Income and population distribution: Europe, Asia, Africa

[Eleatic Guest]

There is this commonplace about the Roman Empire that the east was more developed and populous than the west, and that this may have been instrumental in the survival of the eastern half.

However, to my own astonishment, the picture is more complex. From Maddison, Contours of World Economy, 2007, pp. 54 & 57:

GDP per capita (in 1990 Int. Dollars) in 14 AD:
593 Roman Europe (with Italy)
550 Roman Asia
541 Roman Africa
570 Total

857 Peninsular Italy
562 Hellenic Provinces
470 Western Provinces (without Italy)
570 Grand Total

Population size (in mio) in 14 AD:
23.1 Roman Europe (with Italy)
12.2 Roman Asia
8.7 Roman Africa
44 Total

18.7 Hellenic Provinces
18.3 Western Provinces (without Italy)
7 Peninsular Italy
44 Total

So, while these numbers confirm that the eastern half outstripped the western provinces in terms of wealth, the west was more populous including Italy. But the real surprise is that when we turn to a tripartite analysis, Roman Europe appears in a very favourable light: It is more populous than Roman Africa and Roman Asia combined, and it also has a higher GDP per capita, if only for Italy again.

And, taking peninsular Italy alone, which forms part of the west, it is both in terms of GDP per capita and population size the largest entity of the whole empire.

This means we can bury the notion that the Western empire was brought to its knees by its comparative lack of ressources. Rather, the part, where the military pressure was the greatest, Roman Europe, also possessed the largest ressources to deal with the threat. Instead of constantly analysing the empire along an east-west axis, a tripartite perspective could gain new insights into the resilience of its different parts.

[Jona Lendering]

This means we can bury the notion that the Western empire was brought to its knees by its comparative lack of ressources. Rather, the part, where the military pressure was the greatest, Roman Europe, also possessed the largest ressources to deal with the threat. Instead of constantly analysing the empire along an east-west axis, a tripartite perspective could gain new insights into the resilience of its different parts.

I think that matters may be even more complex. It always strikes me as remarkable that in the fifth/sixth century, when the Mediteranean went into a deep, deep economic crisis, Austrasia flourished. I think that Gallia Belgica and the Rhineland owed a lot to Rome, which forced this part of the Empire to become economically very diverse. It showed its muscles for the first time during Vitellius' usurpation, and a second time during the Gallic Empire; in the fourth century, it got connected with the trade routes on the North Sea, and became Frankish; so when the Roman Empire imploded, it had already a new type of economy and was saved from barbarian incursions.

Austrasia was ready to conquer all of Gaul and Germania - not because the Franks were so efficient, but because it was rich (at least in better economic health than the south).

[elagababbalus]

I would note the estimates are for AD 14. Michael McCormick in Origins of the European economy talks a bit about the population slide. I think its fairly safe to say (as far as any of such things are safe to say) the West population declined at an earlier date than the East and the reasons are multi-causal. There was also an article by Fredric Cheyette in the journal Early Medieval Europe that was also on the Internet that discusses population in some detail but a quick google search couldn't find it, alas. I will post what McCormick says on the issue when I get the chance in the next day or so.

[D B Campbell]

However, to my own astonishment, the picture is more complex.

I would be more than a little sceptical of these figures, Stefan. It is my understanding that, even with actual census returns for imperial-period Italy, some scholars calculate 3-4 million inhabitants, while others calculate 12-15 million inhabitants. With such a ridiculous level of disagreement, any broad conclusions must be almost worthless. (At the very least, any analyst would have to quote whether he/she has used low estimates or high estimates.)

[Eleatic Guest]

Yes, I am painfully aware of this, and the stats have to be read in the light of better some guessimate than no numbers at all. What I find unfortunate is that Maddison followed the extreme low count of Roman population of McEvedy and Jones 1979 (44 mio in 14 AD). Their work, however, had the advantage of being apparently the only one to date which provides a detailed break down of provincial population numbers, so Maddison naturally went with that, despite its eccentric estimate of overall Roman population size.

[elagababbalus]

Sadly, no estimates but McCormick states p31


"What happened in the countryside was decisive for the entire economy and population.. In a pre-modern economy, the extent of land farmed was the first and primordial economic fact determining food production and therefore wealth at its most basic level.. And the countryside was the demographic wellspring of society, since deaths always outstripped births in pre-modern cities. In general, such surveys suggest that more places in the countryside are attested (and therefore inhabited) from the early second than the seventh century. ...

Rural sites in Gaul were thinning when those of Africa were thickening. Egypt may have been stable, while Syria was swarming with people. Early hints of settlement contraction and presumed demographic contraction and presumed demographic slump come from Roman Gaul and Campania in the late second century-coincident with the great Antonine epidemic? The hints increase thereafter in the northwest quadrant of the empire, although, within this large zone, the pattern was by no means irreversible everywhere....

If the regional syntheses are any guide, the processes of settlement contraction and, presumably, the population decline and impoverishment that they seem to imply, describe a kind of giant arc. They begin in the northwest, hard by the ancient heart of the Roman empire. Much like the movement of global weather systems, contraction gradually overtook the eastern and southern reaches of the empire, but only centuries later."

William McNeill in Plagues and Peoples p134

"What seems to have occured in the Mediterranean lands was that a tolerable macroparasitic system the imperial armies an bureaucracy of the first century AD superimposed upon a diverse muster of local landlords who generally aspired to an urban, Greco-Roman style of life became unbearably top heavy after the first disastrous ravages of epidemic disease hit home in the second and third centuries. Thereafter the macroparastic elements in Roman society became agents of further destruction to population and production, and the reslutant disorders, famines, migrations, concentrations and dispersals of human flotsam and jetsam, in turn, created fresh opportunities for epidemic diseases to diminish population still more. A vicious circle thus arose that lasted throughout several centuries, despite some periods of partial stabilisation and local population recovery."

[Eleatic Guest]

William McNeill in Plagues and Peoples p134

...Greco-Roman style of life became unbearably top heavy after the first disastrous ravages of epidemic disease hit home in the second and third centuries.

McNeill's emphasis on the path-changing impact of diseases on world history and his original use of the distinction between micro- and macroparasitism helpt a lot broadening my horizon. But IIRC he overlooked one important countertrend in the increasing social parasitism of the late Roman Empire and this is the strongly diminished role which slavery, the grossest form of macroparasitism, came to play in the Greco-Roman world.

Also, there was a form of parasitism from below in the city of Rome where a great mass of people, the unemployed plebs, lived off from state money ("panem et circenses"). This plebs seems to have mostly scattered when the financial situation of the late empire did not allow anymore to maintain these unemployment benefits which were essentially nothing but keep quit monies for the rioting mob.

[Tomenable]

Also notice that this data is from year 14 AD - 400 years before the collapse of the West.

Don't you think that things could have changed considerably during such a long time.

[Jona Lendering]

Also notice that this data is from year 14 AD - 400 years before the collapse of the West.

Don't you think that things could have changed considerably during such a long time.

Not taking the crisis of the third century into account is, indeed, remarkable.

[Eleatic Guest]

Don't you think that things could have changed considerably during such a long time.

It's a question of available data. For estimating GDP per capita, you need foremost a population estimate. 14 AD is probably the best single point in time from a researcher's point of view, because
a) the Roman Empire largely reached its maximum extent after the Augustan expansion and
b) the Monumentum Ancyranum gives a population census at least for the Roman citizens

And, if anything, it is reasonable to assume that the European part was growing disproportionately wealthier after 14 AD, because its largest and most recent addition, Gallia, was still underdeveloped and most of the urbanization and infrastructure programmes which would lift income level were yet to be implemented.