The Initial Spread of the Provincial Census: Warfare and the Census

Abstract

The Roman provincial census was a key institution of imperial administration and Roman control. Did Augustus have a grand plan for extending it to the provinces of Rome’s empire? Was there a global census (Lk. 2:1–5) or was this a piecemeal process? Using a novel lens to this debate, namely the wartime contexts of provincial censuses under Augustus, I argue that the impetus for the earliest provincial censuses was to gather information on human and natural resources to support impending or ongoing military campaigns. The provincial census then did not serve a single purpose at any one time. Rather, it was an institution that could serve local, global, and ideological purposes simultaneously.