ON THE EXPECTATION OF LIFE IN ANCIENT ROME, AND 
IN THE PROVINCES OF HISPANIA AND LUSITANIA, 
AND AFRICA. 
By W. K MACDONELL, Hon. LL.D. Aberdeen. 
The data on which the following paper is based have been extracted from the 
Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum of the Berlin Academy. For Rome I have 
examined Vol. vi. parts 1 to 4 (2), for Hispania and Lusitania Vol. II. and its 
Supplementum, also the Ephemeris Epigraphica vm. and IX. 1/3, and for Africa 
Vol. vm. and its three Supplementa. 
Rome— (a) The Civil Population. 
I have divided the Roman inscriptions into two classes, (a) those relating to 
the civil population, males and females being shown separately, and (b) those 
relating to the soldiers of the garrison. 
Method of stating Ages. In the great majority of adults the age is given 
in years only, but in a considerable number the months and days are added, in 
a few cases even hours. Children's ages in the majority of cases are given in 
years, months, days and sometimes hours. Also on the soldiers' tombstones we 
frequently find their ages recorded to days, four of them even to hours, and 
amongst these we find natives of Thrace, Pannonia, etc., which points to accurate 
registers of births having been kept even in distant parts of the Empire. Some 
of the inscriptions record the ages with extreme exactness, e.g. No. 2771, 
80 years 8 hours; No. 17677, plus minus 25 years 2 months 24 days; No. 20670, 
86 years 1 hour. 
This accuracy of statement is no doubt largely due to the requirements of 
astrology, which we know was widely practised in ancient Rome*; possibly also 
* No. 27140, the inscription on the tombstone of a boy, who died at the age of 4 years 13 days, 
contains a reference to an astrologer who had evidently forecasted a long life for the child. The 
deceased is supposed to address the passer-by in half a dozen lines, which conclude thus : 
Non igitur, lector, lachrimes : [dejcepit utrosque 
Maxima mendacis fama mathematici. 
