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Ancient Roman Pronatalism: The Last Time We Failed to Solve Fertility Collapse
In this episode, we delve into the ancient Roman fertility crisis, focusing on the efforts of Augustus to encourage marriage and childbearing among the Roman elite. We discuss various laws introduced by Augustus, such as the Lex Julia and Lex Papia Poppaea, aimed at promoting procreation and the penalties imposed on the unmarried and childless. We explore the historical context, examining the low fertility rates of notable Roman families and the societal implications. Furthermore, we draw parallels to modern issues of declining fertility rates, particularly in Italy, and the potential cultural and economic impacts. Join us as we uncover the motivations behind Augustus' policies and the ultimate challenges they faced in ensuring the survival of Rome's elite lineage.
Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone. Today we are going to be talking about ancient Roman tism.
Simone Collins: Oh, the failed kind,
Malcolm Collins: right? Many people have heard. Of Rome as As, and they've, they've heard of, like Augustus say, being concerned about falling fertility rates among Roman elites. Mm-hmm. We've heard that he put in laws to try to prevent this.
Mm-hmm. We've heard, oh, this is mirrored with our current societal collapse and this is a pretense of the destruction of a global empire in the same way.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: People thought as a pretense of the destruction of the Roman empire. Right. Even though it wasn't, that happened a long time after this particular concern.
But I mean it kind of was blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We'll see. But I was like, wait. What were those laws, what actually happened in Rome during this period? Mm-hmm. What did people of the period have to say about this? Mm-hmm. How low did the fertility rate of the Roman elite actually get? Hmm. And I'll also start by saying Rome's going through this again.
Italy right now has the fertility rate of only 1.18. That means every hundred Italians, there's only gonna be 20 great grandchildren. We are looking at the complete collapse of, italian civilization likely was in our [00:01:00] lifetimes, which is gonna be good point.
Simone Collins: Yeah. Hadn't thought. Yeah. We're sort of, we're back, we're back to square one.
Malcolm Collins: And this, this also causes a lot of problems like for Catholicism because if, if Italy is no longer Italian or Catholic anymore, you know what happens to the Vatican? Tough, tough world we might be entering. But I, I, I think they're gonna get it together. I think they're gonna get it together. I have faith so we'll start here talking about Augustus.
Okay. So Augustus uses platform to urge Romans to marry and have children framing it as a civic duty in a famous speech recorded by historian DiUS, he said. If we could survive without a wife, citizens of Rome, all of us would do without that nuisance. Oh wow. But since the nature has so decreed that we cannot manage comfortably with them nor live in any way without them.
Yeah. We must plan for our lasting preservation. That's rather than, rather for our temporary pleasure. That's amazing. Okay.
Simone Collins: Yeah,
Malcolm Collins: that is. I, we, we needed to have Augustus at Alcon, so all the journalists could be quoting [00:02:00] Augusta. Oh yeah.
Simone Collins: He would be the clickbait. He would be the, the, yeah, the soundbite generator for natal con, the soundbite
Malcolm Collins: generator for, for modern journalists.
Simone Collins: Wives, they're awful. But I mean, you gotta, you gotta put up with it. You gotta put up with it. It's like colonoscopies and wives
Malcolm Collins: necessary.
Not exactly a view. I, I'm not gonna
Published on 8 months, 2 weeks ago