by the emperor to a class in peculiar need of assistance; whereas the 'frumentationes' could be considered as the share due to each citizen from the corn bought with state funds, or furnished as tribute. Both methods henceforth dealt with the relief of the poor, but in Rome alone was there any close connexion between them; for in Rome administrative machinery for the distribution of corn doles already existed, whereas in the cities of Italy there was as yet no system of poor relief. This is no doubt the reason why 'pueri alimentarii' or 'magistratus alimentarii' are never mentioned on inscriptions and coins referring to Rome itself, although such phrases occur frequently in the records of public assistance in other parts of Italy.
The measures of Nerva were evidently of a kind which would appeal to popular sentiment; for we know that they were thought an adequate excuse for the production of memorial coins. One of these[1] has come down to modern times, and shows the emperor sitting on the curule chair, stretching his right hand towards a boy and girl, while a woman stands near by ; accompanying the figures are the words 'Tutela Italiae'. A similar design appears on coins of Trajan; and it is interesting to note that a coin of Pope Innocent XII[2] is of a very similar type, and commemorates an endowment not unlike those of fifteen hundred years before. Nerva's policy was continued and developed by his successor, by whom the institution of maintenance grants was put upon a firm basis. In the annals of Dio Cassius, we read of Trajan that
on his entrance into Rome, the Emperor carried out many reforms for the amelioration of the commonwealth and the gratification of the well-affected; he took especial thought to prove his goodwill also to the cities of Italy in regard to the maintenance of the children.[3]
The truth of this statement is confirmed, and much additional information is supplied, by important inscriptions[4] which have come to light at various places during the last two hundred years. Chief among these are the famous ' Tabula Veleias',[5] discovered
- ↑ Eckhel, Doctrina Numorum Veterum, vi. 407.
- ↑ In the Browning Collection, Balliol College Library, Oxford.
- ↑ Dio Cassius, lxviii. 5.
- ↑ These have been collected by Ruggiero, Dizionario Epigr. i. 402.
- ↑ Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, xi. 1147. The preamble runs : ' Obligatio praediorum ob HS deciens quadraginta quattuor milia, ut ex indulgentia optimi maximique principis Imp. Caes. Nervae Traiani Aug. Germanici Dacici pueri puellae alimenta accipiant, legitimi n(umero) CCXLV in singulos HS XVI n(ummum), f(iunt) HS XLvnXL, legitimae n(umero) XXXIV, sing(ulae) HS XII n(ummum), f(iunt) HS ivDCCCXCVI, spurius I HS CXLIV, spuria I HS CXX. Summa HS LnCC, quae fit usura ——— (i.e. 5 per cent.) sortis supra scriptae.' Then follows a list of the estates mortgaged, valued at a sum at least ten times as much as the sum received. As an appendix to the main inscription is added another list called the 'obligatio praediorum facta per Cornelium Gallicanum ob HS lxxii'. The interest on this
