Polybius manpower ﬁgures and the size of the Italian ... Ligt... · Polybius’ manpower ﬁgures...

chapter 2

Polybius’ manpower figures and the size of the Italianpopulation on the eve of the Hannibalic War

2 . 1 i n t roduct i on

An important starting point for all reconstructions of the history of theItalian population during the Republic is the famous list of Roman andItalian manpower resources that appears in the second book of Polybius’Histories.1 As Polybius explains, his collection of figures is meant to give animpression of Rome’s enormous power at the onset of the Second PunicWar. His account pertains, however, to 225 bc, when a large-scale Gallicinvasion threatened central and southern Italy. We are told that as soon asthe Romans became aware of this threat they began to prepare themselvesby stockpiling large quantities of grain, missiles and other resources requiredfor war. They also carried out a survey to establish how many troops theyand their allies would be able to mobilize in the event of war. According toPolybius, ‘the inhabitants of Italy, terror-struck by the invasion of theGauls, no longer thought of themselves as the allies of Rome or regardedthis war as undertaken to establish Roman supremacy, but every manconsidered that the peril was descending on himself and his own city andcountry. So there was great alacrity in obeying orders.’2

The results of the survey are shown in Table 2.1.

2.1.1 Low count

Of the proponents of the low-count theory, Brunt has supplied the mostdetailed analysis of these figures. The basic assumptions behind his recon-struction are, however, identical to those to be found in Chapter 8 ofBeloch’s Die Bevölkerung der griechisch-römischen Welt.3 It therefore seemsappropriate to begin with the latter’s views, before discussing those of

1 Plb. 2.23–4. 2 Plb. 2.23.12. 3 Beloch (1886), 356–60.

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Brunt’s arguments that altered, nuanced or strengthened the findings of hisGerman predecessor.Beloch observes that the force available to the Romans and their allies

numbered 699,200 foot and 69,100 horse. This is compatible withPolybius’ statement that the total number of men serving in the army orlisted on the registers (apographai) amounted to ‘more than 700,000 footand almost 70,000 horse’. Beloch also points out that Diodorus’ account ofthe invasion of 225 bc gives precisely the same figures, while Pliny the Elderstates that at this time Rome could call upon 700,000 foot and 80,000horse.4 Eutropius and Orosius, both of whom draw on Livy, give a roundtotal figure of 800,000. Interestingly, it appears from these late authors thatLivy himself took his figures from Fabius Pictor.5 As Beloch notes, thisleaves us in no doubt that Polybius’ figures also came from this source. We

Table 2.1 Roman and allied manpower figures in 225 bc accordingto Polybius

Foot soldiers Horsemen Total

A. Men under arms1. Romans:With the consuls 20,800 1,200 22,000In Sicily and Tarentum 8,400 400 8,800Reserve at Rome 20,000 1,500 21,500Total 49,200 3,100 52,300

2. Allies:With the consuls 30,000 2,000 32,000Reserve at Rome 30,000 2,000 32,000Sabines and Etruscans 50,000+ 4,000 54,000+Umbrians and Sarsinates 20,000 - 20,000Veneti and Cenomani 20,000 - 20,000Total 150,000+ 8,000 158,000+

B. Men on the registersRomans and Campanians 250,000 23,000 273,000Latins 80,000 5,000 85,000Samnites 70,000 7,000 77,000Iapygians and Messapians 50,000 16,000 66,000Lucanians 30,000 3,000 33,000Marsi, Marrucini etc. 20,000 4,000 24,000Total 500,000 58,000 558,000

4 Diod. 25.13; Plin. HN 3.138. 5 Eutr. 3.5; Oros. 4.13.6.

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are therefore dealing with material put together by a contemporary of theSecond Punic War.

Unfortunately, this does not mean that the figures given by Polybius areentirely unproblematic. There are certainly some minor problems, such asthe horse:foot ratios given for various groups of allies. As Beloch points out,this ratio lies between 1:10 and 1:16 for the Romans and most of their allies,but is only 1:3 for the Apulians and 1:5 for the Marsi and their Oscan-speaking neighbours. Beloch solves this problem by amending the numberof Apulian horse to 6,000 and by increasing the number of foot supplied bythe Marsi and the other Abruzzi peoples to 40,000,6 thereby changing theratios for these two groups to 1:8.3 and 1:10 respectively.

More important is the discrepancy between the total suggested byPolybius and the census figure for 234 bc. If we are to believe Polybius(Fabius Pictor), the Romans were theoretically capable of mobilizing325,300 men of military age in 225 bc. The census figure for 234 bc is,however, only 270,713.7 Since this figure is very close to the figure given byPolybius for the number of Roman men ‘on the lists’ (273,000), Belochconcludes that Fabius must have overlooked the fact that men already underarms were included on the lists. In other words, Polybius’ figure can bereconciled with the census of 234 bc only by assuming that he counted nofewer than 52,300 men twice.

A completely different problem concerns the number given for alliedtroops, which is lower than the usual ratio between legionaries and allies inthe Roman armies of the third and second centuries bc would lead one toexpect. The best treatment of this difficulty is that of Brunt, whose attemptto explain these figures focuses on the Latins.8 Polybius states that the Latinswere capable of furnishing 80,000 foot and 5,000 horse. Brunt ingeniouslycombines these figures with the number of Latin communities, of which, heasserts, there were thirty-six in 225 bc (twenty-eight Latin colonies and eightother towns of Latin status). Observing that the implied average of 2,300fighting men per Latin community was much lower than the averagenumber of male colonists (c. 3,800) sent out to each of six Latin colonies

6 Cf. Brunt (1971/1987), 49, who opts for 30,000. Beloch (1886), 360, justifies the correction by pointingout that Polybius’ figures for Roman and allied infantry do not add up to his total of ‘more than700,000’ (2.24.16). Since the Etruscans and Sabines are credited with ‘more than 50,000 foot soldiers’,however, this particular argument is weak. La Regina (1970/1971), 447, points out that the correctionssuggested by Beloch, Afzelius and Brunt are arbitrary and thinks that the figure of 20,000 can beretained. Since the separate figures for foot and horse add up to the total given by Polybius, it is surelymost probable that Fabius did write 20,000, although it remains possible that he misread xxxmilia orxlmilia as xxmilia.

7 Per. Livy 20. 8 Brunt (1971/1987), 56–7.

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established before 225 bc, he concludes that Beloch must have been right insuggesting that, unlike the Roman figures, the allied figures cannot haveincluded all adult males. Brunt, like Beloch, takes the Latin figures to refersolely to iuniores (men aged between 17 and 45).9

Since this age group made up c. 75 per cent of the adult male population,his interpretation raises the number of adult males per Latin community toc. 3,000. If we assume that the returns submitted by the allies were c. 20 percent defective, we can raise this figure to c. 3,700. This figure is very close tothe average number of colonists suggested by the literary sources.10

In order to arrive at a grand estimate of the entire population of Italy atthis time, we need estimated populations for Bruttium, for the Greek citiesof southern Italy and for Cisalpine Gaul. As Beloch and Brunt have noted,the territory inhabited by the Bruttians and Greeks was roughly equal in sizeto that of the Lucanians.11On the other hand, Magna Graecia seems to havebeen more fertile than either Lucania or Bruttium. From these facts Bruntinfers that the Greeks and Bruttians together must have outnumbered theLucanians. This leads him to conjecture that there must have beenc. 210,000 Bruttians and Greeks, of whom c. 65,000 would have beenadult males.12

Most difficult to estimate is the population of Cisalpine Gaul. The only‘evidence’ that we have concerning this consists of scattered references to thenumber of troops fielded by various Gaulish tribes between 228 and 223 bc.One example is Polybius’ statement that the Cenomani and Veneti suppliedc. 20,000 men to support the Romans in 225 bc.13 Another is his assertionthat the Insubres mobilized 50,000men in 223 bc, when their territory wasinvaded by a Roman army of c. 40,000 men.14 Beloch is inclined to acceptthe figure for the Veneti and the Cenomani, but dismisses all otherreferences as unreliable. He therefore makes no attempt to estimate thepopulation of Cisalpine Gaul in 225 bc.15

Despite sharing Beloch’s scepticism regarding the reliability of Polybius’Gallic manpower figures, Brunt does attempt a conjectural estimate. Heargues that the Insubres would surely have responded to the Roman attackof 223 bc by mobilizing every man they had. If he is right, the iunioresamongst the Insubrian population must have numbered c. 50,000.16 Brunt

9 Beloch’s and Brunt’s interpretation of the figures given for the allies has found wide acceptance. Seee.g. Ilari (1974), 64; Wulff Alonso (1991), 158; Baronowski (1993), 183, 187; Lo Cascio (1999a), 168; Hin(2008), 191–3.

10 Brunt (1971/1987), 56. 11 Beloch (1886), 358. 12 Brunt (1971/1987), 52, 59. 13 Plb. 2.24.7.14 Plb. 2.32.6. Cf. Beloch (1886), 428; Brunt (1971/1987), 185.15 Beloch (1886), 428. But cf. Chapter 1, at note 21. 16 Brunt (1971/1987), 185.

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goes on to argue that the Boii were no less powerful than the Insubres andmust therefore also have had c. 50,000 iuniores. By assigning a conjectural100,000 iuniores to the Veneti and the lesser Gallic tribes (including theCenomani) and a further 100,000 to the Ligurians, he arrives at a roughestimate of c. 300,000 iuniores in Cisalpine Gaul and Liguria. This wouldimply a total population of about 1 million. Having offered this estimate,however, Brunt admits that ‘a total of 400,000 or 500,000 could not bedisproved’.17 In the end, he opts for a total northern population of the orderof 1.4 million.

Combining this estimate with those for central and southern Italy, weend up with a free Italian population of c. 4.5million. If we follow Brunt inassuming that there were c. 500,000 slaves in Italy at the time of the Gallicinvasion,18 we must conclude that the combined free and non-free popula-tion of Italy stood at about 5 million at this time.

2.1.2 High count

If indeed mainland Italy had about 13.5 million free inhabitants at the timeof Augustus,19 it is very hard to believe that it had a free population of only4.5 million in 225 bc, since if we accept both figures we must assume anannual growth rate so high as to be markedly out of step with demographicdata relating to other pre-modern societies.20 In other words, those optingfor a high-count interpretation of the Augustan census figures must eitherreject Polybius’ manpower figures or reinterpret them. In an article pub-lished in 1999, Lo Cascio offered a re-analysis of the Polybian data designedto meet this challenge.21

Lo Cascio’s discussion starts from the observation that Polybius estab-lishes a clear distinction between the numbers of men already on activeservice and the numbers reported by the Latin and Italian allies to be readyfor duty. It appears clear that the former category of troops consisted of thetwo consular armies, the reserve legions in Rome, the legions stationed inSicily and at Tarentum and the troops raised by emergency levies in Etruria,Sabinum andUmbria. The second category consisted of the fighting men tobe fielded, in case of need, by the allied communities of central and south-ern Italy, with the exception of the Greeks and Bruttians. In Lo Cascio’sview, the obvious conclusion is that, contrary to the theories of Beloch andBrunt, Polybius was quite correct in calculating the total manpower

17 Ibid. 189. 18 Brunt (1971/1987), 67, followed byHopkins (1978), 68. 19 Chapter 1, at note 31.20 Cf. Chapter 3, section 3.7.2. 21 Lo Cascio (1999a).




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resources available to Rome by adding together the figures given for thesetwo sub-groups.Lo Cascio further modifies the low-count reading of the Polybian figures by

questioning the traditional assumption that the figure for ‘the Romans andCampanians’ should be taken to include all Roman citizens, regardless ofwheretheywere domiciled. In his view the fact that Polybius groups the Sabines (whowereRoman citizens) together with the Etruscans (most ofwhomwere of alliedstatus) proves that the levy of 225 bcwas carried out on a purely regional basis,without regard to the juridical status of the regions’ inhabitants. If this iscorrect, the figures provided by Polybius should be interpreted as includingall fighting men, whether Roman citizens, Latins or allies, living in the variousregions to which he refers. This assumption is the background to Lo Cascio’ssuggestion that the emergency army of the Etruscans and Sabines ‘was formedby 2/5Roman citizens and 3/5 allies’. A corollary of his interpretation is that the85,000 ‘Latins’ listed cannot have included the fighting men of the Latincommunities in Samnium, Apulia and Etruria. It follows that Polybius’ figurefor ‘Latins’ must refer solely to the inhabitants of the Latin communities ofLatium Vetus and Latium Adiectum.22

As we have seen, the low-count interpretation favoured by Beloch andBrunt is based partly on the observation that Polybius’ figure for ‘theRomans and Campanians’ is very close to the census figure for 234 bc.Since Lo Cascio’s re-interpretation involves the assumption that theregional figures include many tens of thousands of Roman citizens, hecannot accept this traditional reading. In order to obviate this difficulty,he argues that Beloch and Brunt were wrong in regarding the census figureand Polybius’ ‘Romans and Campanians’ figure as in pari materia.According to Lo Cascio, there are good grounds to believe that the

Roman censors targeted only that part of the adult male citizen populationbelonging to one of the thirty-five Roman tribes, ignoring the numerouscives sine suffragio who had no tribe. If we accept this theory, we mustconclude that Polybius’ figure for the ‘Romans and Campanians’ included asubstantial group of citizens not covered by the census figures.23

Lo Cascio also believes that the republican census figures and the tally of225 bc included different age groups. Like Beloch and Brunt, he thinks thatthe censors were expected to register both iuniores and seniores. In interpretingthe tally of 225 bc, however, he argues that the aim of the Roman governmentmust have been to establish the total number of men available for active fieldservice against the Gauls. Since there is good evidence to suggest that only

22 Ibid. 168. 23 Ibid. 167–8.

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iuniores were expected to serve in military campaigns, Lo Cascio concludesthat all of the figures given by Fabius/Polybius, including that for the‘Romans and Campanians’, should be interpreted as referring only to menaged between 17 and 45.24 In his view, this interpretation is supported by thefact that Polybius uses the expression ‘those of military age’ (hoi en taishêlikiais) to refer to the age groups covered by the allied manpower figures.As far as the military forces of the allied communities are concerned, then, LoCascio’s interpretation is identical to that of Beloch and Brunt. Unlike thesetwo scholars, however, Lo Cascio thinks that the figures relating to Romancitizens, including those subsumed in the regional totals, must also beinterpreted as referring exclusively to men aged between 17 and 45.

Lo Cascio founds part of his argument upon a famous passage fromCaesar’s De Bello Gallico that briefly mentions certain tabulae listing themembers of the Celtic tribe of the Helvetii.25 These tabulae appear to havelisted the names of ‘those able to bear arms’ (qui arma ferre possent) separatelyfrom those of children, old men (senes) and women, suggesting that(amongst the Helvetii, at least) seneswere not classed as ‘able to bear arms’.26

If we accept Lo Cascio’s reinterpretation of Polybius’ figures, we arrive ata total of c. 355,000 Roman iuniores, pointing to an adult male citizenpopulation of c. 473,00027 and to an aggregate citizen population of c. 1.56million. Meanwhile, the figures for the allied communities (including thosethat can be reconstructed for the Greeks and Bruttians) suggest that therewere at this time some 525,000 adult men of Latin and allied status and thusthat the areas covered by Polybius’ figures had a total free population ofroughly 3.5 million.28

In a more recent publication, Lo Cascio uses these figures to arrive at arough estimate of the population of Italy as a whole. He begins by demon-strating that his reading of the Polybian manpower figures implies apopulation density of thirty-two people per square kilometre in the areasaffected by the measures of 225 bc. If we apply this density to the territoriesof the Greek cities, to Bruttium and to Cisalpine Gaul, we obtain a totalpopulation of c. 8 million.29 Even if we assume that these areas had an

24 Ibid. 25 Caes. BG 1.29. 26 Lo Cascio (1999a) 168, followed by Hin (2008), 192.27

325,000 Roman and Campanian iuniores + 10,000 Volsci + 20,000 Etruscan cives sine suffragio (LoCascio 1999a, 168). Scheidel (2008), 40, seems to overlook the fact that the figure of 514,000 adultmales given by Lo Cascio (1999a, 169) includes c. 40,000 adult male Etruscans of allied status.

28 Lo Cascio (1999a), 168–9.29 For southern and central Italy, assuming a density of thirty-two people per hectare would give a free

population of 4.16million, implying a total population of at least 4.3million (including slaves). Thisis only about 20 per cent lower than the population of the same areas in ad 1600 (Del Panta et al.1996, 277).




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average population density of the order of only eighteen people per squarekilometre, we will obtain a total free population figure no lower than6 million.30

On the basis of these estimates, it is possible to account for the existenceof c. 14.75 million free people of citizen status at the time of Augustus byassuming that the number of free Italians grew at an average annual rate ofabout 0.45 per cent during the last two centuries of the Republic.31

2.1.3 Other interpretations

In a recent article, Walter Scheidel has tried to cast doubt upon the value ofPolybius’ manpower figures by drawing attention to the surprisingly neatratios built into them.32 As he points out, the total number of allied infantrylisted on the katagraphai is exactly equal to the number of Roman infantry‘on the lists’, while the allied cavalry total amounts to one and a half timesthe Roman figure. This observation leads Scheidel to infer that Fabius’breakdown of allied manpower figures must have been constructed ‘fromthe top down’ (that is, on the basis of known active and passive Romantroop strength).33

If this theory is correct, clearly Polybius’ figures (especially those relatingto the allies) cannot be used as a basis for any demographic reconstruction.

2 . 2 s ome weakne s s e s o f e x i s t i ng i nt e r p r e t a t i on s

Since there would be little point in analysing the Polybian figures if these couldbe shown to be the results of imaginative calculations based on the compositionof the Roman armies of the 220s bc, wemust first try to assess the strengths andweaknesses of Scheidel’s theory that these figures can shed no light upon thedemographic composition of Italy on the eve of the Second Punic War.Although Scheidel’s critical approach may have a certain appeal to those

who argue that it is impossible to achieve any credible reconstruction of thedemographic history of Roman Italy, the arguments that he uses are, in this

30 Lo Cascio and Malanima (2005), 201.31 The hypothetical figure of 14.75 million includes citizens living in the provinces. All forms of non-

natural growth resulting from the manumission of slaves and the enfranchisement of provincials are,of course, included in this calculation. Cf. De Ligt (2007c), 170–1. As Lo Cascio (2008), 242, n. 11,points out, his figures actually imply an average annual growth rate lying somewhere in the rangebetween 0.31 and 0.49 per cent.My calculation is based on a starting figure of 6million, which appearsconsiderably more realistic than 8 million.

32 Scheidel (2004), 4.33 It is not clear to me what Scheidel means by ‘passive troop strength’. If hemeans manpower reserves as

revealed bymilitary records, there would have been no need for Fabius to adopt a top-down approach.

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specific case, weak. We are asked to believe, for instance, that Fabius Pictorsimply invented his account of the submission of katagraphai recording alliedmanpower strength in 225 bc.34 As many scholars have pointed out, it is farmore plausible that Fabius’ survey was based on an administrative documentclosely resembling the formula togatorum. Although very little is known eitherabout the contents of this document or about how it was put together, there isno reason to doubt the widely held view that it was a survey of alliedmanpower resources.35

Secondly, the ‘smooth ratios’ observed by Scheidel appear only if weexclude the figures given by Polybius for the Etruscans and the Umbrians.As has often been observed, we have also to consider the Bruttians and theGreek cities of southern Italy. In short, Scheidel’s theory requires us tobelieve that Fabius did not merely extrapolate his total manpower figuresfrom active or passive Roman troop strength, but did so in circumstancesunder which four important groups of allies had for some reason offered notroops to join the non-Roman contingents.

Thirdly, Fabius/Polybius tells us that the two consular armies sent toEtruria to meet the Gauls were made up of 22,000 Roman citizens and32,000 men of allied status.36 These figures demonstrate that Fabiusregarded it as usual for the allies to provide one and a half times as manyfoot soldiers as the Romans.37 It is therefore unclear why he should haveconcocted hypothetical tallies based upon the assumption that the numberof men supplied by the joint allies would exactly match the number oflegionaries.

Fourthly, if we accept the theory that Fabius estimated Roman andItalian manpower reserves on the basis of the size of the allied contingentsalready serving in the Roman armies of 225 bc, his figures can be rejectedonly if it is demonstrated that his method was clearly incorrect. Given this,it is odd that, having rejected Fabius’ testimony as worthless, Scheidelshould go on to argue in favour of an estimate of 4 million free Italians,exactly the estimate implied by Beloch’s and Brunt’s interpretation of the

34 Scheidel tries to buttress his sceptical approach by pointing out that Fabius was happy to present theundoubtedly invented census figure of 80,000 for the reign of Servius Tullius as reliable (Livy 1.44.2).This argument glosses over the fact that, while Fabius is unlikely to have had access to reliableinformation regarding the censuses of the regal and early-republican period, he lived at the time of theSecond Punic War. Cf. Forsythe (2005), 365.

35 E.g. Toynbee (1965), 424–37; Brunt (1971/1987), 545–8; Ilari (1974), 57–85; De Ligt (2007a), 116–17.36 Above, Table 2.1.37 In a completely different context (3.107.12), Polybius claims that the number of allied foot soldiers

roughly equals the number of legionaries, but his use of the present tense shows that at this point he isreferring to the mid-second century bc. Cf. Chapter 3, at notes 58–67.




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Polybian manpower figures. Why, we are entitled to wonder, are we askedto set aside figures that are in perfect harmony with an estimate based ondeductive reasoning?38

Finally, Scheidel’s inferences concerning the methods used by Fabius toconstruct his allegedly unreliable tallies presuppose that Fabius assumed, orthought that he could persuade his readers to believe, that the relativenumbers of fighting men supplied by various groups of Italian allies mir-rored differences in the free populations of the areas concerned. It is in myview highly significant that a well-informed contemporary observer shouldunder any circumstances have made this assumption. In other words, even ifFabius could be shown to have constructed his tallies on the basis of knownactive Roman troop strength, a strong case could still be made for acceptingthe outcome of his calculations as reliable.For all these reasons, Scheidel’s attempt to set aside the Polybian man-

power figures fails to convince. In fact, if we take into account not only theUmbrians and Etruscans, but also the Bruttians and the Greeks, whosemanpower reserves may have amounted to some 65,000men,39 the ratio ofRomans to their peninsular allies rises to approximately 1:1.5. Since this ratiois also implied by the composition of the consular armies (and that of thereserve army near Rome) mobilized on the eve of the Gallic invasion, it isextremely odd to ignore it in favour of a purely hypothetical construct thatseeks to establish a relationship of numerical parity between Romans andallies.It can therefore be argued that Roman demands for allied manpower

were based on the principle that all contributions to Roman armies shouldbe roughly proportional to the number of adult men (or to the number ofiuniores) the communities concerned were able to field. According to thisview, the ratio of Roman to allied troops revealed both by the katagraphaiand by the composition of the Roman armies of 225 bc must roughly havemirrored the demographic realities of the 220s bc.Even if this moderately optimistic conclusion is accepted, it remains

difficult to achieve a satisfactory interpretation of Polybius’ manpowerfigures. There can be no doubt, for instance, that Lo Cascio has identified

38 Scheidel (2004, 4) notes that his own top-down estimate of 3million inhabitants for peninsular Italyin 225 bc ‘tallies well with Afzelius’ estimate of 3.1 million plus slaves that is not simply derived fromPolybius but also takes account of likely carrying capacity and [. . .] comparative data for theagricultural population in 1936’. Afzelius did not, in fact, derive any population estimates fromthese comparative data, but used them to demonstrate that the regional variations in populationdensity implied by Polybius’ figures were mirrored by similar variations in the 1930s. His aim was toconfirm that Polybius’ account was reliable.

39 Brunt (1971/1987) 59.




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some serious weaknesses in the traditional low-count reading of thesefigures. His most forceful criticism is perhaps that Beloch’s and Brunt’sclaim that Fabius Pictor is a first-rate source sits very uneasily with theirassertion that this very same source made the huge mistake of counting52,300 men twice. The traditional low-count interpretation, moreover, restson the assumption that the figures for the ‘Romans and Campanians’ andthose for the allies should be interpreted differently, so that the former aretaken to refer to all adult male citizens, while the latter should be regarded asincluding only adult men aged between 17 and 45. Lo Cascio’s view that allof these figures should be interpreted in the same way (as referring solely toiuniores) is certainly more elegant, if only because it dispenses with the needto charge Fabius/Polybius with the mistake of comparing apples withoranges. Finally, Lo Cascio’s theory provides us with an interesting explan-ation for the fact that Polybius gives a separate figure for ‘the Etruscans andthe Sabines’, despite the fact that the Sabines were of citizen status (either ascives optimo iure or as cives sine suffragio).

These important advantages of Lo Cascio’s reinterpretation should notblind us to its weaknesses. As we have seen, the basic assumption underlyinghis reading is that the Polybian figures refer to a form of registration that wascarried out on a strictly regional basis, without regard to the legal status ofthe inhabitants. While this assumption makes it possible to explain thegrouping together of the Etruscans and the Sabines, it creates insuperabledifficulties in the case of the Latins. As we have seen, Lo Cascio identifies the‘Latins’ referred to by Fabius/Polybius as the inhabitants of Latium Vetusand Latium Adiectum. A fundamental problem with this theory is that bothin Livy and in epigraphic documents of the second century bc the termsLatini and nomen Latinum invariably refer to those communities whoserelationship with Rome was governed by the ius Latii, regardless of theirwhereabouts.40 It is clear that this undermines Lo Cascio’s theory thatFabius/Polybius paid no attention to juridical status when compiling hisregionally based survey of Italian manpower, since if the Latins are to beidentified as those governed by the ius Latii, it is surely most natural tosuppose that the figure for the ‘Romans and Campanians’ included allfighting men of citizen status (with the possible exception of the Sabines).

40 In Livy 29.7 the thirty Latin colonies existing at the time of the Second Punic War are referred to as acoherent group. Cf. also the legationes socium nominis Latini referred to in Livy 41.8.6–8 (177 bc).Similarly, the expression ‘allies of the Latin name’ in line 21 of the epigraphic lex agraria of 111 bc(Crawford 1996, 115) clearly covers all Latin colonies. The only debatable point is whether or not theterm ‘Latins’ included the prisci Latini of Cora, Tibur and Praeneste and the Hernician towns ofAletrium, Ferentinum and Verulae. Cf. below, note 105.




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Another weakness of Lo Cascio’s interpretation of the Polybian figureshas to do with the balance between people and land. As we have seen, LoCascio begins from the assumption that the manpower figures for 225 bc arepurely regional. This leads him to infer that the figure for ‘the Etruscans andthe Sabines’ is to be read as including not only men of allied status but alsothose Roman citizens living in South Etruria and Sabinum. If, however, weaccept that the citizen populations of Etruria and Sabinum were notincluded in the ‘Romans and Campanians’ figure, we must surely drawexactly the same conclusion regarding those adult male citizens (with orwithout the vote) living in southern Umbria, in western Samnium, in theAger Picentinus or in the territories of the Praetuttii, the Vestini and theAequi. A simple calculation is enough to show that this leaves a territory ofat most 12,500 square kilometres for ‘the Romans and Campanians’.41 Since325,300 adult male citizens would imply a total population of 1,073,490, theaverage population density for the area inhabited by ‘the Romans andCampanians’, as interpreted by Lo Cascio, would have been c. 86 peopleper square kilometre, an implausibly high figure.42 It would seem to followfrom this that Lo Cascio’s regional reading of the Polybian manpowerfigures cannot be correct.In the light of these considerations, the population figures and popula-

tion densities calculated by Lo Cascio on the basis of Pol. 2.23–4 must beregarded as extremely uncertain. More generally, it seems fair to concludethat neither the low counters nor the high counters have managed to comeup with any convincing interpretation of the Polybian manpower figures tosupport their overall reconstructions of demographic developmentsbetween 225 bc and 28 bc.

41 According to Afzelius (1942), 192, the Ager Romanus covered some 26,805 km2 in 225 bc. From thisarea, the following subareas must be subtracted: Caere (840 km2), half of the territory of Tarquinii(640 km2), half of the territory of Falerii (345 km2), a very large part of the former territory of Vulci(940 km2), four communities in southern Umbria (860 km2), the Ager Praetuttianus (1,390 km2),upper Sabinum (3,305 km2), four praefecturae in western Samnium (1,715 km2), the territories of theAequi and the so-called Vestini Romani (1,225 + 640 km2), and the Ager Picentinus, regardless ofwhether or not this was really ager Romanus (1,000 km2). If we also subtract the Ager Gallicus andPicenum, neither of which is mentioned by Polybius, only 7,670 square kilometres are left for the‘Romans and Campanians’. In my view, this ‘omission’militates against the theory that the Polybianfigures should be read as regional totals. As will be demonstrated in Chapter 3 (at notes 44–51), thistype of calculation can also be used to prove that the cives sine suffragiowere included in the republicancensus figures for the third century bc.

42 Lo Cascio (1999a), 168, himself argues in favour of an average population density of fifty-six freeinhabitants per km2 for the pre-Hannibalic Ager Romanus. This hypothetical figure excludes slavesand assumes that, unlike the censors of the third and second centuries bc, those responsible for thesurvey of 225 bc achieved full registration of proletarians.




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2.2.1 Towards a new interpretation: the background to the tally of 225 bc

The sheer size of the scholarly output concerning the correct interpretationof the Polybian manpower figures strongly suggests that the chance ofarriving at a new reading more convincing than the existing ones is remote.There is, however, one element of Polybius’ account that does not appear tohave received the attention it deserves. It is my contention that, by givingthis element its due weight, it is in fact possible to arrive at a coherentreading that avoids most of the difficulties surrounding the interpretationsoffered by Beloch, Brunt and Lo Cascio.

My first step will be to take a closer look at the nature of the preparatorymeasures taken in 225 bc. Here the passage referring to the manpowercontributed by ‘the Etruscans and the Sabines’ deserves special attention.According to Polybius, more than 54,000 Etruscan and Sabine foot soldiersand horsemen came to the assistance of Rome ek tou kairou (that is, inresponse to the emergency created by the impending Gallic invasion).

It has long been recognized that the phrase ek tou kairou must here referto a tumultuary levy, the tumultus in question being a tumultus Gallicus.43

What has generally been overlooked, however, is the fact that Polybiusplaces the figure for the Etruscans and the Sabines on a par not only withthat for the Umbrians and the Sarsinates (also mobilized via a tumultuarylevy), but implicitly also with the manpower reserves whose existence wasrevealed by the list of Romans and Campanians compiled by the Romanauthorities and by the lists provided by the Latin and Italian allies. In myview, this is the only plausible explanation for the fact that those alliedpeoples already mentioned in Polybius’ description of the tumultuary leviesof 225 bc are missing from his survey of the remaining allied manpowerreserves as revealed by the katagraphai, and vice versa (Table 2.1). If theinformation that Polybius provides is to be taken seriously, the comple-mentary relationship that clearly exists between the two parts of his accountcan only mean that he (and Fabius) interpreted all the figures relating to theallies (and also those relating to the Romans and Campanians) as referringto the same categories of men. In other words, like the figures for theEtruscans and the Umbrians, those for the remaining allies and those for theRomans and Campanians should be interpreted as referring to the totalnumber of men available for military service in the event of a tumultusGallicus.

43 E.g. Toynbee (1965), 483 n. 3.




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This interpretation is supported by Pliny the Elder, who concludes hissurvey of the peoples and towns of Italy with the following reference to theevents of 225 bc:

Moreover, this is that Italy which, in the consulship of Lucius Aemilius Papus andGaius Atilius Regulus, on receipt of news of a Gallic rising (tumultu Galliconuntiato), single-handedly and without any alien auxiliaries, and moreover at thatdate without aid from Gaul north of the Po, equipped an army of 80,000 horse and700,000 foot.44

It appears quite clear from this that Pliny interpreted the figures given byFabius Pictor as referring to the results of a survey of Italian manpowerresources carried out in the specific context of a Gallic tumultus. Like thecomplementary relationship between the two parts of Polybius’ survey ofRoman and allied manpower resources, this implies that all of the figuresgiven by Polybius/Fabius, including that for the ‘Romans and Campanians’,should be read as referring to the total number of citizen soldiers available formobilization in the event of a Gallic attack.These considerations, in my view, shed new light on the technical

implications of Polybius’ description of the preparations undertaken onthe eve of the Gallic attack. As he tells us, ‘there was great and general alarmin Rome, as they thought they were in imminent and serious peril’. For thisreason, he continues, the Romans ordered all their subjects to supply lists oftheir men of military age (hoi en tais hêlikiais) ‘as they wanted to know whattheir total forces (to sympan plêthos) amounted to’.45 Read in the light of theother indications already alluded to, this passage can only mean that theprospect of a Gallic invasion led the Romans to declare a tumultus Gallicusand to order an immediate survey to establish the number of fighting menavailable to them in an emergency of this specific type.46

Building on this simple observation, it is possible to circumvent a numberof difficulties that have remained unresolved by the existing literature.To begin with, many adherents of the low count have been perturbed by

the discrepancy between the total number of adult male Romans implied by

44 Plin. HN 3.138: super haec Italia, quae L. Aemilio Paulo C. Atilio Regulo cos. nuntiato Gallico tumultusola sine externis ullis auxiliis atque etiam tunc sine Transpadanis equitum lxxx, peditum dcc armavit.

45 Plb. 2.23.9.46 Gabba (1976, 176, n. 58) correctly points out that Polybius does not refer to a general tumultuary levy

(my italics). Pliny’s statement that the preparations of 225 bc were made tumultu Gallico nuntiato,however, surely suggests that they took place in a general atmosphere strongly resembling that createdby the declaration of a pan-Italian tumultus. There are, in any case, no good grounds for rejectingPolybius’ statement that the Roman authorities perceived a serious need to discover ‘what their totalforces amounted to’.




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the Polybian figures (325,300) and the census figure for 234 bc (270,713).This has prompted them to charge Fabius/Polybius with the gross error ofoverlooking the fact that the c. 52,300 Romans already mobilized must alsohave been listed as part of the manpower reserves of the Romans andCampanians. The underlying assumption here is that there would havebeen no need for the Roman authorities to compile new lists of citizensoldiers, since they already had the results of the census of 229 bc.Interestingly, however, Polybius explicitly states that 273,000 Romansand Campanians ‘had been listed’ (katelechthêsan) as part of the prepara-tions of 225 bc. Although his language may be inaccurate, the most naturalreading of this expression is that the Roman authorities had in fact carriedout an update of their military records.

If one accepts the view that the atmosphere at this time was that of atumultus Gallicus, this is readily understandable. It is generally acceptedamongst modern scholars that under normal circumstances the Romancensors made no attempt to register all proletarians,47 and it does notseem far-fetched to suppose that the Roman authorities were aware of thisbasic fact. Under normal circumstances, again, the existence of numerousunregistered proletarians is unlikely to have worried any Roman magistrate,for the obvious reason that proletarians did not normally fight in the legionsand were not required to pay tributum.48 It must nevertheless be remem-bered that proletarii could be called up during emergencies, and in particularduring the sort of emergency constituted by a tumultus Gallicus.49 It followsfrom this that if the Roman authorities really wanted to know ‘what theirtotal forces amounted to’, they might well have supplemented the existinglists of adult male citizens with the names of as many proletarians as theycould find. This means that there is no compelling reason to reject Polybius’claim that even after the mobilization of 52,300 Roman citizens some273,000 men remained on the lists; in other words, that a grand total of325,300 adult male citizens was available for service in the legions.

Needless to say, it does not follow that the tally of 225 bc was 100 percent accurate. Be that as it may, the specific background to this tallypresents us with good reason to think that it may well have been moreaccurate than any of the censuses taken before the Second Punic War. If weassume that 5 per cent of the target population went unregistered, it would

47 Cf. Chapter 3, at notes 90–1; Chapter 4, at notes 138–9. 48 Northwood (2008).49 Proletarians had been called up in 281 bc. See Oros. 4.1.3; Aug. CD 3.17; Cass. Hem., fr. 21, Peter;

Ennius ap. Gell. 16.10.1. Cf. Brunt (1971/1987), 395, n. 6.




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appear that there must have been about 340,000 adult male Roman citizensin 225 bc.50

The discrepancy between the Polybian figure for the Romans andCampanians and the census figure for 234 bc can therefore be explained ifwe assume that a normal census would have revealed the existence ofc. 280,000 adult male citizens51 and that approximately 17.5 per cent ofthe target population remained unregistered during the censuses of the thirdquarter of the third century bc. These assumptions are, in my view, entirelyunproblematic, and certainly preferable to the alternative theory thatFabius, a well-informed senator and a contemporary of the Second PunicWar, was incapable of distinguishing between men in the field and men onthe registers.52

2.2.2 Age groups in the armies of the Republic

If we read the Polybian figures as referring to adult men registered andmobilized in the context of a tumultus Gallicus, it is also possible to drawcertain important conclusions concerning the age groups affected by thepreparations of 225 bc.As we have seen, all of the adherents of the low-count theory seem to

accept the view that the figure for the Romans and Campanians should beregarded as including both iuniores and seniores (in other words, all menaged between 17 and 60). Against this, Lo Cascio has pointed out that we arevery clearly informed that the Latin and Italian allies were required to list‘men of military age’ (hoi en tais hêlikiais). This expression is widelyinterpreted as referring exclusively to men eligible for active service in the

50325,300 x 1.05 = 341,565. If we assume that the two ‘armies’ (stratopeda) stationed at Tarentum and inSicily were mixed forces made up of 4,400 citizens and 4,400 allies (thus Ilari 1974, 68–9, n. 27; cf.Prag 2007, 72, n. 24), the number of adult male citizens drops to about 335,000. A further 21,500menwill have to be deducted if Ilari (1974, 69, n. 27) is right in suggesting that the four ‘urban’ legionsreferred to in Plb. 2.24.9 are to be identified with the four consular legions and thus never existed. Onthe other hand, my assumption that only 5 per cent of the target population remained unregistered in225 bcmay be too optimistic. I would, in fact, be happy to accept an estimate of c. 350,000 adult malecitizens. This would imply that the Roman censuses of this period missed some 20 per cent of thetarget population.

51 This assumes that the number of adult male citizens grew at an average annual rate of 0.3 per centfrom 234 bc–225 bc. During the decades following the end of the First PunicWar, the real growth ratemay well have been higher. Cf. Chapter 4, section 4.2.2.

52 Brunt’s argument that Fabius is unlikely to have gone through the complicated procedure ofdeducting the numbers of men already under arms from the total numbers available for service(Brunt 1971/1987, 47) can easily be countered. The fact that Fabius gave round figures for the numbersof allied foot soldiers still ‘on the lists’ suggests that he may simply have deducted the estimatednumber of troops already in the field and rounded the outcome of this simple operation to the nearestmultiple of 10,000. His aim was clearly not to engage in complex or precise calculation.




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field: the iuniores.53 Building on this interpretation, Lo Cascio reasons thatthe figure for the ‘Romans and Campanians’ should also be interpreted asincluding solely iuniores, since Fabius’ calculations must assume that all ofhis manpower figures refer to the same age groups. Lo Cascio also finds itsignificant that, after adding up the figures for the Romans and their allies,Polybius ends up with a total of more than 770,000men ‘able to bear arms’(dynamenôn hopla bastazein). Since under the Roman system of recruitmentonly men aged between 17 and 46 were expected to ‘bear arms’ by serving inthe legions,54 we seem to be faced with the inescapable conclusion that in225 bc the Roman authorities were interested only in the number of meneligible for ordinary service in the legions or in the allied contingents.

Although this reading of the Polybian figures has a superficial attraction,it suffers from certain lethal weaknesses. One of these has to do with themeaning of the expressions hoi en tais hêlikiais and dynamenôn hoplabastazein. Polybius does not, it must be stressed, restrict his use of theformer expression to his accounts of the composition of Roman or Italianarmies; he also employs it in describing various episodes that took place inHellenistic Greece. Now, according to the Greek tradition of warfare, allmen aged between 18 and 60 were required to make themselves available formilitary service.55 One illustration of this fact is provided by the AthenaiônPoliteia, in which we read that ‘the heroes giving their names to the tribesare ten in number and those of the years of military age (tôn hêlikiôn) forty-two’.56 As is universally agreed, the forty-two age classes referred to in thispassage comprised all adult Athenian men aged between 18 and 59. Greekliterature abounds in specific references to elderly men fighting on thebattlefield. In the general levy of 418 bc, for example, all the citizens ofSparta, together with their serfs, marched to the border. Here the oldest andyoungest were left to defend the border, while those aged between 20 and 54went on to fight the battle of Mantinea.57 Socrates and Demosthenes bothcontinued to participate in military expeditions abroad until they were over50.58 The Greeks, we must conclude, regarded all men aged up to 60 as ableto ‘bear arms’, not only as last-ditch defenders on the home front, but also asactive members of expeditionary forces.

There were, of course, many military campaigns in which the oldest andyoungest citizens did not participate. Thucydides tells us that of the 29,000

53 The same interpretation may be found in Hin (2008), 191–3 and (2009), 166–7. 54 Plb. 6.19.5.55 Van Wees (2004), 46. 56 Ath. Pol. 53.4.57 Thuc. 5.64.2–3. Cf. Van Wees (2004), 46. According to Xen. Hell. 6.4.17, the levy for the battle of

Leuctra also included men aged up to 54.58 Hanson (1989), 89–95.




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hoplites available to the Athenians in 431 bc, 16,000 men were used forgarrison duty. As he explains, this body included the oldest and youngestcitizens, along with the metics.59 The age group to which the phrase ‘theoldest citizens’ refers remains unknown. More detailed information existsconcerning the fourth century. For example, an Athenian fleet of 353/2 bcwas manned by citizens aged up to 45, and all Athenian hoplites aged under40 were mobilized for the Lamian War of 323 bc.60 These examples suggestthat it was unusual for men older than 45 to be called up for active service inthe field. They do not, however, contradict the general principle that inclassical Greece all adult men aged up to 60 were regarded as of military age.There are several indications that the military levies of the Hellenistic

world were carried out according to the same general principles as those offifth- and fourth-century Greece. Normally only men aged up to 45 werecalled up for frontline service, but in exceptional circumstances the call-upwas extended to all men of military age. In 220 bc, when King Philip ofMacedon invaded the Peloponnese, three of the Spartan ephors ordered ‘allmen of military age’ (tous en tais hêlikiais) to assemble, armed, at the templeof Athena Chalkioikos ‘since the Macedonians were advancing on thecity’.61 In this context it must be remembered that in classical andHellenistic Sparta it was quite normal for men aged up to 60 to see activeservice in the field.62 In this specific case, moreover, we are clearly dealingwith an emergency levy calling upon both the youngest and the oldest menregarded as capable of military service.63 An interesting parallel is providedby an incident that occurred ten years later in Acarnania. When their landwas attacked by a large Aetolian army in 210 bc, the Acarnanians decided tosend their women, their children, and men aged over 60 to Epirus, whileevery man aged between 15 and 60 took an oath not to return home unlessvictorious. This led the Aetolians to postpone their offensive, enablingPhilip of Macedon to come to the rescue of the Acarnanians.64

The Roman system of recruitment must, then, be interpreted againstthis background. It is generally agreed that under normal circumstancesonly Roman citizens aged between 17 and 45 were expected to serve inthe legions; older men either performed no military duties at all, or wereused as a home guard to defend the city.65 Since most of the abundant

59 Thuc. 2.13.6–7. Cf. Van Wees (2004), 241. 60 Diod. 18.10.2. Cf. Van Wees (2004), 242.61 Plb. 4.22.8. 62 E.g. Singor (2002).63 Cf. also Plb. 3.86.11, according to which Hannibal had all men of military age (hoi en tais hêlikiais)

killed as he marched through Umbria after the battle of Lake Trasimene. Although it is theoreticallypossible that men aged between 46 and 60 were spared, this seems unlikely.

64 Livy 26.25. 65 Mommsen (1887), ii.1, 409, n. 5; Brunt (1971/1987), 21.




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literary evidence relating to military matters refers to military campaigns,it comes as no surprise that the Greek expression hoi en tais hêlikiais isoften used to denote Roman men aged between 17 and 45. A well-knownexample of this usage may be found in Polybius’ description of theRoman levy, in which the expression denotes the iuniores required topresent themselves for recruitment.66 In passages such as this the phrasehoi en tais hêlikiais is synonymous with the expression hoi tên strateusi-mon hêlikian echontes (‘those of the right age to participate in militarycampaigns’).

As in the case of classical and Hellenistic Greece, however, it would becompletely wrong to infer from this that men aged between 46 and 60werenever regarded as ‘of military age’.67 As so often, Mommsen summarizesthe basic rules with exemplary clarity. According to him, ‘the completionof one’s forty-sixth year brought exemption from service in the field(Felddienst), that of one’s sixtieth year from any form of military service’.68

This rule was still in operation in 49 bc, when Atticus ‘took advantage ofthe exemption based on age and did not stir from the city, as he was aboutsixty years old’.69

Interestingly, Livy reports that the consuls of 171 bc were authorized torecruit both veteran centurions and soldiers aged up to 50 for the ThirdMacedonian War.70 Since the Third Macedonian War was clearly not amatter of life or death for the Republic, we would a fortiori expect Romanseniores to have been called up in the event of any more serious threat.

Livy tells us, indeed, that the highly threatening circumstances of 296 bc,when Rome faced simultaneous attacks by the Samnites, the Etruscans, theUmbrians and the Gauls, prompted the Senate to close the courts and toorder the conscription of ‘men of every category’. As a result, not only werefreeborn iuniores conscripted, but contingents of seniores were formed.71

A similar story is to be found in Appian’s account of the Hannibalic War.According to the passage in question, when Hannibal had destroyed two

66 Plb. 6.19.5.67 Cf. Cornell (1995, 183): ‘it is likely that the first census made no distinction between seniores and

iuniores, but simply counted all men of military age’. The creation of these separate classes would thushave been a later development (ibid. 186).

68 Mommsen (1887), ii.1, 409 and iii.1, 242. Cf. Nicolet (1988), 97.69 Nepos, Atticus 7.1: cum haberet annos circiter sexaginta usus est aetatis vacatione neque se quoquammovit

ex urbe. Cf. Lammert (1948), 2029.70 Livy 41.33; 42.31.71 Livy 10.21.3–4. Cf. Nicolet (1988), 93–4. See also Livy 6.9.5, in which Camillus comes to the rescue of

Sutrium with the legiones urbanae (contingents made up of seniores and of men invalided out of thearmy, originally entrusted with the defence of the city; cf. 6.6.14).




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Roman legions at Trasimene, along with a detachment of 8,000 menblocking the way to Rome, the Romans feared that his next move wouldbe to march upon their city; they therefore ‘collected stones upon the wallsand armed the old men (tous gerontas)’.72

An explicit formulation of the principle that men aged between 46 and60 could be called up for active service in an emergency may be found in thesecond book of Appian’s Bella Civilia, which contains the following sum-mary of Caesar’s exploits in Gaul:

He fought thirty pitched battles in Gaul alone, where he conquered forty nations soformidable to the Romans previously that in the law which exempted priests andold men (hiereôn kai gerontôn) from military enrolment a formal exception wasmade ‘in the event of a Gallic incursion’; for then both priests and old men wererequired to serve.73

Since this was exactly the event that threatened Rome in 225 bc, this passagehas a direct bearing upon our interpretation of the Polybian manpowerfigures.74

Most writers on this subject are agreed that the Greek expression hoi enhêbêi (‘the adults’) was generally used to denote men aged up to 45, butcould sometimes mean men aged under 60.75 Meanwhile, the expressionhoi en tais hêlikiais is considered to be an entirely unambiguous termexclusively denoting men aged up to 45.76 As we have seen, this assumptionis demonstrably incorrect, for the simple reason that under certain circum-stances older citizens (whether in the Greek or in the Roman world) wereconsidered to be of military age.77The only possible conclusion is that whilethe phrase hoi en tais hêlikiais normally referred to the younger citizens, itcould also include fighting men aged between 45 and 60.As we have seen, the expression seems to have this wider meaning in

Polybius’ account of the Macedonian invasion of Laconia in 220 bc. Ininterpreting his description of the military preparations made on the eve ofthe Gallic invasion of 225 bc, we must remember that this part of his

72 App. Hann. 11. 73 App. BC 2.150.74 Lo Cascio (2001b), 586, accepts that the manpower figures would have included proletarians, since

these men could be mobilized in an emergency, but fails to note that seniores must also have beenincluded, for the same reason.

75 E.g. in DH 5.75.3–4. Cf. Bourne (1952), 130; Brunt (1971/1987), 21.76 E.g. Ilari (1974), 64 and 70; Hin (2008), 191–3. One of the few ancient historians who have stressed

the ambiguity of the expression hoi en tais hêlikiais is Toynbee (1965), 458, n. 3 and 480, n. 4.77 Since accounts exist of seniores going out on military campaigns during the early Republic (above,

note 71), even the expression hoi tên strateusimon hêlikian echontes (‘those of the right age to serve inmilitary campaigns’) is not completely unambiguous, although it normally denotes iuniores. See e.g.DH 11.63.2, where this expression is used in a context in which we would normally expect hoi en hêbêi.




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account was based on a passage from Fabius Pictor. We must thereforereckon with the possibility that Fabius used the expression hoi en taishêlikiais to denote all ‘men of military age’, including the seniores, andthat Polybius copied this phrase. Alternatively, it is possible that Fabiusused another phrase (such as hoi en hêbêi) and that Polybius replaced thiswith his standard term for ‘those of military age’.

To round off my argument, I want to take a brief look at the expression‘those able to bear arms’ (tôn dynamenôn hopla bastazein), used by Polybiusto describe the total manpower reserves of the Romans and their allies. Ithas, of course, long been recognized that this Greek phrase translates theLatin expression qui arma ferre possent, ‘(those) who are able to bear arms’.The technical meaning of the latter phrase is to some extent illuminated byLivy’s statement that Fabius Pictor interpreted the no doubt fictitiouscensus figure for the reign of King Servius Tullius as referring to the numberof ‘those able to bear arms’.78 Livy gives this piece of information in thecontext of his description of the system of census classes allegedly intro-duced by Servius. From his account, it appears that the first three classescontained 120 centuriae of foot soldiers. Of these, 60 were made upof iuniores and 60 of seniores. We are also told that all members of thefirst three classes, whether iuniores or seniores, were equipped with helmets,shields, spears and javelins.79 In conformity with his descriptions of certainearly-republican levies, Livy states that the seniores were used for civildefence and the iuniores for service in the field. Taken in conjunction,these indications suggest that, unlike some modern scholars, Livy regarded‘home defence’ as a genuine form of military service.80

78 Livy 1.44.1. As Rathbone has noted (1993a, 124, n. 2 and 136, n. 11), it is not entirely clear whetherFabius was the common source for Livy’s and Dionysius’ accounts of the Servian system of classes.This uncertainty does not, however, change the fact that Livy’s reference to the results of the firstcensus is clearly linked to his account of the Servian system. Rathbone (1993a, 11) and Lo Cascio(2001b), 569–70, interpret Livy’s appeal to Fabius’ authority as suggesting that other authors hadproposed a different reading of the regal and early-republican census figures. If we accept this theory,it is tempting to interpret Livy as alluding to the alternative theory that the early census figuresrepresented the number of adult men sui iuriswho had registered themselves, their property and theirchildren, a tradition which has left some traces in the surviving sources (e.g. DH 9.36.3). For apossible explanation of why some of Livy’s predecessors preferred to interpret the early census figuresin this way, see Chapter 3, note 34. Contra Hin (2008), 206, the emphatic reference to Fabius neednot imply that Livy wanted to draw attention to differences that he believed to have existed betweenthe regal census and that of his own time.

79 Livy 1.42. According to Livy, only the pedites of the first class were equipped with breastplates (loricae)and round shields (cf. Plb. 6.19.3). Those of the second and third classes carried long shields; footsoldiers of the third class did not wear greaves.

80 Cf. Livy 5.10.5, where the custodia urbiswith which the senioreswere charged is explicitly called a formof opera militaris.




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Another instructive passage is Livy 3.4.9–10. Here we are told that afterone of the consuls had suffered a crushing defeat against the Aequians in464 bc the Senate declared a state of emergency by ordering Postumius,the other consul, ‘to ensure that the state would not be harmed’.81 It wasthen decided that Postumius should remain in Rome to enrol ‘every mancapable of bearing arms’ (omnes, qui arma ferre possent). The mostobvious interpretation of this is that Livy was describing a tumultusduring which all adult men, including those aged between 46 and 60,were mobilized.82 On the basis of this handful of texts alone, it is difficultto avoid the conclusion that, at least to Livy, the expression qui arma ferrepossent meant all of the fighting men included in the various censusclasses, including the seniores.83

Confirmation of this interpretation is provided by certain passages fromDionysius of Halicarnassus that are rarely referred to in this context. One ofthe clearest examples is to be found in his account of the events of 487 bc.According to Dionysius, this year witnessed two simultaneous wars: oneagainst the Hernicians, the other against the Volscians. In order to copewith this double threat, the Roman field army, consisting of the youngermen (neôteroi), was divided into three parts, one of which was entrustedwith the task of defending the districts surrounding the city. At the sametime, ‘those too old to appear on the list of legionaries’ (hyper ton stratiôtikonkatalogon) but ‘still capable of bearing arms’ (hosoi dynamin eichon etibastazein hopla) were organized under their standards and ordered toguard the city’s citadels and walls.84 In a very similar account, we are toldthat ‘those who were too old to appear on the list of legionaries but still hadsufficient strength to bear arms’ (dynamis hoplôn chrêseôs) were left to guardthe citadels and walls during the campaign of 480 bc.85 Here Dionysius isundoubtedly following some annalistic predecessor who clearly believed

81 The reference to a senatus consultum ultimum is, of course, completely anachronistic. Cf. Mommsen(1887), I, 689, n. 1.

82 As noted by Mommsen (1887), iii.1, 241–2, followed by Liebenam (1905), 603, all vacationes,including those of the seniores, could be suspended during a tumultus.

83 Thus, correctly, Mommsen (1887), ii.1, 408–9 (‘alle dienstberechtigten Bürger’). Cf. also Livy 5.39.13,where the senes triumphales consularesque (aristocrats older than 60) are said to have bodies quibus nonarma ferre, non tueri patriam possent.

84 DH 8.64.3. Note that this passage demonstrates that the expression qui arma ferre possent does notalways refer to the same group as the Greek phrase hoi tên strateusimon hêlikian echontes (‘those of theright age to participate in military campaigns’). The latter expression excludes the military duty ofhome defence and therefore specifically denotes the iuniores. Cf. DH 5.75, where hoi tên strateusimonhêlikian echontes are a sub-group of ‘the adults’ (hoi en hêbêi).

85 DH 9.5.3.




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that a significant number of those not normally liable for service in thelegions (that is, the seniores) were fully ‘capable of bearing arms’.86

As we have seen, the only textual evidence cited by Lo Cascio to buttresshis narrow interpretation of the expression qui arma ferre possent is Caesar’sreference to the somewhat mysterious tabulae discovered in the camp of theHelvetii.87 Since these tabulae listed ‘those able to bear arms’ separatelyfrom women, children and old men (senes), this passage would seem toprove that the Roman expression qui arma ferre possent did not include adultmen aged between 46 and 60.

One obvious weakness of this interpretation is that nothing is knownabout the age limits for active military service observed by this Celtic tribe.The only inference that can safely be drawn is therefore that the Helvetii,like the Romans, had an upper age limit for active military service. Althoughit is entirely possible that this age limit was 45, it may equally well have beenconsiderably higher.

More importantly, Lo Cascio seems to overlook the fact that while inLatin ‘seniores’ is a technical term for men aged over 45, the connotation ofthe term senex is much vaguer. As many scholars have pointed out, the latterterm is often used to refer to various categories of ‘elderly’ men, thethreshold for ‘old age’ varying between 45 and 60. Within this range menyounger than 50 are very unusual, while it is possible to detect a majorityview that the age of 60 marked the beginning of senectus.88 When read inthis light, the passage from the De Bello Gallico actually supports the viewthat men aged up to 60 were considered to be ‘capable of bearing arms’.89

86 Note that these passages militate against Gabba’s theory (1976, 8, and 176 n. 54) that the formula quiarma ferre possent refers to the economic capacity of the assidui to provide their own arms. In my view,the age limit of 60 was an essential component of the Roman concept of ‘being able to carry arms’.On the other hand, Gabba (1949/1976, 8) is right to state that this formula does not refer directly tothe physical strength of those liable for legionary service. As he points out, physical fitness wasscrutinized not by the censors, but at the time of the levy. Hin’s argument (2008, 195–7; 2009, 169–70) that a census figure disclosing the total number of adult males would not have revealed themilitary potential of the Republic therefore has no force. Invalids would have been given a permanentvacatio, relieving them of the obligation to attend the levy.

87 According to Schulz (1937), 168, n. 2, followed by Hin (2008), 192 and (2009), 166, the apparentlyclose correspondence between the social and military structures of the Helvetii and those of theRomans, along with Caesar’s use of technical Roman terminology, feeds the suspicion that Caesar isprojecting Roman habits onto a barbarian tribe. That does not, however, diminish the importance ofthis passage in understanding the terminological problems discussed here.

88 See the illuminating discussion in Parkin (2003), 16–26. According to Varro ap. Censorinus, De DieNatali 14.2, the term seniores referred exclusively to men aged between 45 and 60 and the term senes tomen older than 60. In late antiquity, Augustine (PL 34.566) was to explain, ‘seniorum aetas minor estquam senum, quamvis et senes appellentur seniores’.

89 Exactly this conclusion was drawn by Schulz (1937), 168, n. 2. The Acarnanians’ decision to mobilizeall men aged between 15 and 60, while evacuating those over 60 (above, at note 64), is a perfect parallel.




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If these linguistic indications are combined with Polybius’ description ofthe specific background to the preparations undertaken in 225 bc, it willappear that, at least in this particular passage, the expression hoi en taishêlikiais is synonymous with the phrase hoi dynamenoi hopla bastazein, andthat both expressions are to be understood as referring to all men agedbetween 17 and 60.

2.2.3 Some further implications

If the conclusions of the foregoing sections are accepted, it is possible toshed new light on the nature of the formula togatorum, a list of alliedmanpower resources that was used by the central Roman government toapportion military burdens amongst the Latin and Italian allies.90 It hasoften been observed that Polybius’ account of the preparations of 225 bcimplies that Rome had at that time no reliable data concerning the man-power resources of its allies. From this, some have inferred that no suchthing as a formula togatorum existed before 225 bc and that it was preciselythe information supplied by the allies on the eve of the Gallic invasion thatenabled the Roman government to create such a list for the first time.91

Finding it difficult to believe that Rome can have known nothing of itsallies’ resources before 225 bc, others have argued that the Roman govern-ment used the returns supplied by the allies to revise an existing list.92Whatthese rival explanations have in common is that they are based on theassumption that the Latin term togati and the Greek expression hoi en taishêlikiais denote the same category of men.The nub of the question is, what does the term togati mean? As many

scholars have observed, it seems unlikely that all of Rome’s Italian allies hadadopted the toga at this early date. We are, in fact, explicitly told that somegroups among the allies (for example, the Greeks of southern Italy) clung totheir old dress codes for a very long time after they had been drawn into theRoman system of alliances.93 In order to circumvent this difficulty, it hasbeen conjectured that the term togati originated as a designation used inrelation to the Latin allies and was subsequently retained as a general termfor any allied citizen when the Romans conquered all of peninsular Italy.94

As Lo Cascio’s brilliant article on the subject points out, however, there is a

90 Above, at note 35. 91 Ilari (1974), 79; cf. Lo Cascio (1991/1994), 312–13.92 E.g. De Sanctis (1907), 453; Brunt (1971/1987), 547.93 Mommsen (1887), iii.1, 673–7. Cf. App. Samn. 7; Suet. Aug. 98.3. Mommsen held that the Greeks of

southern Italy were excluded from the formula togatorum. Against this theory, see Ilari (1974) 114.94 Salmon (1982), 169–70.




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much simpler solution. In his view, the term togati must be understoodagainst the background of the Roman system of according the toga virilis toyoung men when they reached the age of 17.95 In other words, the termtogati can be interpreted as referring to an age group rather than to peoplewho had adopted Roman clothing customs. In my view, this solution isboth elegant and convincing.

Unlike Lo Cascio, I cannot think of any reason why the age groupdenoted by the term togati should be narrowed down to those aged between17 and 45.96 Since there is nothing in this term to suggest an upper age limit,it is surely natural to conclude that the formula togatorum began its life(quite possibly in 225 bc) as a survey of the numbers of adult men, includingthose aged over 45, the Latin and Italian allies could supply.97 This inter-pretation of the term togati is, of course, in complete accordance with mysuggestion that, in the specific context of Polybius’ account of the prepara-tions of 225 bc, the Greek expression hoi en tais hêlikiais should be under-stood as denoting all adult males.

The specific circumstances of 225 bc also help us to resolve anotherproblem that has been under discussion since the late nineteenth century.As Beloch notes, it is odd that Fabius/Polybius should have grouped theSabines together with the Etruscans despite the fact that the former, unlikethe latter, had been given citizenship in 290 bc. Various explanations havebeen offered. Beloch’s own solution is to assume that Fabius/Polybiusmight inadvertently have mentioned the Sabines together with theEtruscans because he was drawing on a tradition according to which atumultus had been declared in both regions. If we accept this view, we mustinterpret the figure of 50,000+ as referring exclusively to the Etruscans.98

In other words, we must regard the information given by Fabius/Polybius asinaccurate. Another popular theory is that the ‘Sabines’ of this passage are tobe identified not with the inhabitants of Sabinum, but with those of thetribus Sapinia, an area to the northwest of the Umbrian town of Sarsina.99

95 Lo Cascio (1991/1994), esp. 320–2.96 Contra Lo Cascio (1991/1994), 322–3. We read, it is true, of tabulae iuniorum being used to trace

Roman citizens who had evaded their military duties (Livy 24.18.7) and of units of allied soldiersbeing called up pro numero cuiusque iuniorum (Livy 34.56.6; cf. Toynbee 1965, 430–1; Ilari 1974,73–5). As Schulz (1937), 166, long ago pointed out, however, the centuriate assembly, as described byLivy 1.42–3, cannot have functioned without tabulae seniorum. Since seniores were called up only inexceptional circumstances, it would have made perfect sense to keep separate lists of iuniores andseniores.

97 According to this view, the age groups covered by the formula togatorum were identical to thosetargeted by the Roman censors.

98 Cf. Brunt (1971/1987), 48–9. 99 Toynbee (1965), 484–8, followed by Torelli (1987), 49.




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Themain weakness of this ingenious theory is that the sources leave us in nodoubt that the tribus Sapiniawas, like Sarsina, in Umbrian territory.100Thismakes it difficult to understand why Fabius/Polybius should have groupedthe hypothetical Sapini with the Etruscans rather than with the Umbriansand Sarsinates.In my view, it is much better to accept Fabius/Polybius’ description of

the events of 225 bc as broadly reliable. What Polybius tells us is that atumultus was declared in the three frontline regions of Umbria, Etruriaand Sabinum. Those Etruscans and Sabines who were then called up(in reality a relatively small force)101 were stationed in northern Etruria.If this reading is correct, Polybius grouped the Sabines with theEtruscans simply because this was the only part of the Ager Romanusin which a tumultus had been declared. Part of the explanation must bethat the geographical location of Sabinum made it relatively easy to directfighting men from this region to the area through which the Gauls wereexpected to launch their attack on central Italy. An additional consid-eration may have been that at the time of the Gallic attack the Sabines ofUpper Sabinum were still cives sine suffragio102 and were therefore not yetincluded amongst the tribes covered by Rome’s central levy. As we shallsee in a later chapter, this theory does not imply that the citizens ofUpper Sabinum never served in the legions between 290 bc and thedate of their full enfranchisement.103 It does, however, imply that thesemen could well have been called up as a separate group and directed tothe northwestern front together with the Etruscans.

100 Livy 31.22. 101 According to Plb. 2.25.9, 6,000 Romans were killed near Faesulae.102 According to Afzelius (1942), 21–3, Taylor (1960), 60–5 and Toynbee (1965), I, 377–86, the Sabini

who received the civitas sine suffragio in 290 bc and the ius suffragii ferendi in 268 bc (Vell. 1.14–15)should be identified as the people of Cures, whose territory is sometimes referred to as the agerSabinus (e.g. Cic. Leg. Agr. 2.66). The best argument in favour of this theory is perhaps that the tribusVelina and Quirina were created only in 241 bc, making it difficult to see to which tribe theindigenous inhabitants of upper Sabinum would have belonged had they received the suffragiumas early as 268 bc. Brunt (1969), 124, suggests that the Sabines of upper Sabinum might have beenprovisionally assigned to an unknown tribe (the Sergia?) in 268 bc and might then have beentransferred to the Velina andQuirina in 241 bc. As Humbert (1978), 235, n. 110, points out, however,there are no parallels for entire peoples being first assigned to one tribe and then transferred toanother. Brunt is right to point out that the viritane settlers sent out to Sabinum must have beentransferred from their old tribes to the Velina andQuirina in 241 bc, but in this case an entire ethnicgroup was not being transferred en bloc from one tribe to another. In all likelihood, the inhabitants ofupper Sabinumwent through a stage of citizenship without the vote (Taylor 1960, 65; Toynbee 1965,382), but they may not have acquired this status until some time after 290 bc. According to Velleius(1.14–15), Capua and a number of Samnites (perhaps the Sidicini) received the civitas sine suffragio in334 bc, four years after the end of the Latin war.

103 Chapter 3, at note 68.




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If we accept the overall veracity of Polybius’ account, the figure for theEtruscans and Sabines should include an unspecified number of the latter. Itis in my view significant that the total figure for these two groups is given as‘more than 50,000’, especially since no such formulation is used of any otherallied contingent. This suggests to me that Fabius/Polybius did not go to thetrouble of working out a separate figure for the Sabines. Instead, he seems tohave taken 50,000 as a round figure for the Etruscans, then simply given thetotal size of the combined tumultuary force after the addition of the Sabinesas ‘more than 50,000’.

A corollary of this reading is that, precisely because Fabius/Polybius didnot go to the trouble of calculating a separate figure for the citizens of UpperSabinum, he cannot have subtracted them from his aggregate figure for theRomans and Campanians. In other words, even if we assume that atumultuary levy was held in Sabinum (as I think we should), the specificformulation used by Polybius to indicate the number of Etruscans andSabines strongly suggests that the number of Sabines played no part in hisoverall calculations.

We are now in a position to explore some further implications of myreading of the Polybian manpower figures. As we have seen, most of theexisting literature sees no problem in charging Polybius with the gross mistakeof counting more than 50,000 men twice. The main argument for thisinterpretation is that the total number of citizen soldiers implied byPolybius’ survey (325,300) is much higher than the census figure for 234 bc.Against this I have argued that this high figure can be accounted for byassuming that the survey of 225 bc was more successful than most of thecensuses of the third century bc, and that Polybius was correct in adding themen already in the field to the numbers of men revealed by the katagraphai. Ifthis reading is accepted, we must reinterpret not only the manpower figuresfor the Romans, but also those for their Latin and Italian allies.

The relatively low figure of 85,000 given by Polybius for the Latins haslong puzzled scholars. It has therefore frequently been asserted that thisfigure makes sense only if it is taken to refer to iuniores alone.104 If, however,Fabius/Polybius was correct in adding the troops already in the field to thenumber of men still left on the registers, some 13,300 Latins (20.8 per cent of64,000) must already have been mobilized. If we then accept the generalview that the figures for the allies were approximately 20 per cent defective(partly because they are likely to have been less complete than the Romantally), we end up with a rough estimate of 117,960 Latins of military age, or

104 Above, at notes 8–9.




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c. 3,470 per Latin town.105This comes close to the average of 3,800 colonistssent out to each of six Latin colonies founded before 225 bc.106

All of Polybius’ figures for the Latin and Italian allies’ infantry aremultiplesof 10,000, indicating that these are rough approximations that may well beseriously defective.107 It also seems reasonable to suppose that in most Italiancommunities those rich enough to serve as cavalry were registered moreefficiently than the poorer sections of the adult male population. Takentogether, these distorting factors may help to explain certain anomalies suchas the odd ratio between cavalry and infantry (1:5) among the Abruzzipeoples.108 Only one figure is entirely impossible: the 16,000 cavalry to besupplied, supposedly, by the Iapygians and Messapians.109 The most prob-able explanation is that this figure is the result of a scribal error.110

The only other oddity is the absence of the Bruttians and the Greeks.According to some scholars, the Greeks do not appear because they

105 Unlike Afzelius (1942), 134, and Brunt (1971/1987), 56, I do not think that there are any grounds forclassifying the Volscian towns of Fabrateria and Aquinum as Latin. After this adjustment, we areleft with thirty-four Latin towns. Their number can be brought down to thirty-one by assumingthat (despite Livy 34.42.5–6) the three Hernician towns of Aletrium, Ferentinum and Verulae werenot technically Latin (Bispham 2007, 85, n. 58), and to only twenty-eight by assuming that thenomen Latinum consisted solely of the Latin colonies (e.g. Salmon 1982, 53–4; Bispham 2007, 29and 74, n. 2, pointing to Livy 23.20.2).

106 Note that our idea of the average populations of Latin colonies would probably have to be reviseddownwards if we had any data about small Latin towns such as Nepet, Sutrium andNarnia. As notedby Brunt (1971/1987), 56, the isolated colonies of Placentia and Cremona, to each of which 6,000colonists were sent, are likely to have been exceptionally large. Cornell (1989), 405, reckons thatbetween 334 bc and 263 bc 71,300 settlers were sent out to nineteen Latin colonies, giving an averagefigure of 3,753 per colony. Four Latin colonies founded between 193 bc and 181 bc had an averagecomplement of 3,400 (Brunt, see above.).Wemust also keep in mind the demographic impact of theFirst PunicWar. The census of 234/233 suggests that at that time the Roman citizen body had not yetfully recovered from the demographic setback caused by this war. The same may have been true ofthe Latin and Italian allies.

107 Afzelius (1942), 100.108 It must also be remembered that the ratio between horse and foot in the allied units already in the

field was 1:15. This means that a higher proportion of allied foot soldiers had already been called up.109 Although Toynbee (1965), 499, is right to point out that Apulia contained the excellent pastureland

of the Tavoliere, a ratio of 1:3 for horse and foot seems too high even for a horse-breeding region. Infavour of Toynbee’s view, see Lippolis (1997), 83, n. 20; Lo Cascio (1999a), 169; Forsythe (2005), 365.Against it, see Brunt (1971/1987), 49; Yntema (2008), 373.

110 Since the figures for Roman and allied cavalry will no longer add up to the total of 70,000 given byPolybius (2.24.16) if we correct this error, it may well have originated with Fabius Pictor. Did heperhaps misread xmiliaequitum as xvimiliaequitum? Of course, another possibility is that anumerical error had crept into the Fabian manuscript used by Polybius. Had Fabius reckonedwith 6,000 Apulian cavalry, but included 2,000 Umbrian horsemen and 6,000 or 7,000 cavalry ofthe Veneti and Cenomani (cf. Plb. 1.24.1 for the high ratio of horse to foot in the army of the invadingGauls), he would have arrived at the same round figure for the number of Roman and allied horse asPolybius. Needless to say, all attempts to account for the scribal error that is probably responsible forthis problematic figure must remain purely speculative.




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were expected only to supply ships and crews, rather than foot soldiers.111

Against this, it has been pointed out that Greeks appear to have foughtat Cannae, and that the obligations to provide ships’ crews and footsoldiers cannot have been mutually exclusive.112 It is possible, of course,that Fabius/Polybius simply overlooked the men supplied by the south-ernmost allies,113 or that no reliable records concerning their numbers wereavailable.

Building on the observation that all of the preparations of 225 bc

can be understood as having been made in the context of atumultus Gallicus, it is also possible to conjecture that it made senseto approach only those communities that could reasonably be expectedto feel threatened. In principle, this would have excluded the Apulians,the Greeks and the Bruttians. Apulia, however, had been penetrated byGaulish bands in 367 bc and in 366/5 bc, a fact that could have beenseen as rendering it appropriate to request the Apulians’ manpowerfigures.114 Yet another possibility is that the Roman government neverconsidered the option of mobilizing large numbers of Greeks andBruttians for an expedition in northern Italy because it had to reckonwith the possibility of a Carthaginian attack on Sicily and southernItaly. The Bruttians and the Greeks would have been ideally placed tosupport the Roman legions against any such attack. Some Bruttian andGreek contingents may, indeed, already have been serving in the twosmall armies that were stationed in Sicily and Tarentum at the time ofthe Gallic invasion.

Which, if any, of these explanations is correct must remain a matter ofspeculation. The only safe conclusion is that Fabius/Polybius gave nofigures for the Bruttians or the Greeks, presumably because he did nothave any, and that several tens of thousands of fighting men belonging tothese groups must be added to the manpower reserves upon which theRomans would have been able to draw in the event of a Gallic invasion.Following Brunt and Lo Cascio, I have reckoned with some 65,000 adultmale Bruttians and Greeks aged between 17 and 60.115

The foregoing interpretation of the Polybian figures implies the follow-ing estimates of the manpower reserves of the Latin and Italian allies:

111 Thus Mommsen (1887), iii, 673–7.112 E.g. Ilari (1974), 113–14, referring to Livy 23.1 and 24.13 and to Sil. Ital. Pun. 8.534.113 This is the solution preferred by Ilari (1974), 114. 114 Livy 6.42.7–8; 7.1.3.115 Note that Toynbee (1965), I, 494–5, assigned only 40,000 adult men under 46 to the Bruttians and

Greeks.




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if this reconstruction is accepted, it is possible to draw some interestingconclusions about Rome’s method of distributing military obligationsamong the Italian communities that made up the Roman-Italian systemof alliances during the second half of the third century bc.As we have seen, Scheidel has suggested that Polybius’ manpower figures

may have been constructed from the top down, on the basis of the assump-tion that the ratio between allies and legionaries approximated parity. Theforegoing re-analysis of the Polybian data suggests, however, that the ratiobetween legionaries and allies was actually approximately 1:1.6.116 In my view,it can be no coincidence that according to Polybius’ account of the prepara-tions of 225 bc each Roman legion of 5,500menwas accompanied by an alliedforce of 8,000, implying a ratio of 1:1.45.117 The most natural explanation forthis is surely that the military obligations imposed on the members of theRoman alliance system mirrored underlying demographic realities.118

Another way of assessing the plausibility of the foregoing reconstructionis to examine variations in regional population density. If the Ager Romanusindeed contained roughly 340,000 iuniores and seniores of citizen status, itsaverage number of free inhabitants per square kilometre was 43.8.119 Two

Table 2.2 Allied manpower in 225 bc

Still available + 20 % Already serving Total

Latins 85,000 102,000 13,635 115,635Samnites 77,000 92,400 12,350 104,750Apulians 56,000 67,200 8,980 76,180Lucanians 33,000 39,600 5,295 44,895Abruzzi peoples 24,000 28,800 3,850 32,650Umbrians 22,000 26,400 3,530 29,930Etruscans 54,000 64,800 8,660 73,460Greeks/Bruttians (48,000) (57,600) (7,700) (65,300)Total 399,000 478,800 64,000 542,800

116542,800:340,000 = 1.596.

117 Plb. 2.24.3–4. According to Plb. 2.24.9, the reserve army near Rome consisted of 21,500 citizens and32,000 allies. These figures imply a ratio of 1:1.49.

118 In theory it now becomes possible to argue that Fabius Pictor constructed the manpower figures for225 bc using a ratio of approximately 1:1.6, but this alternative hypothesis seems unnecessarilycontrived. Note that the census figures for 115/114 bc and 70/69 bc, taken together, point to aratio between citizens and allies of roughly 1:1.25. Since in the aftermath of the Second Punic WarRome had confiscated large amounts of allied territory, a significant amount of which was nowinhabited by Roman colonists and by viritane settlers, this later ratio is in perfect harmony with myreading of the Polybian manpower figures.

119 This figure uses Beloch’s estimate that the pre-Hannibalic Ager Romanus covered 25,615 km2.




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other areas for which high densities can be calculated are the territories ofthe Latins and those of the Samnites, where we find 35.9 free people per km2

and 33.5 free people per km2 respectively. By contrast, much lower densities(between twelve and fifteen free inhabitants per square kilometre) areimplied by the figures for the Etruscans, the Umbrians, the Abruzzi peoples,the Apulians and the Lucanians.

In my view, these discrepancies can easily be accounted for.120 The highpopulation density of the Ager Romanus, for instance, is likely to reflect thesocial and economic makeup of the Roman citizen body, a very largeproportion of which consisted of farmers who owned small or medium-sized farms. This social and economic group had been greatly reinforced bythe assignationes viritanae of the fourth and third centuries bc. The highfigure for the territories inhabited by Roman citizens also, of course, reflectsthe size of the city of Rome and the demographical importance of northernCampania, whose population densities are likely to have been much higherthan those in most other parts of the peninsula.121

The high densities in the Latin territories again reflect a pattern ofwidespread land ownership, and we must remember that most Latincolonies were founded in areas containing a disproportionate amount ofgood arable land. In the case of the ‘Samnites’, it must be borne in mind thatthese included the inhabitants of southern Campania, where crop yieldsapproximated those of the Ager Campanus.

Arable cultivation was also the mainstay of the economies of Etruria andlarge parts of Apulia. Viewed in this light, the population densities implied bythe Polybian manpower figures for these areas appear unexpectedly low. Partof the explanation must be that the average densities for Etruria and Apulia asa whole conceal large intra-regional discrepancies, with southern Etruria andsouthern Apulia characterized by much higher densities than the northerndistricts.122 Polybius’ figure for the Apulians’ manpower resources is in anycase compatible with the archaeological data that we currently have.123 In thecase of Etruria, we must also reckon with the probability that a significantproportion of the rural population consisted of ‘serfs’, most of whommaywellnot have been included amongst the c. 50,000 able-bodied ‘Etruscans’ listed

120 Scheidel (2004) notes these variations, but makes no attempt to explain them.121 The exceptional fertility of the Campanian soil is commented on by many ancient authors. On the other

hand, the density of between 213 and 320 inhabitants calculated for the pre-Hannibalic Ager Campanus bySavino (1997), 186, on the basis of Livy 23.5.15, is almost certainly too high. Cf. Chapter 4, at notes 14–16.

122 Note that the towns of South Etruria and Messapia were far closer together than those of thenorthern districts of Etruria and Apulia.

123 Yntema (2008). I am not, of course, suggesting that the archaeological evidence proves the Polybian figureto be correct. For my purposes, it is enough that the archaeological data do not contradict this figure.




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by the Etruscan towns in 225 bc.124 If this assumption is correct, these ‘serfs’should be added to my hypothetical tally for 225 bc. Unfortunately, theirnumber cannot be estimated.Finally, population densities of between twelve and fifteen persons per

square kilometre seem plausible for the societies and economies of theAbruzzi peoples, and also for those of Umbria and Luciania. Althoughthere can be no doubt that arable farming played an important part in theeconomies of these areas, it remains likely that these were regions in whichvarious forms of pastoralism were important, especially in the mountainousdistricts, and that average population densities were far lower here than incentral-western Italy.125

2 . 4 the po pu l a t i on o f i t a l y i n 2 2 5 b c

On the basis of my re-interpretation(s) of the Polybianmanpower figures, it ispossible to construct a tentative estimate of the size of the Italian populationin 225 bc. If my reading of these figures is correct, there were about 340,000adult male citizens and approximately 540,000 adult men of allied status inpeninsular Italy on the eve of the Gallic invasion. These figures imply a totalfree population of about 2.9 million. To this basic figure we must add thepopulation of Cisalpine Gaul and an unknown number of slaves.As we have seen, the only ‘evidence’ that we have concerning Cisalpine

Gaul consists of some scattered data concerning the sizes of armies fieldedby various Cisalpine tribes between 225 bc and 222 bc. Starting fromPolybius’ statement that the Insubrians were able to field 50,000 men in223 bc, Brunt argues that the Celtic tribes of northern Italy plus the Venetiand the Ligurians must have been able to field a theoretical total of 300,000iuniores.126 The total population implied by this estimate is 1 million.There is no need to point out the unsatisfactory character of this numerical

exercise. Perhaps the only way of testing the outcome of Brunt’s calculationsis to look at the average population density that it implies. If we consider only

123 Yntema (2008). I am not, of course, suggesting that the archaeological evidence proves the Polybian figureto be correct. For my purposes, it is enough that the archaeological data do not contradict this figure.

124 According to Zonaras 8.7 (= Cassius Dio 10.42), the Etruscans of Volsinii used their ‘servants’(oiketai) to fight their wars. It seems likely, however, that most Etruscan contingents consisted offreeborn men.

125 Cf. Dench (1995), 111–53.126 Above, at note 17. It may be noted that Brunt’s assumption that the figure of 50,000 for the

Insubrian forces refers solely to iuniores is of questionable validity. If, as Brunt suggests, theInsubrians really put ‘every available man’ into the field, this figure would surely have includedboth iuniores and seniores.

The population of Italy in 225 bc 71



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those parts of northern Italy whose inhabitants held citizenship after 49 bc,Cisalpine Gaul covered an area of approximately 100,000 km2.127The averagepopulation density implied by Brunt’s figures is therefore c. 10 persons persquare kilometre. This is lower, but not much lower, than the density of 13.7persons per square kilometre that can be calculated on the basis of Polybius’figure for the Umbrians. Since in any view Cisalpine Gaul was at leastsomewhat less developed than most parts of peninsular Italy (includingUmbria), this outcome seems acceptable.128

Although this is not to deny that our scanty data can easily be massaged insuch a way as to produce a fairly wide range of equally ‘acceptable’ outcomes,it seems at least possible to conclude that there is nothing to contradict theview that the free population of mainland Italy numbered about 3.9 millionon the eve of the Hannibalic War. If we add 300,000 hypothetical slaves, wearrive at a grand total of 4.2 million free and non-free inhabitants.129

Since at least some of the underlying figures are clearly unreliable, thisestimate comes with a considerable margin of error. Despite their obviouslimitations, however, the Polybian manpower figures would seem to narrowdown the range of possible population estimates for central and southernItaly to manageable proportions. This very approximate total should, there-fore, at least be of the correct order of magnitude.

2 . 5 th e po l y b i an manpower f i gur e s and roman

mob i l i z a t i on r at e s

In an important article published in 2001, Lo Cascio argues that the lowcount implies military participation rates so high as to be out of line withcomparative data.130 His arguments can be summarized as follows.

If we follow Brunt in assuming that there were about 300,000 adult maleRoman citizens at the outbreak of the Second Punic War,131 the number ofiuniores must have been about 216,000. Of these iuniores, about 50,000 hadbeenmobilized at the time of the battle of Trasimene. In other words, in 217 bcthe ratio between legionaries and iuniores stood at 1:4.32. In the yearsthat followed, especially after Cannae, the number of legionaries increased

127120,000 km2, less the c. 20,000 or 25,000 km2 inhabited by attributi in 28 bc (Beloch 1886, 321; cf.Chapter 1, at note 88).

128 Kron (2005a) argues that many parts of Cisalpine Gaul had been brought under cultivation by thetime of the first Augustan census. He does not, however, deny the presence of extensive swamps andforests in the final decades of the third century bc.

129 For the hypothetical tally of 300,000 slaves in pre-Hannibalic Italy, cf. Scheidel (2005a), 76.130 Lo Cascio (2001a). 131 Brunt (1971/1987), 62, actually uses a figure of 325,000.




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until amaximumof 80,000was reached in 212 bc. In this calculation, itmust beremembered that by that time the heavy casualties suffered between 218 bc and214 bc had reduced the number of iuniores to c. 126,000. The low counttherefore implies that by 212bc c.75per cent of all iunioreswere on active service.Lo Cascio also argues that the 126,000 iuniores of 212 bc corresponded to a

total of 190,000 adult male citizens, implying a Roman citizen population of632,700. With 80,000 legionaries in the field, this would imply a mobiliza-tion rate of 12.6 per cent.132 Lo Cascio goes on to compare this rate with theratios between men under arms and total population that can be calculatedfor various parts of early-modern Europe. Here a rate of 7.7 per cent wasachieved by Sweden in 1709, while in 1760 7.1 per cent of Prussia’s populationserved in the armies of Frederick the Great. These were high percentages; inmost other countries military participation rates were much lower, with ratesof under 2 per cent being the norm in Spain, France, Great Britain andRussia.133 Lo Cascio interprets these data as indicating that the populationlevels postulated by the low counters cannot possibly be correct.Although this argument may at first sight appear convincing, a closer

inspection reveals serious weaknesses. The most important of these isperhaps that Lo Cascio’s estimates of the total Roman population aremisleadingly low. His figures for 212 bc, for instance, are based on theimprobable assumption that between 218 bc and 213 bc Rome had lost notmerely 35 per cent of its iuniores, but 35 per cent of its entire population.Brunt’s version of the low count, in fact, assumes that between 218 bc and212 bc the free Roman population was reduced from about 1 million toc. 840,000, by the loss of some 50,000men on the battlefield and as a resultof the defection of the Campanians, whose total population may havenumbered c. 110,000.134 If we consider the free citizen population alone,

132 If we add an estimated 15,000 rowers of citizen status (Lo Cascio 2001a, 135), this percentage rises to15 per cent.

133 Lo Cascio (2001a), 137, Table 2.1. According to Gat (2006), 503, a mobilization rate of 3 per cent wasachieved in revolutionary France in 1794, but this high rate could not be sustained for long. In 1813

about 2 per cent of the French population was on active service.134 For casualties, see Brunt (1971/1987), 419, n. 4. His estimate of 50,000 refers to the period 218 bc–215

bc. As he points out elsewhere (1971/1987, 64 and 422), however, the ranks of the iuniores werecontinually replenished with large cohorts of boys as they reached the minimum age for activeservice, and there were few military disasters after Cannae. Brunt (1971/1987), 18–19 and 64, believesthere to have been 34,000 adult male Campanians before Cannae (cf. Livy 23.5.15). As he notes,however (1971/1987, 51), Strabo (6.3.4) asserts that Tarentum was able to field exactly this number offoot and horse. Brunt also observes that Livy’s figure of 30,000 Tarentines captured and sold intoslavery in 209 bc (Livy 27.16.7) may well have been purely conventional. The samemay be true of thefigure for the Campanians. If we combine the probable extent of the Ager Campanus with the (high)

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the mobilization rate for 212 bc would thus appear to have been 11.3per cent.135

While so high a rate seems acceptable for the most critical period of a warin which Rome was fighting for its survival, the real mobilization rate musthave been significantly lower. As we have seen, Polybius’ manpower figuressuggest that there were as many as 340,000 adult male citizens on the eve ofthe Second PunicWar, implying a free Roman population of c. 1,122,000. Tothis figure must be added the slave population. If we assume, conservatively,that 10 per cent of people were slaves, the total population rises to 1,234,200.With about 95,000 adult male citizens and slaves serving as legionaries or asrowers in the fleet, the mobilization rate for 212 bc works out as 7.7 per cent.Although this rate is certainly high by comparative standards, it is not muchhigher than the 7.1 per cent calculated for Prussia in 1760.

If we ignore the servile population, the rate of military participation at theheight of the Second Punic War rises to 8.5 per cent. Even this rate, however,is only marginally higher than the top rate of military participation achievedby the Confederacy during the American Civil War. Here (if we excludeslaves) 8 per cent of the population saw active service at the peak of the war.136

In assessing the wider significance of these estimates, we must bear inmind the highly specific character of the network of alliances by means ofwhich Rome dominated Italy during the middle republic. It has often beenobserved that during their conquest of Italy the Romans imposed no directtaxes on any Italian community. Instead they created a complicated systemof juridical statutes and a network of military alliances that gave them accessto an ever-growing pool of military manpower. In developing and extendingthis network, both Rome itself and most of its Italian allies successfullymaintained the high levels of military participation that had characterizedthe city-states of archaic and early-republican times. As Scheidel notes, all ofthis means that republican Rome cannot directly be compared with theemerging nation-states of early-modern Europe, where taxation primarily

population densities that can be calculated for the late sixteenth century, we end up with significantlyfewer than 110,000 Campanians. Cf. Chapter 4, at note 16. For a general discussion of conventionalfigures in the ancient sources, see Scheidel (1996b).

135 With 80,000 citizens in the legions and 15,000 in the fleet.136 Gat (2006), 527. If slaves are included, the highest rate achieved by the Confederacy drops to 5 per cent.

In comparing this to the Roman rate, it must be borne in mind that my hypothetical figure for the slavepopulation of the pre-Hannibalic Ager Romanus is almost certainly too low. Note that themobilizationrate of 11 per cent given by Scheidel (2008), 39, as the highest level achieved by the Confederacy is basedon a misinterpretation of the estimate of 850,000 to 900,000 southern soldiers given by McPherson(1988), 306, n. 41. Only half of these men were on active service at any given time.




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meant the imposition of demands for material resources.137 For this reasonalone, it is difficult to maintain that the mobilization rates that can becalculated for the Hannibalic War are ‘impossibly’ high.At the same time, we must pay close attention to economic and social

structures. Literature on pre-modern and modern warfare generally explainsthe unusually high mobilization rate (8 per cent of the free population)achieved by the southern states during the American Civil War as reflectingthe fact that the South had a relatively unsophisticated economy in whichslaves made up a considerable proportion of the labour force.138 There can beno doubt that this was also the case in Roman-republican Italy.In the absence of reliable figures, it is extremely difficult to come up with

even a very approximate estimate of the number of urban and rural slaves inpre-Hannibalic Italy. It is nonetheless generally agreed that slaves werewidely used in Roman and Italian agriculture from the late fourth centurybc.139 What is particularly interesting is that the little evidence we do havesuggests that slave ownership was very widespread at the time of theHannibalic War. We are told, for instance, that when the Senate faced ashortage of oarsmen for a newly launched fleet of ships in 214 bc, senatorswere ordered to supply eight slaves each, while those citizens whose prop-erty had been rated at 1 million asses were expected to produce seven, thoseworth 300,000 asses five, those worth 100,000 three and those worth 50,000one.140 As Rosenstein has recently observed, the census threshold of 50,000asses is that of the third class of the centuriate assembly. The measures of 214bc therefore imply the existence of a very substantial group of moderatelywell-off farmers, all of whom were assumed to own at least one slave.141

From this it can be inferred that, even in times of heavy conscription,production would have carried on normally on the slave-staffed farms of therich and also on many larger family farms.142

It would, of course, be absurd to maintain that the majority of the freefarming population owned slaves at the time of the Hannibalic War. Inanalysing the effects of widespread conscription on the poorer section of thefree rural population, it must, however, be remembered that the agrarianeconomy of republican Italy can be described as a ‘peasant economy’,characterized by a high degree of underemployment. This implies thatmilitary service at this time should be seen not primarily as a disruptive

137 Scheidel (2008), 39. 138 Gat (2006), 527. 139 E.g. Finley (1980). 140 Livy 24.11.7–8.141 Rosenstein (2008), 6–7.142 From a functional point of view, widespread slave ownership can even be seen as an economic

adaptation that made possible high military participation rates. Up to a point, this is similar to thestate of affairs in classical Athens, where widespread slave ownership facilitated political participation.

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force, but as a withdrawal of surplus labour that would otherwise haveremained unused.143 Another important point is that the economic feasi-bility of massive mobilization is determined in part by the makeup of ruralhouseholds and by their size. Although little is known about the size of ruralhouseholds during the Roman republic, there is some reason to think that,unlike most urban families, many rural ones were probably of the extendedtype, including the members of three generations and in some cases perhapstwo co-resident families.144 As several scholars have pointed out, suchextended families would have been in a good position to cope with theconscription or death of one or two young men.145 It could, in fact, besuggested that the burdens imposed by the Roman system of conscriptionmight have been a major stimulus to the formation of extended householdsin the Italian countryside.

The same point can be made in another way. In one of the footnotes tothe first chapter of Conquerors and Slaves, Hopkins claims that the Romanscannot be compared with notoriously warlike tribes such as the Zulus or the‘Red Indians’, whose rates of military participation were much higher thanthose of the Roman Republic.146 Although I share Hopkins’ view that thesetribal societies are not directly relevant to the Romans, they illustrate ageneral principle that is often ignored. I mean by this simply that theeconomic and demographic feasibility of a given mobilization rate dependsupon the economic structures of the society in question.147 In my view,there can be no doubt that mid-republican Italy’s economy was far lesssophisticated than those of most parts of early-modern Europe. I believethat this basic economic fact made it much easier for the Romans towithdraw large amounts of manpower from the rural districts of republicanItaly.148 This is another reason why any direct comparison between Romanand early-modern military participation rates is potentially misleading.

It seems reasonable to conclude that my re-interpretation of the Polybianmanpower figures implies military participation rates during the Hannibalic

143 E.g. Hopkins (1978), 24, followed by Erdkamp (1998), 264–5 and 267, and De Ligt (2007a), 121.144 As is so often the case, we have almost no evidence from republican or early-imperial Italy. Extended

and multiple families were, however, very common in the rural districts of Roman Egypt and offifteenth-century Tuscany; see Bagnall and Frier (1994), 60. One indication that many Romans ofthe republican era lived in households of this sort is the legal construct of the societas ercto non cito(also known as the consortium), an arrangement whereby children succeeding their father did notdivide up their inheritance, but continued to enjoy it in common. See e.g. Jolowicz and Nicholas(1972), 296. Cf. Plut. Aem. 5.4–5, for the famous case of the sixteen Aelii Tuberones who livedtogether in a small farmhouse.

145 E.g. De Ligt (2007a), 121. 146 Hopkins (1978), 11, n. 19. 147 Andreski (1954).148 This would be a worthwhile angle from which to re-examine the transition to a standing army that

took place during the imperial period.




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War that are entirely plausible in light of the highly specific structures ofItalian society during the second half of the third century bc. If this is true ofthe Hannibalic War, the same conclusion necessarily obtains for the earlydecades of the second century bc, when military commitments were stillhigh, but nonetheless significantly lower than those of the decisive years ofthe Second Punic War.

2 . 6 conc lu s i on s

The most important finding of this chapter is perhaps that, althoughPolybius’manpower figures were clearly intended as rough approximations,there are no good grounds to reject them as completely unreliable.At the same time, we have seen that the correct interpretation of these

figures is bedevilled by a number of technical and terminological problems.Despite the uncertainties resulting from these technical difficulties, it seemspossible to conclude that many earlier scholars have been misled by the factthat Polybius’ figure for those ‘Romans and Campanians’ who remained onthe reserve list is almost identical to the census figure for 234 bc. Lo Cascio isundoubtedly right to insist that this similarity may well be fortuitous.On the other hand, Lo Cascio’s theory that Polybius’ survey reflects a

regional pattern of mobilization that took no account of legal status runs upagainst insuperable difficulties. It seems more appropriate to interpret thesefigures as referring to the numbers of men available for mobilization in theevent of a tumultus Gallicus. According to this interpretation, the figuresshould be taken to include both iuniores and seniores, not only in the case ofthe Romans and Campanians, but also in that of the allies. If we read thefigures in this way, the weaknesses that vitiate the traditional low-countreading can be avoided. The size of the free Italian population of central andsouthern Italy implied by this new interpretation (c. 2.9 million) is none-theless more or less identical to the estimates suggested by Brunt andHopkins. With a hypothetical 1 million Gauls, Ligurians and Veneti inthe north, this implies that mainland Italy as a whole had a free populationof c. 3.9 million.If we reject Lo Cascio’s regional interpretation and opt for 3.9 million as

the most reasonable estimate of the size of the free population of mainlandItaly at the time of the Gallic invasion, we must posit an almost fourfoldincrease in the free Italian population to account for the c. 14.75million freeItalians implied by the high-count reading of the census figure for 28 bc.149

14914.75:3.9 = 3.78. Cf. Chapter 1, at note 29.

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In principle, the enormous gap between the figures for 225 bc and 28 bc canbe closed by assuming that the number of free Italians increased rapidly overthese years by means of a combination of natural and non-natural factorsand that extensive enfranchisement of provincials during the last 50 years ofthe Republic created many hundreds of thousands of new citizens. Wecould assume, for instance, that the number of free Italians grew at anaverage annual rate of 0.6 per cent and that the number of ex-slaves,enfranchised foreigners and descendants of these groups had risen toapproximately 2million by 28 bc. Alternatively, we could assume an averagenatural growth rate of 0.5 per cent per annum and put the number ofcitizens created by means of legal devices at 4.2million.150 As we shall see ina later chapter, however, the natural growth rates required by these scenariosseem much too high for a society that was not only engaged in quasi-continuous warfare abroad, but had to cope with the impact of a number ofvicious wars between various groups of Italians.151 In this sense, the findingsof this chapter can be seen as an argument against the high-count inter-pretation of the Augustan census figures.

150 Scheidel (1997), 166, n. 140, suggests that as many as 500,000 slaves may have been manumitted inItaly between 81 bc and 49 bc. As Brunt long ago pointed out (1971/1987), 143–6, however, there arestrong indications that freedmen had fewer children than ingenui, partly because most female slaveswere freed at an advanced age. There is in my view no good evidence for the massive enfranchisementof provincials posited by Crawford (2008). Cf. Chapter 1, note 35.

151 Chapter 4, at notes 217–18.




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