What percentage of the Roman Empire's population may have been engaged in agriculture?

by yupko
bitparity

This number is surprisingly well known in all the books I've read, although I'm going to pre-apologize that I don't know "how" they come up with the number, whether it be from census data or archaeology.

The average throughout the empire was about 80-90% rural farmers, with the lowest percentage being Egypt, which was only about 66% farmers. Which would seem to indicate that areas of greater urban density, like Greece, Anatolia and the Levant would tend toward the 80%, and areas of lower urban density like Spain or Britain closer to the 90%.