Rome at War
Farms, Families, and Death in the Middle Republic
Nathan Rosenstein
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 12/2005
Pages: 352
Subject: History
| University of North Carolina
Print ISBN: 9.78E+12
eBook ISBN: 9780807864104
DESCRIPTION
The key, Rosenstein argues, lies in recognizing the critical role of family formation. By analyzing models of families' needs for agricultural labor over their life cycles, he shows that families often had a surplus of manpower to meet the demands of military conscription. Did, then, Roman imperialism play any role in the social crisis of the later second century B.C.? Rosenstein argues that Roman warfare had critical demographic consequences that have gone unrecognized by previous historians: heavy military mortality paradoxically helped sustain a dramatic increase in the birthrate, ultimately leading to overpopulation and landlessness.
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