provinciae, but its districts were placed under regularly-appointed correctores, and its lands supplied revenues to the imperial court and to Rome. This climax of centralisation was probably the inevitable result of the imperial system and the external circumstances of the time. To the Princeps Italian and provincial problems were the same; Italy was not always the country in which the Emperor established his permanent residence, and, as the onset of the barbarians threatened even the Italian frontier, there was no possible reason why Italy should not pay its quota to the general taxation. But economic and social evils may have contributed to the imperial encroachments on Italian administration. The weaknesses which led to imperial control may have been those which the Emperors sought to cure. These were poverty and depopulation, and how earnestly they were grappled with may be seen by a glance at the system of state support known as the alimentarium. The leading idea of this institution is the endowment of a state or district with a fund which should give partial support to children, and by this means encourage production and relieve the responsibilities of parents or guardians. Such charitable efforts had, at an early period, been made by individuals;[1] and from the reign of Nerva the state, as represented by the Princeps, took up the enterprise. Nerva's example was followed by Trajan,[2] who extended and organised the system, and similar efforts were made by Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, and Severus Alexander.[3] The form usually taken by the endowment was an advance by the Princeps of funds which were deposited on good landed security at moderate interest, 5 or 2-1/2 per cent. From this interest a certain number of boys and girls were to be supported, by the gift either of a certain amount of corn or of a sum of money—twelve, sixteen, or twenty sesterces—per month. This support was guaranteed until the boys had attained their eighteenth and the girls their fourteenth year.[4] The details of this organisation*
- ↑ See the inscription of Atina of the time of Augustus (Wilmanns 1120), "T. Helvio . . . legato Caesaris Augusti, qui Atinatibus HS . . . legavit, ut liberis eorum ex reditu, dum in aetatem pervenirent, frumentum et postea sestertia singula millia darentur."
- ↑ Victor Epit. 12; Dio Cass. lxviii. 5.
- ↑ Marquardt Staatsverw. ii. pp. 143, 144. Pius, in honour of his wife Faustina, created a fund for puellae Faustinianae (Vita 8); Alexander, in honour of his mother, one for pueri puellaeque Mammaeani (Vita 57).
- ↑ Our knowledge of this institution is derived chiefly from two metal tables, the Tabula Veleias (of Veleia in Cisalpine Gaul) and the Tabula Baebianorum (of
