Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Demography and development in classical antiquity
- Chapter 2 Demography and classical Athens
- Chapter 3 Nuptiality and the demographic life cycle of the family in Roman Egypt
- Chapter 4 Family matters
- Chapter 5 Migration and the demes of Attica
- Chapter 6 Counting the Greeks in Egypt
- Chapter 7 Migration and the urban economy of Rome
- Chapter 8 From the margins to the centre stage
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 8 - From the margins to the centre stage
Some closing reflections on ancient historical demography
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Demography and development in classical antiquity
- Chapter 2 Demography and classical Athens
- Chapter 3 Nuptiality and the demographic life cycle of the family in Roman Egypt
- Chapter 4 Family matters
- Chapter 5 Migration and the demes of Attica
- Chapter 6 Counting the Greeks in Egypt
- Chapter 7 Migration and the urban economy of Rome
- Chapter 8 From the margins to the centre stage
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
While ancient demography, in Bowersock’s words, may well be ‘there to stay’, persistent reluctance to engage with its methods and concepts will condemn it to a marginal existence. Current shifts into qualitative, cultural history make this the most likely outcome. But all is not lost. The study of ancient demography has come a long way since Beloch’s abortive experiment. Regardless of future progress or retrenchment, the advances of the past few decades will indeed be there to stay.
(Scheidel, 2001b: 10)My book Demography and Roman Society appeared in 1992. Most of the writing of it actually took place in 1987, in my second year as a DPhil student at Oxford. The topic of my dissertation was age and the aged in the Roman world, supervised by Fergus Millar. It had become clear to me in my first year that the very basic question ‘how many old people were there in the Roman world?’ was not one for which anything approaching a ready answer was available. In my second year at Oxford I was fortunate to be able to attend classes in the methods of demography offered by David Coleman and Richard Smith. I also read a great deal, including Wrigley and Schofield’s magisterial work (1981) on the population history of England, as well as Hollingsworth’s 1969 introduction to historical demography. I then sat down and wrote what I thought would be a chapter of my dissertation. By the end of that academic year, it was very clear that the chapter had become too big and it began to take on a life of its own; thanks to Dr Lori-Ann Touchette, one of my contemporaries at St John’s College, Oxford, an American publisher became interested in my manuscript. Hence, in the year that I submitted my dissertation on old age, my demography book appeared with Johns Hopkins University Press, in its Ancient History and Society series.
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- Demography and the Graeco-Roman WorldNew Insights and Approaches, pp. 181 - 188Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011
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