Depiction of Rome’s Population through History

David Galbraith has assembled an interesting graph that depicts Rome’s population from the Republic era to modern day. While there are serious questions about the accuracy of the data and the legitimacy of comparing ancient and modern sources, I think the impression given by the graph is useful and generally reliable. The graph shows the pinnacle of Rome’s population occurring during the Late Republic and Early Imperial eras followed by a huge decline in late antiquity. After that, the population remains steadily dismal until the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries. In many ways the chart is paradigmatic of Western civilization as a whole—at least in terms of population (I’m not endorsing the old view that there was nothing of substance between the Romans and the Renaissance). At the very least, his graph is thought-provoking.

HT: Wendy