Bret Devereaux

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

For non-Roman citizens, things get dicey fast. Polybius gives us totals for the number of allies who serve as cavalry and the number that serve as infantry. I have assumed - and this is a HEROIC assumption - that the social class breakdown in the... 14/23

...various non-Roman Italian allies looks broadly like the Roman one. This informs the estimate for the propertyless poor (the equivalent of the Roman capite censi) in the rest of Italy. That is essentially a raw guess and could be substantially off. 15/23

For Enslaved Persons, I have accepted the guess made by P.A. Brunt, Italian Manpower: 225 BC - AD 14 (1971) of around half a million and split it evenly between Romans and Italians. That even split gives the Romans *somewhat* higher percentage of enslaved persons... 16/23

...but honestly the real ratio likely has far more (but by no means all) of the enslaved people held in Roman communities. The figure for the number of enslaved people at this point is, however, little more than a fairly blind guess. 17/23

That c. 500k figure also does not reflect, of course, the dramatic growth in the number of enslaved people in Roman Italy was a result of Rome's conquests in the 100s (which haven't happened yet). 18/23