Neville Morley @nevillemorley.eurosky.social · 23/12/2023Juvenal complains about excess of foreigners in Rome, but understood in terms of true Romans moving out rather than being out-bred - and debate continues about how far this is parody of ancient equivalent of red-faced Torygraph reader. 2/2 280
Tim Whitmarsh @twhittermarsh.bsky.social · 23/12/2023I guess even if the wrong sort were thought by some to be ‘overbreeding’ (like you I can’t think of examples of that kind of discourse for antiquity) that was balanced out by high infant/child mortality rates esp among the non-elite 120
Neville Morley @nevillemorley.eurosky.social · 23/12/2023‘Wrong sort’ would certainly be understood as foreigners not lower classes - note late Rep anxieties about struggles of decent peasant folk as they’re the ones who supply soldiers. Ancient states view more people as good, in contrast to Malthus et al. (Walter Scheidel has written on this). 230
