The White Council

Re: Numenorean Survivors

Tolkien and Inklings Discussion

: : The limit is probably how many a fertile tropical island a few : : hundred miles across could comfortably support in pre-modern : : times. Middle-earth was a long way to transport food from, and : : there`s no hint of Numenor becoming dependent on foreign grain. : : Still, Numenor must have been *very* fertile indeed, and my : : previous estimate of only a few million must be several times : : too low.

: Don't forget that they had advantages we don't have: the blessings of the Valar and gifts from the Elves. Also, it's implied there is a great deal of traffic over the seas between Numenor and Middle-earth. Tribute could be given in the form of grains and wines as well as gold, silver, slaves, and mithril.

That`s true. Imperial Rome`s huge population was partly dependent on the supply of grain from Egypt, more a thousand miles away, and although Middle-earth was at a much greater distance than that from Numenor, the Numenoreans had a far greater control of the sea than any other maritime power, and piracy, until perhaps the very end, would have been unknown. Perhaps the best parallel is the British Empire of a century ago, where the invention of the steamship and the opening up of the North American prairies allowed something like half Britain`s grain supply to be imported. I don`t think the Numenoreans had steamships, even under Sauron, but their own merchantmen would have been adequate.

I think it`s implied that in Ar-Pharazon`s reign there was a massive transportation of millions of slaves to Numenor - both to row the thousands of vast ships that would go to Aman (the Hellenistic navies had ships with more than a thousand oarsmen), and even more, to do the neccessary work in Numenor when such a large proportion of the population had been armed to make war on Aman. I think this is the background to the statement that the Numenoreans no longer came even as rulers, let alone bringers of gifts, "but as fierce men of war." I always wondered what their purpose was - they can`t have needed them all to sacrifice in their temples, and it would make sense if their economy suddenly needed vast number of slaves, in greater numbers than could be bought or taken in tribute from inland kings. They would have had to enslave whole populations. I believe that Plutarch calculated that in Caesar`s conquest of Gaul a million were killed and another million enslaved. When even a small province such as Epirus was taken, 150,000 were enslaved. I suspect that happened along the whole eastern coast of middle earth, and perhaps beyond.