Peasants and Slaves: The Rural Population of Roman Italy (200 BC to AD 100)

by Alessandro Launaro

Overview

The crisis of the Roman Republic and its transformation into an Empire have fascinated generations of scholars. It has long been assumed that a dramatic demographic decline of the rural free peasantry (which was supplanted by slaves) triggered the series of social and economic developments which eventually led to Rome's political crisis during the first century BC. This book contributes to a lively debate by exploring both the textual and the archaeological evidence and by tracing and reassessing the actual fate of the Italian rural free population between the Late Republic and the Early Empire. Data derived from a comparative analysis of twenty-seven archaeological surveys – and about five thousand sites – allow Dr Launaro to outline a radically new picture according to which episodes of local decline are placed within a much more generalised pattern of demographic growth.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781108730068
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	01/24/2019
Series:	Cambridge Classical Studies
Pages:	363
Product dimensions:	6.65(w) x 9.57(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Alessandro Launaro is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge and a Research Fellow at Darwin College, Cambridge. He has taken part in surveys and excavations in Liguria, Tuscany and Marche, and is currently researching the relationship between population dynamics, rural settlement patterns and agrarian economic regimes across Roman Italy.

Table of Contents

Preface; Introduction; Part I. An Outline of the Historical Demography of Roman Italy: 1. The Italian population under Augustus; 2. Competing arguments and relevant implications; Part II. Demography and Landscape Archaeology: Towards an Integration: 3. Absolute figures and relative trends; 4. A comparison of relevant trends; Part III. Archaeological Evidence from Surveys: 5. Site trends across Roman Italy; Part IV. The Rural Population of Roman Italy (200 BC–AD 100): 6. Settlement and demography; 7. A view of the countryside; Appendix. Survey projects database.

Editorial Reviews

"… this book is essential reading for both ancient historians and classical archaeologists as it presents the fundamental arguments concerning the demographic calculations of the Roman population and the contribution of archaeology to historical debates."
Arctos

From the Publisher