>  You're assuming, with no basis whatsoever, that vast
 > numbers of people
 >  would have to leave their homes. This was a society
 > when most people
 >  lived and died in their hometowns. Most likely, only
 > a few people would
 >  ever have to make the trip.

I think you're forgetting a few other facts about the times. The Empire had just been established, and the brutal wars of the late Republic had only just begun to die down.  In times when people were, admittedly, disinclined to move about of their own volition, they nonetheless tended to move in pretty large numbers to get away from wherever happened to be the war zone that year.  Thus, there's reason to think a lot of them wouldn't still be living in the same place they were born.

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