![]() 3), « What does a statement about the Romans mean, if we do not know roughly how many Romans there were ? » Ancient historians will then be forced to reconsider long-standing assumptions about ancient society and to rewrite their conventional narratives of events, getting beyond the limited perspective (and « pronatalist rhetoric ») of the ancient sources to see what was really happening at this fundamental level. « We would be deluding ourselves », Walter Scheidel states in his Introduction to this collection, « if we believed that demography is a marginal and thus inessential area of enquiry ». Its advocates stress the fundamental importance of population studies for any attempt at understanding ancient society, economy, politics or war. The major contribution of demography to ancient history has been to open up exciting new areas of doubt, uncertainty and anxiety. ![]() Walter SCHEIDEL, ed., Debating Roman Demography, Brill, Leiden, Boston and Köln (2001). ![]()
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