% of population in ancient/classical-time military

It would really depend how civilised your country was. With civilisations it was really up to the socio/economic and the culteral and political systems. For example Sparta practically 100% of the men were warriors.

With primitive societies The West Stable Popultion Model III estimates 34.24% of males are definately too young to fight (0-14). 9.82% are probably too young (15-19). 12.87% are probably too old (50+) and the rest 43.08% (20-49) are available to fight.

Generally speaking in an pre-industrial agricultural society about 10 percent of population can fight as part time soldiers.  But if army is permenant or standing army the story would be different.  Example of part time soldier army would be Greek hoplite where about 10 percent of citizen population served as part time soldier.  (Athen's population excluding slaves and foreigners were about 150,000, and they could assemble 13,000 troops.)

Stading army of civilized nation did not exceed 1~2 percent in most occasions.  Roman empire during the 1st century had estimated population of 60 million people.  And their professional standing army constituted about 300,000 to 400,000 troops.  Or about 0.5 to 0.67 percent of whole population served as full time soldiers.

Han empire who adopted universal military service had higher proportion of military compare to Roman empire during the same period.  For instance, in A.D. 1, Han empire had 0.5 percent to 2 percent of its population served in regular military.  Or about 288,357 to 11,534,280 men served in military whose population was 57,671,400. 

So empire with population of 30 million could have about 3 million troops, if empire only employs part-time soldier.  But empire with that much population does not rely much on part time soldiers.  So assuming that empire with population 30 million have standing army it could have some 200,000~600,000 troops depenging on which military system that empire adopted.  If that empire adopted universal military service where every men should serve in army for 2~3 years, about 2~3 percent of whole population would serve in military.  On the other hand, that empire depends on professional mercenary soldiers just as Roman empire, then about 1 percent of population would serve in military.

"Hmm? No, I am afraid this is rather inaccurate. Athens could field 12.000 ?14.000 hoplites (estimation) and a smaller number of lightly armed citizen, in the times of the Persian wars, when the population of Athens was about 45-50.000 people (slaves, women and children included). In the times just before the Peloponesian war, Athens (with a population of 150.000) could field around 28.000 hoplites, 1.200 cavalry and 34.000 lightly armed troops (archers, javelineers etc"

At the outbreak of Pelopenisian War, the troop strength and population of major Greek states were as follow.

Battle Ready Hopelites

---------------------------------

Athens/Atica        13,000

Athenian Allies     10,000

Total         & nbsp;         23,000

Thebes/Boetian Confederacy  10-12,000

Sparta/Laconia       &nbs p;         &nbs p;    8-10,000

Peloponnesian Allies                20,000

Total         & nbsp;                              40,000

Population

                   Citizen Population    Slave Population    Total

------------------------------------------------------------ -------

Athens/Atica       150,000          ;     100,000          ;     250,000

Thebes/Boetian   100,000          ;       10,000               101,000

Sparta/Laconia      40,000&nbs p;         &nbs p;  250,000      &nb sp;        290,000

So in case of Athens. at the beggining of Peloponesian war.  about 9 percent of total population was hoplite (23,000 out of 250,000, and Thebes/Boetian confederacy had about 10 percent of total population as hoplite (10,000-12,000 out of 101,000) and Sparta/Laconia had about 3~4 percent of its total population served as hoplite (10-12,000 out of 290,000)  

"The numbers are roughly correct: in the beginning of the 2^nd century AD, Rome had a standing army (including the city garrisons) of about 480.000 men and a total population of 71 mi. people"

The standing army was 350,000 and the population was more closer to 56 million.

Chang, you are either making those numbers up as you proceed, or your sources are the most inaccurate crap I�ve ever seen connected to the word �history�.

The Roman population (total population, not citizen) by 230 BC was indeed less than 300.000 people, nothing like your 600-700.000. Where did you find that from? The more extraordinary estimations about 150 years later (when we have better census data available � 80 BC that is) talk about 400.000 population, some grow that up to 450.000. It came close to the 1 mi. mark after the mass migrations of the last BC years and the first century AD � yet you seem to imply Rome had almost reached that mark before the punic wars?

Care to post your source???

My numbers on the Athenian demographics are extremely accurate and I would appreciate you wouldn�t just throw around numbers that are extremely wrong and probably made up, either by you or by someone who hasn�t the slightest idea about ancient Greece. Athens� population never in the times we are talking about exceeded the 160.000 mark � if you add up the whole of Attica, we could come up to a figure about 240.000 or so, but that�s not Athens, it�s all the settlements of Attica (some of those were not even Athens� allies).

The number of the Athenian allies is really ridiculous. 10.000?  Out of three dozens of middle and large city states, all they could come up with was 10 miserable thousand hoplites? Even the Sparta could field that number, when they used the perioikoi � the Spartan alone, mind you.

I stand firm by my numbers, they are precise and your revisions are not even close to any realistic alternative suggested � they are purely mythical.

Please check your source, it�s extremely inaccurate. EXTREMELY.

V.D. Hanson is not excactly a valid historian (he is teaching at the US naval academy, that should give you a notion). Usually, I would say  he is a militarist who does history on the side. If you read some of his esteemed works, especially Autumn of war and Carnage and Culture, you'll understand what I am talking about. I wasn't aware he has written a book on the Pelo wars. His estimations on various occassions (especially concerning ancient history) are completely off mark. In our little example, his figures about the power of the Athenian and allies are a joke. A little example to show you what I mean:

Athens lost about 19.000 men in the Sicilian expedition only - 6 to 7.000 of them were hoplites. Despite that, more than 9.000 (hoplites) remained at home. The allies of Athens lost a similar number of hoplites as well.

And that was years after the plague that depopulated Athens (appr. casulaties: 1/4 to 1/3 of the total population of Athens).  

Care to fit the 13+10.000 theory within those bounds? Taking into account, of course, that while Athens had this large expedition force in Sicilia, they managed to wage small scale operations in the whole Aegean and Ionian area, maintain mid to large sized garissons in over 23 cities and forts, and kept a large body of hoplites in Athens for defense from the Peloponesian and Boeotean, in case they'd march against Athens once more.

The link about the Roman population does not work. I'll take your word that it is actually written there and I'd suggest you find an alternative source, because if it states that Rome had 700.000 people in 230 BC, it ain't worth much.

http://unx1.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/RomTab.html

This site puts number of Roman citizens of Military Age in 220 B.C. as 270,213 men and 214,000 men in 204 B.C. 

Since Roman citizenship was granted only on adult male, total Roman population would be higher than say number of Roman male citizens.  In pre-Industrial society about 1/3 of population was minor who is under age of 15.  That means that about 2/3 of whole population is adult.  And about half of those adult are females obviously.  Then, the number of adult male in pre industrial society is about 1/3 of whole population.

Then if Roman adult male was 270,213, and 214,000 during the second punic war, total population of Rome would be 3 times of that number.  Or the total Roman population would be about 800,000 in 220 B.C. and 650,000 in 202 B.C.   And if you add slave population to this figure Roman population would be higher than 700,000 at the least.  So the number of Romans(I am assuming Roman citizens lived Rome and its colonies?) including women, children and slaves would be close to 800,000 even if you exclude population of Roman allies and Latin states.   

bump... plz lemme know, thanks!

Mr. Chankung finally came to his senses, so let's address the last point.

The exhaustion of the fighting-able male population during the punic wars (the second, actually) was such, that every familiae had 2 or 3 dead males at least. It was so thorough, that the 3 legions raised to aid in a - quite possible after Cannae - siege of Rome by Hannibal and his ragtag army, consisted of 17 and 18 year olds, of freed slaves and of gladiators. They run out of men, that is.

Yes, Rome had all men from 18 to 60 years under arms - that was the case with the classical world. And with that number, and a population of ~300K, they lost more than 60 thousand men in Cannea, Trebia and Trasimene. Yet, they had the resources to draft almost 30.000 more men in 5 legions.

Still, even if we include the 5.500 to 6.5000 ex slaves and gladiators, that leaves us with 22 to 24.000 Roman citizen (most of them youngsters). Do the math, once more: I'll take the lowest estimation: 22.000 + 60.000 = 82.000. So, yes, it wasn't 1/3 it was more like 25 to 30% of the total population. You say 20 to 25%? Fine. btw the 20-25% you admit is rather distant from the 10% you claimed on your first post... nice to see you coming around reality.

I wouldn't call that a huge disrepancy, so any further disagreement on that would be splitting hairs.