ABSTRACT
Religion, though it probably helped to make life interesting with its processions and other displays, as well as occasional free banquets, was not the opium of the masses at Rome. The traditional pacifiers of the Roman people were food, subsidised or free, and amusements (particularly at the Circus and in the theatre and amphitheatre). Once Rome had grown to huge dimensions, ensuring that the population was adequately fed was just as much an essential part of community life as the provision of a water supply;1 political stability, social need, and the display of wealth were intertwined. Bread, or rather the grain from which both bread and porridge were made, was the vital calorific food of the ancient Mediterranean world. Organised social welfare, though restricted, must have been considerably more efficient for its beneficiaries than any reliance by clients on their patrons for sportulae. Not that there was ever any notion that the state had sole responsibility for feeding the citizen population; public and private interest ran together, and the state intervened, in Republic and Empire alike, when the need was great. However, the treatment of these areas will be relatively brief, because they were very much under imperial control.2
