ANN ARBOR—A counting of the people is nothing new. Nor is using that count to plan for the future by estimating how many teachers or schools will be needed, or how much revenue from taxes might be available. The Gospel of Luke reminds us that Caesar Augustus decreed that “all the world should be taxed And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.”

This effort by the Roman government is not unlike the current census under way. In his studies of tax documents from Roman Egypt, Bruce Frier, University of Michigan professor of classics, has been able to piece together a picture of life in that time. Could it be that some future civilization will analyze the 2000 Census reports for an understanding of what life in the United States was like in the 20/21 centuries?

From a fairly typical census return written in Greek and filed on
Also living in the household were a wife, aged 39, and a 15-year-old unmarried daughter.

That census from Roman Egypt would have been a delight for genealogists because, as Frier notes, those filing the reports were careful to declare exactly the lineage of themselves and their family members, making family reconstruction quite easy. “But,” Frier says, “the authorities may have been more concerned about possible confusion caused by the small repertory of common personal names; most residents of Roman Egypt have no ‘family’ names.”

As those filling out census documents today, those filing census forms in Roman Egypt were required to swear that what was being submitted to the authorities was the truth. “But,” Frier says, “many Egyptian families attempted to conceal younger children, particularly to avoid the head tax.”

While many U.S. families seek assistance with their tax returns, families in Roman Egypt often were illiterate in Greek and had their census returns written for them by officials or by scribes. And, yes, there were deadlines then, too. One of the census returns Frier studied was filed almost a year after the end of the official census year. “This was the usual practice,” Frier says, “but we do not know the reason for it.”

And why were those physical markings important to the census report? Frier says this information was used by the Egyptian police to identify criminals.

Bruce Frier