Ulpian's life table

Ulpian's life table is an ancient Roman annuities table. It is known through a passage, originating from the jurist Aemilius Macer, preserved in edited form in Justinian's Digest. The table appears to provide a rough outline of life expectancy in the early third century CE, but it is not clear what population the life table refers to, or how its data was gathered.^[1]

Aemilius Macer probably lived in the 230s CE. His recording of the table came from Macer's systematic commentary on the lex Julia de vicesima hereditatium, an Augustan law of 6 CE that put a 5 percent tax on inheritances.^[2] Despite its many numbers, the fragment does not appear to be afflicted by any serious textual corruption.^[3]

Table

Macer's text provides two figures: a forma, or schedule, presented by Ulpian (d. 223), and a customary (solitum est) schedule that antedates Ulpian's.^[4] The forma is described as a means of calculating tax for alimenta and usufructs. The age of the legatee is checked against the table; the figure recorded on the table is multiplied by annuity's annual value. Five percent of this last figure is what is owed in tax.^[5] Ulpian's life table gives figures broadly consistent with the Model West: female life expectancy at birth is 22.5 years, male life expectancy is 20.4. Its mortality figures are thus higher than those of most models, though the statistical flaws in the evidence itself has encouraged interpretative caution.^[6]

Although, among moderns, "life expectancy" tends to mean "the average number of years lived after age x", the table figures probably represent median life expectancy: the number of years elapsed before half the selected population is dead. After childhood, the two figures are quite close, but childhood mortality causes the figures for the first years of life to diverge.^[7] The figures given are too high to represent the predicted market valueB of the annuity at a conservative rate of return on capital (on the calculation in the table, a person with a lifespan of sixty years would only have twenty-three years worth of annuity at death). The table therefore most likely represents the rate at which the annual tax payment on the annuity was staggered: a 5% tax was paid on each annual payment received by the legatee until the tax office had received the figure produced by the table.^[8] If the legatee died before the median age, leaving part of the tax unpaid, the tax would either be forgiven (out of sympathy for the family so bereaved) or added on to the tax fees of the legatee's heir.^[9]

Ulpian's life table and the customary life table
Annuitant's present age (x)	Corresponding figure
	Ulpian	Customary
0–19	30	30
20–24	28
25–29	25
30–34	22	(60-x)
35–39	20
40–49	(60-x-1)
50–54	9
55–59	7
60–	5	0 (?)
After Frier, "Roman life expectancy", 217, table 1.

The table does not plausibly represent life expectancy either in early childhood, between forty and fifty, or after sixty. This may be because these ages were difficult for the creators of the table to handle, or because they may have been easily ignored; children do not often receive annuities, for example.^[10] But, in spite of these errors, and although Keith Hopkins called the table not "demographically possible",^[11] the table corresponds well to other observed populations with abnormally high mortality rates (such as postwar Mauritius), and to a priori constructions of plausible Roman age structures.^[12] In any case, the picture they present is appalling: a society with one of the highest mortality rates on record, with a predicted life expectancy at birth of between 19 and 23.^[13]

Text and translation

Aemilius Macer (2 ad Leg. Vic. Hered.). Computationi in alimentis faciendae hanc formam esse Ulpianus scribit, ut a prima aetate usque ad annum vicesimum quantitas alimentorum triginta annorum computetur eiusque quantitatis Falcidia (Macer: vicesima) praestetur, ab annis vero viginti usque ad annum vicesimum quintum annorum viginti octo, ab annis viginti quinque usque ad annos triginta annorum viginti quinque, ab annis triginta usque ad annos triginta quinque annorum viginti duo, ab annis triginta quinque usque ad annos quadraginta annorum viginti. ab annis quadraginta usque ad annos quinquaginta tot annorum computatio fit, quot aetati eius ad annum sexagesimum deerit remisso uno anno: ab anno vero quinquagesimo usque ad annum quinquagesimum quintum annorum novem, ab annis quinquaginta quinque usque ad annum sexagesimum annorum septem, ab annis sexaginta, cuiuscumque aetatis sit, annorum quinque. eoque nos iure uti Ulpianus ait et circa computationem usus fructus faciendam. solitum est tamen a prima aetate usque ad annum trigesimum computationem annorum triginta fieri, ab annis vero triginta tot annorum computationem inire, quot ad annum sexagesimum deesse videntur. numquam ergo amplius quam triginta annorum computatio initur. sic denique et si rei publicae usus fructus legetur, sive simpliciter sive ad ludos, triginta annorum computatio fit.

[Aemilius] Macer, On the Law of Five Per Cent Tax of Estates, Book II. Ulpianus says that the following rule should be adopted in making the estimate of maintenance to be furnished. The amount bequeathed to anyone for this purpose from the first to the twentieth year is computed to have lasted for thirty years, and the Falcidian portion of that sum shall be reserved. From twenty to twenty-five years, the amount is calculated for twenty-eight years, from twenty to thirty years, the amount is calculated for twenty-five years; from thirty to thirty-five years, the amount is calculated for twenty-two years, from thirty to forty years, it is computed for twenty years; from forty to fifty years, the computation is made for as many years as the party lacks of the sixtieth year after having omitted one year; from the fiftieth to the fifty-fifth, the amount is calculated for nine years; from the fifty-fifth to the sixtieth year, it is calculated for seven years; and for any age above sixty, no matter what it may be, the computation is made for five years. Ulpianus also says that we use this same rule in making the calculation with reference to the legacy of an usufruct. Nevertheless, it is the practice for the computation to be made for thirty years from the first to the thirtieth, but after the age of thirty years it is made for as many years as the legatee lacks of being sixty; hence the computation is never made for a longer time than thirty years. Finally, in like manner, the computation is made for the period of thirty years, where the usufruct of property is bequeathed to the State, either simply, or for the purpose of celebrating games.

Digest 35.2.68, tr. S. P. Scott^[14]

See Also

life annuity

References

1. Digest 35.2.68; Frier, "Roman life expectancy", 214.
2. Frier, "Roman life expectancy", 214.
3. Frier, "Roman life expectancy", 215.
4. Frier, Bruce (1982). "Roman life expectancy- Ulpian's Evidence". Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 86: 217–219.
5. Frier, "Roman life expectancy", 217.
6. Frier, "Demography", 790.
7. Frier, "Roman life expectancy", 219–20.
8. Frier, "Roman life expectancy", 220–22.
9. Frier, "Roman life expectancy", 222–23.
10. Frier, "Roman life expectancy", 229–30, 230 n. 43.
11. Hopkins, "Probable age structure", 264 n. 32.
12. Frier, "Roman life expectancy", 229, 233, 249.
13. Frier, "Roman life expectancy", 230–31, 247–49.
14. Latin text from Frier, "Roman life expectancy", 215.

Ancient sources

• Digest.

• Scott, S.P., trans. The Digest or Pandects in The Civil Law. 17 vols. Cincinnati: Central Trust Company, 1932. Online at the Constitution Society. Accessed 31 August 2009.

Modern sources

• Frier, Bruce W. "Roman Life Expectancy: Ulpian's Evidence", Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 86 (1982), 213–51.
• Frier, Bruce W. "Demography", in Alan K. Bowman, Peter Garnsey, and Dominic Rathbone, eds., The Cambridge Ancient History XI: The High Empire, A.D. 70–192, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 827–54.
• Hopkins, Keith. "On the Probable Age Structure of the Roman Population", Population Studies 20:2 (1966), 245–64.