1). Is the Roman population decline due to contraceptives noticable? How large would the effect have been? How different would contraceptive use have been between the core Roman population and the Roman colonies (maybe explaining the dominance of the Illyrian emperors)?
2). Why did migrant communities in Rome decline so much after the crisis of the third century? Was there no diaspora effect that supported these communities? Did they just die on the vine?
1) I don't think there are census records that breakup ethnicity, so there is no way of knowing. Silphium was expensive though, so presumably wealthier Romans used it more than the poorer provincials.
2) disease, famine, breakdown in trade, and warfare. My general impression is that diasporas were all pretty deracinated by then - hence the spread of the mystery cults.
I see. I am reminded about Alaric being outside the gates of Rome, and the people of Rome boasting that they were descended from the greatest conquerers the world had known. It is even funnier now.
Excellent work, Nemets. Do you have any guesses for how large the migration from the Eastern Mediterranean to Italy was? Considering urban fertility sinks I imagine it was large & consistent until incentives broke down during the Crisis of the Third Century.
long term impact of Eastern Mediterranean migration was ~20%, so if population of Roman Italy was 4 million, then 800k at an absolute minimum. Due to higher mortality rates & lower fertility rates among slaves and migrants as well as the massive die offs in the Crisis of the Third Century and Fall of Rome it was certainly higher. I'd guess low tens of millions of people migrated to Italy between 192 BC and 235 AD.
Mortality rates in early 18th century London were about 35/1000 (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/003591572501801607) while birth rate was 28/1000 in 1900 (during spread of birth control pamphlets but before hormonal birth control, so perhaps comparable to silphium consuming Romans). If Rome was similar, then would need migration rate of 7/1000 to maintain population of 1 million, or 7,000 a year for 427 years, so about 3 million migrants to city of Rome alone and 12 million to Italy overall.
Actual mortality rates were probably higher and birth rates were probably lower though. Neither Roman crops nor Roman farm animals were as productive as their early modern counterparts, and the Romans didn't have New World crops either.
Hi Nemets do you have a link to the study which shows 20% admixture? I think I know which one it could be but I would be interested in seeing which one you used.
The concept of "urban fertility sinks" is relative, even if this started as a strictly urban phenomenon, eventually this type of ancestry diffused widely. Based on the data we've seen so far, the "partly eastern Mediterranean people" mentioned in this substack *were* the core Romans of the Imperial period. There's no other significant genetic cluster that's been found in Roman Imperial ancient DNA studies and there's no observable class distinction, for example the richest Roman graves in Viminacium belonged to that cluster, likewise for the Roman Greek buried in Vranas, Marathon. If Juvenal's xenophobic character actually existed, his 3rd century AD descendants would almost certainly also be of "partly eastern Mediterranean" extraction.
Great work as always, thank you. One thing I'm still unclear on is, where the peoples of the Roman Kingdom and Republic mostly Indo-European descendants?
no - only about a quarter of the ancestry of the Romans at that point could be traced back to the original Indo-Europeans in the western steppe. The Indo-Europeans mixed heavily with the Early European Farmers in central Europe in the 3rd millennium, diluting their ancestry prior to the invasions of Italy.
Thanks for the reply. I think I've heard you say that modern NW Europeans have about 65% Indo-European ancestry. Does that mean modern NW Euros have more IE ancestry than ancient Romans?
modern NW Euros are about 45-50% original steppe proto-Indo-Europeans in ancestry, but around 65% of their ancestry comes from the mixed steppe-WHG-EEF Corded Ware people who did most of the spreading of the Indo-European languages into Europe. In any case - yes they had a lot more IE ancestry than the Republican Romans.
Thanks, that helps clear it up for me. And are the Irish and British the same as NW Euros?
I read David Reich's book as a primer, but do you have any other recommendations? Sorry for all the questions, this is all fascinating but I struggle to get my head around it and I've listened to your recorded spaces on youtube multiple times.
It's interesting that West asian migrants (syrians, jews and anatolians) are so well represented in the urban populations of the Empire but egyptians are not depite high population numbers in Egypt. Greeks were just ubiquitous everywhere including in pre-roman South Italy.
Possibly because the large population of Egypt was uniquely agrarian and sedentary (fellaheen)? Their skills as irrigation farmers were probably more useful to the empire in their homeland than as slaves anywhere else. Also, Egypt’s urban areas were predominantly Greek and Jewish.
Are you sure about the sicily part in every genetic paper I saw their Nafri % is pretty low, in the paper you posted they’re modelled with extremely low ANF ancestry which is kinda weird, maybe the proxy they used was an outlier with heavy ANF admixture?
Great article as always!
I have two questions:
1). Is the Roman population decline due to contraceptives noticable? How large would the effect have been? How different would contraceptive use have been between the core Roman population and the Roman colonies (maybe explaining the dominance of the Illyrian emperors)?
2). Why did migrant communities in Rome decline so much after the crisis of the third century? Was there no diaspora effect that supported these communities? Did they just die on the vine?
1) I don't think there are census records that breakup ethnicity, so there is no way of knowing. Silphium was expensive though, so presumably wealthier Romans used it more than the poorer provincials.
2) disease, famine, breakdown in trade, and warfare. My general impression is that diasporas were all pretty deracinated by then - hence the spread of the mystery cults.
I see. I am reminded about Alaric being outside the gates of Rome, and the people of Rome boasting that they were descended from the greatest conquerers the world had known. It is even funnier now.
Excellent work, Nemets. Do you have any guesses for how large the migration from the Eastern Mediterranean to Italy was? Considering urban fertility sinks I imagine it was large & consistent until incentives broke down during the Crisis of the Third Century.
long term impact of Eastern Mediterranean migration was ~20%, so if population of Roman Italy was 4 million, then 800k at an absolute minimum. Due to higher mortality rates & lower fertility rates among slaves and migrants as well as the massive die offs in the Crisis of the Third Century and Fall of Rome it was certainly higher. I'd guess low tens of millions of people migrated to Italy between 192 BC and 235 AD.
Mortality rates in early 18th century London were about 35/1000 (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/003591572501801607) while birth rate was 28/1000 in 1900 (during spread of birth control pamphlets but before hormonal birth control, so perhaps comparable to silphium consuming Romans). If Rome was similar, then would need migration rate of 7/1000 to maintain population of 1 million, or 7,000 a year for 427 years, so about 3 million migrants to city of Rome alone and 12 million to Italy overall.
Actual mortality rates were probably higher and birth rates were probably lower though. Neither Roman crops nor Roman farm animals were as productive as their early modern counterparts, and the Romans didn't have New World crops either.
Fascinating, thank you for the insightful response!
Hi Nemets do you have a link to the study which shows 20% admixture? I think I know which one it could be but I would be interested in seeing which one you used.
Long term impact meaning modern Italians are 20% eastern roman? Find that hard to believe. How urbanized was Roman Italy?
How large of an impact did Germanics have ?
The concept of "urban fertility sinks" is relative, even if this started as a strictly urban phenomenon, eventually this type of ancestry diffused widely. Based on the data we've seen so far, the "partly eastern Mediterranean people" mentioned in this substack *were* the core Romans of the Imperial period. There's no other significant genetic cluster that's been found in Roman Imperial ancient DNA studies and there's no observable class distinction, for example the richest Roman graves in Viminacium belonged to that cluster, likewise for the Roman Greek buried in Vranas, Marathon. If Juvenal's xenophobic character actually existed, his 3rd century AD descendants would almost certainly also be of "partly eastern Mediterranean" extraction.
Great work as always, thank you. One thing I'm still unclear on is, where the peoples of the Roman Kingdom and Republic mostly Indo-European descendants?
no - only about a quarter of the ancestry of the Romans at that point could be traced back to the original Indo-Europeans in the western steppe. The Indo-Europeans mixed heavily with the Early European Farmers in central Europe in the 3rd millennium, diluting their ancestry prior to the invasions of Italy.
Thanks for the reply. I think I've heard you say that modern NW Europeans have about 65% Indo-European ancestry. Does that mean modern NW Euros have more IE ancestry than ancient Romans?
modern NW Euros are about 45-50% original steppe proto-Indo-Europeans in ancestry, but around 65% of their ancestry comes from the mixed steppe-WHG-EEF Corded Ware people who did most of the spreading of the Indo-European languages into Europe. In any case - yes they had a lot more IE ancestry than the Republican Romans.
Thanks, that helps clear it up for me. And are the Irish and British the same as NW Euros?
I read David Reich's book as a primer, but do you have any other recommendations? Sorry for all the questions, this is all fascinating but I struggle to get my head around it and I've listened to your recorded spaces on youtube multiple times.
It's interesting that West asian migrants (syrians, jews and anatolians) are so well represented in the urban populations of the Empire but egyptians are not depite high population numbers in Egypt. Greeks were just ubiquitous everywhere including in pre-roman South Italy.
Possibly because the large population of Egypt was uniquely agrarian and sedentary (fellaheen)? Their skills as irrigation farmers were probably more useful to the empire in their homeland than as slaves anywhere else. Also, Egypt’s urban areas were predominantly Greek and Jewish.
Are you sure about the sicily part in every genetic paper I saw their Nafri % is pretty low, in the paper you posted they’re modelled with extremely low ANF ancestry which is kinda weird, maybe the proxy they used was an outlier with heavy ANF admixture?
Still planning on that podcast appearance to discuss future Western demographics, Nemets?
I'm waiting for the invitation
It would be well worth a substack article!
The DC/Nemets collab we all want