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Demographic Transition Theory pp 111–130Cite as

Fertility Control in The Classical World: was There an Ancient Fertility Transition?

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Abstract

Important questions for demographers are whether the modern fertility transition is unique and whether the Industrial Revolution was required to achieve it. If it is not unique, then its most likely predecessors were probably found in the classical period, especially in Ancient Rome, or in Soong China or Tokugawa Japan (treated separately in Caldwell and Caldwell 2005). The reasons in the Roman Empire include the high level of urbanization, the extent of commercial farming, and the extensive monetization of the economy. The ordinary citizen achieved his ends through the law rather than through the force of family numbers. It was widely believed by contemporaries that Roman population decline was taking place, and the Emperor Augustus’s marriage legislation was aimed at increasing the fertility of at least part of the society, the upper classes. Many recent historians and classicists have drawn attention to the use of means which could have limited numbers in both the family and society, and some have implied a fertility decline which may have resulted in moderately low fertility for centuries (see Riddle 1997). This paper mostly concerns Rome, but Greece will not be ignored because of the influence of Greek medicine and ideas on fertility control. Some authorities have posited the population of Europe halving during the first six centuries of the modern era (Russell 1958, 1969; Clark 1967). Nearly everyone agrees that European population levels were similar at the beginning and end of the first millennium but most also believe that a steep decline in human numbers during the Roman Empire was followed by rapid recovery during the Dark Ages (Maddison 2001:231).

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    John C. Caldwell

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Caldwell, J.C. (2006). Fertility Control in The Classical World: was There an Ancient Fertility Transition?. In: Demographic Transition Theory. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4498-4_6

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