Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T14:21:59.314Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Greek demographic expansion: models and comparisons*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 February 2012

Walter Scheidel
Walter Scheidel
Affiliation:
Stanford University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

For much of the first millennium BC, the number of Greeks increased considerably, both in the Aegean core and in the expanding periphery of the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions. This paper is the first attempt to establish a coherent quantitative framework for the study of this process. In the first section, I argue that despite the lack of statistical data, it is possible to identify a plausible range of estimates of average long-term demographic growth rates in mainland Greece from the Early Iron Age to the Classical period. Elaborating on this finding, the second section offers a comprehensive rebuttal of the notion of explosive population growth in parts of the eighth and seventh centuries BC. In the third section, I seek to determine the probable scale and demographic consequences of Greek settlement overseas. A brief preliminary look at the relationship between population growth and the quality of life concludes my survey. The resultant series of interlocking parametric models is meant to contextualize the demographic development of ancient Greece within the wider ambit of pre-modern demography, and to provide a conceptual template for future research in this area.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 123 , November 2003 , pp. 120 - 140
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 2003

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alcock, S.E. (1993) Graecia Capta: The Landscapes of Roman Greece (Cambridge)Google Scholar
Aperghis, M. (2001) ‘Population – production – taxation – coinage: a model for the Seleukid economy’, in Archibald, Z.H., Davies, J., Gabrielsen, V. and Oliver, G.J. (eds), Hellenistic Economies (London and New York) 69–102Google Scholar
Beloch, K.J. (1886) Die Bevölkerung der griechisch-römischen Welt (Leipzig)Google Scholar
Bengtsson, T. and Saito, O. (eds) (2000) Population and Economy: From Hunger to Modern Economic Growth (Oxford)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bintliff, J.L. (1985) ‘The Boeotia survey’, in Macready, S. and Thompson, F.H. (eds), Archaeological Field Survey in Britain and Abroad (London) 196–216Google Scholar
Bintliff, J.L. (1997a) ‘Further considerations on the population of ancient Boeotia’, in Bintliff, J.L. (ed.), Recent Developments in the History and Archaeology of Central Greece (Oxford) 231–52Google Scholar
Bintliff, J.L. (1997b) ‘Regional survey, demography, and the rise of complex societies in the ancient Aegean: core-periphery, neo-malthusian, and other interpretative models’, JFA 24, 1–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bintliff, J.L. (1998) ‘The mountain peoples of ancient Greece: the relevance of world-systems theory and neo-malthusianism to their development’, in Olshausen, E. and Sonnabend, H. (eds), Stuttgarter Kolloquium zur historischen Geographie des Altertums 5, 1993 (Amsterdam 1996) 105–41Google Scholar
Bintliff, J.L.Howard, P. and Snodgrass, A. (1999) ‘The hidden landscape of prehistoric Greece’, JMA 12, 139–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bintliff, J.L. and Sbonias, K. (eds) (1999) Reconstructing Past Population Trends in Mediterranean Europe (3000 BC–AD 1800) (Oxford)Google Scholar
Bintliff, J.L. and Snodgrass, A. (1997) ‘The end of the Roman countryside: a view from the East’, in Bintliff, J. (ed.), Recent Developments in the History and Archaeology of Central Greece (Oxford) 175–217Google Scholar
Boserup, E. (1965) The Conditions of Agricultural Growth: The Economics of Agrarian Change under Population Pressure (Chicago)Google Scholar
Boserup, E. (1981) Population and Technological Change: A Study of Long-Term Trends (Chicago)Google Scholar
Camp, J.McK. (1979) ‘A drought in the late eighth century B.C.’, Hesperia 48, 397–411Google Scholar
Carter, J.C. (1990) ‘Metapontum – land, wealth, and population’, in Descoeudres, J.-P. (ed.), Greek Colonists and Native Populations (Oxford) 405–41Google Scholar
Carter, J.C. ed. (1990) The Pantanella Necropolis 1982-1989: An Interim Report (Austin)Google Scholar
Cavalli-Sforza, L.L., Menozzi, P. and Piazza, A. (1994) The History and Geography of Human Genes (Princeton)Google Scholar
Cawkwell, G.L. (1992) ‘Early colonisation’, CQ 42, 289–303CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chao, W.L. and Hsieh, S.C. (1988) History of Chinese Population (Beijing) (in Chinese)Google Scholar
Cherry, J.F. (1988) ‘Pastoralism and the role of animals in the pre- and protohistoric communities of the Aegean’, in Whittaker, C.R. (ed.), Pastoral Economies in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge) 6–34Google Scholar
Chu, C.Y.C. and Lee, R.D. (1994) ‘Famine, revolt, and the dynastic cycle: population dynamics in historic China’, Journal of Population Economics 7, 351–78CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Coldstream, J. N. (1993) ‘Mixed marriages at the frontiers of the Greek world’, OJA 12, 89–107Google Scholar
Cook, J.M. (1982) ‘The eastern Greeks’, in CAH 3.3 (2nd edn, Cambridge) 196–221Google Scholar
Corvisier, J.-N. and Suder, W. (2000) La population de l'antiquité classique (Paris)Google Scholar
de Angelis, F. (1994) ‘The foundation of Selinous’, in Tsetskhladze, G.R. and de Angelis, F. (eds), The Archaeology of Greek Colonisation (Oxford 1994) 87–100Google Scholar
de Angelis, F. (2000) ‘Estimating the agricultural base of Greek Sicily’, PBSR 68, 111–48Google Scholar
Easterlin, R.A. (1976) ‘Population change and farm settlement in the northern United States’, Journal of Economic History 36, 45–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eder, B. (1998) Argolis, Lakonien, Messenien vom Ende der mykenischen Palastzeit bis zur Einwanderung der Dorier (Vienna)Google Scholar
Fisher, N. and van Wees, H. (eds) (1998) Archaic Greece: New Approaches and New Evidence (London)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fogel, R.W. (1993) ‘New sources and new techniques for the study of secular trends in nutritional status, health, mortality, and the process of aging’, Historical Methods 26, 5–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gallant, T.W. (1991) Risk and Survival in Ancient Greece: Reconstructing the Rural Domestic Economy (Stanford)Google Scholar
Gallo, L. (1983) ‘Colonizzazione, demografia e strutture di parentela’, in Modes de contacts (1982) 703–28Google Scholar
Galloway, P.R. (1986) ‘Long-term fluctuations in climate and population in the preindustrial era’, Population and Development Review 12, 1–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galloway, P.R. (1988) ‘Basic patterns in annual variation in fertility, nuptiality, mortality, and prices in pre-industrial Europe’, Population Studies 42, 275–303CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Garnsey, P. (1999) Food and Society in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goegebeur, W. (1987) ‘Des problèmes liés à l‘interculturation et l'intermarriage en Grande-Grèce’, in Saerens, C.de Smet, R. and Melaerts, H. (eds), Studia Varia Bruxellensia ad Orbem Graeco-Latinam Pertinentia (Leuven) 55–64Google Scholar
Goldstone, J.A. (1991) Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London)Google Scholar
Goldstone, J.A. (2002) ‘Efflorescences and economic growth in world history: rethinking the rise of the West and the British Industrial Revolution’, Journal of World History 13, 323–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graham, A.J. (1980) ‘Religion, women and Greek colonisation’, CRDAC 11, 293–314Google Scholar
Grigg, D.B. (1980) Population Growth and Agrarian Change: An Historical Perspective (Cambridge)Google Scholar
Grmek, M.D. (1983) Diseases in the Ancient Greek World (Baltimore and London)Google Scholar
Guttentag, M. and Secord, P.F. (1983) Too Many Women? The Sex Ratio Question (Beverly Hills, London and New Delhi)Google Scholar
Horden, P. and Purcell, N. (2000) The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History (Oxford and Maiden)Google Scholar
Jameson, M.H., Runnels, C.N. and van Andel, T.H. (1994) A Greek Countryside: The Southern Argolid from Prehistory to the Present Day (Stanford)Google Scholar
Johansson, S.R. (1994) ‘Food for thought: rhetoric and reality in modern mortality history’, Historical Methods 27, 101–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, D.W. (1999) ‘The conundrum of Greek population growth in the 8th century B.C.: burials, settlements, and wells’, OAth 24, 25–50Google Scholar
Jones, E.L. (1988) Growth Recurring: Economic Change in World History (Oxford, repr. Ann Arbor 2000)Google Scholar
Kiel, M. (1987) ‘Population growth and food production in 16th century Athens and Attica according to the Ottoman tahrir defers’, in Bacqué-Grammont, J.-L. and van Donzel, E. (eds), Comité international d'études pré-ottomanes et ottomanes: Vlth symposium Cambridge, 1st – 4th July 1984 (Istanbul, Paris and Leiden) 115–33Google Scholar
Kiel, M. (1997) ‘The rise and decline of Turkish Boeotia, 15th – 19th century (Remarks on settlement pattern,demography and agricultural production according to unpublished Ottoman-Turkish census and taxation records)’, in Bintliff, J. (ed.), Recent Developments in the History and Archaeology of Central Greece (Oxford) 315–58Google Scholar
Kiel, M. (1999) ‘The Ottoman imperial registers: central Greece and northern Bulgaria in the 15th-19th century; the demographic development of two areas compared’, in Bintliff, and Sbonias, (eds) (1999) 195–218Google Scholar
Kremer, M. (1993) ‘Population growth and technological change: one million B.C. to 1990’, Quarterly Journal of Economics 108, 681–716CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, J.Z. and Wang, F. (1999) One Quarter of Humanity: Malthusian Mythology and Chinese Realities, 1700-2000 (Cambridge, MA and London)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, J.Z. and Wang, F. and Campbell, C. (1994) ‘Infant and child mortality among the Qing nobility: implications for two types of positive check’, Population Studies 48, 395–411CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, R.D. (1986a) ‘Malthus and Boserup: a dynamic synthesis’, in Coleman, D. and Schofield, R. (eds), The State of Population Theory: Forward from Malthus (Oxford and New York) 96–130Google Scholar
Lee, R.D. (1986b) ‘Population homeostasis and English demographic history’, in Rotberg, R.I. and Rabb, T.K.. (eds), Population and Economy: Population and Economy from the Traditional to the Modern World (Cambridge) 75–100Google Scholar
Livi-Bacci, M. (1991) Population and Nutrition: An Essay on European Demographic History (Cambridge)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Livi-Bacci, M. (1992) A Concise History of World Population (Cambridge, MA and Oxford)Google Scholar
Mason, K.O. (1997) ‘Explaining fertility transitions’, Demography 34, 443–54CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McEvedy, C. and Jones, R. (1978) Atlas of World Population History (Harmondsworth)Google Scholar
McNeill, W.H. (1977) Plagues and Peoples (Oxford)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merrick, T.W. (1978) ‘Fertility and land availability in rural Brazil’, Demography 15, 321–36CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Modes de contacts (1982) Modes de contacts et processus de transformation dans les sociétés anciennes (Pisa and Rome)Google Scholar
Morris, I. (1987) Burial and Ancient Society: The Rise of the Greek City-State (Cambridge)Google Scholar
Morris, I. (1992) Death-Ritual and Social Structure in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morris, I. (1994) ‘The Athenian economy twenty years after The ancient economy’, CPh 89, 351–66Google Scholar
Morris, I. (1996) ‘The absolute chronology of the Greek colonies in Sicily’, AArch 67, 51–9Google Scholar
Morris, I. (1998a) ‘Archaeology and archaic Greek history’, in Fisher and van Wees (eds) (1998) 1–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morris, I. (1998b) ‘Burial and ancient society after ten years’, in Marchegay, S.Le Dinahet, M.-T. and Salles, J.-F. (eds), Nécropoles etpouvoir (Paris) 21–36Google Scholar
Morris, I. (2000) Archaeology as Cultural History (Maiden and Oxford)Google Scholar
Morris, I. (forthcoming a) ‘Archaeology, standards of living, and Greek economic history’, in Manning, J. and Morris, I. (eds), The Ancient Economy: Evidence and Models (Stanford)Google Scholar
Morris, I. (forthcoming b) ‘Early Iron Age Greece’, in Morris, I., Saller, R. and Scheidel, W. (eds), The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World (Cambridge)Google Scholar
Morris, I. (in preparation) The Greek Economic Miracle (Princeton)Google Scholar
Osborne, R. (1987) Classical Landscape with Figures: The Ancient Greek City and Its Countryside (London)Google Scholar
Osborne, R. (1989) ‘A crisis in archaeological history? The seventh century B.C. in Attica’, ABSA 84, 297–322Google Scholar
Osborne, R. (1996a) Greece in the Making, 1200-479 BC (London and New York)Google Scholar
Osborne, R. (1996b) ‘Survey and Greek society’, AJA 100, 165–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Osborne, R. (1998) ‘Early Greek colonization? The nature of Greek settlement in the West’, in Fisher, and Wees, van (eds) (1998) 251–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Osborne, R. (2001) ‘Counting the cost’, Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 14, 212–16Google Scholar
Paine, R.R. (2000) ‘If a population crashes in prehistory, and there is no paleodemographer there to hear it, does it make a sound?’, American Journal of Physical Anthropology 112, 181–903.0.CO;2-9>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pettegrew, D.K. (2001) ‘Chasing the classical farmstead: assessing the formation and signature of rural settlement in Greek landscape archaeology’, JMA 14, 189–209CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pounds, N.J.G. (1973) An Historical Geography of Europe 450 B.C. – A. D. 1330 (Cambridge)Google Scholar
Purcell, N. (1990) ‘Mobility and the polis’, in Murray, O. and Price, S. (eds) (1990) The Greek City from Homer to Alexander (Oxford) 29–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reher, D.S. and Ortega Osona, J.A. (2000) ‘Malthus revisited: exploring medium-range interaction between economic and demographic forces in historic Europe’, in Bengtsson, and Saito, (eds) (2000) 183–212Google Scholar
Rickards, O., Biondi, G., De Stefano, G.F., Vecchi, F. and Walter, H. (1992) ‘Genetic structure of the population of Sicily’, American Journal of Physical Anthropology 87, 395–406CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rickards, O., Martinez-Labarga, C., Scano, G., De Stefano, G.F., Biondi, O., Pacaci, M. and Walter, H. (1998) ‘Genetic history of the population of Sicily’, Human Biology 70, 699–714Google ScholarPubMed
Ridgway, D. (1992) The First Western Greeks (Cambridge)Google Scholar
Riley, J.C. (1994) ‘Height, nutrition, and mortality risk reconsidered’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 24, 466–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rougé, J. (1970) ‘La colonisation grecque et les femmes’, CH 15, 307–17Google Scholar
Sallares, R. (1991) The Ecology of the Ancient Greek World (London)Google Scholar
Saller, R. (2002) ‘Framing the debate over growth in the ancient economy’, in Scheidel, W. and von Reden, S. (eds), The Ancient Economy (Edinburgh) 251–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sbonias, K. (1999a) ‘Introduction to issues in demography and survey’, in Bintliff, and Sbonias, (eds) (1999) 1–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sbonias, K. (1999b) ‘Investigating the interface between regional survey, historical demography and paleodemography’, in Bintliff, and Sbonias, (eds) (1999) 219–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scheidel, W. (1996) ‘Die biologische Dimension der Alten Geschichte: Bemerkungen zu Robert Sallares, The Ecology of the Ancient Greek World’, Tyche 11, 207–22Google Scholar
Scheidel, W. (1999) ‘Emperors, aristocrats, and the Grim Reaper: towards a demographic profile of the Roman elite’, CQ 49, 254–81CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Scheidel, W. (2001a) ‘Progress and problems in Roman demography’, in Scheidel, W. (ed.), Debating Roman Demography (Leiden, Boston and Cologne) 1–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scheidel, W. (2001b) ‘Roman age structure: evidence and models’, JRS 91, 1–26.Google Scholar
Scheidel, W. (2002) ‘A model of demographic and economic change in Roman Egypt after the Antonine Plague’, JRA 15, 97–114Google Scholar
Scheidel, W. (forthcoming) ‘Demography’, in Morris, I., Saller, R. and Scheidel, W. (eds), The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World (Cambridge)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schofield, R. (1989) ‘Family structure, demographic behaviour, and economic growth’, in Walter, J. and Schofield, R. (eds), Famine, Disease and the Social Order in Early Modern Society (Cambridge) 279–304CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shepherd, G. (1999) ‘Fibulae and females: intermarriage in the western Greek colonies and the evidence from the cemeteries’, in Tsetskhladze, G.R. (ed.), Ancient Greeks West and East (Leiden, Boston and Cologne) 267–300CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simon, J.L. (1986) Theory of Population and Economic Growth (Oxford and New York)Google Scholar
Simon, J.L. (2000) ‘What determined the onset of modern progress in the standard of living?’, in Bengtsson, and Saito, (eds) (2000) 21–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snodgrass, A.M. (1977) Archaeology and the Rise of the Greek State (Cambridge)Google Scholar
Snodgrass, A.M. (1980) Archaic Greece: The Age of Experiment (London)Google Scholar
Snodgrass, A.M. (1983) ‘Two demographic notes’, in Hägg, R. (ed.), The Greek Renaissance of the Eighth Century B.C.: Tradition and Innovation (Stockholm) 167–71Google Scholar
Snodgrass, A.M. (1987-1989) ‘The rural landscape and its political significance’, Opus 6–8, 53–70Google Scholar
Tandy, D.W. (1997) Warriors into Traders: The Power of the Market in Early Greece (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London)Google Scholar
Tsetskhladze, G.R. (1998) ‘Greek colonisation of the Black Sea area: steps, models, and native population’, in Tsetskhladze, G.R. (ed.), The Greek Colonisation of the Black Sea Area: Historical Interpretation of Archaeology (Stuttgart) 9–68Google Scholar
Tsoulouhas, T.C. (1992) ‘A new look at demographic and technological changes: England, 1550-1839’, Explorations in Economic History 29, 169–203CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Compernolle, R. (1982) ‘Femmes indigènes et colonisateurs’, in Modes de contacts (1982) 1033–49Google Scholar
VanLandingham, M. and Hirschman, C. (2001) ‘Population pressure and fertility in pre-transition Thailand’, Population Studies 55, 233–48CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Walloe, L. (1999) ‘Was the disruption of the Mycenaean world caused by repeated epidemics of bubonic plague?’, OAth 24, 121–6Google Scholar
Wood, J.W. (1998) ‘A theory of preindustrial population dynamics’, Current Anthropology 39, 99–135CrossRefGoogle Scholar