Zodiac and Late Roman Army Organisation

[Sean Manning]

Wouldn't births, deaths, and the enrolment of those granted citizenship spoil any system that required the number of men in the tribes to be a multiple of a particular value? Every civis was supposed to be enrolled in a tribus and a (voting) centuria, and nobody controlled how many cives there were (or knew how many of the citizens the next census would record, since the error could be in tens of percent). For example, the census population almost doubled from 194/3 to 189/8 BCE (Brunt gives 143,704 and 258,318 cives for those years) but clearly the Romans didn't double the strength of their legions.

Eratosthenes' estimate of the circumference of the earth as 252,000 = 700 x 360 stadia appeared around 200 BCE. If the Romans linked their population to the circumference of the earth, what figure did they use before then?

As always, I will be interested to see you explain your theory and its supporting evidence in your book.