. The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, American Philological Association, 1951-2. Mommsen, GS Mommsen, T. Gesammelte Schriften, 8 vols., Berlin, 1904-13. Mommsen, RF Rémische Forschungen, 2 vols., Berlin, 1864. Mommsen, StR Mommsen, T'. Rémisches Staatsrecht, 3rd edn., Berlin, 1887. Mommeen, Mommsen, T’.. Rémisches Strafrecht, Leipzig, 1899.

Strafr.

Nissen Nissen, H. Italische Landeskunde, Berlin, 1883. Pais, Pais, E. Storia della colonizzazione di Roma antica, Rome, 1923. Colonizzazione

Pais, Serie Pais, E. ‘Serie cronologiche delle colonie romane e Latine dall’eta regia all’Impero’, (Atti dell’ Accademia Nazionale det Lincet,

LIST OF SHORT TITLES XXi Memorte della classe di Scienze moralt, storiche e filologiche, i, 1923, 311 ff.; ii, 1925, 345 ff.)

Pieri Pieri, G. L’Histotre du Cens jusqu’a la fin de la République romaine, Paris, 1968.

PH Population in History, ed. D. V. Glass and D, E. C. Eversley, London, 1965. —

PS Population Studies. Rice Holmes Rice Holmes, T. The Roman Republic, Oxford, 1923. Romanelli Romanelli, P. Storia delle Provincie Romane dell’ Africa, Rome, 1959.

Ruggini Ruggini, Lellia. Economta e Socteta nell’ “Italia Annonaria’’, Milan, 1961.

Salmon Salmon, E. T. Samnium and the Samnites, Cambridge, 1967. | De Sanctis De Sanctis, G. Storta det Romani, 4 vols., Turin and Florence, 1907-1964.

Schmitthenner Schmitthenner, W. C. G. “The Armies of the Triumviral period’, Oxford doctoral thesis, 1958; typescript. Sherwin-White Sherwin-White, A. N. The Roman Citizenship, Oxford, 1939.

StR See Mommeen.

Taylor, VD Taylor, Lily Ross. The Voting Districts of the Roman Republic, American Academy in Rome, Papers and Monographs, xx, 1960.

Teutsch Teutsch, L. Das rémische Stddtewesen in Nordafrika, Berlin, 1962.

Thiel | Thiel, J. H. Studies on the History of Roman Sea-Power in Re-

, publican Times, Amsterdam, 1946.

Thiel II Thiel, J. H. A History of Roman Sea-Power before the Second Punic War, Amsterdam, 1954.

Toynbee Toynbee, A. Hannibal’s Legacy, 2 vols., London, 1965. Vetter Vetter, E. Handbuch der italischen Dialekte, Heidelberg, 1953. Vittinghoft Vittinghoff, F. Rémische Kolontsation und Birgerrechtspolitik

unter Caesar und Augustus, Mainz, 1951.

Wilson Wilson, A. J. N. Emigration from Italy in the Republican Age of Rome, Manchester, 1966.

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PART ONE

CENSUS FIGURES AND ITALIAN POPULATION

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I

INTRODUCTION T the beginning of the first recognizable history we possess Herodotus

A proclaimed his intention of preserving the fame of great and marvellous deeds. His own work transcended that limit, ranging over men’s

religious, social, and economic practices, and showed that he had a just conception of what history ought to be, the record of all that men can be known to have done or believed or suffered and not merely an account of great men and great events. But his example was little followed in antiquity, and most of the historical sources on which we depend are almost exclusively concerned with politics and war. The reconstruction of social and economic

conditions in Greece and Rome is based on fragmentary and scattered material; for the most part it must be impressionistic, as statistics are wanting. The lack of statistics is naturally a grave obstacle, when we attempt to determine the numbers of any ancient people, and to see whether in any particular era it was rising or falling. This obstacle does not mean that the attempt is not worth making. An eminent demographer has written that ‘for some purposes it may clearly be more useful to have an estimate subject to a 15 or 20 per cent error than no estimate at all’.' For antiquity an even wider margin of error may have to be accepted, and the estimate still be better than nothing. It should be

obvious that if we have no conception of the numbers of peoples about whom we write and read we cannot envisage them in their concrete reality. What does a statement about the Romans mean, if we do not know roughly how many Romans there were? Without such knowledge even politics and war cannot be understood. For instance, a description of Roman political institutions in the third century B.C. could only be misleading if we did not know that the citizen body was so numerous and so scattered that in the absence of the representative principle the democratic features which they

seem to manifest were bound to be illusory in practice, and that Rome could consequently not enjoy a genuinely popular government. Success in war, even more evidently, depended largely on the balance between the forces that Rome and her enemies could mobilize. For a study of social and economic questions an assessment of population is indispensable. It must make a difference to our picture of the agrarian troubles that vexed the late

Republic, whether we take Italy to have been densely or thinly settled. ' D. V. Glass, PH 6.

4 INTRODUCTION Moreover, the question whether the Italians were able to increase and multiply, or whether the population was stable or actually declining, is in itself one of the highest interest to the social historian. It is, therefore, surprising that modern scholars, with rare and notable exceptions, have shown little concern with the problems involved in estimating the population of Italy in the Republic. Yet data are not lacking, and perhaps permit solutions not less convincing than for conundrums of political conduct and motivation which never cease to exercise the ingenuity of scholars. The range of disagreement between modern scholars who have examined the population of Republican Italy is great. K. J. Beloch held that about 225 B.C. the entire population, including slaves, of the peninsula can hardly have exceeded 33 millions, or 4-4} millions if Cisalpine Gaul were taken into the account. Tenney Frank put the free population of the peninsula alone at about 4 millions. This discrepancy is not very significant, but when they came to the time of Augustus, their estimates were poles apart. For Beloch the citizen population in 28 B.c. was about 3,250,000 souls; to these he added 2 million or more slaves, and perhaps 250,000 free foreigners; the last two figures were, he admitted, guesses, and he added that ‘it matters little for our purpose if at the beginning of Augustus’ supremacy Italy had a population of 5, 6 or 7 millions’.' By contrast, Frank believed that the free population of Italy numbered about ro millions, to which he added conjecturally 4 million slaves. These assessments belong to different orders of magnitude. If Beloch is right, there may actually have been a net decrease in the free population in the two centuries before Augustus; in particular, there must have been a decline in the native stock of the peninsula, since a significant proportion of the citizens were of servile descent or birth; the main increase had been an enormous accretion in the number of slaves. For Frank the Italians had greatly multiplied, especially in the first century

B.c. It is my aim (in Part One) to decide between these rival reconstructions. Demographic studies have now become fashionable, and new techniques have been evolved to reconstruct population trends in medieval and early

: modern history, and to supply the lack of explicit contemporary statistics. To ask questions about past ages, which have been suggested by modern preoccupations, and which were not asked by men who lived in those ages, is a legitimate and fruitful way of extending our historical knowledge. Unfortunately, data of the kind now successfully exploited to ascertain the

population and the rates of births, marriages, and deaths in sixteenthcentury France or England are not available to the historian of Rome. But other material does exist, in the census figures obtained by the Roman state and in evidence on the size of armies. The Romans did not share that disinterest in the size of their citizen body which is evinced by many modern I Bev. 436.

INTRODUCTION 5 scholars. “The chief contributions to success in war’, wrote Livy, ‘appear to be the abundance and valour of the soldiers, the talents of the generals, and fortune.’! Over a century later the younger Pliny said that he desired to see the fatherland ‘increased in every way, but most of all in the number of citizens, for that is the way to provide towns with strength’ .? It was this anxiety to increase Roman manpower that explains the readiness of Rome to enfranchise foreigners, even whole communities, a feature of Roman policy which tradition traced back to the earliest period of her history, which Philip V of Macedon noted as a source of her power in the late third century B.C.,3 and which was ultimately to go far in reconciling her subjects to Roman rule. The fear that a decline had begun in the number of Roman citizens, or at least of the assidui, those qualified for military service, is said to have spurred Tiberius Gracchus in 133 B.C. to that agrarian reform which

inaugurated the period of revolution, and throughout the next century the apprehension of depopulation persisted: it had some part in the legislation by which Augustus sought to encourage marriage, and it is significant that he boasts that the colonies he founded in Italy were populous. Over a hundred years later the same anxieties must have prompted Nerva and Trajan to introduce a system of government subsidies for the maintenance of poor children. Characteristically, the Roman consciousness that manpower was the strength of their state found expression in an institution, the census, which from an early date was taken or supposed to be taken every five years; perhaps intermitted in the confusion of the late Republic, it was revived by

Augustus, and again by Claudius, with his love of old Roman traditions. It is these census figures (Table I) which must form the principal object of any inquiry into the population of ancient Italy. Their meaning and reliability are, however, in dispute. In the view of Beloch the Republican returns relate to all adult male citizens. He came to believe that the returns

earlier than the Punic wars were all fictitious. If this be so, the ingenious : attempt of A. Afzelius to show in detail from the census figures how at all stages in the Roman conquest of Italy the Romans and their allies enjoyed a numerical preponderance over their enemies was doomed to fail, though the conclusion remains probable,* and Frank’s endeavour to justify the figures for the fifth and early fourth century by assuming that they relate to all citizens, men, women, and children,’ must also be rejected. Frank agreed with Beloch that in the middle and late Republic the figures relate to all adult males. That proposition too is not uncontested. Other scholars have held that the returns excluded citizens who were incapable of bearing arms because ' Livy iv. 17, cf. Pol. iii. 89. 8; ix. 26. 4. 2 Pliny, Ep. vii. 32. 1; cf. Dio Ivi. 7.

3 SIG) 543. 29 ff., cf. H. M. Last, CAH xi. 436 f.; Cic. Balb. 31; Dion. Hal. cited,

‘ Nn. 2.

P 2 iatrelitas I, passim. $s AFP li, 1930, 321 ff.

6 INTRODUCTION of age, poverty, or status. In my judgement Beloch and Frank were right in rejecting all such interpretations; they do not agree with the ancient

testimony and the inferences to be drawn from the functions that the Roman census served. Moreover, the census figures cannot be considered in vacuo; they must be related to the military effort the Romans had at times to make, What is known of the manpower difficulty Rome experienced in the second Punic war excludes the hypothesis that there was a reserve of citizens who could be called on for military service in emergencies, but who

were not registered in the census returns; even then the proportion of assidut among the registered citizens was only about 50 per cent. The notion that only assidui were registered in the second century also makes nonsense of contemporary fears that there was a decline, actual or impending, in military manpower.' This is not to say that the census returns were accurate. Frank held that all citizens had to come to Rome to register until Caesar provided for local registration in the Italian municipalities, and most scholars have probably

adopted this opinion without question. Frank inferred that the return of 70/69, when virtually all the free inhabitants of peninsular Italy were citizens, must have been gravely defective, as large numbers of Italians would not have been prepared to make the journey. By contrast, Caesar’s reform permitted Augustus to make a full enumeration in 28. If this view is correct, the census figures should also have been defective in a large and ever-increasing measure before 70, as citizens came to be more and more

widely scattered throughout Italy. But I shall try to show that it is mistaken, and that the government allowed local registrations long before Caesar’s time. Similarly, I shall argue that local machinery was used for legionary levies even before the enfranchisement of Italy.2 These conclusions lead me to suggest an account of municipal autonomy in the Republic which somewhat differs from that which is commonly received (Appendix 3). However, comparison with the experience of other countries where censuses have been taken for the purpose of determining liability to conscription and taxation suggests that all the Roman censuses, including those taken by Augustus, are unlikely to have been completely accurate.3 The enormous increase in the number of citizens registered, in 70/69, if

not in 86/5, is universally believed to reflect the enfranchisement of the Italian allies. (If, indeed, proletarians had not been included in the returns, so long as they were normally ineligible for the legions, it ought also to reflect their inclusion in the returns, now that they had come to be eligible. Freedmen, who were still recruited for the legions only in emergencies, should still have been excluded, both in 70/69 and in the Augustan censuses,

though no one seems to have maintained this view. Such theories should be rejected without hesitation.) The return made in 70/69 can be compared

* pp. 64-6, 75-7. 7 pp. 35-43; Appendix 19. ? p. 33.

INTRODUCTION 7 with the enumeration of Italian manpower made in 225 and reported by Polybius; confused and inaccurate as his report seems to be, it affords some basis for estimating the free population of peninsular Italy at that date. No

doubt both the returns of 225 and 70/69 were seriously defective, but a comparison between them suggests that the number of the allies had not greatly increased in the intervening period, and this conclusion is not out of harmony with what we know of the conditions in Italy in the second century, which would lead us to expect a lower rate of growth in allied than in Roman population. Moreover, the course of the Social war suggests that

Rome and the loyal allies enjoyed a numerical preponderance over the rebels, and that seems to imply that the enfranchisement of peninsular Italy should not have increased the number of citizens by a factor of over 3.! The sharp discrepancy between Beloch’s and Frank’s estimates of citizen

numbers in 28 s.c. derives from their contradictory interpretations of the Augustan census returns. It would appear that between 70/69 and 28 the number of citizens quadrupled. Beloch found this incredible, and concluded that the Augustan returns were not in pari materia with those made in the Republic; for the first time women and some children were included. At first sight this contention is implausible, yet what is the alternative? Frank sought to reconcile the figures by assuming

(1) that even citizens domiciled in Italy were not fully registered before 28; (2) that a large number of citizens, who had migrated overseas, were not registered in 70, and that their number was swollen in the next 40 years by further emigration, and by enfranchisements of provincials; all these provincial citizens were registered by Augustus; (3) that the rate of manumissions was very high between 70 and 28;

very large; and ,

(4) that the population of Transpadane Gaul, enfranchised in 49, was (5) that there was a high rate of natural increase among the old Italian stock in the last age of the Republic. All these assumptions can be challenged or refuted. (1) There is no sufficient ground for holding that the census of 70/69 was much more gravely defective than those which preceded or followed it. (2) Frank’s estimate of the number of citizens living abroad in 70/69, and consequently failing to register, is inflated. It is, however, true that by 28 there had been a vast increase in the number of citizens overseas, and of these a substantial

proportion consisted of new citizens. In order to determine within limits the number of citizens overseas, I have closely examined all the information we have for emigration before Caesar and for the foundation of colonies and municipia under Caesar, the triumvirs, and Augustus; the analysis permits t Chapters VI-VII; cf. XVII, XX, XXIV.

8 INTRODUCTION rough estimates of numbers at the times of the censuses of 70/69, 28, 8, and A.D. 14.7 This part of the work may incidentally throw some light on the economic, social, and cultural importance of Italian emigration and on the extension of the citizenship from 49 to A.D. 14. (3) Frank’s attempt to estimate the number of slaves manumitted in the late Republic is fallacious.

Doubtless it was very large, but to a considerable extent one new cohort of freedmen replaced another, which had perished without reproducing itself.2 (4) By a detailed survey of the development of Gallia Cisalpina, I have tried to ascertain whether we have any means of determining the probable growth of population there after c. 200 B.c., which can be used as a check on the Augustan census figures. This survey may have some independent value for students of the region, but for my own purpose the result is negative; we do not know from the regional evidence how densely it was settled in the time of Caesar or Augustus. We are, therefore, free to make whatever demographic assumptions are most congruent with the best interpretation of the Augustan census figures, and cannot use any particular estimate of Cisalpine population to overthrow either Beloch’s or Frank’s hypothesis.* (5) Frank’s belief that the years between the rule of Sulla and the Principate of Augustus witnessed a great natural increase in the old Italian population cannot be justified. It follows, therefore, that, if his view of the Augustan figures is right, we must bridge the gap between the enumerations of 70/69 and 28 by still further inflating the number of enfranchisements made in this period or by assuming that the former

enumeration was even more defective than he suggests. To my mind, , neither alternative is acceptable; the second would involve us in refusing credence to all the earlier censuses, and taking a view quite different from that maintained here about the strain on Roman manpower in the Hannibalic war. Consequently, Beloch’s interpretation of the Augustan figures must be right in principle, In my judgement Frank overestimated the number of the Italian allies enfranchised as a result of the Social war by not taking enough account of factors that must have held back the growth of their population since the

Hannibalic war or of the evidence for the desolation of some parts of the peninsula. I have, therefore, thought it necessary to examine at length the evidence on these subjects.*

In attempting to describe conditions in parts of Etruria, Latium, and south Italy, as in the survey of Cisalpina, I have invoked evidence from periods other than that with which this book is properly concerned. ‘This procedure is open to obvious objection, and I hope that I have employed it only where it is reasonable to suppose that conditions were unchanged: there was little rapid economic or social development in antiquity. In various parts of this work I have also drawn on what annalists tell us of early

t Part Two. 2 pp. 143 fff. 3 Chapter XIII. 4 Chapter XX.

INTRODUCTION 9 Rome, in the belief that their accounts, though largely fictional, are based on the actual experience of later times. Frank’s assumption that the Italian population was growing fast after 80 derives such plausibility as it has mainly from the settlement of veterans on a large scale in the years down to 28. No complete and realistic survey of these settlements appears to exist, and I have tried to supply the gap.'

It would seem natural to assume that in so far as they resulted in any increase in the number of small farms at the expense of Jatifundia, they should have made it easier for the poor to raise families and promoted the growth of population. However, in many cases the veterans merely supplanted other peasants, and in many more they failed to make good as farmers. The favourable demographic effects of the schemes of land distribution were counteracted by other factors, above all by the frequency of war and conscription. At one time it was my hope to include in this work an examination of the agrarian problem of the late Republic in its entirety, but it seemed best to defer this to a later publication. In the meantime Chapter

XIX may be a useful contribution to discussion, showing the enormous dislocation of property brought about by Sulla, the triumvirs, and Augustus. If Beloch’s estimate of the free population of Italy in the last century B.c. is of the right order, the implication seems to be that the old Italian stock was actually dwindling. We must ask how this could be, considering that Italy was the dominant and most prosperous country in the Roman empire. As in all ‘pre-industrial’ societies, untouched by modern advances in medi-

cine and hygiene, and relying on rather primitive agricultural metheds which limited the supply of foodstuffs, mortality was inevitably high, and particularly in the last century of the Republic it must have been aggravated by the direct and indirect losses of war. Still, a high mortality has not at all

times prevented population growth; it may be overbalanced by high fertility; and in the second century at least, when Italy was internally at peace and the foreign wars were not on a great scale, it is puzzling that the free population should have remained nearly stationary, or perhaps declined, if manumissions are left out of account. I shall argue that the explanation must be sought partly in the high incidence of celibacy and childlessness. The poor especially could not afford to marry, or, if married, to raise children. Families were limited by abortion and infanticide, if not by contra-

ception. The impoverishment of so many Italians was itself a function of the huge importation of slaves.2 Italy was not so thinly peopled as the census figures in themselves suggest, nor were all its ‘desolate’ regions un-

populated: they were often worked by slaves.3 'The decline of the old Italian stocks and the rapid and steady growth of a servile population are, as it were, two sides of the same medal.

! Chapter XIX. 2 Chapter XI.

3 Chapter XX; for a guess at the number of slaves see Chapter X.

10 INTRODUCTION At every stage of my inquiry war and its consequences obtrude. The reliability of early census figures can be controlled by scrutiny of the data on manpower in the Hannibalic war, and what we know of the Social and Sullan wars serves something of the same purpose for checking the enumera-

tion of 70/69. The number of military colonists settled in the first century both in Italy and overseas can be assessed only after a close scrutiny of what we know about the number of soldiers engaged in the preceding wars.

Apart from the mortality due to wars, the call-up of large numbers of Italians for long periods of military service must have had some effect in itself on the marriage- and birth-rates, and by producing impoverishment promoted “depopulation’. The devastations of the Hannibalic war and in the fighting in Italy during the first century must also have contributed to this effect; the ill consequences of the former have sometimes been exaggerated, and those of the latter generally ignored. Similarly, it is commonly recognized that conscription in the second century had much to do with the decay of the peasantry, but not that it still had this result in the first. On the contrary, it is often thought that military service had now become lucrative and attracted volunteers in plenty. I shall try to show that conscription remained the principal mode of raising troops until Augustus’ time.? (An inquiry into the procedure of the dilectus is intended to correct

what I believe to be current errors, and to strengthen my case that the municipalities played an important role in the organization of the state.3)

The claims made by the state for manpower in the army can be at once reconciled with the estimates proposed for Italian population and shown to

constitute one of the chief reasons why the old Italian stocks failed to increase. For this purpose we need to know just how many men were in arms year by year. Many scholars have tabulated the number of legions in service in the Hannibalic war, G. De Sanctis most successfully, and A. Afzelius has done the same service for the number of legions and the strength of allied contingents from 200 to 167. They rely on annalistic evidence, and in accepting their conclusions, I have tried to defend them

against the criticisms of M. Gelzer.4 I have tabulated their results in. Chapter XXIII in a summary form, and added a detailed analysis, also summarized ina table, of our evidence on the number of legions employed in _each year from 167 to 91 ; this is novel and conjectural in many points, but the

figures cannot be far wrong. Naturally, in order to determine the number

of men under arms, we must know also the average strength of the legions at this time; this is discussed in Appendix 25. There remains the problem of the number of allies who were brigaded with a legion; Appendix 26 argues that this varied from time to time. Throughout the second 1 Chaptera XVI, XVIII. 2 Chapter XXII.

3 Appendix 19. 4 Appendix 22.

} INTRODUCTION 11 century the burden of conscription was heavy, especially as it bore upon the limited class of assidut. Next we have to see how many soldiers were engaged in the fighting in

Italy in the decade that began in go. Chapter XXIV provides a rough assessment, which is all that the evidence permits. It is clear that manpower was strained as it had not been since the Hannibalic war.

For the post-Sullan period down to 50 I have investigated the strength of armies in each theatre of operations, and tabulated the results year by year in Chapter XXV. Some of the conclusions cast light on other aspects of Roman history; for instance, the huge number of legions in the field in the late 70s helps to explain the emptiness of the treasury.' In Chapter XXVI I have examined in detail the size of armies from 49 to 30.” Once again it is necessary to estimate the average strength of the postMarian legion; this is attempted in Appendix 27. It appears that many figures for the strength of armies in the late Republic, which have sometimes been accepted by military historians, are notional and unrealistic. The conspectus of the strength of Roman armies from 218 to 30 may be of use for investigations other than those with which this book is directly concerned, But if my conclusions on the Augustan census figures are right, the demands made on Italian manpower in the 80s, the 70s, and above all in the twenty years of ‘discordia, non mos, non ius’ that began in 49, were oppressive in the extreme. Italy was exhausted; hence the readiness to welcome a regime that offered peace, and the difficulty of enlisting Italians

in the army, once conscription had been abandoned there (though not in the provinces), as a normal mode of recruitment. The wars of the late Republic alone make it inconceivable to me that the freeborn population was fast increasing, especially as no comparable increase is observable under the Pax Augusta (Chapter IX). It will be apparent that this book is not restricted to a mere examination of the census figures. In his epoch-making essay ‘On the Populousness of Ancient Nations’ David Hume wrote: We know not exactly the numbers of any European kingdom, or even city, at present: how can we pretend to calculate those of ancient cities and states, where historians have left us such imperfect traces? For my part, the matter appears so uncertain, that, as I intend to throw together some reflections on that head, I shall intermingle the inquiry concerning causes with that concerning facts; which ought never to be admitted, where the facts can be ascertained with any tolerable assurance.

Hume’s method, however it may be disapproved by modern demographers who have more facts to work on, must still be employed by the student of t Sall. Or. Cottae 6 f.; Ep. Pompei, passim. 2 J have been assisted by the previous researches of T’. Rice Holmes on the late Republic and of A. von Domaszewski and W. Schmitthenner on the triumviral armies.

12 INTRODUCTION the population of Republican Italy, as the only one which can at least enable

us to determine whether that population numbered some 14 millions or only 7 or 8. The word ‘probable’, or similar expressions, will appear in these pages with distressing frequency. On some occasions one cannot even venture to

claim that a proposition is more than possibly true. A philosopher has observed to me that there is little to be gained by stating that something may have been the case, for this logically implies that it may not. The logic

cannot be denied; yet it sometimes remains useful to call attention to a mere possibility, if it might otherwise have been taken for granted that its opposite was true, or if there is some chance that once it has been noted, evidence may be discovered to make it certain or likely that it corresponds to the facts. Throughout these investigations it has been my intention to claim no more validity for a proposition than the evidence and arguments warrant, and to abstain from treating a proposition as likely on one page and as unquestionable ten pages later. Reiterations of uncertainty make for tedious reading, but will serve the interests of candour and truth. But when different lines of argument, each by itself no more than probable, converge, the conclusion that results has a stronger claim to be accepted than any one of the arguments that lead to it, and may become as nearly certain as most historical propositions. This seems to me to hold of the interpretation of the census figures adopted here. In that interpretation I have found myself obliged in general to follow Beloch, and have sought to supplement and reinforce his arguments. In his Bevolkerung der griechisch-rémischen Welt Beloch deliberately gave mini-

mum estimates of population, and he more than once admitted in later works that they might have been too low. It is certainly necessary in my view to concede, as he himself did, that the census figures, Republican and Augustan alike, were defective, and that the number of citizens was greater than they suggest. They will not then yield any exact assessment of the free

population, but if Beloch is correct, they must set an upper as well as a lower limit to any estimate that can be regarded as credible. Something of the order of 5 to 6 million citizens, including men, women, and children over the age of one, should be the maximum for the time of Augustus, and of these not many more than 4 millions can have been domiciled in Italy, though the total number of inhabitants, including infants, free foreigners, and slaves, may have exceeded 7 millions.

This conspectus of the inquiry that follows is designed to guide the reader through its intricacies, and not to predetermine his conclusions. My own interest in the subject was first evoked by the writings of Frank; at one time I supposed his views to be correct, and so far as I am aware, no other scholar apart from Beloch himself has made a more systematic study of the evidence. But the more I have reflected, the more convinced I have become

INTRODUCTION 13 that Beloch was fundamentally right, and that no reconstruction which arrives at figures of a different magnitude can be harmonized, not with this or that particular datum, but with all the evidence in its full complexity. We must follow the argument whithersoever it leads. TABLE I ROMAN CENSUS FIGURES

508 130,000Hieronym. Dionys. v. 503 120,000 Ol.20. 69. 1. 498 150,700 Dionys. v. 75. 493 474 110,000 103,000 Dionys. Dionys. vi. ix. 96. 36,

465 104,714 Livy iii. 3. 459 117,319 Livy iii. 24; Eutrop. 1. 16, 393/2 152,573 Pliny, NH xxxiii. 16.

340/39 165,000 Euseb. Ol. 110. 1 (cf. Beloch, Bev. 340 n. 9). See pp. 27 ff. ¢. 323. «1 §0,000 Oros. v. 22. 2; Eutrop. v.9; the MSS. figurein

Livy ix. 19 (250,000) should be amended;

likewise that in Plut. 326c (130,000). Cf. Beloch, Bev. 341. See pp. 27 ff.

2904/3 262,321 Livy x. 47; for variants see Beloch 343. See pp. 27 ff.

289/8(?) 272,000 Per, Liv. xi. See pp. 27 ff.

280/79 287,222 Ibid. Ibid. xiv. xiii. 276/5 271,224

265/4 292,234 (or 292, 334. Per. Liv. Eutrop. ii. 18, and Greek translation. gives 382,233) 252/1 Xvi 297,797 Per, Liv. xviii.

247/6 241,712 Ibid. xix. 241/0 260,000 Hieronym. Ol, 134. 1 (Euseb. Armen. O}. 134. 3, gives 250,000, cf. Beloch 344 n. 2).

234/3 270,713 Per, Liv. xx. See Ch. IV.

209/8 137,108 (perhaps rather 237,108) Livy xxvii. 36; so too in the Perioche; see p. 62.

204/3 214,000 Livy xxix. 37 and Per. See pp. 62 ff. 194/3 143,704 (perhaps rather 243,704) Livy xxxv. 9. Cf. p. 71.

189/8 258,318 (258,310. Per. Liv. Livy xxxviii. 36. XXXVili) ,

179/8 258,794 Per, Liv. xli. See pp. 71 ff. 1974/3 269,015 (267,231. Per. Liv. xlii) Livy xlii. 10. See pp. 71 ff. 169/8 312,805 Per. Liv. xlv. See p. 74.

164/3 337,022 (Plut. Paul. 38 gives Ibid. xlvi 3375452)

159/8 328,316 Ibid. Ibid. xlviti. xlvii. 154/3 324,000 147/6 322,000 Euseb. Armen. OI, 158. 3. 142/% - 3327,442 Per. Liv. liv. 136/5 317,933 Ibid. lvi. 131/0 318,823 Ibid. lix. Cf. pp. 79 f. 125/4 394,736 (7294,336) Ibid. Ix. Cf. pp. 77 ff.

115/4 394,336 (?) Ibid. lxiti. Cf. pp. 77 ff.

86/5 463,000 (or, if amended, 963,000) Hieronym. Ol. 173. 4. Ch. VII.

%4 INTRODUCTION 70/69 910,000 Phliegon (Jacoby no. 257) F. 12. 6. Per. Liv. xcvili gives 900,000. Ch. VII.

28 4,063,000 Res Gestae 8. 2. Ch. IX,

8 4,233,000 Ibid. 8. 3. Ch. IX.

A.D. 14 4,937,000 Ibid. 8. 4. The Fasté Ostienses give 4,100,900 (Ehrenberg and Jones, Documents Illustrating Reigns of Aug. and Tib. 40), see

pp. 119 f.

WHAT DO THE CENSUS FIGURES REPRESENT? HE Roman census was taken normally every five years. It was the duty

of citizens who were ‘sui iuris’' to appear before the competent authorities and to give the information required under the formula censoria on oath. A document of the late Republic, the Table of Heraclea, shows that they had to state their names in full (‘nomina, praenomina, . . . cognomina’), the names of their fathers (or, if they were freedmen, their patrons), their ages, and their property ;? from other sources we know that property included land in Italy,* farm equipment,’ slaves,® clothing and jewels,” ready cash,® money on loan,’ and presumably everything they owned—for we have no systematic account—except that land! (and perhaps other property) held in the provinces was not entered; normally they were responsible themselves for assessing the value of their assets!! and liable to confiscation for under-assessment,!2 though the censors could fix

their own arbitrary valuations.'3 In addition, though this is not made explicit in the Table of Heraclea, each had to state the number of his children in potestate, and to record the name of his wife, perhaps only if she was ift manu or sui turis; if she remained in potestate of her own father, her name would appear in his return.'4 Citizens unable for good reason to appear « Livy xliii. 14. 8. 2 The Table of Heraclea (FIRA i. 13. 142 ff.) requires municipal magistrates to obtain declarations ‘ex formula census, quae Romae ab eo, qui tum censum popuili acturus erit, proposita erit, ab ieis iurateis’ (ac. the local citizens); cf. Livy xliii. 14. 5; Dion. Hal.

iv. 1§. 6; Gell. iv. 20. 3. |

3 See note 2. Compare the procedure in the allied city of Bantia, FIRA i. 16. 4, as translated from Oscan: ‘cum censores Bantiae populum censebunt, qui civis Bantinus erit, censetor ipse et pecuniam, qua lege ii censores proposuerint’.) 4 Festus 50 L; Lex Agraria (FIRA no. 8), 8, cf. n. 10.

§ Gell. vi. 11. 9, quoting P. Scipio, consul 147 B.c.

6 Cic, Leg. iii. 7 (‘familias’); Livy xxxix. 44. 3.

7 Livy xxxix. 44. 1-2. ® Cic. Flace. 80; Festus 322 L.

9 Livy vi. 27. 6, 31. 2 (based no doubt on practice in later times). © Cic, Flace. 80. Such property was liable to provincial taxation, not to Roman tributum.

™ Festus 51 L. 12 Dio xlvii. 16.

13 Livy xxxix. 44; Dio xlvii. 16. 4 Cic. Leg. iii. 7: ‘censores populi aevitates, suboles, familias pecuniasque censento’;

ef. Dion. Hal. iv. 15. 6. The Table of Heraclea requires registration of all the citizen inhabitants of municipalities.

16 WHAT DO THE CENSUS FIGURES REPRESENT? in person could appoint representatives.' The names and property of widows and orphans were also declared, presumably by their guardians.? There were severe penalties for failure to make a declaration (p. 33). These professiones enabled the censors to place each citizen in his appropriate tribe, originally at least a local unit determine by his domicile,3 and property-class, and thus (a) to fix his liability to the direct property tax called tributum;+ (5) to determine his obligation to military service, which until Marius depended on his property; (c) to assign him to the class in which he would exercise his right to vote. Our sources usually record the totals of citizens registered.’ At one time

Mommeen held that only citizens in sua potestate, those who made the . declarations or on whose behalf they were made by representatives, were included in these totals.° ‘This view has been universally discarded. But there is no agreement on the question who were included. The information in the professiones of course made it possible for the government to record the number of all men, women, and children, indeed even slaves; but the fact that the figures expressly relate to citizens naturally excludes the last. Mommsen came to believe that the returns comprised only iuntores, men aged seventeen to forty-six. On this view the government was interested only in the number of those capable of serving in the field (or at sea).’ Herzog maintained that only the assidui were enumerated, men qualified for legionary service by their property; the very poor, and the freedmen, were thus omitted.§ This hypothesis has recently been accepted without argument by Gabba.° Beloch held that the numbers are those of all adult males without distinction of age or property, even of cives sine suffragio.'© ’ Kubitschek, RE iii. 1914, infers this from Varro, LL vi. 86, where the censors invite the attendance of all citizens including ‘qui pro altero rationem dare volet’. On this text

see Appendix 4. 2 Cf..p. 22. 3 Taylor, VD, chs. 1-2.

¢ Varro, LL v. 181; ‘tributum a singulis pro portione census exigebatur.’ 5 ‘Censa sunt capita civium tot.’ 6 SIR ii' 371; so [Dion. Hal. iv. 22. 2; ix. 36. 3]; however, it would be incomprehensible that the Roman state should attach any importance to figures irrelevant to military strength

(including some minors and excluding many men of military age); and the implied population would be too large. Cf. Appendix 4. 7 StR ii. 410 ff., expresaly including proletarii. In i. 506 n. 2, 508 n. 1 Mommsen seems to prove (see esp. Dig. iii. 1. 1. 3) that when a Roman spoke of a man as under 17 or in his 17th year he meant that he had not yet completed his 17th year. Normally liability for

service in the field thus extended from the 19th to the 47th birthday, but for exceptional conscription of younger boys see p. 399 n. 3. Mommeen also remarks that in their firat year iuniores were usually reserved for tirocinium and not called up for fighting; cf. Cic. Cael. 11. © Commentationes in honorem Mommsent 124 ff.

® Athen. xxvii, 1949, 189 ff.; in xxx, 1952, 16 ff. he refutes F. C. Bourne, Cl. Weekly xiv, 1952, 129 ff. 10 Bev. 312 ff.; cf. the polemic in Kio iii. 471 ff. againat Niesen ii. 112 ff. (who followed Mommeen). Other writers are cited by Toynbee i. 455, who follows Beloch.

WHAT DO THE CENSUS FIGURES REPRESENT? 17 We may first examine the question whether the cives sine suffragio were included. These Campanians, Caerites, Volscians, Sabines, etc., on whom Rome bestowed what Mommsen called the ‘half-citizenship’ in the fourth and third centuries, either were or were among the original muntcipes, that is to say, they were bound to perform the munera of citizens in return for sharing in their private rights.

It is the most probable interpretation of a rather muddled text from Paul’s epitome of Festus (Appendix 3) that the cives sine suffragio served in

the Roman legions. ‘That has indeed been doubted or denied. Dionysius lists Campanians, Sabines, and Volscians as providing separate contingents

at Ausculum in 279. If he 1s right, we could still suppose that the halfcitizens were incorporated in the legions, as they became more Romanized. Polybius represents the levy for the legions as conducted on a tribal basis; as the half-citizens were not registered in the tribes, it would seem to follow that they cannot have served in the legions. I shall try to show, however, in Appendix 19 that Polybius’ account of the levy cannot be true for the historic period, when it was organized on a local basis; if, as suggested, he

was blindly following an out-of-date source, that source too might be relevant only to an earlier time when the half-citizens may have been segregated in units of their own. Polybius’ allusion to a mass levy of Sabines in 225 might also suggest that even at that time half-citizens were not incorporated in the legions; in my view, however, it is probably a mis-

take to hold that any Sabines then lacked the full citizenship; and in any event what Polybius tells us is that a tumultuary levy was ordered in the Sabine country; this has no implications for their legal status or normal military obligations.‘ Heurgon also argued that the Campanians at least did not serve in the legions at the outset of the Hannibalic war. Of his three arguments two are certainly invalid.? (1) He holds that the 300 Campanian horse garrisoning Sicilian towns in 216 cannot be legionary horse, since Polybius allows only 200 horse to a legion.? But there were two legions stationed in Sicily, Polybius himself at other times allows 300 horse per legion,5 and there is no objection to assuming that half the legionary cavalry in Sicily were Campanians. (2) He says that military service did not figure among the Campanian grievances in 216, but the opposite conclusion might be drawn from the demand Capua is said to have made of Hannibal that none of her citizens should be conscribed for service.® (3) He remarks that on her revolt Capua was concerned only with the fate of the 300 cavalry in Sicily, and that it seems as if no other Campanians were then serving in Roman armies. This is true, and mysterious, since Campanian eguites are ! Festus 117 L; Dion. Hal. xx. 1, [but cf. Ilari (cited p.725), 150.] Sabines: p. 49. 2 Recherches, 201 ff. He himself rightly explains the legio Campana of Per. Livy xii as a mercenary force, not a legion of the Roman army.

3 Livy xxiii. 4. 8, 7. 2, 31. 10. 4 Livy xxiii. 31. 4, 32. 2, cf. Pol. iii. 75. 4.

Ss Appendix 26. 6 Livy xxiii. 7. 1.

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18 WHAT DO THE CENSUS FIGURES REPRESENT? attested at the battles of Sentinum, Ausculum, and Trasimenus.! The mystery does not vanish if the Campanians normally served not in the legions but in separate cohorts. If the silence of our sources is proof that in 216 there were no Campanians in Roman armies except for the cavalry in Sicily, then we must assume that for unknown reasons the Roman government had by that year virtually exempted them from this munus, yet 34,000 Campanians (p. 19 n. 4) might have been expected to have furnished some 10,000 men, since up to the time of their revolt about 30 per cent of all the Roman adult males who had probably registered in the last pre-war census had been enrolled in the army (p. 419). But by parity of reasoning we should then also have to suppose that none of the peoples who revolted in 216-215 had any soldiers in the allied cohorts which formed part of Roman armies in Spain, Sicily, and Sardinia, for our sources say absolutely nothing of the problem that such potentially disloyal soldiers presented, or of any measures

taken by the senate or by Roman commanders to obviate the danger. It seems too much to suppose that every one of these peoples had been excused military contributions, and yet, if we do not make this assumption, we have no better right to hold that there were no Campanians, except for the 300 eguites, in Roman armies. Of course, we hear of these equites, because they were drawn from the Campanian nobility, and their fate was of special concern to the aristocratic ruling class at Cap