by Geoffrey Kron
In E. Lo Cascio (a cura di), L’impatto della “peste antonina,” (Collana di Pragmateiai) (Bari: Edipuglia) (in press)
Any hypotheses regarding the likely long-term demographic impact of the Antonine plague will have to take into... more
Any hypotheses regarding the likely long-term demographic impact of the Antonine plague will have to take into account, not only the cause of the epidemic, but also the underlying mortality and fertility regime of the Roman empire. Health, nutritional status and hygiene have a significant effect upon the virulence of some epidemics, while for others, like the bubonic plague, for example, they are largely irrelevant. But whatever the effect on the morbidity of the epidemic, the underlying mortality regime of the population will have a significant impact on determining both the extent to which the population will be able to absorb this excess mortality, and the extent to which it will or will not recover.
At least since the influential work of Keith Hopkins in the 1960’s, a broad consensus has emerged among ancient historians setting the life expectancy at birth in the Roman Principate and Empire at between 20 and 30 years of age, with most estimates falling on the lower end of this range, often below 25 years. As the trenchant critiques of Tim Parkin and Walter Scheidel have emphasized, however, solid evidence for the calculation of ancient life expectancy simply does not exist. Recent estimates must therefore remain largely educated guesses based on comparative evidence from early-industrial Europe or the contemporary Third World. I intend to argue that at least three strong considerations suggest that the present scholarly consensus is unrealistically low. .
First, a more careful reading of the modern demographic evidence will show that the life expectancies as low as those conjectured for Roman Italy are rarely documented for Western European societies, generally only in brief periods of extreme poverty and stress, or for limited segments of society.
Second, researchers of ancient demography have generally neglected the critical role of nutrition in the modern rise in life expectancy, as argued in a classic, if controversial, work by Thomas MacKeown, and confirmed by the correlation between the secular increase in heights and decline in mortality in modern Europe and North America drawn by Robert Fogel. In fact, anthropometric evidence of ancient heights suggests that Greco-Roman societies enjoyed a significantly higher biological standard of living than the working classes of 18th and 19th century Western Europe. Early industrial life expectancies are therefore likely to represent a floor, rather than a ceiling, for plausible Greco-Roman estimates.
Finally, there is evidence that, in addition to enjoying superior nutritional standards, Greco-Roman populations likely faced fewer health stresses from contaminated drinking water, over-crowding, poor hygiene and sanitation, lack of exercise, and social inequality generally than the poor of the European ancien régime.
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