Alba Regia. Annales Musei Stephani Regis. – Alba Regia. Az István Király Múzeum Évkönyve. 10. 1969 – Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei: C sorozat (1969)

Tanulmányok – Abhandlungen - Éry Kinga, K.: Investigations on the Demographic Source Value of Tomb Stones Originating from the Roman Period. – Vizsgálatok a római kori sírfeliratok demográfiai forrásértékéről. X, 1969. p. 51–67.

age at death) of every series, according to sex but also together, and analysed their furter demographic characteristics. Table 1 contains the regional and temporal distribution of the material published by Szilágyi and studied by the present author, as well as the average life expectancy of the divers series as calculated by Szilágyi. * In examining tomb inscriptions demographically, four fundamental facts are invariably to be considered : 1. Tomb inscriptions had primarily been made by populations inhabiting cities and larger settlements; 2. The making of tomb inscriptions was customary mainly for the middle classes; 3. The surviving material of inscriptions represents quantitatively but a meagre fragment of this social stratum; 4. Males had been considerably more frequently commemorated than females. Let us examine more closely these four main characteristics. 1. Investigations up to date emphasize that the average age data, calculated from the tomb inscriptions, are referable only to urban populations, that is, they do not hold for rural ones. The majority of investigators contend that the mortality of city-dwellers might have been greater than that prevailing in smaller settlements or in rural populations. According to Durand, the life expectancy of village inhabitants might have been more favourable by 5 years than that of the urban population

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. The age data of the tomb inscriptions apparently corroborate these assumptions, since the lowest averages of age at death appear, among others, in Rome, the capital of the Empire, in Ostia, the large port, or in Aquilea, the main trade center. On the other hand, the average age at death is higher, indeed considerably higher, in the also important Carthago or Gades than in the Italian examples cited above (see Table 1). This apparent contradiction will be treated later. 2. The opinion of investigators in uniform also with regard to the inference that the greater part of the tomb inscriptions derives from the middle class and the lower middle class in spite of the fact that the tombs of also a number of slaves or liberated slaves have survived. Of S z i 1 á g y i ' s material comprising nearly 43 000 inscriptions, no more than 3.7 per cent refer to slaves and this percentage, together with that of the liberated slaves, remains still below 10 per cent of the entire material. The tombstones of slaves and liberated slaves originate in 60 per cent from Carthago and Rome, representing 30 per cent of all cases in the former and 21 per cent of all inscriptions in the latter locality. 3. It was already mentioned that despite the great amount of age data surrendered by the tomb inscriptions, they represent still a very small quota of people letting inscriptions be made. It would be extremely difficult to estimate, for the area of the several provinces of the Empire, the number of those dead who belonged to the social stratum requiring the making of tomb inscriptions ; hence the exact quota of the surviving material, with regard to this stra3 J. D.DURAND, o.e., p. 372,. I turn, is unknown. Nor do we have even an approximate estimate on the percentage of the extent tomb inscriptions as related to the amount of such commemorations made. However, to suggest by some means the relativity of the order of magnitude of the nearly 43 000 data, I have divided the number of exemplars found in the area of the several provinces by the period of years from which the inscriptions originate, thus, in the case of Pannónia, Noricum, Germania and Britannia by 400 years, for all other European territories by 600 years, and for North Africa by 700 years. The figures thus obtained represent the number of specimens of surviving (or published) inscriptions per year. Table 2 contains these data. According to the values calculated for the entire period, the tomb inscriptions discovered in or published from North Africa commemorate 25 deaths per year; 11 in Italy (together with Sicily and Sardinia but exclusive of Rome), and 17 in Rome, whereas there are no more than 1 —4 annual death data in all other provinces available. It were therefore an extraordinarily lucky occurrence if the frequency of annual deaths occuring in the social stratum which required the making of tomb inscriptions was to be found in harmony with the meagre number of surviving commemorations. The numerical data of also Table 2 show that the amount of yearly tomb inscriptions originating from the late period (that is, from the time beginning with the third century until the fourth, sixth or seventh centuries) is about 55 per cent lower against that of the earlier period (that is, the first and second centuries). The Noricum, and especially Gallia, form an exception insofar as there remained in the latter case an annual average of 30 per cent more inscriptions from the later period than from the earlier two centuries. There is no doubt that the total number of population in the later phase of the Empire had been on the decrease as related to the state of affairs prevailing at the beginning of the first century; according to Russel's calculations, by about 50 per cent in North Africa and Italy, 33 per cent in Hispánia, and about 25 per cent in Gallia'

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. The diminishing numbers of the inscriptions might thus be connected with the actual decrease in the population, but it is highly probable that the economic decline in the later period, and concurrently with it the gradual eclipse of the custom of commemoration, could also have been significant factors. The contrasting case of Gallia requires special analysis. 4. The distribution as to sex in S z i 1 á g y i' s published material strikingly demonstrates that men had been more favoured in commemorations than women.

5 Table 3 gives the sex ratio of the examined series. Sex ratio expresses the number of males to each 100 females in a population. It is known that the normal sex ratio is about 105 at birth (there are 105 boys born for every 100 girls), however, this rate becomes equalized in normal conditions during infancy. In explaining the male majority observed in the tomb inscriptions, the opinions of investigators differ. Szilágyi, for instance, contends that the male surplus indicates actual conditions, namely that there had lived more men than women in the given region. On the other hand, * J. C. RÜSSEL, о. с, p. 148, table 152, s J. SZILÁGYI, AntTan, 6,1959, p. 55; ID., A. Arch. Hung,, 15,1963, p. 194