Bret Devereaux

I think they convey order of magnitude, but obviously a lot of detail is missed. So where are my numbers (very, VERY roughly) from? 7/23

ATHENS: the figures are substantially based on M.H. Hansen, Demography and Democracy: The Number of Athenian citizens in the fourth century (1986). I used that because more recent studies... 8/23

...(e.g. Hansen's Shotgun Method (2006) or Corvisier, La population de l’Antiquité classique (2000)) focus on total numbers and don't consider breakdown by social class. I should also note the social class breakdown for Athens is probably the *most* speculative here. 8/23

SPARTA: Estimates here follow as noted P. Cartledge, Agesilaus and the Crisis of Sparta (1987) and R.J.A. Talbert, "The Role of the Helots in the Class Struggle at Sparta" Historia (1989). Thomas J. Figueira has argued for a smaller number of helots... 9/23

...(in Helots and Their Masters in Laconia and Messenia (2003)), roughly 118k (a bit more than half my figure here); I think this is useful as a lower bound but I suspect helot labor was less efficiently deployed than he assumes and thus am comfortable with a higher figure. 10/23

ROME: The basis for these figures fundamentally derives from Polybius' account of the manpower available to Rome in 225 (thus the precise year), Plb. 2.24. Those figures are MUCH better than the evidence for Sparta or Athens, but their interpretation is fraught. 11/23

Substantially I follow L. Deligt, Peasants, Citizens and Soldiers (2012) on the general figures here. I accept N. Rosenstein's downward adjustment of estimates of the number of capiti censi (Rome at War (2004)) and @DrMichaelJTayl1 's breakdown of the... 12/23

...assidui and proletarii, as well as the split between the equites cum equo publico vs. cum equo suo (Soldiers & Silver (2020)). For Roman demography nerds, this means I adopt a high version of the 'low count.' 13/23