I would like a graph or table estimating populations over the last
three centuries or so BCE (say, every fifty years or as big changes
warrant a new estimate) of Alexandria and Rome and of four or five
other largest cities in the Mediteranean world, as well as of the two
or three other largest in Egypt.  I am not looking for precision,
obviously, but whatever available material will suggest.  Include all
categories (free, slave, native, foreign, etc.)

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Request for Question Clarification by easterangel-ga on 02 May 2005 10:39 PDT

Hi!

A few questions...

a.) Do you want a breakdown of the population for categories (free,
slave, native, foreign, etc.) or do you mean we can just take them
together and get the collective estimate.

b.) Some of the figures here for population estimates are sometimes in
a span of thousands or hundreds of years. The span of time gets
smaller as we go into more modern times. Will this be ok?

Thanks!

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Clarification of Question by lochias-ga on 02 May 2005 19:51 PDT

a.)  I'm interested in the total, not categories.

b.) Alexandria was established just before the earliest time of
interest, 300 BC, and had become quite large by the time of Julius
Caesar, 250 years later.  But how large, and how did it compare with
Rome?

What I'm dealing with -- in fiction, not a treatise -- are things like
"my town is bigger than yours,"  and the need to have some idea of
who's likely right.  If nothing else, I'd like the best possible guess
for 48 BC and some idea of relative trends before and after.

Thanks.

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 02 May 2005 20:22 PDT

At least one site is willing to make the claim that Alexandria may
have been larger than Rome at one point:


http://ce.eng.usf.edu/pharos/alexandria/history/ptolemaic.html

Alexandria thrived during the reign of the first three Ptolemies and
grew into one of the largest, if not the largest metropolis in the
world and became the world's scientific and intellectual Mecca.


Does that sort of non-numerical comparison help at all...?


pafalafa-ga

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Clarification of Question by lochias-ga on 03 May 2005 18:36 PDT

I have read that Alexandria was at one point the largest city in "the
world" (the Mediterranean world?).  When was that?  Was it still
largest at the time of Cleopatra?  At what point did Rome overtake it?
 Within the first century BC?

I was hoping that somewhere out there is data suggesting that in, say,
300 BC, the new city of Alexandria had overtaken Rome, and that in,
say, 50 BC, Rome, now a large city, had overtaken the Alexandria
megapolis to become number one.  This is hinted at, and I have seen
numbers of 300,000 as Alexandria's free population (half the total)
but I don't have enough of a clue to match numbers to dates.

I am assuming that census data, such as it was, is not available, and
that "numbers" are guesses with wide uncertainties.  I am picturing
something like this:
                       Rome              Alexandria       Memphis     
  Athens   ...
300 BC           10,000                  2,000 
200 BC           20,000                50,000
100 BC           100,000            300,000
  50 BC           800,000            600,000

with figures based loosely on a reference or two (unlike the figures
that I have just plunked down).  I recognize that I want to know
something now unknowable, but still want to try for a "best guess,"
plus or minus 60%, if that's all that one can get.

As I have noted, the result is for fiction -- which I'd like not be
fragrantly contradicted by readily available evidence that 10,000
astute readers will point out to every town critic.