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Water supply and urban population in Roman Cyrenaica

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2015

J. A. Lloyd  and
P. R. Lewis
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Extract

A central archaeological and historical problem is that of population. It is reflected in the question often posed by the student or visitor of an ancient city: how big was X?; how many people lived here? The reply is unlikely to be more than an informed guess and, in most cases, a mere hazard, exposing a fundamental lacuna in historical knowledge. The problem of population size is not simply of casual interest; it affects almost every aspect of a balanced picture of life in ancient times.

Explicit classical allusions to population figures survive in only a very few cases (Alexandria, for example, had more than 300,000 free inhabitants in the first century B.C., according to Diodorus). In their absence it is extremely difficult to assess the number of inhabitants of a city at a given time, a situation further complicated by the fact that in Roman times a city comprised not just a built-up area, perhaps defined by walls, but also a neighbouring territory which it owned. The inhabitants of the territorium were liable to be counted with the city dwellers, thus producing a definition of urban population which differs radically from our modern concept.

Despite the inherent difficulties, demographic studies have periodically occupied the attention of a number of archaeologists and historians, and in recent years two major works have appeared. In The Economy of the Roman Empire Richard Duncan-Jones devotes an important chapter to the size of cities. After reviewing the various methods used to calculate the size of urban populations, he puts forward figures of his own, based principally on the interpretation of epigraphic evidence. As one of his examples has a specific Libyan connection, it is worth summarising here. The town concerned is Oea (modern Tripoli). Duncan-Jones applies an approach first outlined in 1886 by J. Beloch, in examining ancient records of large-scale gifts for public feasts or cash hand-outs (sportulae). These records provide important clues to the size of the urban population at the time of the benefaction. In the case of Oea, two pieces of evidence have been preserved. The first is given by Apuleius in the Apologia, a speech prepared for his defence (in a trial at Sabratha) against a charge of winning his Oean wife, Pudentilla, by magic.

Type
Research Article
Information
Libyan Studies , Volume 8 , 1977 , pp. 35 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Libyan Studies 1977

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References

Notes and References

1. Diodorus 17.52.6. Even here one may question what information provided the basis for the figure.

2. Brunt, P. A., Italian Manpower 225 B.C.-A.D. 14 (1971)Google Scholar; Duncan-Jones, R., The Economy of the Roman Empire (1974), chapter 6Google Scholar, ‘The Size of Cities’.

3. References in Duncan-Jones, loc. cit.

4. Some of the assumptions made by Duncan-Jones in the case of Oea can be listed as follows: an interest rate of 5% on the consular gift, based on Italian parallels; division of the annual income from the consular gift equally between games and sportulae; an individual sportula rate of 4 sestertii, although only three examples of popular sportulae are known from the African provinces; the consular gift was intended only for male citizens; adult males make up 28.6% of the free population, based on the analogy of age-distribution for India in 1901; slaves were as numerous as free adult males, based on a statement of Galen's concerning Pergamum in the second century A.D.

A particular qualification relating to the water supply method is that it can only provide figures for the body of residents within the built-up area of the city. Other qualifications which apply to this method will be evident in the course of the paper.

5. Tacitus, Hist. 4.50.

6. For Hadrianopolis, see Jones, G. D. B. and Little, J. H., ‘Hadrianopolis’, Libya Antiqua VIII (1971)Google Scholar; for Berenice, see Lloyd, J. A.et al., Excavations at Sidi Khrebish Vol. I (Libya Antiqua Supplementary Vol. 5), chapter IX (forthcoming)Google Scholar; for Ptolemais, see Arthur, C., ‘The Ptolemais Aqueduct’, 5th Report of the Society for Libyan Studies (1973/1974)Google Scholar; for Apollonia, see Goodchild, R. G., Kyrene und Apollonia (1971), p. 190Google Scholar.

7. Kraeling, C. H., Ptolemais, City of the Libyan Pentapolis (1962) pp. 62–7 and p. 70Google Scholar.

8. This can be found in Chow, V. T., Open Channel Hydraulics (1959), Appendix BGoogle Scholar.

9. For details of the calculations for Hadrianopolis, see P. R. Lewis, in Lloyd et al., loc. cit. The maximum discharge rate for Hadrianopolis varies somewhat from the figure published in Jones and Little, loc. cit. because a different roughness coefficient, mistakenly assessed for a meandering aqueduct in the original publication, has been used. The relevant information on which the Ptolemais calculations are based is: roughness coefficient 0.0115; hydraulic radius 0.311; hydraulic gradient 0.0038.

10. For remarks on the history of Hadrianopolis, see Goodchild, R. G., ‘The Decline of Cyrene and the Rise of Ptolemais’ in Reynolds, J. M. (ed.), Libyan Studies (1976), p. 219Google Scholar and Jones and Little, op. cit., p.61.

11. Goodchild, op. cit.

12. For the history of Berenice, see Lloyd et al., op. cit. chapter iii.

13. The figure is based on Wright's city plan in Kraeling, op. cit.

14. The figure is based on Fig. 3 in Lloyd et al., op. cit.

15. The error was first spotted in Herschel, C., The Two Books on the Water-Supply of the City of Rome, of Sextus Julius Frontinus (1899), pp. 210–11Google Scholar.

16. Assuming that the engineers worked from the known discharge rate and dimensions of the Berenice aqueduct, which the evidence reviewed above suggests was earlier than the Ptolemais aqueduct.

17. Arthur, op. cit., p.29.

18. Kraeling, op. cit., p. 70.

19. Ibid., p.71.

20. Vitr. viii. 6. 1–2.

21. Ashby, T., The Aqueducts of Ancient Rome (1935), p. 45Google Scholar.

22. Ibid., p.36.

23. Ibid., p.14.

24. Village Water Supply – a World Bank paper, (Washington, 1976)Google ScholarPubMed. We are grateful to Dr. J. A. Allan, Dept. of Geography, S.O.A.S. for this reference.

25. Lloyd et al., op. cit., chapter IX.

26. Kraeling, op. cit., p. 68.

27. Butzer, K. W., ‘Climatic change in arid regions since the Pliocene’, in Stamp, L. Dudley (ed.) A History of Land Use in Arid Regions, Unesco, (Paris, 1961), pp. 41–5Google Scholar.

28. Statistics in Bulugma, H. H., Benghazi Through the Ages (Tripoli, 1968)Google Scholar.

29. There is good evidence that, at least for the later period of its life, the building served as an inn or an hotel. This would probably have increased its water requirements. See Lloyd et al., op. cit., ‘Building ?’.

30. Procopius, De Aedif. vi. 2Google Scholar.

31. Kraeling, op. cit., p.68.

32. Lloyd et al., op. cit., chapter IX.