>>5547026>>5547071I mean, you can make up your own headcanon if you want, but both Armentarius and Lukas don't question it.
For comparison, Lesbos is the eighth largest island in the Aegean sea, it currently has a population of close to 90000, back in the 1500s - so before modern agriculture and shipping - it had a population of around 36000. Now there is some distance between that time period and the 1000s, circa the Eastern Roman Empire, but the point is the population numbers are plausible, as premodern agricultural and demographic figures are going to being broadly similar before the advent of industrialized farming and transportation. Sure, there are minor advances in agriculture during the ancient period and middle ages, the heavy plow, water powered milling, blah blah blah, etc, etc, but they are close enough.
