tion, to some remarks on the probable magnitude, and the number of the inhabitants of the city of Rome, in account we may compare Procopius' also, De Bello Persico, ii. 22. p. 249. l. 7—23. 259. 1. 12. which is the account of a contemporary and an eyewitness likewise. Both he and Procopius are agreed that, having begun in the regions of Æthiopia, or in Egypt, this visitation gradually spread to the most distant quarters of the empire in the west; travelling into all, and desolating all, in their turns, and not content with visiting particular places once, or for a limited time, but returning thither again, and prolonging its stay there as if on purpose. In Byzantium or Constantinople alone, after it had reached that quarter, we are told by Procopius, as many as 5000, and ultimately as 10,000, were known to die in a day: and that early in the history of the continuance of the plague a. Nor, excepting perhaps occasional periods of intermission, does Constantinople appear to have been free from repeated visitations of it any more than Antioch. For, ad annum Justini iidi septimum, consequently A. D. 571 or 572. Joannes Abbas, the continuator of Victor Tununensis, observes, p. 13. In Regia urbe mortalitas inguinalis plaga exardescit; in qua multa millia hominum vidimus defuisse: and this it appears continued till the eighth of Justin, when Tiberius was appointed Cæsar; and the re mark occurs, Hujus Tiberii Cæsaris die prima in Regia urbe inguinalis plaga sedata est: though as we have seen from Evagrius, the plague itself, generally, cannot be supposed to have ceased throughout the empire, before A. D. 592 or 593, the eleventh of Mauricius, successor of Tiberius, at least. Estimating the effects of this visitation in general, Procopius, both in this chapter of the Historia Arcana, and also cap. vi. 20. C. D. is of opinion, that one half at least of those who survived the preceding causes of destruction must have fallen victims to this. Taking, therefore, each of these data into account, and assuming that from various causes, the loss of human life over all the empire, during the reign of Justinian, for the period considered by Procopius, amounted to 100,000,000: sixty millions of which or upwards, must be assigned to the effects of war, &c. and the remainder, forty millions, or nearly, to that of pestilence in particular-if these forty millions were equal to one half of the numbers which survived the other causes of destruction-the entire number which survived those causes was about eighty millions: and the entire amount of the population of the empire, including all who perished from any of the above causes, and all who survived, for the period in - Procopius, indeed, observes, that the plague reached Byzantium first, in the spring of the second year; and that the visitation in this first instance lasted four months, three of them the dμ of the disease. But that he does not imply by this any actual cessation of the plague, appears plainly from the Bellum Vandalicum, ií. 14. 469. 1. 15. et sqq: the time of which was the tenth of Justinian. his time, or at any period before or after his, which may best illustrate its magnitude and population in his. This inquiry is intimately connected with the consideration of the numbers in the text of Suidas. If those numbers are all of them allowed to be genuine, or if the first of them in particular (that which denotes the four hundred) be admitted to be such; it follows that the sum total, the four millions and upwards, denoted by them, must be understood of the population of the city, if it cannot be understood of the population of the empire. That it cannot be understood of the latter, is self-evident; yet that it cannot be understood of the former, may be rendered almost as certain. In this case, either the whole passage, as it stands, means nothing at all, and must be dismissed as unworthy of further notice, or the numbers of the census, as they stand in the text at present, are to be considered undoubtedly corrupt; and therefore may justly admit of correction by 8,, or any other alteration, which may best render them consistent with the rest of the passage, and with the matter of fact. For it should be observed, that the passage asserts the numbers in question to be the amount of the inhabitants τῆς Ῥωμαίων ; and therefore either of the city question, must be estimated, upon the authority of Procopius, at 130 or 140 millions. Nor is this vast reduction of the population of the empire from 140 to 40 millions, so very improbable in itself, at least if the accounts of Procopius are to be believed. For he tells us, that as the effect of the whole, in all parts of the empire, east and west, in Africa, in Italy, in Upper Asia, the country was almost depopulated, and a man might travel many days' journey without meeting a single inhabitant. The extent of the existing depopulation in Africa, in particular, may be conceived from the fact, that Justinian rebuilt there one hundred and fifty cities; all more or less in ruins at the time: Evagrius, E. H. iv. 18. 394. D: though indeed Procopius De Edificiis alone is competent to shew, that there was scarcely a quarter of the empire, either east or west, where he had not occasion to do the same thing. or of the empire. It asserts consequently the numbers either of a census urbis, strictly so called, or of a census orbis: both which are different things from a census civium, or census populi, as such. It is therefore of little importance to the question at issue, that the numbers in Suidas, as they stand, may be partially recognised in the results of each of the three census populi, held by Augustus, in the course of his reign, and reported upon the Ancyran monument, and in the chronicon of Eusebius. I say partially recognised; for they agree with them all in part; but with none of the three exactly. The last of these censuses, according to the marble, viz. that of U. C. 767, was 4,037,000: on which account, Chishull proposed to correct the numbers in Suidas by vý, instead of ví, μvpiádes, kaì xiλiádes éttà, 4,037,017, instead of 4,101,017. The chronicon of Eusebius, however, represents this same census at 4,190,117. It is possible, therefore, that the numbers on the monument may themselves be in error; in which case they are not a proper standard whereby to correct the text of Suidas. At least no correction of Suidas in conformity either to the monument or to the chronicle, will do more than shift the difficulty in question; which is this, whether any of the censuses, reported in either, can be understood of the population of the city of Rome in the time of Augustus, or not. I am not disposed to allow that the censuses either in the monument or in the chronicle have any thing to do with a census urbis; but on the contrary I maintain that they are to be understood of the census civium, throughout the empire. Yet, notwithstanding, I cannot admit that the census in Suidas was ever intended a Tacitus, Tom. ii. pars ii". 840. 263. Ad annum 2029. b Chronicon Armeno-Latinum, pars ii. VOL. IV. C even of a census of this last description: for it is there set forth as a census of the inhabitants either of the city or of the empire, for the former of which, as it stands at present, it is a great deal too much in excess, and for the latter it is still more so in defect. While some learned men, upon the authority of these several censuses, have assumed the population of Rome in the time of Augustus, at four millions and upwards, others, upon the testimony of a well-known passage in Pliny, within 60 years after the last of the censuses of Augustus, are found to calculate it at the enormous multitude of 14,000,000. What can we think of such an extravagant conclusion? especially when taken along with the former, the very truth of which would of itself imply the falsehood or absurdity of the latter. For even though Rome had contained four millions of inhabitants U. C. 767, these never could have increased to fourteen millions by U.C. 826. The truth is, that both these calculations of its numbers are grossly exaggerated, as we shall see by and by; though the latter is much more so than the former. My first argument to shew that no one of the censuses under Augustus is to be understood of a census urbis as such, would be taken from a comparison of the returns of those censuses, with the results of former censuses, also on record; even such as are the nearest in point of time to these of Augustus. The disproportion between them is much too great to allow them all to be understood of a census urbis, or to account for the superior amount of the numbers under Augustus, by any intermediate increase of the magnitude or population of the city, which can reasonably be supposed to have taken place. c H. N. iii. 9. p. 611. et sqq. Dionysius of Halicarnassus reports a census of citizens, about U. C. 278, at 110,000, and a gross population of all kinds at 440,000 and upwards d. When the city was taken by the Gauls, U.C. 364, the census was 152,573o. About the time of Alexander, B. C. 324, U. C. 430, it was 130,000 f: U. C. 461, it was 262,322: U. C. 475, 278,222 about U. C. 479, 271,224: about U. C. 489, 292,224: about U. C. 499, 297,797: about U. C. 509, 251,222: just before the second Punic war, about U.C. 534, it was 270,213 and U. C. 546, it was 137,108: U. C. 550, it was 214,000: U. C. 565, 258,318 5: about U. C. 577, it was 273,244: U.C. 581, B. C. 173, it was 269,015: U. C. 586, B. C. 168, 411,810: about U.C. 590, B.C. 164, it was 337,452 about U. C. 594, it was 328,314: about U. C. 602, it was 324,000: about U. C. 613, it was 328,342: about U. C. 618, it was 323,000: about U. C. 624, it was 313,823 : about U. C. 628, it was 390,736: about U. C. 640, it was 394,336* h ̧ The Ancyran monument speaks of there having been no lustrum conditum for 42 years before U. C. 727†. * Jerome, Chronicon, p.150. ad annum Abrahami 1932. Olympiad 173. 3. notices a census in which the results were 463,000. This date answers to U. C. 669: two years after the rights of citizenship had been conceded to the Italici Populi. See Livii See Livii Epitome LXXX. Hence probably the increase of numbers upon the census last preceding; though even this is small in com parison of the numbers specified by Phlegon, as we shall see, at the census, U. C. 685, B. C. 69. The difference might be partly accounted for by the loss of life in the war which preceded the census of U. C. 669; from which the country must in some measure have recovered itself by the time of the census, U. C. 685. † Dio, xl. 57. mentions the restitution of the Potestas Cen d Ant. Rom. ix. 25. e Pliny, H. N. xxxiii. 5. f Plutarch, Operum vii. 292. De Fortuna Romanorum. g Livy, x. 47. Epitome, xiii. xiv. xvi. xviii. xix. xx. Livy, xxvii. 36. xxix. 37. xxxviii. 36. h Livy, xlii. 10. Epitome, xli. xlv: Plutarch, Æmilius Paulus, 38. Cf. Livy, Epitome, xlvi. xlvii. xlviii. liv. lvi. lix. Ix. lxiii: Suidas, 'Pwμalwv róλis, and 'Púμn. |