ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the relative importance of public institutions and free market forces in resolving urban food crises in the Roman empire. It argues that due to the existence of market imperfections major food crises in the cities of the Roman empire were rarely resolved by grain merchants responding to rising food prices. Many other food crises were caused by a combination of natural events and human intervention. The ancient sources leave little doubt that ‘entitlement to food’ was an important factor in determining the impact of local or regional food crises on various social groups. The surviving sources demonstrate that during local food crises the interests of urban populations took precedence over those of country-dwellers. In the third decade of the fourth century ad Roman emperors took on the responsibility for the food supply of Constantinople.
