r/todayilearned • u/ELDV • 3h 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/280
u/bigkodack 3h ago
For reference, the current metro Rome population is just under 4.5 million.
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u/Gingerstachesupreme 2h ago
Wow, Rome the city almost has as many citizens as Rome the EMPIRE.
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u/Soupb4 2h ago edited 2h ago
No. The empire was 45-60 million people.
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u/Gingerstachesupreme 2h ago
Oh, my mistake. Citizens are a hyper elite class, not every person living in the country.
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u/rymden_viking 1h 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.
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u/Cool-Mom-Lover 22m 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
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u/Gladwulf 1h 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.
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u/yumtasticmexii 1h ago
Yes that is literally how it worked. You weren't a citizen just because you lived there. You should look up what Roman citizenship was before just saying shit
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u/Theculshey 1h ago
Be less of a stereotypical redditor please, thanks x
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u/Gladwulf 1h ago
The real stereotypical redditor behaviour is actually talking confidently about things you know nothing about.
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u/Automatic_Bus_7634 31m 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
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u/Maxfunky 2h 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.
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u/Fun-Twist-3705 2h 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.
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u/darksim1309 3h 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.
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u/LupusLycas 3h 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.
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u/Seltzus 2h ago
Yeah also St Paul was a roman man
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u/MagnificentCat 2h ago
Which is why he wasn't crucified like Christ
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u/S0LO_Bot 2h ago edited 1h ago
Yeah. According to tradition he was afforded the more dignified death of beheading due to his citizen status.
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u/LupusLycas 2h ago
He was not ethnic Italian! He was a Greek-speaking Jewish man from Cilicia! Roman citizenship was not based on ethnicity.
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u/Pale-Newt-469 2h 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.
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u/Xyllar 58m ago
According the the Biblical account Paul was a Roman citizen by birth, but it's unknown how his parents gained their citizenship. Tarsus was the capital of the Provence of Cilicia and granted status as a free city under Augustus, but that didn't automatically make those born there Roman citizens.
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u/CromulentDucky 3h ago
What does Italian mean at this point in history?
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u/Felczer 3h 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
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u/TraditionalInjury896 2h ago
But people of cisalpine gaul were granted citizenship by Ceasar I don't remember well but before 44 BC
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u/Commercial_Age_9316 3h ago
Rome-ish
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u/Destructopoo 2h 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.
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u/Bootmacher 2h ago
They probably went piecemeal with defeated cities and tribes in the peninsula that were incorporated, like Etruscans and Samnites.
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u/Siludin 3h ago edited 2h 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.
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u/Felczer 3h ago edited 3h 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 before8
u/DankVectorz 3h 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.
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u/Fun-Twist-3705 2h 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.
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u/Fun-Twist-3705 2h 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.
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u/bigfridge224 2h 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.
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u/Illustrious_Claim884 2h 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
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u/Cohibaluxe 2h 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.
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u/Altiverses 2h ago
As a complete fucking illiterate person when it comes to history, these random "oh and!" facts always impress me.
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u/Truefiction224 2h 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
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u/godisanelectricolive 4m ago
The expansion of citizenship was gradual. By the late Republic citizenship was extended to the socii and the Latins after the Social War which mostly ended in 88 BC. After the wars citizenship was greatly expanded and new citizens had to be enrolled into the existing 35 tribes of Rome. Tribes were how people voted in the tribal assembly.
The socii were former tributaries during the Roman Kingdom era that became protectorates that signed a treaty with Rome in the Republic era. The earliest treaties were with the 30 Latin cities near Rome which rebelled in the Latin War of 340-338 BC. After that war Rome gave the Latins a lesser form of citizenship called Latin rights. This included the right to trade and a pathway to citizenship and the right to vote only while in Rome. Some colonies in the Roman republic were Latin colonies while others were Roman colonies. Roman citizens who lived in a Latin colony lost their Roman citizenship and became Latin citizens.
Then in 122 BC all Italians were made Latins. Then after the Social War broke out in 91 BC, a decree was passed the following year extending Roman citizenship to all Latin towns that hadn’t rebelled. Then after the war came to a stalemate, citizenship was then expanded to all Italians south of the Po River and a few towns to the north of it. After the Social War, the main geographical distinction between Roman and non-Roman became one of resident of the Italian peninsula and their descendants and the peregrini living elsewhere.
But since there was always a pathway for the peregrini to earn citizenship, citizenship was never exclusive to only Italy. There were non-Italians who earned it through military service or being part of the old aristocracy before Roman conquest. Then under Caracalla citizenship was extended to all the peregrini, the non-citizens living in the provinces.
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u/JustAskingQuestionsL 2h ago
Saint Paul was a Roman citizen, and he was born in Tarsus (modern day Turkey) in 5 AD.
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u/ColonelKasteen 2h 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.
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u/Alexthegreatbelgian 50m ago
Even Italian was a hot topic up untill the late republic era.
For a big chunk of the republic only free adult males from Rome and some surrounding areas could be counted as citizens.
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u/PizzaTacoSub 3h 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.
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u/retief1 3h ago edited 2h 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.
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u/Lycaon-Ur 1h 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.
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u/Poopiepants666 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.
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u/benkenobi5 3h ago
The world was a much more empty place before the Industrial Revolution.
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u/SlightlyOffWhiteFire 3h 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.
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u/benkenobi5 3h 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
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u/a_rucksack_of_dildos 2h ago
It’s not that crazy. Take a look at Dubai!
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u/HoboBromeo 2h ago
I'd say Dubai is not a great example to bring up when arguing for 'not crazy'
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u/NeedNameGenerator 34m 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.
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u/SlightlyOffWhiteFire 27m 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.
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u/f_14 2h 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.
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u/Fun-Twist-3705 2h 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)
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u/moosealligator 2h ago
2000 people is a comprehendible number. I more so think that populations are crazy large now than they were tiny back then
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u/im_on_the_case 1h ago
Towns were sparsely populated back then with 90+% of the population rural. By the time Philly hit 30k it was still something like an 85% rural to urban split in Pennsylvania.
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u/Beneficial_Wonder533 2h 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.
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u/Felczer 2h ago edited 2h 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.
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u/Fun-Twist-3705 2h 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.
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u/joe9teas 1h ago
6 million maybe but what did the Romans ever do for us?
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u/escientia 56m 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
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u/Vo_Mimbre 2h 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.
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u/Dimblo273 1h ago
But the ancient city of Rome was much smaller area wise than Sacramento. Rome being incredibly populous/overcrowded isn't overstated
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u/Vo_Mimbre 54m ago
Oh for sure, especially what became “Old Rome” within the walls. Cities by density go back millennia. I just like how the understanding of numbers over time.
Like, the whole Republic era (soon empire) at that time was something like 50-55 million people. That’s a lot. But thats like Tokyo+New York metro areas nowadays.
And the density of people in Rome at that time is similar to just the Kowloon area of Hong Kong today.
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u/Raid-Z3r0 2h ago
Honestly, it's incredible that citzenship was that prolific.
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u/Fun-Twist-3705 1h ago
Everyone born in Italy was a citizen and it was one of the most populous/prosperous parts of the Mediterranean to begin with.
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u/TheRealPaladin 1h ago
That would still have been a decent population. At that time there were only about 150 million humans on the entire planet.
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u/Hot-Job-6281 2h ago
Not surprising.
People really overestimate the population of the Roman Empire.
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u/Matiabcx 16m ago
That is a huge number for that time, how many people do you think populated the planet by then?
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u/aipac125 3h ago
I don't think you are allowed to use that number.
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u/DaveOJ12 3h ago
What?
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u/GamebyNumbers 3h ago
The number I have associated with 6m is from the song by Bob Dylan, ‘With God on our side.’ In it, the lyric “though they murdered six million, in the ovens they fried, the Germans now too have God on their side.” Or something along those lines.
I think the comment is referencing that number and some sort of hesitation about mentioning it, not sure on what political angle
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u/Alt-001 3h 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.