Marginal Land and Population Pressure in the Ancient Mediterranean, 800 BC to 600 AD

This paper seeks to establish the connections between population growth, dependence on marginal land (here carefully defined) and migration movements over the long span of Greek and Roman history. It argues that when there were no strong “positive checks” the natural growth of Greek and Roman populations, together with their succession practices, created a dilemma for many of the poorer people: they could try to survive on marginal land or they could emigrate - except that the latter option, wide open in some periods for mainly political and military reasons, was in other periods not available, or at least not available to many.