17 ms·

Body Count of the Roman Empire

123 points by Red_Tarsius 9y ago

danaan1003 9y ago
Listen, and understand: The Roman legion is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop... ever, until you are dead.
Animats 9y ago
Smaller than Russian losses during WWII.
- cellis 9y ago
  Even when accounting for percentage of population?
  - belorn 9y ago
    Why is that relevant? Isn't the worth of a human life always the same? Looking at deaths as a proportion to the populations will tell us the disruption to society, production and agriculture. It is sometimes used when looking at plagues, just since death counts can be somewhat less useful when we want to see how whole societies are wiped from the world. Wars however already causes societal damage by the very nature, so we can not infer the damage to society by deaths in proportion to population.
    - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
      Talking about societal rates of human suffering, the per-capita rate is the only correct metric. Like any other statistic (traffic accidents) the only way to compare is per mile, per person etc.
- dredmorbius 9y ago
  The USSR's population in 1939 (immediately pre-war) was about 188 million. The peak Roman Empire population, in ~160 CE, was 60-70 million. Less than half that of the USSR. Still, the war dead over the empires history are just 1.25% of its peak instantaneous population. So yes, war was overall less deadly. But being an infant was far deadlier than today (~50% mortality by age 5). Total Soviet casualties: 20-27 million, or 13.7% of the 1940 population. Compare against Poland at about 17%. By contrast, the Third Reich saw ~8.5% population losses. The US and UK, less than 1% each, France, 1.4%. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_Roman_Empire https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_Roman_Empi... Consider that there was a vastly increased ability to deliver and effect damage on both military and civilian targets in WWII. I'm not sure that a direct comparison is particularly meaningful. And I don't much encourage one-upmanship in this particular sphere.
  - vkou 9y ago
    To add to your point - due to mechanization, and fossil fuel-operated logistics, participants in WWII could field much larger armies. In ancient and medieval societies, a huge portion of the population was needed to work full-time to feed relatively small groups of artisans/warriors/politicians. In contrast, in WWII, the Red Army conscripted 33 million men. One sixth of the population.
    - dredmorbius 9y ago
      Very much this. The source which really hammered this home for me was Daniel Yergin's book, The Prize. It's a history of oil, but if you think that that doesn't have anything to do with war .... Yergin never quite comes out and state that WWI and WWII were resource wars, but they were resource wars. WWI saw the introduction of mechanisation to battle: cavelry were replaced by tanks, first motorcycles, then cars and trucks were used for personnel and materiel transport. And aircraft. Plus rail and ships: Churchill had famously just converted the British Navy from coal to oil, a massive military and operation advantage, but also an incredible risk for Britain who lacked (so far as anyone knew at the time) any indigenous oil. Instead, by way of naval bases serving Suez and India, it happened to have a presence in Persia and on the Arabian peninsula .... The United States singlehandedly supplied both its homeland, two fronts, and its allies with oil through WWII. Much of the Pacific battle was over Japanese access to Indonesian oilfields (and Chinese coal), which the US blocked by way of submarines. The Germans very nearly accomplished the same for domestic US oil shipments from Texas to East Coast population centres, resulting in a government financed-and-operated oil pipelines project, still in use today, the Big Inch and the Little Inch pipelines, from Beaumont, TX, to New Jersey. And petroleum-fueled tractors meant that the U.S. could also feed not only itself and its troops but its European allies. The U.S., Russia, and Saudi Arabia rank 1-3, in that order (I think) for the largest original oil reserves. Venezuala is 3rd, though with much heavier (harder to extract, not as useful, dirtier) petroleum.
      - dom0 9y ago
        > The Germans very nearly accomplished the same for domestic US oil shipments from Texas to East Coast population centres I didn't know about that. It was called Operation Paukenschlag. > [January to August] During this period, Axis submarines sank 609 ships totalling 3.1 million tons That's three sunk ships a day. The biggest problem for German subs in that operation was running out of torpedoes. Completely insane.
- boomboomsubban 9y ago
  The Russian totals have all the advantages of twentieth century technology and virtually full records, and the estimates of their losses still vary by over ten million people. The Romans counted armies by rough estimates, generally didn't count dead civilians, and the scant remaining records tend to be propaganda pieces. Notice the complete lack of casualties during Caesar and Augustus' civil wars, and the listed sources for the Gaelic war deaths. The two are incomparable, no amount of twisting gives anything more than a guess.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
beloch 9y ago
The author of this seems to have quit on the Eastern (Byzantine) empire several hundred years early...
afterburner 9y ago
This is (oddly enough) a part of Matthew White's "Historical Atlas of the 20th Century", one of my favourite early history sites.
meanonme 9y ago
For anyone interested in historical atrocities, "The Great Big Book of Horrible Things: The Definitive Chronicle of History's 100 Worst Atrocities" by Matthew White hardcover is on sale for $7. Oddly, the Kindle version is $10 and paperback $11. http://amzn.to/2voMw7Y http://amzn.to/2voMw7Y
DanAndersen 9y ago
Relevant: Dan Carlin just came out with a new episode of Hardcore History called "The Celtic Holocaust," which deals with the subject of the Roman subjugation of Gaul and the Celtic people. http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-60-the-celtic-holocaust/ http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-60-the-cel...
- zichy 9y ago
  I tend to ignore people who call something a Holocaust that wasn't the actual Holocaust.
  - jitix 9y ago
    I agree. The term holocaust is more contemporary. Back in roman times enslavement and extermination seems to have been relatively common.
    - InitialLastName 9y ago
      [Disclaimer: I've only listened to the first chunk of the episode. It's 6 hours long, and I have other things to do with my brain] As far as I can tell, you've hit on exactly the distinction he's trying to make in the episode. There's a running theme of highlighting the difference in attitude towards war/death from the Romans to the modern era, especially with respect to things like civilian extermination. The name might be unfortunate, but he's pretty open about acknowledging that it's an intentional juxtaposition.
      - zichy 9y ago
        I have never heard of Dan Carlin and it might be an intentional juxtaposition, but the title feels like clickbait.
        teilo 9y ago
        Dan Carlin produces the Hardcore History Podcast, and it is outstanding. Do yourself a favor and check it out.
fastball 9y ago
1000 casualties averaged a year? That's actually amazing.
- lurcio 9y ago
  Yes, especially when compared to suicide rates, occupational or traffic fatalities.... or numbers like 2 Kings 19:35
FlashGit 9y ago
The Romans weren't afraid to win wars by attrition. Some of their generals were definitely good but they could just swarm any opposing force with highly disciplined, well armed troops. Hannibal crushed the Romans several times, it didn't matter. Carthage still got wiped off the map.
- EGreg 9y ago
  Who dealt Rome the most damage? Spartacus and the Slave Wars Hannibal and Carthage Bar Kohkba and the Judaic Wars?
  - yk 9y ago
    In a single event, the Roman navy during the first Punic war. Rome lost the entire invasion fleet with estimates of more than 90.000 drowned during a storm. (It is still the second worst maritime disaster in history as Wikipedia counts. [0] Wikipedia lists the Mongol invasion of Japan as the worst, with more than 100.000 lives lost.) The bloodiest war in Roman history was the second Punic war, that is the battles lost against Hannibal. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_maritime_disasters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_maritime_disasters
    - EGreg 9y ago
      What about the sinking of the Spanish armada invading Britain? As far as maritime disasters it was pretty huge. And that seems to have turned the tide of history.
      - _delirium 9y ago
        That's third on the list linked above, with estimated 15-20k men lost.
  - boomboomsubban 9y ago
    Persians, only the Romans can compete. They only stopped being a problem when the Muslims replaced them.
Red_Tarsius 9y ago
If the numbers are true, Genghis Khan killed more people in a few decades than the Romans did in a thousand years. It's estimated that 15M died in the Mongols' five-year invasion of central Asia. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/2004/04/04/steppe-masters/1606bbc8-77ff-4170-a73d-f87ae4899208/?utm_term=.c7aeada4b360 https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/2... Rome used to turn the defeated tribes into slaves (though it was not a permanent status) or tax-paying citizens.
- usefulcat 9y ago
  Just to add a bit of context: that 15M figure averages out to a quarter million people every single month for five years.
  - Red_Tarsius 9y ago
    Jack Weatherford, author of the controversial Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, wrote that "...more conservative scholars place the number of dead from Genghis Khan's invasion of central Asia at 15 million within five years." But he strongly disagrees with that estimate. https://books.google.it/books?id=A8Y9B5uHQcAC&pg=PA118&lpg=PA118&dq=jack+weatherford+15+million&source=bl&ots=Cc40qIf6i3&sig=Ge_Dc0Ooj7Bq1jZCO_ZyzH5Px-o&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi4rOHtvc_VAhVFxRQKHaD5A8MQ6AEITjAI#v=snippet&q=%22while%20the%20destruction%22&f=false https://books.google.it/books?id=A8Y9B5uHQcAC&pg=PA118&lpg=P...
- vacri 9y ago
  Most of the numbers in the link are the bodycounts of soldiers, not civilians. And the count for 'slavery' is laughably small and only deals with slaves executed as punishment; far, far more slaves were worked to death in the fields and mines. You really, really didn't want to be a Roman slave, unless you were an educated Greek.
dsfyu404ed 9y ago
It took them nearly a millennium to do only a fraction of what communists accomplished in about a century. If anyone wants to crunch numbers and determine a per capita "death as a result of state action" for various empires over time I think it would be really interesting. How does a bad year in the roman empire compared to a purge year in the USSR? Average year vs average year? What about the great leap forward?
- oliver_quartic 9y ago
  Stephen Pinker did this number crunching (in fastidious detail) in "The Better Angels of our Nature". I forget what the result was, though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Natur...
- JoeAltmaier 9y ago
  But, percapita? There were far fewer people around in Roman times. The 'death rate' must have been an order of magnitude higher then.
davidreiss 9y ago
The numbers attributed to genghis khan and the mongols are pretty much scientifically impossible. It's propaganda/folk lore than real. > It's estimated that 15M died in the Mongols' five-year invasion of central Asia. Estimated based on what? Myth? > Rome used to turn the defeated tribes into slaves (though it was not a permanent status) or tax-paying citizens. And the mongols turned the peoples they conquered into tribute states. The mongol empire was one of the most inclusive and peaceful empires in human history. They accepted all races, all religions and all ideologies - as long as you accepted mongol rule and paid tribute. What do you think yuan china, duchy of muscow, mughal persia and a host of other khanates were? The mongol army generally consisted of a few thousand to 30K and their campaigns were largely targeted at cities and capitals rather than populations. And keep in mind that during this time, most of the human population was rural rather than urban. The idea that the mongols killed that many people is absurd. Not only did they generally target cities/capitals, once the ruler submitted or was deposed, the mongols generally went home and left a small contingent. You shouldn't take anything you read in WaPo at face value. But even more, you shouldn't anything you read about the mongol empire at face value either. There is so much nonsense and myth that is written about the mongol empire.
- formula1 9y ago
  I remember reading/hearing somewhere that Ghengis Kahn used to catipult dead bodies into cities which would then spread desiese. In addition, it's my understanding he killed most of the men then slept with as many women as he wanted. One could say a crater from a nuclear bomb was quite peaceful.
  - saiya-jin 9y ago
    the catapulting of some diseased bodies into besieged cities/fortresses was a common medieval tactic all around the world. it doesn't take a genius to figure this out during sieges.
- abecedarius 9y ago
  Another benefit: they were even CO2-negative: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_under_the_Mongol_Empire#Environmental_impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_under_the_Mongol_E...

123 points by Red_Tarsius 9y ago

Listen, and understand: The Roman legion is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop... ever, until you are dead.

Animats 9y ago

Smaller than Russian losses during WWII.

cellis 9y ago
Even when accounting for percentage of population?
- belorn 9y ago
  Why is that relevant? Isn't the worth of a human life always the same? Looking at deaths as a proportion to the populations will tell us the disruption to society, production and agriculture. It is sometimes used when looking at plagues, just since death counts can be somewhat less useful when we want to see how whole societies are wiped from the world. Wars however already causes societal damage by the very nature, so we can not infer the damage to society by deaths in proportion to population.
  - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
    Talking about societal rates of human suffering, the per-capita rate is the only correct metric. Like any other statistic (traffic accidents) the only way to compare is per mile, per person etc.
dredmorbius 9y ago
The USSR's population in 1939 (immediately pre-war) was about 188 million. The peak Roman Empire population, in ~160 CE, was 60-70 million. Less than half that of the USSR. Still, the war dead over the empires history are just 1.25% of its peak instantaneous population. So yes, war was overall less deadly. But being an infant was far deadlier than today (~50% mortality by age 5). Total Soviet casualties: 20-27 million, or 13.7% of the 1940 population. Compare against Poland at about 17%. By contrast, the Third Reich saw ~8.5% population losses. The US and UK, less than 1% each, France, 1.4%. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_Roman_Empire https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_Roman_Empi... Consider that there was a vastly increased ability to deliver and effect damage on both military and civilian targets in WWII. I'm not sure that a direct comparison is particularly meaningful. And I don't much encourage one-upmanship in this particular sphere.
- vkou 9y ago
  To add to your point - due to mechanization, and fossil fuel-operated logistics, participants in WWII could field much larger armies. In ancient and medieval societies, a huge portion of the population was needed to work full-time to feed relatively small groups of artisans/warriors/politicians. In contrast, in WWII, the Red Army conscripted 33 million men. One sixth of the population.
  - dredmorbius 9y ago
    Very much this. The source which really hammered this home for me was Daniel Yergin's book, The Prize. It's a history of oil, but if you think that that doesn't have anything to do with war .... Yergin never quite comes out and state that WWI and WWII were resource wars, but they were resource wars. WWI saw the introduction of mechanisation to battle: cavelry were replaced by tanks, first motorcycles, then cars and trucks were used for personnel and materiel transport. And aircraft. Plus rail and ships: Churchill had famously just converted the British Navy from coal to oil, a massive military and operation advantage, but also an incredible risk for Britain who lacked (so far as anyone knew at the time) any indigenous oil. Instead, by way of naval bases serving Suez and India, it happened to have a presence in Persia and on the Arabian peninsula .... The United States singlehandedly supplied both its homeland, two fronts, and its allies with oil through WWII. Much of the Pacific battle was over Japanese access to Indonesian oilfields (and Chinese coal), which the US blocked by way of submarines. The Germans very nearly accomplished the same for domestic US oil shipments from Texas to East Coast population centres, resulting in a government financed-and-operated oil pipelines project, still in use today, the Big Inch and the Little Inch pipelines, from Beaumont, TX, to New Jersey. And petroleum-fueled tractors meant that the U.S. could also feed not only itself and its troops but its European allies. The U.S., Russia, and Saudi Arabia rank 1-3, in that order (I think) for the largest original oil reserves. Venezuala is 3rd, though with much heavier (harder to extract, not as useful, dirtier) petroleum.
    - dom0 9y ago
      > The Germans very nearly accomplished the same for domestic US oil shipments from Texas to East Coast population centres I didn't know about that. It was called Operation Paukenschlag. > [January to August] During this period, Axis submarines sank 609 ships totalling 3.1 million tons That's three sunk ships a day. The biggest problem for German subs in that operation was running out of torpedoes. Completely insane.
boomboomsubban 9y ago
The Russian totals have all the advantages of twentieth century technology and virtually full records, and the estimates of their losses still vary by over ten million people. The Romans counted armies by rough estimates, generally didn't count dead civilians, and the scant remaining records tend to be propaganda pieces. Notice the complete lack of casualties during Caesar and Augustus' civil wars, and the listed sources for the Gaelic war deaths. The two are incomparable, no amount of twisting gives anything more than a guess.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

beloch 9y ago

The author of this seems to have quit on the Eastern (Byzantine) empire several hundred years early...

afterburner 9y ago

This is (oddly enough) a part of Matthew White's "Historical Atlas of the 20th Century", one of my favourite early history sites.

meanonme 9y ago

For anyone interested in historical atrocities, "The Great Big Book of Horrible Things: The Definitive Chronicle of History's 100 Worst Atrocities" by Matthew White hardcover is on sale for $7. Oddly, the Kindle version is $10 and paperback $11. http://amzn.to/2voMw7Y http://amzn.to/2voMw7Y

DanAndersen 9y ago

Relevant: Dan Carlin just came out with a new episode of Hardcore History called "The Celtic Holocaust," which deals with the subject of the Roman subjugation of Gaul and the Celtic people. http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-60-the-celtic-holocaust/ http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-60-the-cel...

zichy 9y ago
I tend to ignore people who call something a Holocaust that wasn't the actual Holocaust.
- jitix 9y ago
  I agree. The term holocaust is more contemporary. Back in roman times enslavement and extermination seems to have been relatively common.
  - InitialLastName 9y ago
    [Disclaimer: I've only listened to the first chunk of the episode. It's 6 hours long, and I have other things to do with my brain] As far as I can tell, you've hit on exactly the distinction he's trying to make in the episode. There's a running theme of highlighting the difference in attitude towards war/death from the Romans to the modern era, especially with respect to things like civilian extermination. The name might be unfortunate, but he's pretty open about acknowledging that it's an intentional juxtaposition.
    - zichy 9y ago
      I have never heard of Dan Carlin and it might be an intentional juxtaposition, but the title feels like clickbait.
      - teilo 9y ago
        Dan Carlin produces the Hardcore History Podcast, and it is outstanding. Do yourself a favor and check it out.

fastball 9y ago

1000 casualties averaged a year? That's actually amazing.

lurcio 9y ago
Yes, especially when compared to suicide rates, occupational or traffic fatalities.... or numbers like 2 Kings 19:35

FlashGit 9y ago

The Romans weren't afraid to win wars by attrition. Some of their generals were definitely good but they could just swarm any opposing force with highly disciplined, well armed troops. Hannibal crushed the Romans several times, it didn't matter. Carthage still got wiped off the map.

EGreg 9y ago
Who dealt Rome the most damage? Spartacus and the Slave Wars Hannibal and Carthage Bar Kohkba and the Judaic Wars?
- yk 9y ago
  In a single event, the Roman navy during the first Punic war. Rome lost the entire invasion fleet with estimates of more than 90.000 drowned during a storm. (It is still the second worst maritime disaster in history as Wikipedia counts. [0] Wikipedia lists the Mongol invasion of Japan as the worst, with more than 100.000 lives lost.) The bloodiest war in Roman history was the second Punic war, that is the battles lost against Hannibal. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_maritime_disasters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_maritime_disasters
  - EGreg 9y ago
    What about the sinking of the Spanish armada invading Britain? As far as maritime disasters it was pretty huge. And that seems to have turned the tide of history.
    - _delirium 9y ago
      That's third on the list linked above, with estimated 15-20k men lost.
- boomboomsubban 9y ago
  Persians, only the Romans can compete. They only stopped being a problem when the Muslims replaced them.

Red_Tarsius 9y ago

If the numbers are true, Genghis Khan killed more people in a few decades than the Romans did in a thousand years. It's estimated that 15M died in the Mongols' five-year invasion of central Asia. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/2004/04/04/steppe-masters/1606bbc8-77ff-4170-a73d-f87ae4899208/?utm_term=.c7aeada4b360 https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/2... Rome used to turn the defeated tribes into slaves (though it was not a permanent status) or tax-paying citizens.

usefulcat 9y ago
Just to add a bit of context: that 15M figure averages out to a quarter million people every single month for five years.
- Red_Tarsius 9y ago
  Jack Weatherford, author of the controversial Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, wrote that "...more conservative scholars place the number of dead from Genghis Khan's invasion of central Asia at 15 million within five years." But he strongly disagrees with that estimate. https://books.google.it/books?id=A8Y9B5uHQcAC&pg=PA118&lpg=PA118&dq=jack+weatherford+15+million&source=bl&ots=Cc40qIf6i3&sig=Ge_Dc0Ooj7Bq1jZCO_ZyzH5Px-o&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi4rOHtvc_VAhVFxRQKHaD5A8MQ6AEITjAI#v=snippet&q=%22while%20the%20destruction%22&f=false https://books.google.it/books?id=A8Y9B5uHQcAC&pg=PA118&lpg=P...
vacri 9y ago
Most of the numbers in the link are the bodycounts of soldiers, not civilians. And the count for 'slavery' is laughably small and only deals with slaves executed as punishment; far, far more slaves were worked to death in the fields and mines. You really, really didn't want to be a Roman slave, unless you were an educated Greek.

dsfyu404ed 9y ago

It took them nearly a millennium to do only a fraction of what communists accomplished in about a century. If anyone wants to crunch numbers and determine a per capita "death as a result of state action" for various empires over time I think it would be really interesting. How does a bad year in the roman empire compared to a purge year in the USSR? Average year vs average year? What about the great leap forward?

oliver_quartic 9y ago
Stephen Pinker did this number crunching (in fastidious detail) in "The Better Angels of our Nature". I forget what the result was, though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Natur...
JoeAltmaier 9y ago
But, percapita? There were far fewer people around in Roman times. The 'death rate' must have been an order of magnitude higher then.

davidreiss 9y ago

The numbers attributed to genghis khan and the mongols are pretty much scientifically impossible. It's propaganda/folk lore than real. > It's estimated that 15M died in the Mongols' five-year invasion of central Asia. Estimated based on what? Myth? > Rome used to turn the defeated tribes into slaves (though it was not a permanent status) or tax-paying citizens. And the mongols turned the peoples they conquered into tribute states. The mongol empire was one of the most inclusive and peaceful empires in human history. They accepted all races, all religions and all ideologies - as long as you accepted mongol rule and paid tribute. What do you think yuan china, duchy of muscow, mughal persia and a host of other khanates were? The mongol army generally consisted of a few thousand to 30K and their campaigns were largely targeted at cities and capitals rather than populations. And keep in mind that during this time, most of the human population was rural rather than urban. The idea that the mongols killed that many people is absurd. Not only did they generally target cities/capitals, once the ruler submitted or was deposed, the mongols generally went home and left a small contingent. You shouldn't take anything you read in WaPo at face value. But even more, you shouldn't anything you read about the mongol empire at face value either. There is so much nonsense and myth that is written about the mongol empire.

formula1 9y ago
I remember reading/hearing somewhere that Ghengis Kahn used to catipult dead bodies into cities which would then spread desiese. In addition, it's my understanding he killed most of the men then slept with as many women as he wanted. One could say a crater from a nuclear bomb was quite peaceful.
- saiya-jin 9y ago
  the catapulting of some diseased bodies into besieged cities/fortresses was a common medieval tactic all around the world. it doesn't take a genius to figure this out during sieges.
abecedarius 9y ago
Another benefit: they were even CO2-negative: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_under_the_Mongol_Empire#Environmental_impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_under_the_Mongol_E...