ABSTRACT
WHAT were the numbers of those in enjoyment of the jus civitatis, or of portions of it, or simply in subjection, in all the territories administered by Rome at the various epochs of this period? This is clearly a problem of essential importance, for the economics of production and exchange differ radically according to whether one is considering a half-deserted country or a fully populated one. We have a few data and also some opinions but we are quite without detailed statistics comparable with those which are so necessary in modern economic life. The reader will find here the statistics which we have been able to glean either from the historians of antiquity themselves or from the writers of the last century, who made use of all the scattered documents with which they met and also proceeded by more or less conjectural deductions. We must therefore not be surprised if widely differing figures are cited in the outline which is to follow.
