Food Stamps in Antiquity and Today

Augustus, Wikipedia

Food stamps are not a new idea. Taxes earmarked for religious upkeep and gleanings for the poor date back to the Biblical record, thousands of years ago. Somewhat later, near the end of the Roman Republic, politicians instituted handouts of grain for the poor of Rome. Citizens still had to get the grain milled, but they were assured of a monthly supply of food. (Gregory Aldrete in The Roman City: Rome, Pompeii, and Ostia claims the monthly handout was enough for two people.)

Imperial Rome was no different. Here, in Suetonius' words (tr. by Robert Graves) are emperor Augustus' remarks on the free grain distribution:

I had a good mind to discontinue permanently the supply of grain to the City, reliance on which had discouraged Italian agriculture; but refrained because some politician would be bound one day to revive the dole as a means of ingratiating himself with the people (The Twelve Caesars, Section 42).

Augustus realized that Italian farmers could not compete against "free" grain, brought over from Egypt, and the image of the small, self-reliant Republican farmer had become a mere myth. He also saw the danger of demagogues using free grain as a means of gaining power. Similarly, Abraham Lincoln felt that homesteaders could not compete against slave labor and came out against slavery for, at first, economic reasons. In our time, African farmers are ruined by the free grain the United States gives to their countries, and food stamp programs alter the turnout of American elections.

from Agora Financial

During the last four years the number of Americans receiving food stamps has skyrocketed, while the number of Americans supporting the program has diminished. If this was a temporary situation and there was a quick jobs recovery, employment would rise and food stamp participation would fall. The blue and red lines on the graph on the left would intersect, and we would congratulate ourselves for supporting the poor while on the road to economic growth and prosperity. But there is little evidence that employment is roaring back. We have not had a good jobs report (more than 200,000 jobs created/month) in a long time. Unlike Rome, we are not (I hope) going to take over another country and steal its grain. We will be forced to cut other programs and/or raise taxes, which may slow our economy further.

Caesar's Legion--The Military of Imperial Rome Lives

Vercingetorix and Caesar

The western Roman Empire has been gone for close to 1700 years, but authors continue to release excellent books about the period. Stephen Dando-Collins' Caesar's Legion: The Epic Saga of Julius Caesar's Elite Tenth Legion and the Armies of Rome can be found in paperback for a song. Dando-Collin's book (Wiley, 2002) takes us on an exciting historical journey through the end of the Roman Republic and Julius Caesar's dictatorship to the fall of Byzantine. However, the book concentrates on the forming of the 10th Legion under Caesar in Spain, Caesar's battles in Gaul, his invasion of Britain, the civil war against Pompei in which Caesar came close to losing, the next civil war in which Octavian was victorious, and the actions of the 10th in Judea, especially the destruction of Jerusalem.

Dando-Collins vividly describes army life--what it was like to be a Roman infantry soldier from 40 BCE to 100 CE: the technology of the weapons, the arms worn and carried, the uniform, the discipline endured, the recruitment procedures, and especially, what the battles looked and felt like if you were there.

Once the javelin struck anything, the weight of the shaft caused it to bend like a hockey stick where staff and head joined. With its aerodynamic qualities destroyed, it couldn't be effectively thrown back. And if it lodged in a shield, it became extremely difficult to remove, as the Helvetii [invading warriors from the area that is today Switzerland] now found.What was worse, in their case, with their shields overlapping, javelins were going through several at a time, pinning them together. With members of the [Helvetii] phalanx downed and others struggling with tangled shields, their formation was broken by the these initial volleys. Caesar gave another order. His flag dropped, and the trumpets of the first line sounded the "Charge." With a roar, the front-line [Roman] legionaries charged down the hill with drawn swords. After repeated attempts to free their shields, many Helvetii threw them away, leaving them virtually defenseless (pp. 18-19).

Another sample of Dando-Collins' eloquent and striking narrative, a description of the surrender of an enemy Gallic leader follows:

Without a word, Vercingetorix removed his sword belt and handed it to Caesar. Caesar accepted the sword, then passed it on to one of his staff. Vercingetorix removed his helmet, with its distinctive Gallic crest, and passed it over. Then his armor, richly decorated with gold and silver--attendants helped him out of it, and then this, too, he presented to Caesar, who in turn passed it to subordinates. Then Vercingetorix sat himself at Caesar's feet. There, in silence, he watched as his hungry, dejected troops came out of Alesia in a long stream with heads hung low, and piled their weapons and armor before the conquering Romans and were then led away into slavery. Finally, Vercingetorix, too, was bound with chains and taken away. (P. 60).

Through its focal point, the history of the 10th Legion, the book closely reviews the major political events of the Empire from Caesar's ascension to the rise of Vespasian. Dando-Collins takes the side of the Romans in the first Jewish revolt of 66-70 CE--not surprising since Josephus, not the Talmud was the author's major source in this section. The Jewish freedom fighters are portrayed as foolish zealots, locked in a bloody internecine conflict when not fighting the Romans. Roman general Titus is portrayed by Dando-Collins as quite reasonable, giving the Jews holding out in Jerusalem plenty of opportunities to surrender with reasonable terms. Unfortunately, the revolt in Judea led to the destruction of the Temple, a tragedy still mourned by Jews today. Many of the survivors were sold into slavery, and Dando-Collins does not mention the thousands of Jewish prisoners that were exposed to wild beasts for the entertainment of the Roman masses (Laurence, P. 135). The destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem may have been a disaster for Titus as well and not just the Jews. Roman historian Suetonius quotes a feverish Titus as confessing that he was punished with death for committing only one sin. Perhaps his disregard of Roman law, entering the Temple and Holy of Holies, and destroying the edifice was that one sin.

Dando-Collins has written other books of Roman and most recently, Hawaiian history, but Caesar's Legion is a good place to start for those unacquainted with the author and wanting to explore what life was like as a Roman soldier.

Bibliography
Laurence, Ray. Roman Passions; A History of Pleasure in Imperial Rome.  Continuum UK, London, 2009.
Suetonious. The Twelve Caesars. Tr. Robert Graves, Penguin Books, Middlesex, England, 1975.