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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 August 2014
Current interest in world population and resources has resulted in the publication of several books in which the increase in world population over the last two thousand years has been traced or at least referred to. It may therefore be of interest to summarize some of the population statistics available for Greek and Roman times and the methods which have been used to obtain estimates of totals from them.
It is known that in many of the provinces of the Roman Empire a census was taken every 14 years which compares favourably in accuracy and completeness with those of modern times. Individual census returns have survived which show that in Egypt in the first two centuries A.D. the whole population was enumerated by households and by age, sex and occupation, but the only record of totals which have been preserved is a statement in Josephus's Jewish Wars to the effect that the population of Egypt excluding Alexandria was, according to the census returns, 7,500,000.