What was the homicide rate like in ancient Greece and Rome?

A meaningful number cannot be given for a question like this, as interesting as it is, because there were stories of murders and assassinations, but there were no statistics kept. Nevertheless some general conclusions may be drawn. read more

A meaningful number cannot be given for a question like this, as interesting as it is, because there were stories of murders and assassinations, but there were no statistics kept. read more

In ancient Rome there was a crime problem comparable to the one we have today. It toke about the same geographical direction as today's crime patterns. That is to say, the crime was worse in the area where the commoners lived than where the wealthy and powerful lived. read more

One problem with this is that these statistics can be notoriously difficult to interpret--this review of Stephen Pinker goes over some of the issues of pre modern crime stats. The second is that crime rates vary wildly in modern cities, so they probably would in ancient ones as well. read more