All about muscles, or all about money ? Roman censuses in context.

In this paper I lead you into a debate that has captured generations of historians of the Roman world, a debate that underlies The Demography of Roman Italy, Demographic dynamics in an ancient conquest society (201 BCE – CE 14). It covers a seemingly trivial question, namely: when the Romans held censuses, who did they count? For ancient historians, the answer to this question is of fundamental importance to understanding against what background of demographic dynamics political, historical, and economic developments in Roman Italy took place. But there is a larger comparative interest to it as well. Deeper insight into the Roman census enables us to start asking whether and how Roman practices set models for later censuses; to what extent we can discern similar evolutions in census taking; and how strongly censuses are intertwined with historical citizenship concepts. A better understanding of the Roman Republican and Imperial censuses, in other words, contributes to our comprehension of the phenomenon of census taking and the importance of contexts.

Many contemporary historians see the Roman census primarily as an instrument for military recruitment. In this paper I argue that this perception is rooted strongly in 19th century perceptions of citizens as soldiers that do not necessarily coincide with Roman views, and ought to be refined and revised. To support this argument, I will bring in Roman notions of citizenship; gender and property rights in the Roman world; empirical evidence on the coverage of Roman censuses; and a rough survey of census taking and census aims throughout history. On the basis of this evidence, I argue that while the Roman census originated as a count of military manpower, by the end of the Republic it covered the entire population, while taking special interest in those citizens who were legally independent – and, hence, liable to taxation - regardless of sex and age. The system thus underwent a process of evolution that held closely paralleled societal developments, and testifies of the development of a bureaucratic system that was more intricate than some have recognized, and asked for more detail than we see in many a later census.