Demography in Roman History: Facts and Impressions

Abstract

History is craving for definite results. At the end of the nineteenth century it was taught its lesson in a rude way. Historical evidence appeared to be fundamentally different from the evidence of the sciences. Dilthey and others vindicated its own position in the scholarly disciplines and proved, irrefutably I think, how many differences there are between the results of an historical investigation and those of, say, mathematical research. Time and again, however, new forms of positivism have come forward to declare proudly that history is a science in the same sense as the natural sciences. Presently, quantification of historical data seems to return to the history of classical antiquity not only under the urge of neopositivism, but also under the challenge of the impressive results which different methods of quantification attained for later periods of history, especially in the field of demography. A warning by an eminent modern scholar is not out of place, however. A. Momigliano sketches the situation in recent research as follows: negative fact [is] that full-blooded social history is becoming more and more intractable owing to its increasing refinements and complications. Anyone who follows with admiration the activities of the Sixi?me Section of the ?cole des Hautes ?tudes wonders whether such a microscopic analysis of social developments can be pursued indefinitely *). The learned and masterly book of Professor Brunt on Italian manpower 2) is in accordance with this renewed quantifying tendency in historiography. The results, however, prove that Dilthey was right. History, as a