Open Question
Josephus's own account gives a total near 1.1 million dead in the siege of Jerusalem alone, a figure the Roman historian Tacitus's separate report of 600,000 under siege does not resolve, and modern historians agree first century Judea's population could not have sustained losses on either scale, without offering a reconciled replacement figure of their own.
What would resolve this A demographic and archaeological reconstruction of first century Judea's total population and its capacity, of the kind that would let historians test Josephus's and Tacitus's figures against an independent ceiling rather than against each other.
OpenRoman-era historical demography; classical archaeologyFlavius Josephus, The Jewish War
Cross-Tradition Connections
Question On
No historian consulted has reconciled Josephus's and Tacitus's ancient figures with a defensible modern demographic reconstruction.
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