Alimenta

Alimenta

The alimenta was a social safety net programs in the form of social welfare for the people including the youth. It provided general funds, as well as food and subsidized education.

Roman welfare program that existed from around 98 AD to 272 AD.

The program was supported out of the spoils or "booty" of the Dacian Wars and by a combination of estate taxes and some left over philanthropy, used sometimes to bribe the votes of the people.

According to most modern historians, including Nerva biographers Nathan Elkins and John Grainger, it was initiated by emperor Nerva and expanded by Trajan.

The Alimenta was next to the Temple of Juno Moneta the mint, on the Capitoline Hill in Rome. The Temple of Saturn, in the Forum Romanum, served as the treasury and registry of birth records.

See Temples.

This welfare system had moved the Roman people away from charity into a state run system of legal charity. The free bread of such systems degenerate the character of the people according to Polybius and Plutarch.

John the Baptist and Jesus warned the people of the same ancient precepts of human nature with their condemnation of the Corban of the Pharisees and the covetous practices which make the people merchandise returning them to the bondage of Egypt.

Paul would also warned the people that the table of the state was a snare and a trap, quoting David who knew if you had an appetite for the wages of unrighteousness you should put a knife to your own throat.

The alimenta was subsidized by means of interest payments on loans made by mostly large landowners.

The idea of turning land title into a legal title like in the bondage of Egypt was limited to large tracts, assumed to be more reliable debtors but benefited a very low percentage of potential welfare recipients.

Only one child out of ten was an actual beneficiary and required birth registration.

There was an additional imperial benevolence provided by the Imperial Cult of Rome.

The mortgage scheme was simply a way of making local notables participate. It is possible that the scheme was, to some extent, a forced loan, something that tied unwilling landowners to the imperial treasure in order to make them supply some funds to civic expenses.

The notion of exploiting private landed estate as a means to obtain public revenue was a schemes that was used from time to time in history.

The New Deal of FDR was able to accomplish this at levels Caesar could only dream of.

The senator Pliny had endowed his city of Comum a perpetual right to an annual charge (vectigal) of thirty thousand sestertii on one of his estates in perpetuity even after his death (Pliny's heirs or any subsequent purchaser of the estate being liable), with the rent thus obtained contributing to the maintenance of Pliny's semi-private charitable foundation.

This may have influenced his jealous hatred of Christians.

With such a scheme, Pliny hoped to ensure Italian landowners' acceptance of the burden of borrowing from the alimenta fund attempting to apply some pseudo "moral" pressure which was contradicted Christian morals.