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Document Details : Title: Feeding Rome, or Feeding Mars? Subtitle: A Long-Term Approach to C. Gracchus' lex frumentaria Author(s): ERDKAMP, P. Journal: Ancient Society Volume: 30 Date: 2000 Pages: 53-70 DOI: 10.2143/AS.30.0.565558 Abstract : The most famous fact about the food supply of the city of Rome is the distribution of cheap or even free corn to a large part of its population from the late Republic onwards. The corn distributions, which were introduced by C. Gracchus in 123 BC, have given the Roman government’s involvement in civilian food supply a very negative connotation, as they were censured from the outset by contemporary Roman authors as the politically motivated actions of individual politicians. Juvenal’s phrase panem et circenses (Sat. 10.81) subsequently condemned for all eternity the involvement of the Roman state in the food supply of the city of Rome as a briberous and corrupting attempt of the Roman emperors to cover up the fact that they were selfish and incompetent tyrants. |
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