but if thats the case,even the latins and gauls would be more numerous. there wer around 8 mio ? Gauls and 10 mio italians.
LSCatilina said:4) 3 millions is a farily good number for the era : it's (depending of the guesstimate) the double or 1/3 more than the whole population of continental Greece and between the half or 1/3 of the egyptian one.
The population of Egypt prior to the plague of Justinian has been estimated to be about 4.75 million- this is somewhat lower than its previous peak around 150AD, but still probably higher than at any other point in antiquity. So, those are some fairly well attested figures to work around.
The estimates I have for New Kingdom and Later egyptian kingdoms are respectivly 4,5 and 6 million. Still, it's from university basic manuals so it's not direct soures.
herodot said, the thracians are the msot numerous people aside from Indians.
so how much thracians were there in total ?
And how closely related are Dacians and Thracians ? Some say, dacian is just a thracian dialect, others think its a seperatre language.
Dacians ARE Thracians. Dacians were a specific nation, and Thracians were an ethnic group of many tribes and kingdoms, including Dacians, or Getae as they were otherwise called.
That's really cause to discussion. While it's possible that they were part of the same sub-branch and quite close, they seems to have different institutions, religion (while this one could be due to a more important hellenization, admittedly) and apart Herodotus, there's apparently a general trend in ancient authors to take Thracians as a people in itself.
For Gaetes, it seems it was more a part of Thracians (as Arvernii were a part of Gauls) and used by metonimy.
I was under the impression Dacians were to Thracians as Danes were to Swedes.
It's basically what I said...or tought I was saying.