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Where are the roman census records?

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  Posted by Terry553 (U14322724) on Monday, 1st February 2010

  I've always wanted to know if there were any cencus records found. We know they happened but have any been found and is it possible to read them?

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  Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Tuesday, 2nd February 2010

  I can see where you're coming from, as they say, and it's a lovely idea that there must be a comprehensive demographic breakdown of the Roman population out there just waiting to be discovered.
  
  The Roman census - made famous by a biblical reference to one which did not actually occur when stated and is erroneously described in any case - was not really an equivalent to what is defined by the term today. It was essentially a device to calculate bearable tax levels and probably never conducted in the same manner twice (or even consistently across the empire), had no central statistics office to which the information was sent (with the exception of tax yield prognostications which was of considerable interest at court level), and due to the various familial and social models represented within the empire, as well as the varying propensities and opportunities presented to provincial administrations to misrepresent actual yields, must have produced quite inaccurate information - to put it mildly. This inaccuracy would have been largely tolerated by the emperor's court, however, as long as the estimated yield met its expectations, which also varied wildly depending on circumstances.
  
  Quirinius's census (the one the bible misdescribes), for example, was less a census and more an inventory akin to William the Conqueror's Domesday Book. It was primarily a matter of seizing the books of the previous administration (Herod's) after the imposition of direct rule, and using the existing tax revenue sources as a basis for defining those which would be used by Rome. The "census" element was therefore essentially an audit of those sources to ensure that those who may have evaded, avoided or been exempt from taxation should now be included. The notion that people had to travel to the place of their birth is fanciful and has no basis in either history or logic. What Rome would have most required during its conduct was that no one of account strayed too far from the source of their income. The resulting "lists", which would indeed be such a valuable boon to historical research had they survived, would have most likely contained in terms of people's names, a mere fraction of the province's population. Even the estimates of total population calculated from their data would have, at best, been a wild estimate since those who had no function with regard to the generation of taxable wealth would have been simply ignored.

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  Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Saturday, 6th February 2010

  I mostly disagree with Nordmann. In Egypt, for example, a census was conducted every 14 years. Each head of the household had to go to their 'idia', or place or origin, and make declarations registering themselves and all those living with them. (Actual declaration papers have come down to us). This was needed because there was a poll tax which everyone had to pay. An edict of Gaius Vibius Maximus dated 104 declares "The house-by-house census having begun, it is essential that all persons who for any reason at all are absent from their nomes (ie local authority area) be notified to return to their own hearths in order that they may fulfill the costumory procedure of registration and apply themselves to the farming incumbent on them.
  
  The Romans had a regular census of their own population, the primary reason being that they needed to know how many citizens there were who had a right to attend the Assembly (every male citizen) and Tacitus and other writers give the exact figures.
  
  A gravestone which honoured an official said that he took the census of the city of Apamea and enumerated 117,000.
  
  Census taking was an absolutely essential part of the Roman government and I can imagine that they did it thoroughly and accurately (to the point of brutality).

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  Posted by TonyG (U1830405) on Saturday, 6th February 2010

  Was the census not also used to determine what social rank citizens held? There were monetary qualifications for remaining in the ranks of the senators or equites andth ecensus was used to record each citizen's wealth.

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  Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Saturday, 6th February 2010

  I think that the role of the censor was primarily to determine who was and was not eligible for the various public offices, so I think it was the censor who gathered the data on property and decided who could be a senator or an equite, but also who was a Roman citizen who could vote in the Assembly.
  

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  Posted by TheodericAur (U14260004) on Saturday, 6th February 2010

  Hi fascinating
  
  When Emperor Caracalla changed the rules for the citizens of all the provinces to become Roman Citizens was a census done then?
  
  Kind Regards - TA

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  Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Sunday, 7th February 2010

  TheodoricAur, I do not know of one. I know of know records of a full census of all Roman citizens after the first century, and that may be either because the later historians did not want to record them, or perhaps it was down to the fact that the citizen assembly was abolished in the first century, and perhaps there was no longer a need to enumerate the people, so the practice, which must have been costly to do, possibly lapsed. The regular provinicial censuses (censi?) did of course continue.

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  Posted by TheodericAur (U14260004) on Sunday, 7th February 2010

  Hi fascinating
  
  Many thanks - in that case do we know if there was a census done of Britain at that time?
  
  Kind Regards - TA

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  Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Monday, 8th February 2010

  I don't think there is any record of any census being taken in Britain during the entire Roman occupation - but we must assume that they did take counts because they had to know who and what was there to be taxed.

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• Message 10

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  Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Tuesday, 9th February 2010

  Theodoric, I want to mention that, while the census records from the Roman period are very thin on the ground, what has come down to us, after a period of nearly 2000 years, is rather amazing. I don't think much has come to us from other civilisations of that age, for example India and China. In the Chinese case there is been continuous civilisation throughout that period, and I have seen figures from the Han period purporting to give total population, but I know of no contemporary records of individual cities - I leave others to correct me if I am wrong.

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