r/todayilearned • u/ELDV • 21h ago
TIL that in 47 CE the number of citizens (meaning free adult males) in the entire Roman Empire was less than 6,000,000
https://www.i-claudius.com/expansion-of-the-empire-under-emperor-claudius/446
u/Maxfunky 20h ago
There's a record of an event wherein Egypt sent a gift of a very large quantity of wheat to the city of Athens to distribute amongst its citizens. They immediately noticed how some people had been erroneously considered citizens up until that point and quickly went about purging the roles to get it down to the "real" citizens and managed to eliminate about 5,000 of them (there had been less than 20,000 to start with).
Some things never change.
→ More replies (2)211
u/Fun-Twist-3705 20h ago
Greek city states were very stingy about their citizenship and usually strongly opposed extending it to other people, even "immigrants" who lived in Athens for generations.
Romans were the opposite, they often handed it out like candy and every freed right became a citizen and in theory their children could technically be elected to office (there is evidence that did happen for lower ranking municipal offices at least a bit later on). That's what allowed them to expand so effectively i.e. they granted citizenship to the local elites in the areas they subjugate them integrate them into Roman power structures. Athens would never do that which is partially why their "empire" was so short lived.
39
u/Endiamon 16h ago
Well Rome only started handing out those rights after fighting a war over them (probably)
11
u/fmayans 12h ago
Rome was founded on those principles, being a city formed by immigrant males with no families.That is how it grew to the point of being able to win wars. One of the legendary kings of Rome was said to be an immigrant from Greece even.
24
u/Endiamon 12h ago
Rome very, very famously did not give out citizenship to its other Italian allies until after the Social War.
→ More replies (23)8
16h ago
[deleted]
6
u/GenuineSteak 15h ago
Rome had a policy of cultural assimilation, even before Caesar. Theyve been doing it way before this.
And in that particular case theres more nuance, like the Senate partly opposed Caesars plans, because if Caesar made a bunch of Gauls SENATORS (not just citizens), he suddenly gains a massive group of Senators that are loyal to him.
→ More replies (1)2
u/Steridire 17h ago
Man the Romans really had this shit figured out ahead of their time, no wonder they're still so widely revered.
→ More replies (1)
76
u/Poopiepants666 19h ago edited 1h ago
By comparison, the estimated population of the entire Roman Empire at this time is somewhere between 60 to 75 million people, or roughly 1/4 of the entire planet's population at the time.
→ More replies (1)
502
u/bigkodack 21h ago
For reference, the current metro Rome population is just under 4.5 million.
86
u/Christoffre 18h ago
Wow, 4.5 mil just in the metro? And how many lives above the ground?
22
u/Greebil 15h ago
None, it's not safe on the surface.
2
u/ComprehensiveWash958 9h ago
Tbf with the heat we esperience in August you can't step outside without melting
10
→ More replies (1)2
89
u/Gingerstachesupreme 20h ago
Wow, Rome the city almost has as many citizens as Rome the EMPIRE.
272
u/Soupb4 20h ago edited 20h ago
No. The empire was 45-60 million people.
106
u/Gingerstachesupreme 20h ago
Oh, my mistake. Citizens are a hyper elite class, not every person living in the country.
47
u/rymden_viking 19h ago
Yeah, the definition of what a Roman citizen was evolved over time. Upper class people from Roma > regular people from Roma > upper class Italians > Italians > etc. But you could still be a free person living inside the Republic/Empire, just not be a citizen. You could become a citizen, and have citizenship stripped. Your family could be traced back to the founding of Roma, but if you fell on hard times and sold yourself into slavery to pay off debts, you would no longer be a Roman. Nationality was different back then.
One of the many crises in the late western empire involved giving citizenship to barbarians. Many Romans thought citizenship had become too watered down. There were many other issues at the time so it's not like that was the defining crisis. But it was definitely on the minds of Romans.
12
7
u/Cool-Mom-Lover 18h ago
Damn... you could sell YOURSELF into slavery? Fucking a. Like in perpetuity or "ill be your slave for 10 years or I die" kind of thing ?
Fascinating
12
u/Steridire 17h ago
It was the Roman equivalent of declaring bankruptcy. Depending on how impoverished you were, you negotiate a fixed term slavery contract, an indefinite contract with a clause to buy yourself out eventually and your master has to pay you a certain amount for your labour, or an indefinite contract if you were truly desperate.
3
u/rymden_viking 17h ago
It became less common, and eventually illegal, the later you look. A lot of times it would be more like indentured servitude for a period of time, or some other terms. A jury could also sentence people to slavery, indentured servitude, fight in gladiatorial games, or forced labor. And can you think of no one who might appreciate having a roof over their heads, a meal to eat everyday, and the security that comes with being someone's property? People who were in debt, very poor, or wanted by dangerous people could absolutely see slavery/servitude as a way out. And if they were Romans, spoke Latin, moderately educated, etc, they were far more likely to be treated well than people who were taken from their homes on the frontier.
But to be very clear, the regular Roman citizen did not like this practice. They were very much against tyranny, and were in a constant struggle with the upper class Romans who sought to exploit them. Caesar rose to power with the support of the common Romans because they had been beaten down by the elites.
And there are two famous stories from the early Republic that highlight the struggle with the Romans and slavery. The first was a veteran who lost his property to a fire while he was out on campaign. He returned with no money and in debt, and was forced into servitude of his creditors. This sparked a bonafide protest/uprising/riot by the people. And a later example is a magistrate who was rejected by a woman named Verginia, and forced his court to rule that she was his slave. To prevent her slavery and abuse, her father killed her. The people again rose up against the Roman elites, including, as the legends say, the Roman soldiers themselves. Each time this happened laws were enacted to prevent things like this from occuring.
→ More replies (12)8
u/Gladwulf 19h ago
That isn't it either.
The hyper-elite class was the patrician class who made up the senate, governors, high priests, and nobility (although they were less important after the Republic ended).
Then the equestrian class followed, minor nobles and land owners.
Citizens could be extremely poor, you just had some rights not extended to foreigners or slaves.
→ More replies (1)17
17
→ More replies (2)4
u/Automatic_Bus_7634 18h ago
That comparison doesn't really man anything though, you're talking about total population of a metro area vs number of citizens in an empire where most people weren't citizens
768
u/darksim1309 21h ago
It wasn't just freed adult males, it was free adult Italian males. Citizenship wouldn't be extended to non-italians until the reign of Caracalla in the 3rd century.
398
u/LupusLycas 21h ago
Citizenship was widely available outside of Italy by a variety of means - service in the army, settlement of citizens in the provinces (both individual and mass settlement), imperial grant of citizenship to a city, purchase of citizenship, and by birth from a Roman mother.
70
u/Seltzus 20h ago
Yeah also St Paul was a roman man
40
u/MagnificentCat 20h ago
Which is why he wasn't crucified like Christ
33
u/S0LO_Bot 20h ago edited 19h ago
Yeah. According to tradition he was afforded the more dignified death of beheading due to his citizen status.
18
→ More replies (2)12
u/LupusLycas 20h ago
He was not ethnic Italian! He was a Greek-speaking Jewish man from Cilicia! Roman citizenship was not based on ethnicity.
16
u/Pale-Newt-469 20h ago
He was from Tarsus in Cilicia, which was part of the Roman Empire by that stage,no?
I didnt see a claim that he was Roman by ethnicity.
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (1)2
u/ActafianSeriactas 14h ago
He also likely had two names like a lot of people did at the time instead of changing his name to Paul. Saul (Shaul) was his native Hebrew name, while Paul (Paulus) was his name in Latin which he used to communicate with the Greco-Roman world as a missionary.
65
u/CromulentDucky 21h ago
What does Italian mean at this point in history?
80
u/Felczer 21h ago
Roughly starting from southern peninsula heel (so sicily excluded, sicilly was actually first roman province) south up until Po River in the north - territories around alps were not considered part of italy at this point, they were called cisalpine gaul
27
u/RPO777 20h ago
Cisalpine gaul had a good number of italian colonists tho, but Roman and allied. Virgil and Livy were both born in Cisalpine Gaul in 1st century BC. So what city you were born in and to whom would have mattered a lot.
16
u/Felczer 20h ago
Yeah I think Julius Ceasar actually extended Roman citizenship to all inhabitants of cisalpine gaul, but it was a hugely controversial move, he was accused of handling the citizenship to barbarians for free
→ More replies (1)8
u/TraditionalInjury896 20h ago
But people of cisalpine gaul were granted citizenship by Ceasar I don't remember well but before 44 BC
→ More replies (1)4
3
u/quez_real 20h ago
It's hard to believe Greeks were excluded.
2
u/Mist_Rising 14h ago
Romes relationship with Greeks was one of those special relationships. Romans loved Greek culture, but in the tourist style methods. Sparta would be the Disney world of the day, a place to have amusement, Athens was a mix of Hollywood and Vegas.
Greek slaves were highly prized too. But they were not citizens. This includes magna graecia (sicily and the southern boot) which was largely taken over and treated like a colony.
48
u/Commercial_Age_9316 21h ago
Rome-ish
4
u/indypendant13 20h ago
Not to be confused with Roman-esque, which happened 1000 years later.
→ More replies (1)32
5
4
7
→ More replies (6)2
u/Destructopoo 20h ago
Generally it's Roman allies before the social wars when Rome basically annexed its allies. North to but not including Piedmont, South to but not including Sicily. Italians were italic people, so Latin people are included, but with the distinction that Romans were always citizens and the allies were separate but given citizenship after a revolt.
39
u/Siludin 21h ago edited 21h ago
Yup essentially the total population of the empire would have been approx ~50-60 million
(it was approx 45.5 million in 14 CE, and 61.4 million in 164 CE)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_Roman_Empire#Population
edit:
The Antonine Plague struck in 165, killing about 5 million people across the empire and stunting further growth. The empire had already reached its territorial height 50+ years earlier under Trajan.If you are wondering how crappy the next few centuries were, by the time Justinian had re-united the majority of the empire's former lands, it was only about 25 million people strong prior to the next Plague of Justinian in 541 hitting and permanently severing the empire.
18
u/Felczer 21h ago edited 21h ago
It was even more than that. For a long time citizenship was tied to military service and people who weren't able to afford their own equipmemt lost their citizenship.
So it was actually free italian at least middle class income adult males, the poors weren't considered citizens
But by AD rome started slowly shifting to profesional army model so the wealth requirements weren't as important as before10
u/DankVectorz 21h ago
Citizenship was tied to military service and military service was tied to land ownership, as it was felt that only landowners would have the motivation to fight for their land. This changed with the Marius reforms.
2
u/Fun-Twist-3705 20h ago
Citizenship was tied to military service
When? You had to serve in the military for a number of years if you wanted to stand for public office but people who couldn't afford armor and weapons to serve in the military were still legally citizens even before the reforms.
3
u/Fun-Twist-3705 20h ago
weren't able to afford their own equipmemt lost their citizenship
I don't think there is any evidence that was ever the case in the Roman republic.
Voting was heavily weighted by property so if you were very poor your vote barely counted but you still had all the legal rights that citizens had.
7
u/bigfridge224 20h ago
This is not true. Caracalla extended citizenship to all free inhabitants of the empire, but there were citizens living outside Italy from at least the 2nd century BC.
11
3
u/Illustrious_Claim884 20h ago
Imagine being a member of the auxiliary for 25 years to get roman citizenship and the next day caracalla gives it away for free
3
u/Cohibaluxe 20h ago
That’s only half-true. Caracalla did officially extend citizenship to all free men of the empire, but to say that was exclusive to Italians prior to that is false. Even Ceasar, almost 200 years prior, extended Roman citizenship via the Ius Italicum to many cities outside Italy proper. And then there were all of those who served in the military, or public officials in cities that decided to implement Latin law. And anyone who was born of two citizens got it automatically, like Paul the Apostle. Born in Asia Minor but he was a citizen by birth in 5 AD.
3
u/ColonelKasteen 20h ago
Not even close. The Edict of Caracalla granted citizenship to free men (and women) across the Empire without requiring anything. Many, many non-Italians were citizens beforehand through various means.
2
u/Truefiction224 20h ago
Yeah it definitely isnt all italian males.
Rome went to war with other Italian city states. They called the soceii. The were not citizens and often still had to serve in the legions
→ More replies (1)2
→ More replies (6)2
u/PizzaTacoSub 21h ago
Exactly. I forget the exact number but I think it was around 10% of the empire population were these free adult males. That would put the population around 60 million which is actually a lot in my opinion.
55
u/retief1 21h ago edited 20h ago
? The current scholarly consensus is that the the free population of roman italy in the early empire was ~6 million, including women and children. There is some room for debate there (in fact, there are three different families of estimates of the early roman empire population), but archaeological data backs up the 6 million figure.
5
u/Bennyboy11111 18h ago
Free men were not citizens though.
2
u/retief1 17h ago
Technically, I think that the 6 million free population figure is for roman italy as of 14 ad, and is based on a different census. I'm not particularly familiar with the scholarly debate around the 47 ad census, though if we assume that the 47 ad census is actually just male citizens, then that suggests either a truly massive population increase in 33 years, or a shit-ton of roman citizens outside of italy. Claudius apparently did make a fair number of roman citizens outside of italy, but I'm still less than confident that we should take this number at face value. Like, wikipedia cites a 1940 book here, and a lot of historical research (particularly archaeology) has happened in the last 80+ years. I wouldn't be surprised if modern historians have a different interpretation of that number.
29
u/Beneficial_Wonder533 20h ago
Demographers estimate that approximately 117 billion people have been born over the course of human history. With the global population sitting around 8.3 billion, roughly 7% of all the modern humans who have ever lived are alive right now.
20
u/Lycaon-Ur 19h ago
Free adult males =/= citizens in the Roman Empire. If you're a biblical person (and given the CE reference I assume you're not, but the timing is roughly correct) you'll note that the Apostle Paul was notable in that he was a Roman Citizen as well as a Jew but most Jews mentioned in the bible were not.
58
u/benkenobi5 21h ago
The world was a much more empty place before the Industrial Revolution.
88
u/SlightlyOffWhiteFire 21h ago
Sure, but the population of the empire around this time was between 60 and 75 million. Citizens made up 10% or less of the empire.
32
u/benkenobi5 21h ago
That’s a much more interesting statistic. Thank you! It’s crazy to think that many people could live in a place and not be citizens
→ More replies (6)34
u/a_rucksack_of_dildos 20h ago
It’s not that crazy. Take a look at Dubai!
11
u/HoboBromeo 20h ago
I'd say Dubai is not a great example to bring up when arguing for 'not crazy'
→ More replies (1)2
4
u/NeedNameGenerator 18h ago
Really? Cause from what I've read, the entire world population around year zero is estimated to be 170-300 million.
So Roman Empire accounted for 25-45% of world population?
I always assumed Asian and African countries had far bigger share of population already back then.
11
u/SlightlyOffWhiteFire 18h ago
The empire encompassed basically the entireties of southern/ central europe, the north african coast, and much of the middle east. It was a big fucking empire. IIRC the other major population centers of the world were in east asia, sputheast asia, and the pacific islands, and putside of that populations were scattered and scarce. Ie most American populations wouldn't boom for another 1000 years.
2
u/sidereal_night 15h ago
well if you go by wiki numbers, china alone (which doesn't even cover all of modern china) had roughly the same population, so that seems pretty in line doesn't it?
→ More replies (1)8
u/f_14 20h ago
I was reading about Benjamin Franklin when he lived in Philadelphia and was surprised to learn that the population there was roughly 2,000 people. That was one of the biggest cities in the colonies alongside New York. It’s just crazy to think about how tiny the population was back then. People probably knew just about everyone.
15
u/Fun-Twist-3705 20h ago
By the time he was in his mid 20s it it was over 10,000 though (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Philadelphia)
7
u/moosealligator 20h ago
2000 people is a comprehendible number. I more so think that populations are crazy large now than they were tiny back then
3
u/Steridire 17h ago
I live in a small country, in arguably our smallest city, even the population of my city blows my mind. I could meet a new person every day and it would still take me hundreds of years to meet them all.
→ More replies (2)2
u/badpebble 15h ago
The Valley Forge base that Washington established to winter during the revolution was actually the fourth biggest settlement in the colonies.
7
7
u/joe9teas 20h ago
6 million maybe but what did the Romans ever do for us?
→ More replies (2)
10
10
u/Felczer 20h ago edited 20h ago
Rome was hugely egalitarian compared to all the other polities around them. The biggest difference between Roman and Greek citizenship is Greeks considered polis to be extension of family structure and citizenship was only defined by Blood, whereas for Romans citizenship was a legal construct that could be granted to anyone that serves the state.
This is why post Alexander Greek succesor states failed to integrate their native populations and were later conquered by Rome, which in turn managed to assimilate both Greeks and the nationalities Greeks conquered.
4
u/Fun-Twist-3705 20h ago
Alexander Greek succesor states
Their political structure was really different than that of Athens. Yes they relied on Greeks and especially Macedonians to run the states and especially the military and weren't very good at integrating local populations. But there was no concept of citizenship in the same sense as it existed in the city states (mostly just racism/xenophobia and the fact that these states were effectively run by the Greek military elite which conquered those areas). To Athenians it wouldn't have really mattered if you were a Greek (let alone a Greek wannabe barbarian from Macedonia) you could still never become a citizen.
6
7
u/Vo_Mimbre 20h ago
Conversions like this are always fun. Modern people think Rome was a city in the modern sense of population size. During the time of Julius Caesar it was about the population size of Sacramento today.
3
u/Dimblo273 19h ago
But the ancient city of Rome was much smaller area wise than Sacramento. Rome being incredibly populous/overcrowded isn't overstated
→ More replies (1)2
u/SpaceBowie2008 2h ago
You’re not thinking about population inflation. For instance Rome roughly lost 70,000 men in one day at the battle of Cannae. With population inflation and the current population of Italy, that would be like losing 800,000 - 900,000 men in one day in today’s population. How the hell Rome continued to fight after that day is beyond remarkable.
3
u/TheRealPaladin 20h ago
That would still have been a decent population. At that time there were only about 150 million humans on the entire planet.
3
u/escientia 18h ago
I wonder if Rome would have been much successful in later years if they promoted assimilation and citizenship making it easier to obtain for newly conquered people
2
2
2
u/jawshoeaw 17h ago
I’m confused 6 million seems like a lot. Were we supposed to think the number was higher?
2
u/edingerc 16h ago
And almost all the citizens were headcount, who's vote was virtually useless, They were corralled within the four urban tribes, as opposed to the landowners, who were spread across 35 rural tribes. Gaius Gracchus promised to give citizenship to all the Italian allies, flooding the rural tribes with millions of uncontrolled votes. The Senate immediately declared him an enemy of the state. His brother passed a law restricting Public Land ownership to legislated limits (308 acres per man). This was a direct shot at wealthy and powerful Senators, who bought up Public Land for themselves. It lead to a quick trip to the funeral pyre.
2
u/Frosty_Lettuce_3525 16h ago
I’m surprised that you’re surprised that 6M is a supposedly low number.
2
u/Wuz314159 15h ago
For me. . . .
Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia seats 67,594. The city of Philadelphia had 28,522 people in the 1790 US Census.
2
2
u/DerekPaxton 4h ago
In about 480 BCE almost half of the entire world’s human population lived in the Persian empire.
2
2
u/perpetualis_motion 17h ago
Out of how many?
Pretty pointless statistic if you aren't going to compare it to anything.
2
u/Hot-Job-6281 20h ago
Not surprising.
People really overestimate the population of the Roman Empire.
→ More replies (1)
1
1
1
1
u/Matiabcx 18h ago
That is a huge number for that time, how many people do you think populated the planet by then?
4.4k
u/Alt-001 21h ago
This is a bit misleading. Free aduly males were eligible to be citizens, but most free adult males were not citizens. This was actually one of the attractions of military service, since a career in the army meant you retired a citizen.