"Population Numbers for Athens and Sparta" Topic

Working on the Peloponnesian War, and the population estimates I'm getting for Athens and Sparta vary so much you'd think there were several cities of each name. Can anyone point me toward estimates for the period which tell how the author arrived at his numbers? I've already got plenty of Joe says X and Sam says Y. I need stuff that works from specified ancient numbers or works on known area and estimates of population density so I can check the historian's reasoning.

Thanks.

You and a lot of historians too Robert. I doubt very much that such data is available and, in my experience, asking an historian to explain how they came up with a number rarely gets an answer that satisfies.

I have seen attempts at estimating ancient and medieval populations but it is rare to see any methodology explained so you could check it. You might try searches on PhD theses if you have access to a collection of them – It is just the kind of exercise you see given to postgrads.

PDF link might be a good start.

It depends on the information available. For example, in medieval references "fireplaces" were counted, not people. Thus, you have to extrapolate. One author will count 5 people per household, another 6 … After a plague episode, anyone knows. If an archaeological site is well known in an estimated area of 10%, the rooms can be counted and estimate how many people lived in that 10% and add 90% … it remains to be known if it is really 10%, it will not be known if the excavation cannot be completed in its entirety. Other times you have to calculate based on the cultivated land: how much labor is needed, how many people can be fed with that? In ancient times, they themselves did not can to know how many they were in exact numbers. Surely, they were not concerned either. In addition to taking into account that for many cultures not all of them were counted as "persons." If an ancient author quotes a number we can ask ourselves; Does it include slaves? And women? Small children? Plebs? It is explained of the Persians before starting a military campaign, they do each soldier leave an arrow, and when they returned they recovered it, counting how many were left uncollected, they knew how many had died. Maybe it's true, but I think Cirus wasn't really interested in people knowing what mortality his campaigns had caused.

In serious works, the author indicates what factors he has used for the calculation, so actually any estimate you see will be the best possible.

GurKhan, great PDF!!!

Very interesting work. Many thanks, GurKhan.

Acronim, I know how it should be done, and mostly what the variable are. But sadly "serious" works show how they arrived at their numbers only for a very restrictive definition of "serious." I can find you tenured professors published by university presses who might as well have gotten their number by use of a magic 8-ball for all the methodology they show.

GurKhan's PDF is (for Athens) almost precisely what I'm trying to arrive at--specified numbers of households, calculated urban and total area. Once you have those, you can establish a range, which is all I'm after.

Frankly, cut every Ancient army in half and they still seem like unlikely numbers. It's like these people had super advanced logistics support or supplies were just everywhere….