Luuk De Ligt is Professor of Ancient History at Universiteit Leiden. His book Fairs and Markets in the Roman Empire (1993) continues to be cited as a standard work on the rural economy of the Roman world. He has also published widely on the interplay between legal and economic developments with edited volumes including People, Land and Politics: Demographic Developments and the Transformation of Roman Italy, 300 BC–AD 14 (2008), which has been greeted as a compulsory starting point for all those aspiring to understand the demographic, economic, social and political structures of Roman Republican Italy.

'… this is an impressive work of scholarship. It provides a fresh and insightful analysis of the key evidence upon which the debates over the size of the Italian population are based. As well as revising existing theories surrounding the key issues, De Ligt provides a number of thought-provoking comments and analyses throughout which will surely stimulate further debate on a long-standing subject.' Bryn Mawr Classical Review

• 1. Evidence, theories and models in Roman population history; 2. The Polybian manpower figures and the size of the Italian population on the eve of the Hannibalic War; 3. Census procedures and the meaning of the republican and early-imperial census figures; 4. Peasants, citizens and soldiers, 201 BC–28 BC; 5. The Augustan census figures and Italy's urban network; 6. Survey archaeology and demographic developments in the Italian countryside.