Note 387 — OCTAVIUS

The Ancyra inscription gives most precise information on the subject of this increase. In 725 Augustus took the census for the first time after an interruption of forty-one years: 4,063,000 citizens were counted in this return. Twenty-one years later, in 746, the numbers returned amounted to 4,233,000. In 767, the year of Augustus’ death, there were 4,937,000. If, to the figures that Augustus gives, we add the number of women and children who were not comprised in the Roman census, we shall see that in the last twenty years of his reign the increase had reached an average of very nearly 16 per cent. This is exactly the figure to which the increase of population in France rose, after the Revolution, from 1800 to 1825; that is, like political circumstances produced like results. It might be thought, indeed, that this increase of population under Augustus was due to the introduction of foreigners into the city. But we know, from Suetonius, that Augustus, contrary to the example and principles of Caesar, was very chary of the title of Roman citizen.