Overview

Although the polis, or city-state, defined the essence of Classical Greek civilization, evidence of its most basic characteristics is woefully inadequate. Now, in a work of cutting-edge research, Mogens Herman Hansen develops a novel method for estimating the overall size and local distribution of the Greek population throughout the ancient world - in both the Greek homeland and its colonies - and explains his reconstruction step by step. Reflecting the innovative work of the Copenhagen Polis Centre in its 2004 inventory of Archaic and Classical Greek city-states, Hansen's book makes it possible for the first time to assess the total population of the ancient Greek world. For 232 out of circa 1,000 city-states, the size of the urban center can be estimated, and for 636 city-states, we have an idea about the size of the territory. Employing a shotgun method , Hansen derives approximate population figures and argues that, in the age of Alexander the Great, the population of all the Greek city-states must have totaled some 8-10 million people. His new estimates take into account not only males of military age but also elder sons and wives residing with parents, widows or divorced women who returned to a family home, unmarried daughters, elderly parents, and slaves. In addressing often-conflicting views on estimating populations, their distribution in various regions, and their settlement patterns within individual states, Hansen particularly challenges the long-standing opinion that the majority of ancient Greeks lived a rural life outside of poleis, and he calls for a reconsideration of long-held assumptions about the prevalence of a subsistence economy with little long-distance trade.

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Reviews

The world's leading authority on the polis puts the study of ancient Greek population history on a much more solid foundation. --Walter Scheidel, editor of Debating Roman Demography

The world's leading authority on the polis puts the study of ancient Greek population history on a much more solid foundation. --Walter Scheidel, editor of Debating Roman Demography The world's leading authority on the polis puts the study of ancient Greek population history on a much more solid foundation. --Walter Scheidel, editor of Debating Roman Demography The work of the author is on the 'cutting edge' of the subject. . . . Serious students of ancient Greece will be keen to add it to their personal libraries. --Carol Thomas, author of Finding People in Early Greece The world s leading authority on the polis puts the study of ancient Greek population history on a much more solid foundation. Walter Scheidel, editor of Debating Roman Demography The work of the author is on the cutting edge of the subject. . . . Serious students of ancient Greece will be keen to add it to their personal libraries. Carol Thomas, author of Finding People in Early Greece The world s leading authority on the polis puts the study of ancient Greek population history on a much more solid foundation. Walter Scheidel, editor of Debating Roman Demography The work of the author is on the cutting edge of the subject. . . . Serious students of ancient Greece will be keen to add it to their personal libraries. Carol Thomas, author of Finding People in Early Greece The world's leading authority on the polis puts the study of ancient Greek population history on a much more solid foundation. --Walter Scheidel, editor of Debating Roman Demography The work of the author is on the 'cutting edge' of the subject. . . . Serious students of ancient Greece will be keen to add it to their personal libraries. --Carol Thomas, author of Finding People in Early Greece

The world s leading authority on the polis puts the study of ancient Greek population history on a much more solid foundation. Walter Scheidel, editor of Debating Roman Demography

Author Information

MOGENS HERMAN HANSEN is a reader in Greek at Copenhagen University whose other books include The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes: Structure, Principles, and Ideology.

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