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whistleridge t1_ixlpobq wrote

The Romans colonized and settled Hispania and Gaul and Dacia, in large part because their wars of conquest there were also wars of annihilation and depopulation.

Such numbers are necessarily a rough estimate, but Gaul probably had a population of ~5 million before Roman conquest. Historians generally agree Caesar killed about a million, and enslaved another million or so. So it was a HUGE reduction in population.

The conquests in the east were nothing of the sort. Pompey basically just marched through and collected surrenders. The local populations were huge and urbanized, and the Latinate Roman population was never large. So while local elites might have learned Latin, the average person in the street never did.

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chemolz9 t1_ixm7iz8 wrote

Do you have a source about this 1 mio dead? Not to doubt it but I'm really curious. Considering most poeple on this time and place lived in poorly accessible towns and farms, you'd need explicit genocidal efforts to achieve this.

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teh_dumbest_man t1_ixmtw6m wrote

Hardcore History podcast has an episode that is available for free, called "The Celtic Holocaust", providing an educational and entertaining listen.

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Sgt_Colon t1_ixpkttl wrote

Carlin's off with his numbers, the estimate of Gaul's population of the time being approximately 3 million is a rather dated figure with current evaluations being between 10-12 million. Similarly Gallic loses are pushed back to approximately 1 million, give or take a 100 thousand either side.

It's worth noting that Dan is merely by his own words a "fan of History, not a historian", much less one working in their field of specialization.

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teh_dumbest_man t1_ixqd8gj wrote

Thanks, that is a tiny bit disappointing but not at all surprising to learn. He is a talk radio guy making entertaining content. I wouldn't post that comment in /r/askhistorians , even as a third level comment, but in this more casual sub I'll leave it up.

1/10 is not as much a holocaust as 1/3. Although if somebody wanted to call it a genocide, maybe it would still fit the definition. It's been a couple years since I listened to it, not sure if it had "the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such".

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enfiel t1_ixs84lu wrote

God I hate it when they call every genocide holocaust.

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moboy78 t1_ixmq9ma wrote

The numbers for how many Gauls were killed and enslaved come from Caesar himself, and they are in his De Bello Gallico. Caesar, however, lists the initial population of Gaul as 3 million people.

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