Quote Originally Posted by bobbin View Post
Not really, the population of Britain is estimated to be somewhere around 2-4 million people by 150BC, if you include Ireland, which historically has had about half the population of Britain you get a total of 3-6 million.
Compare this with the population of Roman Italy (everything south of the Po Valley) at the start of the 2nd Punic War (218BC) which was around 4 million.

My point being that the British Isle were not some sparsely populated backwater as most people think, 8 provinces is perfectly justifiable.
Britain reached a population of 3-4 million under Roman rule is widely accepted. I've not heard that was the level in 150 BC though. I thought that is more likely after 100 AD or at least 250 years later when most of Europe had also increased in population either with a warming period or under the pax romana or whatever it is attributed to.

Not sure I would buy that Britain achieved a population density equal to intensively agriculturalized Italy in 150 BC. Just curious what this is based on?