How many people lived in the roman empire

However, it is still difficult to determine, especially as the Roman Republic expanded to include various provinces , whether population figures include these areas, or just the city of Rome itself. Understanding these difficulties, there is little choice but to determine the population of the Roman Empire using various consensus estimates. The population of the world circa AD 1 has been considered to be between and million people. In that same period, the population of the early empire under Augustus has been placed at about 45 million.

Of this 45 million people, Augustus declared within his own census information that:. By contrast, in the census of 70 BC, prior to the major civil wars of the late Republic and considerably more conquests in Gaul and the East , some have estimated the population of the 'Empire' at a more considerable 55 to 60 million people.

This falls more in line with estimates at the height of imperial power in the mid 2nd century AD, and might be inflated considering the lack of the previously mentioned expansion. The census of 70 BC showed , men held citizenship, which is far short of the Augustan citizen numbers roughly 4 million , but more than the overall numbers roughly 45 million just a century later.

The large discrepancy would seem to account for the fact that Augustus probably counted more than even citizen men and related family members including women. He may have included non-citizen freemen, freedmen and slaves as well, but this we can never be certain of.

On the other side of the debate are those who suggest that the population simply boomed. This would mean that the Roman Empire — and other premodern societies — achieved much higher economic output than previously supposed. It would mean that Roman history as it is now understood would have to be rewritten.

To help put an end to the debate, University of Connecticut theoretical biologist Peter Turchin and Stanford University ancient historian Walter Scheidel focused on the region's prevalence of coin hoards, those bundles of buried treasure that people hid to protect their savings during times of great violence and political strife. If the people who hid these bundles were killed or driven off, they wouldn't have been able to retrieve them, leaving them for archaeologists to find.

According to the researchers, mapping out the times when the coins were buried is a good indirect method for measuring the intensity of internal warfare and unrest , and therefore a key indicator of population demographics.

The model the two developed using the coin distribution and less controversial census data from earlier periods suggests that the population of Rome did in fact decline after B. These gods were not personified like in Greek mythology but instead were represented by spirits known as numina. A strict system of offices organized religion in Ancient Rome. As the Romans increased their interactions with the Greeks, Roman gods became associated with Greek gods. Later, it became a supported religion. Ancient Rome continued to grow and make advanced that would help contribute to innovation today until the fall of the Western Roman Empire.