you are my density

[pauraque_bk]

Man, I have really looked everywhere for this. How do I find information on the demography of various places in the ancient world, like population density and such? I see the Romans invented the idea of taking a census, but where do I get the actual numbers? Did they not survive? I'm actually more interested in estimates of the population density of ancient Greece, but anything in the ballpark would do at this point...

Comments

[atdelphi.livejournal.com]

Ack - I know I have estimates for this in at least two books that I own, but unfortunately they're both in another province, in my father's basement. This may be a job for an academic library if you have one nearby.

[sedesdraconis.livejournal.com]

Just yesterday when I was visiting my parents house, I pulled out my copy of The Population of Europe by Massimo Livi Bacci, but I seem to have not gotten it packed and brought home :-/

Anyway, I think that only covers 1000-2000 AD.

Wikipedia actually has numbers for the Roman censuses:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censor_(ancient_Rome)
I assume those are the numbers of free, male heads of household, which is what the Romans totaled. They also collected enough other information to calculate the total population of the city, but that you'd probably have to go digging for.

I sort of doubt the ancient Greeks did any censuses, but they might have gotten counted in one of the province censuses that the Romans did occasionally. You could try following up on the sources on the Wikipedia page.

Are you looking for how dense cities were, or how dense large regions were?

[pauraque]

Bah, I didn't scroll down far enough in the Wikipedia article! But still, just the overall total doesn't help too much since I do want to know how dense cities were, as well as rural areas.

[skywaterblue.livejournal.com]

http://www.greenwood.com/dailylife/history_info.aspx ?

I have access to that somehow through my school, which I keep meaning to plumb. If you know a college librarian or something...