Gregory estimated the Libyan population at 50,000.[644] Hence we shall not be exaggerating if we number the Libyans of the territory of classical Cyrene in the neighbourhood of the same figure (50,000). We therefore arrive at the following cautious and hypothetical result:
Citizens and their families (under the democracy) 60,000
Metics (25 percent.) 15,000
Slaves 10,000
Libyans 50,000
Total 135,000
It is a reasonable assumption that the slaves and Libyans ate barley-bread, just as do the Arabs of Cyrenaica today, hence we must subtract their number from the number of wheat-consumers. If we suppose that the needs of adult males were 7.5 medimni of wheat per head per year, of women (one third), 4.5 medimni per head, of children (one third) 3.5 medimni per head,[645] then 413,437 medimni of wheat were needed annually for the population of Cyrene. Sufficient seed was further required for sowing 405,000 + 413,437 = 818,437 medimni. If the average yield is estimated at 20:1, there was need to grow an additional 40,402 medimni for seed. Thus the hypothetical yearly production totals some 858,839 medimni, or approximately 429,419 hi. With the addition of an equal area of fallow, then, we attain, on a yield of 20 hectolitres per hectare, an arable area of 42,942 hectares. But on the assumption that this area was devoted entirely to wheat, we must add an area for barley and its associated fallow. As the ratio of barley to wheat was apt to be 1:1 in good years, with a steady tendency for barley to preponderate, both on the analogy of modern Greece and in the light of presentday conditions in Cyrenaica, and because the years 331-328 were good years — we may conclude that the arable area totalled not less than 85,570 hectares.
If the quantity of barley needed to feed 60,000 Libyans and slaves is regarded as 5 hectolitres per head annually (according to Jard^’s consumption-figure),[646] and add the seed for the following year, it would have been necessary to produce 315,000 hectolitres, for which 31,500 hectares were needed including fallow, and if the country’s livestock is regarded as not less than it was under Turkish rule,[647] an additional 55,200 hectares (including fallow) had to be cultivated in order to produce its fodder, which amounted to 552,028 hectolitres. Accordingly the total area of arable, including fallow, extended over not less than 129,642 hectares.
What was the ratio of this area to the total cultivated land of the country at that time? At the beginning of the 4th century B.C. 85-90 percent, of Athenian citizens, whose composition was decidedly biased in the direction of trade and the crafts, still possessed plots of land.[648] In contemporary Cyrene, although the commercial element was not lacking, the proportion of landowners was hardly inferior to that of the same group among the citizens of Athens. The Italian colonial institutions allotted an area of 31 hectares of arable per settler, containing 6 hectares of irrigated land, or 30-70 hectares of unirrigated land,[649] but it should not be forgotten that these farms were worked by modern methods. If 8,500 (85 percent.) of Cyreneans with civic rights under the Ptolemaic constitution, held plots of only 30 hectares,[650] (a purely mathematical average), the total area owned would have amounted to 255,000 hectares. We have seen that the area fit for permanent cultivation in Cyrenaica amounted to 150,000-200,000 hectares;[651] Fisher’s estimate (1953) gives some 145,000 hectares for permanent cultivation and 500,000 hectares for shifting agriculture. But not all the cultivable lands of the country were available to the founder city: Barka, Berenice and Teucheira also needed soil to feed them.[652] We have no evidence at present of the agricultural areas of those cities, but there may be indirect evidence for the proportion of land held by Cyrene in the country in the 3rd century B.C. Segré[653] observed that of the 101 names of Cyrenean immigrants to Egypt in that century, recorded by Heichelheim,[654] 90 percent, came from the city of Cyrene, the remainder being from Apollonia, Barka, and Berenice. Moreover, 16 of the 17 names of people from Cyrenaica whose period is unknown, were from Cyrene, and from a total of 133 Greeks of Cyrenaica recorded in the hellenistic, 119 were from the founder city. This evidence caused Segre to conclude, that the territory of Cyrene in the 3rd century stretched from Katabathma (Solium) to Thinis (Θῖνις), the settlement to which Cyrenean citizens had been sent as colonists not long, it would seem, before the drafting of the Ptolemaic constitution, which mentions the place specifically.[655] Clearly the settlement was outside the recognized city-territory at the time of the founding of the new colony, but its whereabouts is unknown.[656] On the other hand the Ptolemaic constitution fixes the frontiers beyond which the sons of Cyrenean fathers and Libyan mothers could not obtain citizenship, at Katabathma and Automalax (perhaps bu-Shifah near al-Ajela).[657] According to this Cyrene would have controlled the greater part of the country from east to west. There is no doubt that her territory reached Ras al-Tin on the east in the 4th century.[658] De Sanctis however interpreted the frontiers as stated in the constitution as evidence for the existence of a city league (κοινόν) in Cyrenaica, but there is still no evidence for such in the period concerned. More convincing is Jones’ suggestion[659] that these limits were fixed to prevent Egyptians and Carthaginians obtaining Cyrenean citizenship. In either case, the evidence of names in the 3rd century must be interpreted to mean that Cyrenean territory was the largest of the city-territories of the country, and amounted to 80-90 percent, of its total area. If so:
Total cultivable area (permanent cultivation) 200,000 has
80 percent, of the above 160,000
Minimal cultivated area of Cyrene 335-31 129,642
Minimal cultivated area of 85 percent.
of citizens of Cyrene 285,000
(according to the Ptolemaic constitution)
These figures present us with several interesting conclusions, but before discussing them we should observe that these are extremely cautious. The above estimate of the population of Cyrene, if it is erroneous, errs on the side of an underestimate. A population of 30.000 free citizens implies many more than 60,000 souls, while 10.000 slaves is palpably far below the mark. If it was larger, the problem of a land shortage which emerges prominently from these figures, becomes even more acute. In any case the same problem is reflected by the predicament of the ten-thousand citizens of the Ptolemaic constitution — and the number is well-established.
In order to assess the rightness or wrongness of the argument, let us review several other possibilities:
1) that the citizen-body of ten thousand included not only the inhabitants of Cyrene, but also all those of all five cities who possessed the required income;
2) that the estimate of the percentage of the 10,000 citizens owning land (85 percent.) is exaggerated, and that a smaller percentage must be assumed;
3) that we have underestimated the fertility of the country’s soils, and should put their yields at a higher rate;
648
650
This area would have been sufficient to furnish the necessary income in normal years; half of it would have brought in, on a yield of 20 hi. the hectare 600 medimni, to be sold at Cyrene at that time at 3 dr. the medimnus, or 1440 dr. after the deduction of a tenth for seed and food, and a tenth for rent. Even after additional deductions for overheads, the income could be supplemented from the vineyards and the plantations.
652
It may be supposed that the other four cities of the country possessed not less than 100,000-150,000 inhabitants in this period. Beloch estimated the total ancient population at 240,000-300,000 (
656
Segré thought (