SOME ‘GUESSTIMATES’ OF SLAVE NUMBERS:

ATHENS

Source	Date (BC)	no. of slaves	no. of citizens
Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae 6.272c (Wiedemann no. 80 p. 90)	312/308	400,000	21,000 citizens 10,000 metics
He also suggests for Corinth		460,000
and for Aegina		470,000
Hypereides, Frag. 33	mid-4^th C.	150,000 (adult male)
Sargent, The Size of the Slave Population at Athens (1925)	c.430	97,000	184,000
Gomme, The Population of Athens during the 5^th and 4^th C. BC (1933)	c.430	115,000	172,000
Jones (AHM), Athenian Democracy (1957) 75-96	c.330	60,000	20,000
Lauffer, De Bergwerkssklaven von Laureion (2^nd ed. 1979)	4^th C.	100,000
Sallares, The Ecology of the Ancient Greek World (1991) 60	4^th C.	30-50,000 slaves and metics	100-120,000 total citizens
Hansen, The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes (1991) 53-4, 90-4	c.450 4^th C.	-- over 150,000 40,000 metics	60,000 (adult male) 30,000 (adult male) 100,000 (total citizens)
Habicht, Athens from Alexander to Anthony (1997) 58	312/308	150,000 or 250,000	21,000 or 31,000

NOTE: Citizen figures are sometimes taken as referring to all of citizen status, sometimes to adult males only

ROMAN EMPIRE:

Harris, MAMR 1980: 10 million slaves, 50 million citizens

Scheidel, JRS 1997: before mid-2^nd C. AD plague, 6 million slaves out of total population of 60 million; with 2-3 million slaves in Italy alone; cf. Brunt 1971: 3 million slaves in total population of 7 million for Augustan Italy

See now Scheidel, JRS 2005: between 850K and 1.86 million slaves for Augustan Italy