Cura annonae
The programmes expanded over time, such that by the end of the Republican era, the grain dole was a permanent social welfare program which comprised a substantial part of the state budget.
In 22 AD, Augustus' successor Tiberius publicly acknowledged the Cura Annonae as a personal and imperial duty, which if neglected would cause "the utter ruin of the state".
Sufficient capacity to supply the Cura system required both adequate production in the provinces and the operation of massive numbers of ships, generally privately-owned and hired by the government, to transport it to Rome.
Most of Rome's grain supply was grown, imported, stored and traded as a profitable commodity, funded by speculators and hoarders, using loans, not state subsidies.
The most important sources of bread grain, mostly durum wheat, were Roman Egypt, North Africa (21st century Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco), and Sicily.
Some of them accumulated levels of debt that proved impossible to pay off and were forced to sell their farms or surrender their tenancies and either work for the new owner or move to a city with their families and seek patronage there.
A version of an earlier Lex Licinia was proposed by Gaius Gracchus, and approved by the Roman popular assembly in 123 BC, in the face of extreme opposition from politically conservative landowners.
Eventually, adult male Roman citizens (over approximately 14 years of age) with an income or property under a certain value were entitled to buy 33 kilograms (73 lb) grain per month at a below-market price of five modii.
[14] The doles of bread, olive oil, wine, and pork apparently continued until near the end of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD, although the decline in the population of the city of Rome reduced the overall quantities required.
[15] A regular grain supply for Rome depended on good harvests elsewhere, an efficient system of transport, storage and distribution, and honest investors willing to underwrite the risks in return for a share.
The Prefect of the Imperial annona had an office and grain stores in Ostia, Portus, purpose-built by Claudius and enlarged by Trajan, and almost certainly the same facilities in the ports of supply, such as Alexandria.
[16] The trading mechanisms employed were already in place during the Republican era, when agents, merchants and wealthy freedmen negotiated with members of Rome's senatorial and equestrian classes to fund grain imports, and find favour with the Roman masses.
As a slightly lesser but highly capable form of Roman nobility, the equestrian class were free to openly carry on whatever respectable business they chose; senators, as major landowners, were supposedly indifferent to personal profit or loss, but were the main source of investment.
In the second century BC, Gaius Gracchus settled 6,000 colonists to exploit the fertile lands of newly conquered Carthage, giving each about 25 hectares (62 acres) to grow grain.
[20] In the first century BC, the three major sources of Roman wheat were Sardinia, Sicily, and the north African region, centered on the ancient city of Carthage, in present-day Tunisia.
"[32] Kesler and Temin calculate that Rome's grain supply in the early Empire required a total of 2,000 to 3,000 merchant voyages annually, with each vessel carrying an average of 70,000 kg, sometimes much more.
[34] Casson estimates that the outward-bound freighters "raced down from Ostia or Puteoli to Alexandria with the wind on their heels in ten days to two weeks" and the voyage back laden with grain "...took at least a month and on occasion two or more.
"[35] Given the time needed for loading and unloading, the larger grain ships traversing the Egypt to Rome route likely only completed one round trip per year.
[30][42] It had to be well secured, and dry; unstable cargoes could lead to capsizing in rough weather; wet grain rapidly germinated, expanded, and could split a ship open.
[44] Rickman describes Lucian's figures as a possible exaggeration; Hopkins points out the financial losses represented by the foundering of such a ship in bad weather, heavy-laden with grain and too large to find safe mooring in most ports.
From Crete the grain ship would strike out across the Mediterranean Sea westwards toward the island of Malta, the objective being Syracuse, Sicily and the Straits of Messina.
[c] He offered a range of privileges, including grants of citizenship and exemption from import and harbour duties, to ship-owners willing to contract vessels of at least 10,000 modi into the grain trade.
Aurelian is also credited with increasing the weight of loaves but not their price, a measure that was undoubtedly popular with the Romans who were not receiving free bread and other products through the dole.
[65] The system was vulnerable at any point in the chain of supply, whether through mere gossip, or accurate, dishonest or ill-informed reports by competitors, merchants or agents.
Lowering grain prices became an important agenda for the radical popularist Saturninus, who was voted to the office of plebeian tribune an unusual three times, before his murder by political enemies.
In much modern literature this represents the Annona as a "briberous and corrupting attempt of the Roman emperors to cover up the fact that they were selfish and incompetent tyrants.
"[4] Augustus disapproved even the idea of a grain dole, on moral grounds, but he, and every emperor after him, took the responsibility and credit for ensuring the supply to citizens who qualified for it.
[67][68] The Emperor Tiberius created the locally elected priestly office of Augustalis to serve the cult of the deceased and deified Augustus; many Augustales were professionals in the grain logistics industry.
In the early 6th century, Cassiodorus wrote that the "vast numbers of the Roman people in old time are evidenced by the extensive Provinces from which their food supply was drawn...and the enormous multitude of mills, which could only have been made for use, not for ornament.
"[76] The Vandals took control of Rome's north African provinces for around a century, starting c. 439, thus sequestering the greater source of the Western Empire's grain supply.
