Ancient Food Policy

Food Policy

We allow Vossius to read the famous passage of the elder Pliny his own way, without admitting the extravagant consequences which he draws from it.

Such a computation means that the grain was only for the poorer citizens. But Cicero says that the rich could also take their portion.

The portion every month was five modii to each, around ⅚ of a bushel. This was too little for a family, but too much for a person.

To get this grain, a citizen merely had to present himself. Cæsar immediately removed 170,000 who had creeped but were ineligible.

Roman authors complain that Italy, which formerly exported grain, became dependent on all the provinces for its daily bread.

They ascribe this to the neglect of tillage and agriculture and never to the population encrease. The neglect is a natural effect of that pernicious practice of importing grain, in order to distribute it for free among the Roman citizens. It is a very bad means of increasing a country’s population size.

The sportula were presents regularly made by the great lords to their smaller clients. These were so much talked of by Martial and Juvenal. These had a like tendency to produce idleness, debauchery, and a continual decay among the people. The current parish-rates have the same bad consequences in England.

The age of Trajan and the Antonines is the part of European history when the ancient population could have been bigger than the current one.

the great extent of the Roman empire being then civilized and cultivated, settled almost in a profound peace both foreign and domestic, and living under the same regular police and government.

But all large governments, especially absolute monarchies, are:

• pernicious to population, and
• have a hidden vice and poison, which destroy their good effects

Plutarch was wrong

Plutarch accounts for the silence of many oracles to the desolation from former wars and factions. Such a common calamity fell on Greece more than on any other country to the point that Greece could only furnish 3,000. It was the same number that city of Megara supplied during the Median war. The gods, therefore have suppressed many of their oracles.

Plutarch assigns the cause of Europe’s decay to former wars of several states, and not the extensive dominion of the Romans. He asserts that Greece had become more prosperous after the Roman yoke came. He lived before the Romans had degenerated into being the plunderers of mankind.

Yet Tacitus says that the severity of the emperors afterwards corrected the licence of the governors.

Strabo says that the Romans, from their regard to the Greeks, maintained to his time, most of the privileges and liberties of Greece and that Nero afterwards increased them.

How therefore can we imagine, that the Roman yoke was so burdensome over Greece? The votes of the people:

• checked the oppression of the proconsuls
• bestowed the magistracies in Greece

There was no need for the competitors to attend the emperor’s court. If great numbers went to seek their fortunes in Rome, and advance themselves by learning or eloquence, the commodities of their native country, many of them would return with the fortunes which they had acquired, and thereby enrich the Greek commonwealths.

Plutarch says that the general depopulation had been more sensibly felt in Greece than in any other country. But this is inconsistent with the superior privileges and advantages of the Greeks. His passage proves too much and so really proves nothing. Only 3,000 men were able to bear arms in all Greece!

Greece has 10 times more people at present than in the past. It is is still cultivated and furnishes grain to Spain, Italy, or southern France in case of scarcity.

Lucian implies that the ancient Greek frugality and equality of property still subsisted during the age of Plutarch.

Greece did not have a few masters and many slaves. Military discipline might have been extremely neglected in Greece after the establishment of the Roman empire. The Greek commonwealths could be maintained each by a small city-guard of 3,000 men throughout all Greece.

Diodorus Siculus’ account contradicts that of Plutarch. Diodorus Siculus says:

• that Ninus’s army had 1,700,000 foot and 200,000 horse.
• that we must not assume ancient populousness from the present depopulation.

He who lived at that very period of antiquity which is represented as most populous but

• complains of the desolation which prevailed, and
• gives preference to former times, and
• has recourse to ancient fables as a foundation for his opinion.

The humour of blaming the present and admiring the past is strongly rooted in human nature. It has an influence even on learned persons.