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The Purpose and Organisation of the Alimenta

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

Richard Duncan-Jones
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The opening of Trajan's reign saw the propagation in Italy of a system of government alimenta or subsistence payments, which had perhaps been begun by his predecessor, Nerva. Their immediate purpose was clearly the support of children in the small inland towns of Italy at which units of the scheme were mainly concentrated. Male recipients of the alimentary dole were given a cash payment of HS16 per month; girls received HS12 per month, the amounts given to illegitimate children being somewhat lower for both sexes. Hadrian laid down that boys who benefited were to be given support until the age of 18, and girls until 14; under Trajan, the ages at which support ceased had presumably been lower. The scheme was financed by grants from the fiscus which were placed with landowners in the districts in which children were to be supported. In general, each landowner who took part in the loans received a sum amounting to about 8% of the stated value of his land, and had to pay to the city interest of 5% per year, which formed the income from which the children were supported.

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Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , November 1964 , pp. 123 - 146
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Copyright © British School at Rome 1964

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References

1 According to the fourth-century writer Aurelius Victor (Epit. de Caes. 12, 4), Nerva founded the alimenta, but there is perilously little corroboration from any other source. Cf. Hammond, M., Mem. Amer. Acad. in Rome xxi, 1953, pp. 147–151Google Scholar.

2 Ruggiero (I, p. 405) lists 39 towns at which government alimenta are attested or implied by the mention of magistrates in charge of alimentary funds. There is a marginal possibility of error here in that private gifts of great size could also lead to the creation of magistracies for the administration of their funds (CIL XI, 6369 and 6377; R. Cagnat, etc., Inscriptions latines d'Afrique, 320); and private alimentary gifts are not unknown in Italy. But there can be little doubt that the great majority of references to magistrates in charge of alimenta must indicate the presence of the government scheme. Capua is wrongly included in R.'s list, but one of the inscriptions cited (CIL X, 3910) indicates that there were alimenta nearby at Cales, which he does not mention. The inscription which R. lists under Urbinum (Muratori, 238, 3) has since been assigned by Bormann to Pitinum Mergens (as CIL XI, 5957). Six more towns can be added, bringing the total up to 45 (Nomentum, Pisaurum, Saturnia, Industria, Formiae and Capena: ILS 4378; 5057; 6596; 6745; Année épigraphique, 1926, 126–127; 1954, 167). A list of all 45 towns is given below in Appendix III (p. 146), and their locations are shown by the distribution map on p. 125. Also see Addendum p. 146.

3 CIL XI, 1147, 1.2 of the preamble; vii, 34–35.

4 Digest XXXIV, 1, 14, 1.

5 See Appendix II below, pp. 145–146.

6 CIL XI, 1147, 1.3 of the preamble; Mommsen's commentary to CIL IX, 1455, p. 129; Billeter, pp. 191–193.

7 CIL XI, 1147. I have been unable to consult some recent Italian writings on Veleia: G. Monaco, ‘Velleia. Scavi e problemi,’ Rivista di Studi Liguri, 1951, pp. 143–148; P. Scotti, L'antico territorio velleiate. Considerazioni geografiche, 1954 (pamphlet); Studi Veleiati. Atti e memorie del 1° Convegno di Studi storici e archeologici, maggio 1954, 1955.

8 The two schemes at Veleia supported in all 263 boys of legitimate birth, 1 spurius, 35 girls of legitimate birth, and 1 spuria.

9 CIL IX, 1455. See Appendix I below.

10 CIL VI, 1492.

11 See n. 2 above.

12 CIL XI, 1147: boys received HS16 or HS12 per month, depending on whether they were legitimate, girls HS12 or HS10.

13 Ruggiero I, pp. 406–408; Staatsrecht II, pp. 1079–1081.

14 CIL XI, 1147, vii, 31 ff. The view of Henzen (p. 14) that the mentions in obligationes 16 and 17 of land already pledged through Pomponius Bassus (another consular) indicate one more prior stage in the establishment of alimenta at Veleia seems unsound. There is no hint of the activities of Bassus elsewhere in the Table, which is apparently a complete account of the Veleian alimenta as they stood at the time. The most probable explanation of his occurrence here is that the two large land owners in obligationes 16 and 17 had, at a date before the setting up of the Veleian alimenta, pledged some land which they owned outside Veleia as security for alimentary loans at another city, over which Bassus presided (cf. p. 142 below). CIL VI, 1492, shows that Bassus had charge of the alimenta at Ferentinum, about 200 miles from Veleia, which were being established in A.D. 101, at least two years before the main scheme at Veleia.

15 The rate of loan was a rigid 10%, instead of the 8% loosely applied in the subsequent scheme.

16 For the historical background to the governmental demographic concern which is evidenced by the alimenta, cf. Bourne, pp. 48–50.

17 Pliny, Panegyricus, 28, 5.

18 CIL VI, 1492, 11.11–12; but this phrase may have been no more than a cliché commonly used to describe the emperor's policies, since it occurs also in the SC de aedificiis non diruendis of Claudius' reign (‘cum … totius Italiae aeternitati prospexerit,’ ILS 6043, 1.4).

19 Mattingly III, pp. 195, 203.

20 Desjardins, E. in DS I, p. 184, 1Google Scholar; Kubitschek, G. in RE I, p. 1486Google Scholar; Ruggiero I, p. 405, 1; E. E. Bryant, Reign of Antoninus Pius, 1895, p. 122; O. Hirschfeld, Die kaiserlichen Verwaltungsbeamten,2 pp. 213–214; De Pachtère, p. 114; B. W. Hender son, Five Roman Emperors, 1927, p. 215; M. Rostovtseff, Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire,2 p. 199; Homo, L., Histoire générale (ed. Glotz, G.) 3, III, p. 437Google Scholar; Rodenwaldt, G. in CAH XI, p. 788Google Scholar; Mattingly III, p. xliv; Ramsay, H. G., Classical Journal xxxi, 1935–1936, p. 488Google Scholar; Paribeni, R. in Enciclopedia italiana XXXIV, p. 155, 1Google Scholar; Frank, T., Economic Survey of Ancient Rome V, p. 66Google Scholar; E. T. Salmon, History of the Roman World from 30 B.C. to A.D. 138, p. 270; Veyne II, p. 228; Bourne, pp. 69 ff. A more cautious approach is adopted by Billeter, pp. 187 ff.; R. P. Longden in CAH XI, pp. 211–212; and A. Garzetti, L'Impero da Tiberio agli Antonini, 1960, p. 365.

21 Dio Cassius LXVIII, 2, 1; Pliny, Ep. VII, 31; ILS 1019. Cf. Digest XLVII, 21, 3, 1.

22 Pliny, , Ep. VI, 19, 4Google Scholar. Cf. SHA, vita Marci 11, 8, for a similar measure by Marcus Aurelius.

23 As Professor Jones has pointed out to me.

24 See n. 22 above.

25 ILS 3546 (Domitianic); 3775; 6271; 6328a; 6469; 6663; 6664; 8370; 8376. Cf. V. A. Sirago, L'Italia agraria sotto Traiano, 1958, p. 277 and n. 2.

26 The emperor receives only four mentions as an adfinis in the Table of Veleia, cf. pp. 133–134 below, and n. 64.

27 Alimentary loans were also occasionally placed on the security of land belonging to the cities themselves (CIL IX, 1455, iii, 21; XI, 1147, oblig. 43). The rarity with which this occurs presumably reflects the predominance of private over municipal ownership of land; but the position of these loans (near the end of the list in each case) may also indicate a reluctance on the part of the alimentary commissioners to place funds on the security of public land. Cf. n. 60 below.

28 ILS 977, an alimentary foundation of HS400,000 set up privately at Atina (Latii) not later than the reign of Nero (cf. Hammond cited above, n. 1); CIL XI, 1602, a private alimentary foundation at Florentia (Firenze), apparently belonging to the late Flavian period.

29 R. Syme, Journ. Rom. Studies, 1930, pp. 56–59. The only units of the alimenta the dates of whose setting-up are known to us, those at Ligures Baebiani, Ferentinum and Veleia, were established in whole or in part before the influx of Dacian gold in A.D. 106 (CIL IX, 1455; VI, 1492; XI, 1147). Cf. CIL XI, 4351 (A.D. 101/2).

30 Desjardins, Kubitschek, Ruggiero, Henderson, Homo, Ramsay, Paribeni and Salmon cited in n. 20 above; also G. Segrè, Bullettino dell'Istituto di diritto romano 1889, p. 106, and Salvioli, G., Archivio giuridico ‘Filippo Serafini’ iii (lxii), 1899, p. 538Google Scholar.

31 CIL XI, 1147, obligations 13, 17, 31, 43.

32 The other two were pagus Veianus and Caudium (Mommsen, , CIL IX, pp. 133 and 198Google Scholar). ILS 6512 seems to show that Ligures Corneliani was a community separate from Ligures Baebiani (despite Liber coloniarum, p. 235), but its site is still unknown (Ruggiero IV, p. 1055, 2).

33 Appendix, pp. 144–145 below. Alternatively, the limitation may have lain in a shortage of eligible local estates of adequate size in which to vest the alimentary funds, rather than in a lack of scope for applying alimentary subsidies at Ligures Baebiani. Whichever interpretation is true, the Baebian Table implies that the local ceiling on the amount of alimentary funds that could be applied there was very much lower than the ceiling at Veleia, where funds more than twice as large were invested for the government alimenta (Appendix II, pp. 145–6).

34 Henzen, p. 25; Mommsen, , CIL IX, p. 128, 1Google Scholar; De Pachtère, P. 114; Garzetti (cited above, n. 20), p. 365. The arguments of Bourne (p. 59) for thinking the alimentary loans returnable at the request of the landowner take too little account of the great difficulties of financial administration that such a practice would have caused. If land owners were allowed to return loans when they liked, the position of the children already being supported at a particular town would have been greatly jeopardised, if repudiations meant a fall in the income available there. In fact, there is little ground for thinking that landowners were offered a choice between accepting or refusing alimentary loans in the first place (see below, pp. 135–137).

35 VII, 18.

36 ‘Dominum a quo exerceatur.’

37 ‘Nec ignoro me plus aliquanto quam donasse videor erogavisse, cum pulcherrimi agri pretium necessitas vectigalis infregerit.’

38 ‘Nec inveniuntur qui velint debere reipublicae, praesertim duodenis assibus, quanti a privatis mutuantur’ (Pliny, , Ep. X, 54Google Scholar).

39 See p. 135 below, and n. 79.

40 Although Ligures Baebiani appears from its Table to have been smaller still, the physical remains of the public buildings of Veleia suggest a small community. The town was sufficiently obscure for the elder Pliny to find it necessary to identify Veleia as ‘(oppidum) … citra Placentiam in collibus’ (NH VII, 163). Cf. Studi Veleiati, cited above, n. 7.

41 C1L XI, 1147, preamble, 1.2, and vii, 34.

42 ILS 6620 = CIL XI, 5395. Cf. CIL XI, 4351.

43 This was the total number of children benefited: CIL XI, 1147, preamble, 1.2 and vii, 34–35.

44 Compare the figure of 2,400 deduced for the population of another small Italian town (Virgil's ‘parva Petelia,’ Aen. III, 402) in a paper by the present writer to appear in Historia 1964 pp. 199–208.

45 W. Liebenam, Städteverwaltung im römischen Kaiserreiche, 1900, pp. 229–231.

46 The Table of Veleia (CIL XI, 1147) contains in all 499 mentions of private persons as owners of holdings adjacent to those being declared: most of the landowners who appear as principals in the Table recur elsewhere as neighbours, and from the frequency with which they are mentioned, it appears that the landowners who received loans were among the largest of the region. The average number of mentions per head as adfinis for the 47 private landowners who themselves received alimentary loans at Veleia is 3·85, against an average for the 197 other persons mentioned of 1·61 mentions per head.

47 For Veyne, however, ‘la prosopographie montre que près d'un quart au moins des propriétaires étaient de noblesse au moins municipale,’ among those who received loans at Ligures Baebiani (Veyne II, pp. 218–219). Since neither this Table nor the Table of Veleia gives a single mark of rank to any of the landowners who are listed, the conclusion is exceedingly doubtful. There are certainly interesting coincidences of name between individuals in the Baebian Table, and undated inscriptions from the same district that speak of knights and magistrates (Veyne II, pp. 205–215). But this does not necessarily indicate anything more than that members of some of the families who took part in the alimentary loans in A.D. 101 attained the ordo decurionum or the equus publicus at a date which could be earlier or later than that of the Table. Homonymity alone is not usually enough to prove that two inscriptions refer to the same individual, or that they were engraved within one lifetime.

48 Seventeen of the original 66 names of owners of estates are missing. One of the estates whose owner is known belonged to the town of Ligures Baebiani (CIL IX, 1455, iii, 21).

49 Obligatio 43 consists of land owned by the colony of Luca. The remaining 45 loans in the main scheme at Veleia went to private landowners, three of whom had already taken part in the scheme organised by Cornelius Gallicanus (obligationes 16 and 47; 30 and 49; 13 and 51). The remaining two participants in the Gallicanus scheme (obligationes 48 and 52) do not appear in the main list; hence a total of 47 participating land owners. (Cf. n. 104 below.)

50 HS20,000 and below, CIL IX, 1455, ii, 45; iii, 8, 36, 38, 48, 50. Between HS50,000 and HS21.000: ibid., i, 17, 45; ii, 7, 10, 13, 16, 42, 45, 71, 74; iii, 3, 5, 10, 20, 40, 42, 44, 46, 57, 61, 64, 71, 73, 76.

51 Pliny, , Ep. I, 19Google Scholar.

52 Petronius, Satyricon, 44; Dio Cassius LXXII. 16, 3. I owe both of these references to P. A, Brunt's paper in Journ. Rom. Studies, 1962, p. 71, n. 22.

53 CIL XI, 1147, obligationes 9, 25, 31, 32, 35, 38, 39, 52; CIL IX, 1455, ii, 5, 37, 53; iii, 45 shows a property one of whose joint-owners was a woman.

54 CIL XI, 1147, obligationes 1, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15, 16, 19, 22, 23, 25, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 41, 42, 52; CIL IX, 1455, i, 27, 41, 54, 65, 69, 74; ii, 3, 16, 71, 74.

55 Lex coloniae Genetivae Iuliae sive Ursonensis, xci (ILS 6087); Digest L, 2, 1 and 2.

56 CIL XI, 1147, obligationes 6, 7, 13, 22, 29, 40; CIL IX, 1455, ii, 8, 34, 43, 72; iii, 4, 33, 35, 72.

57 Ruggiero I, pp. 824–877 (A. von Premerstein).

58 CIL IX, 1461; XI, 1161, 1162. Even after 120 years of further social change, bearers of Greek cognomina formed only one-quarter of the decurions in the album of Canusium of A.D. 223 (CIL IX, 338).

59 Ruggiero II, pp. 1345–1377; Staatsrecht II, pp. 1082–1084. Cf. especially ILS 5918a, which describes the functioning of the office at an Italian town in the regin of Trajan.

60 ‘Des agros ? ut publici neglegentur’ (Pliny, , Ep. VII, 18Google Scholar). By the time of Hadrian at least, Comum had received a curator rei publicae (CIL V, 4368).

61 ‘Si decurio subiectis aliorum nominibus praedia publica colat, quae decurionibus conducere non licet secundum legem, usurpata revocentur’ (Digest L, 8, 2, 1). Also Digest L, 2, 6, 2.

62 These statistics are based on Bormann's tabulation of ‘Populi. Homines’ in CIL XI, pp. 229–231.

63 Digest L, 15, 4.

64 By this criterion, the emperor appears as a landowner of no more than medium size in this region, with four mentions as adfinis (CIL XI, 1147, iv, 60, 76; vi, 2, 37).

65 CIL XI, 1147, obligationes 12, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 44, 52.

66 Ibid., obligationes 8 and 29.

67 Hermes 1884, pp. 393–416, esp. pp. 404–408.

68 See Table, p. 138 below.

69 Nevertheless, in suggesting that the recipients of loans could have profitably re-invested their funds because the interest-rate on the alimentary loans was only 5% (against a legal maximum for usury of 12%), Bourne (p. 69) considerably over rates the commercial opportunities that are likely to have been available in the small inland towns at which the alimenta were mainly concentrated. But supposing that a majority of the recipients at a given town had been able to re-invest their loans, either by fresh purchases of land or by usury, it is doubtful whether circumstances would have allowed much margin of profit even then. For the effect of such a sudden release of capital in a small area would have been to raise land-prices, thus lowering percentage yields, and to reduce interestrates for usury as well. Pliny and Columella indicate clearly (n. 79 below) that 6% was the normal yield to be expected from Italian land, and the alimentary borrowers would have had to do better than 5% in order to make any profit. Reinvestment in land would thus have been a doubtful proposition at best; while re-lending the money (if feasible at all), although it would bring in a higher rate of interest for the duration of the loan, would have been difficult to contrive over more than short periods.

70 The view that the alimentary loans were farmed out on a compulsory basis has already been put forward in print by Professor Piganiol, though with out any arguments being given (annuaire du Collège de France 1952, p. 230). Cf. Billeter, pp. 193–195.

71 The most elaborate example reads ‘C. Coelius Verus … prof(essus) est praed(ia) rustica in Plac(entino) et Veleiate et Libarnensi, deducto vectigali et is quae ante Cornelius Gallicanus et Pomponius Bassus obligaverunt, HS (843,879), accipere debet HS (67,850)’ (CIL XI, 1147, oblig. 16).

72 CIL XI, pp. 223–225.

73 The Table of Ligures Baebiani contains the extremes of 10·92% and 2·94% (CIL IX, 1455, i, 16–17; ii, 10).

74 Suetonius, Aug. 41; Tacitus, , Ann. VI, 17Google Scholar.

75 See n. 43 above.

76 Cf. A. N. Sherwin-White, Journ. Rom. Studies 1962, p. 117.

77 Pliny, , Ep. X, 54–55Google Scholar; the interest-rate is given as ‘duodenis assibus,’ which is misconstrued as 12% by Ruggiero I, p. 405, 1, and by most modern translators of Pliny. See Billeter, p. 105.

78 ‘Invitos ad accipiendum compellere, quod fortassis ipsis otiosum futurum sit, non est ex iustitia nostrorum temporum.’

79 For 6% as a normal rate of return in Italy, Pliny, , Ep. VII, 18Google Scholar; Columella, , de re rust. III, 3, 8–13Google Scholar; Pliny, , NH XIV, 56Google Scholar.

80 To achieve even this, an elaborate arithmetical analysis of the figures of the two Tables has had to be made, although there is not room here for the many tabulations that would be needed to show its findings in full. A résumé of the main arithmetical results is given in Appendix II, pp. 145–146 below.

81 DS s.v. Professio (E. Cuq). Cf. Digest L, 15, 4, 4 and 8; and Fontes Iuris Romani Anteiustiniani (ed. Riccobono) III, no. 8.

82 Digest L, 15,4.

83 CIL XI, 1147, obligatio 39; cf. nos. 1, 6, 7, 8, 10, 24, 37, 43, 45, 46.

84 In view of the argument which now follows, Bormann's suggestion (CIL XI, p. 222, 1) that these persistent discrepancies can be accounted for throughout by assuming that tacit compensation was being made for mistakes in stating component valuations does not seem convincing. Such a high rate of error as this would suppose is also unlikely in itself.

85 CIL XI, 1147, obligations 2, 3, 4, 5, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 22, 24, 25, 26, 28, 31, 32, 37, 42, 44, 45, 46 (accepting de Pachtère's emendations to the totals of nos. 4 and 5, made in the Table opposite p. 100).

86 Cf. also Appendix II below, pp. 145–146.

87 A word of explanation is needed to make clear what is meant here by ‘not significantly different from 8%.’ Most of the loans in both Tables (meaning constituent loans in the case of Veleia) were the broadest approximations, often made merely in units of 1,000 (the proportion of loans made to an accuracy of not more than two figures is 75% at Veleia, and 86% at Ligures Baebiani). This being the practice, many of the loans were bound to differ widely from 8% because this relationship could not be expressed accurately in the round figures being employed for both loans and valuations. As an instance, the loan of HS2.000 on an estate worth HS30.000 (CIL IX, 1455, iii, 64) represents on the face of it a loan significantly lower than 8%, being in fact 6·66%. But HS3,000, the next figure in units of 1,000 above the sum actually given, would mean a rate of 10%, which is further from 8% than what was given. Thus within the terms employed here, the loan of HS2,000, though an actual 6·66%, is not significantly different from the rate of 8%. Round figure loans are here classified as differing significantly from 8% only when the next round figure adjacent to 8% would be closer to that rate than the loan actually given.

88 Appendix I, pp. 144–145 below. Fifty valuations are given in columns 2 and 3, but a further seven can be salvaged from column 1 (see lines 2, 17, 27, 34, 40, 45 and 68 in this column).

89 Appendix II below, p. 146. These trends are confirmed by analysis of the aggregate percentage loans gained by the largest and the smallest properties at both towns (p. 146 below).

90 Appendix II, p. 146.

91 De Pachtère, pp. 106–110.

92 The text is CIL XI, 1147, obligatio 39: ‘Glitia Marcella prof(essa) est saltum … qui ex reditu aestimatus est HS C. This declaration, which is unique among those which survive in the alimentary Tables, de Pachtère (p. 108) assumes to be an indication of the usual source from which overall estate-valuations were derived at Veleia. The inference is unsound, because this lady, unlike the other Veleian landowners, did not declare the value of her estate (the standard formulation being ‘professus est praedia rustica HS …’). Consequently, the commissioners had to assign a value to the estate themselves (presumably after a conference about the revenue figure); this they stated impersonally and at sufficient length to mark out the procedure as irregular. The total which resulted from their calculation was the roundest possible figure of its size (HS100,000); since the great majority of Veleian overall estate-valuations are not round figures of this kind, there is no basis for assuming that they too resulted from estimates from revenue.

93 Translation of area into money terms by a series of formulae for different types of exploitation (Digest L, 15, 4; Hyginus in Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum, ed. C. Thulin, I, i, 1913, pp. 168–169 (Lachmann, pp. 205–206); cf. Syro-Roman Law Book in Fontes Iuris Romani Anteiustiniani, ed. Ricco bono, II, pp. 795–796).

94 Digest L, 15, 4, 8; Codex Theodosianus XIII, 11, 1.

95 Veyne II, pp. 185–204.

96 CIL IX, 1455, i, 17, 27, 34, 40, 45, 68; ii, 3, 10, 16, 50, 64; iii, 5, 8, 23, 27, 34, 36, 38, 40, 46, 48, 50, 52, 64, 69, 71, 76, 80, 83.

97 CIL XI, 1147, obligationes 2, 4, *5, *11, *12, *13, *14, *15, *16, *17, *18, *20, 21, 22, *25, *26, *28, *30, *31, 32, *33, *37, *45; those marked with an asterisk were within ½% of the modal rate of loan.

98 Ibid., obligations 1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 23, 27, 29, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41, 43.

99 See Appendix II P. 145 below. Veyne's finding that the Tables as they stand indicate the same overa11 rate of loan at Veleia as at Ligures Baebiani is based on four figures three of which are incorrect (Veyne I, p. 127, n. 1).

100 CIL IX, 1455, i, 17, seems to show a loan of 10·92%; there are two surviving loans of 10%, iii, 23 and 36.

101 Veyne I, p. 93 and notes 2 and 3.

102 CIL XI, 1147 vii, 31 ff.

103 ibid., p. 220, 1.

104 One of the four is L. Cornelius Severus (oblig. 48), who does not appear in the later scheme in person. But Bormann's conjecture that the Cornelia Severa who declared an estate in the main scheme at Veleia (oblig. 31) was his daughter and heir is virtually certain, in view of their homonymity, and the otherwise unaccountable reference in oblig. 31 to ‘quod Cornelius Gallicanus obligavit’ (CIL XI, p. 220, 1).

105 The three cryptic mentions in the Table of Ligures Baebiani of an ‘obligatio VIIII’ may refer to a similar pilot scheme at that town, since the declarations and loans that this involved stood as part of the main series at Ligures Baebiani. Mommsen, following Henzen, interpreted the numeral, rather unconvincingly, as an indication that this constituted the ninth payment for the setting up of alimenta that the government had so far made at the date concerned (CIL IX, 1455, ii, 26; iii, 14, 18. Page 128, 1).

106 The Baebian Table shows indications of a sequence of another kind: the absentee land owners, who would tend to be the most important, are concentrated in the first 1¼ columns of the list (n. 54 above); while the landowners with Greek cognomina are almost entirely confined to the second half of the list (n. 56 above).

107 SHA, vita Pii 8, 1; Mattingly IV, pp. 48, 51, 235, 245. Five of the seven surviving dedications to the emperor financed by pueri et puellae alimentarii are addressed to Pius; one more, a dedication to Marcus Aurelius, was made one year after Pius's death: CIL IX, 5700; XI, 5395 (for Pius as ‘sacratissimus princeps,’ cf. ILS 6468 and 6988); XI, 5956; 5957; 6002; XIV, 4003 (dedication to Marcus). Also XI, 5989, cf. ILS 328 (A.D. 137).

108 SHA, Hadr. 7, 8; Marc. 7, 8; 26, 6; cf. 11, 2; Alex. 57, 7.

109 'Incrementum liberalitatis adiecit,’ Cf. Digest XXXIV, 1, 14, 1.

110 Mattingly III, pp. 82, 88, 96, 183, 184, 194, 202, 203, 206, 211, 214.

111 Mattingly cited inn. 107 above.

112 Mattingly III, p. 622; IV pp. 928–929; V, pp.676–677; VI, p. 309, 1.

113 SHA. Pert. 9, 3. For various interpretations, see Bourne, p. 67, n. 40.

114 Staatsrecht II, p. 1080, n. 3. Cf. Dio Cassius LXXII, 16, 3; LXXIII, 5, 4; SHA, Comm. 14, 4–7; 16, 8.

115 The future emperor Pertinax was praefectus alimentorum between A.D. 187 and 190, while his successor Iulianus also held the office under Commodus (SHA, Pert. 4, 1; Prosopographia Imperii Romani 2 IV, p. 65; SHA, Iulian. 2, 1). Pflaum dates a procurator alimentorum to 180/189, a proc. alim. per Transpadum Histriam et Liburniam to c. 188, and a proc. alim. per Apuliam Calabriam Lucaniam Bruttios to 180/192 (Carrières procuratoriennes equestres, 1960, pp. 1006 (no. 178 bis), 1037 (no. 295), 1041 (no. 235)).

116 Cancellations were begun by Hadrian and continued by Pius and Marcus Aurelius (ILS 309, A.D. 118 describes Hadrian as the first emperor to mahe such concessions; Mattingly III p. 417; Chron. Pasch. A.D. 147 in Chronica Minora ed. Mommsen, I, 1892, p. 224Google Scholar; Dio Cassius LXXI, 32 2). For subsequent cancellations, see Consularia Constantinopolitana, A.D. 218 in Codex Theodosianus I, p. 226; SHA Aurelian 39; Codex Theodosianus XI, 28. Cf. Staatsrecht II, P. 1015, n. 4

117 Digest XXXIV, 1, 14, 1; CIL X, 5398.

118 CIL VI, 1492; IX, 1455; XI, 1147; Cf. 4351.

119 SHA, Hadr. 7, 8, Pert. 9, 3.

120 See Ruggiero I, p. 403, 2.

121 See n. 2 above.

122 J. Beloch, Bevölkerung der griechisch-römischen Welt, 1886, p. 391, gives a total of 431 towns in Italy under the Principate. But the number of towns with government alimenta must have been greater than the total of 45 which has been compiled from specific survivals. The office of procurator alim. per Apuliam Calabriam Lucaniam Bruttios (CIL II, 1085, etc.) shows that there were probably alimenta at a number of towns in each of these regions; but only four towns in the whole area have left epigraphic record of their existence (two in Bruttium, one in Lucania, one in Apulia, none in Calabria). Similarly, though there was a procurator for the alimenta in Transpadum Histriam Liburniam (CIL III, 6753, etc.), not a single town in Histria has left record of the alimenta. See the list of towns given in Appendix III (p. 146) and the distribution map, p. 125.