¹ Past and Present no. 35 (1966), section IV, reprinted in Finley, M. I. (ed.), Studies in Ancient Society (1974), ch. IVGoogle Scholar; see authorized and revised German translation in H. Schneider (ed.), Zur Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte der späten röm. Republik (1976), which gives some additional bibliography.

² Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists XV (1978), 43 ff.Google Scholar Cf. also my Italian Manpower (1971), ch. XXI, cited as IM. Other works cited by name of author or short title: Berchem, D. van, Les distributions de blé et d'argent à la plébe rom. sous l'empire (1939)Google Scholar; Duncan-Jones, , Economy of the Roman Empire (1974)Google Scholar; Frank, T., Economic Survey of Ancient Rome V (1940)Google Scholar; Bodei Giglioni, G., Lavori pubblici e occupazione (1973)Google Scholar; Hirschfeld, O., Kaiserliche Verwaltungsbeamten (1905)Google Scholar; Meiggs, R., Roman Ostia² (1973)Google Scholar; Henriette Pavis d'Escurac, La préfecture de l'annone (1976); de Robertis, F. M., I Rapporti di Lavoro nel Diritto Romano (1946) (Rapporti)Google Scholar; Lavoro e Lavoratori nel Mondo Romano (1963) (Lavoro) (these two books are the most fully documented works known to me on the subject matter of this paper); de Ruggiero, E., Lo Stato e le opere pubbliche in Roma antica (1925)Google Scholar; Waltzing, J.-P., Etude Historique sur les Corporations professionnelles chez les Romains, 4 vols. (1896–1900)Google Scholar; I have been unable to consult Macqueron, Le Travail des hommes litres dans l'antiquité rom. (1958).

³ Mooney commenting on Suet., Vesp. 8, 5 aptly quoted as parallels Tac., Ann. I, 62; Suet., Nero 19, 2 (cf. Dio LXII, 16. 2), to which Casson's explanation is inapplicable.

⁴ van Berchem, 28 f.; 145 f. In Suet., Aug. 41 we should perhaps read: ‘ac ne minores quidem pueros praeteriit, quamvis non nisi a quinto decimo (MSS: undecimo) aetatis anno accipere consuessent’, assuming that until Augustus only boys who had reached the putative age of puberty were eligible, but that Augustus gave rations to younger boys. Perhaps Trajan simply revived Augustus’ practice (Pliny, Paneg. 25–8; H. Kloft, Liberalitas Principis (1970), 99 n. 72, holds perhaps rightly that Pliny here refers to grants of money, but this will not make much difference, if the same persons received frumentationes and congiaria, see n. 75). Cf. n. 73.

⁵ de Ruggiero, 170, cf. also e.g. Dig. L, 1, 17, 7; 4, 12; 4, 4, 2; 5, 8, 4.

⁶ Dig. XI, 6, 1 pr. (Ulpian): ‘crediderunt veteres … operam beneficii loco (sc. a mensoribus) praeberi et id quod datur ei ad remunerandum dari et inde honorarium appellari’; this assimilated them to advocati, XIX, 2, 38, 1; L, 13, 1, 10; both could receive fees for specific services, distinct from the salaries that might be paid by public authorities to doctors and ‘professors’ of the liberal arts (e.g. Dig. L, 13, 1).

⁷ Dig. XI, 6 passim; note 7, 3 (Ulpian): ‘hoc exemplo etiam adversus architectum actio dari debet qui fefellit; nam et divus Severus adversus architectum et redemptorem actiones dandas decrevit’; if this was a Severan innovation, the actions previously available against an architect must have been ex locato conducto (operis faciundi) or ex stipulatione, which were certainly available against the redemptor: Severus perhaps envisaged a case in which the architect was also redemptor (n. 9). Cf. TLL s.v. mensor A 6.

⁸ Vitruvius 1, 1 is anxious to bring architecture into the category of arts ‘quibus prudentia maior inest’ (Cic, ., de offic. I, 151)Google Scholar, arguing that it requires knowledge of literature, mathematics, history, philosophy, music, law and astronomy, as well as manual dexterity in draftsmanship. Martial V, 56 regards it as a profession for dullards.

⁹ I. Calabi Limentani, Studi sulla società rom. (1958), 174 ff. Architects as redemptores, ibid. (cf. n. 7). See also Gros, P., Aurea Templa (1976), 55 f.Google ScholarContra L. Richardson, AJA LXXXII (1978), 245 f. Cato and Vitruvius do not suggest that gentlemen were their own architects: Cic., Q.f. III, 1, 1 f. shows what they might contribute to design.

¹⁰ Dig. L, 6, 7 (Taruttienus Paternus, lib. I militarium), also for ballistarii; cf. Marsden, E. W., Greek and Roman Artillery, Historical Development (1969)Google Scholar, ch. VIII for some instances. See ILS 2034; 2057; 2421; 2459 (architects); 2058 f.; 5947a (mensores). There were no military engineer officers in the Roman army, certainly not the praefectus fabrum (Kornemann, RE VI, 1920 ff.), as some still suppose.

¹¹ Fabri: see note 29; plasterers, VII, 3, 10; phalangarii, who carried heavy loads: x, 3, 7.

¹² ‘Pascere’ can have a more general connotation than ‘feed’, OLD s.v. 3. Dr de Ste Croix thinks the whole anecdote fictional, as Vespasian could have used such an invention (if workable) for military fortifications, but admits that as Suetonius accepted it, it is at least ben trovato and shows that the plebs could be expected to get pay for public works.

^12a The indexes of CIL V, IX and X reveal six coloni, two saltuarii (slaves), an ergastularius and topiarii (slaves) and a freedman pomarius. There is more information about employees in some imperial villas (Hirschfeld, 137–9).

¹³ Hirschfeld, 282.

¹⁴ Hirschfeld, 205–11; 258–72.

¹⁵ Tac., Ann. III, 31; Dio LIX, 15; Siculus Flaccus 146 L.; CIL VI, 8468 f.; Hirschfeld, 209.

¹⁶ Mommsen, Staatsr. II³ 443 ff., esp. 450 ff. (in 450 n. 3 be is mistaken on CIL XIV, 2922 = ILS 1420, which relates to Praeneste); the most important evidence is Cic., Verr. II 1, 128 ff.; for magisterial probatio see 133 ff. and 140; iudicatio, 130; precedes praediaque, 142–4. The lex operum Puteolana (ILS 5317), the most instructive municipal document, shows that the contractor might receive half the payment due after furnishing sureties and securities. The formula of magistrates: ‘locaverunt … probaverunt’ recurs often in early inscriptions (e.g. ILS 5325); for Rome see ILS 5892; cf. 6089 (Malaca) LXIII. The system survived in the Severan period, see Dig. XXII, 1, 17. 7; L, 8, 3 pr.; 11 pr.–1; 12 pr.; 10, 2, 1.

¹⁷ Degrassi, Inscr. Lat. Liberae Reip. Rom. 465 ( = ILS 5799), cf. 464. In the former document public money is assigned ‘mancupi et operis’; presumably the manceps is a small man, and the state itself pays his workmen; similarly Cato envisages that the land-owner may have to pay operarii brought in by a contractor for olive-picking (de agric 146, 3).

¹⁸ Tac., Ann. XII, 57; Dio LX, 33, 5.

¹⁹ Exceptions: ILS 1347 and 1430 f. Other equestrian officials (Pflaum, Les Carrières Procuratoriennes équestres, 1028 f.) look like assistants of the curators, as in my judgement the procurator aquarum merely (in form) assisted the curator aquarum. On the other hand, so many more procuratores aquarum (Pflaum, 1032) are attested that it may be that the curators of public works were only given such assistants when there was a special need, connected with new construction or major repairs. In any case I do not doubt that such officials, when appointed, and imperial freedmen actually carried out most of the administration. Only under Augustus (ILS 932) has a senatorial curator a title that specifically suggests that he was confined to maintenance work (‘curator aedium sacr. monumentor(um)que public. tuendorum ’). See in general Hirschfeld, 265–72; de Ruggiero, chapters VII, IX and XI (which show how much more is known of Republican than of imperial practice).

²⁰ ILS 5920, cf. CIL VI, 455.

²¹ However, not all quarries were imperial, see Dig. VII, 1, 9, 2 f. and 13, 5 (Ulpian); XVIII, 1, 77 (Javolenus); XXIII, 5, 18 (Javolenus); XXVII, 9, 3, 6–5, 1 (Ulpian and Paul); XLI, 1, 8 (Marcian); L, 16, 77 (Paul).

²² Hirschfeld, 145–80. For penal servitude see S. Mrozek, Eos 1965, 341; Mommsen, Strafr. 949 ff. Nero's order was unusual, cf. Jos., BJ VI, 418; Pliny, Ep. X, 31 f.

²³ Pliny, Ep. VII, 14; Paneg. 37–9; they are indeed still found in Egypt under Pius (P. Ross-Georg II, 26), a fact unknown to me when I challenged Hirschfeld's assumption that Hadrian introduced direct collection in Latomus XXV (1966), 488 f.Google Scholar

²⁴ S. J. de Laet, Portorium (1949), Index s.v. conductores, publicains.

²⁵ The curatores aquarum had certain judicial powers (Frontinus 127 and 129) and no doubt iudicatio in regard to contracts they let out.

²⁶ For instance they are not mentioned in Dig. XXXIX, 4 nor in any other title.

²⁷ Conductio ‘in pedes mensurasue’: Dig. XIX, 2, 36 (Florentinus); ‘in singulas operas’: 2, 51, 1 (Javolenus; it is not explicit that the opus faciendum is a building). Note 2, 30, 3 (Alfenus): ‘Qui aedem faciendam locaverat, in lege dixerat: “quoad in opus lapidis opus erit, pro lapide et manupretio dominus redemptori in pedes singulos septem (sestertios septenos, Mommsen) dabit ” …’, cf. Cato, de agric 14, 3; 16 for the client supplying material. The handiwork of different groups of craftsmen and the division of the work into different sectors have been discerned in the Colosseum (Boethius, A. and Perkins, J. B. Ward, Etruscan and Roman Architecture (1970), 222Google Scholar). Contract for transport of columns: Dig. XIX 2, 25, 7 (Gaius), cf. Cic., Verr. II, 1, 147. Otho was supposed to be employing several contractors for his private house (Tac., Hist. I, 27).

²⁸ CIL VI, 9034: ‘Ti. Claudius Aug. 1. Onesimus redemptor operum Caesar, quinq. coll. fabr. tignua lustri XIIX’ (A.D. 79–83); Waltzing II, 118.

²⁹ Dig. L, 16, 235: “‘fabros tignarios’ dicimus non eos dumtaxat qui tigna dolarent sed omnes qui aedificarent”, cf. XLI, 1, 7, 10: ‘appellatione tigni omnes materiae significantur, ex quibus aedificia fiunt8 (Gaius); VIII, 5, 8, 1 (Ulpian). Thus Varro's saeptorum genus fabrile may be constructed of stone, brick or earth (RR 1, 14, 1 and 4), and while Vitruvius holds that the early fabri built in wood (IV, 2, 2), he speaks of fabri = skilled builders who work in all kinds of material (VI, 8, 9 f.). For fabri as builders see also Plaut., Miles 919; Cato, de agric. 14, 1 (for a villa); Cic., Nat. Deor., III, 65; Seneca, Benef. VI, 15, 8; Nat. Qu. VI, 30, 4; Colum. I pr. 4; Gell. XIX, 10, 2; Dig. VI, 1, 67 (Scaevola). Frank, ESAR V, treating fabri as carpenters (see his index), has consequently nothing to say of the building trade, which must have been the most important of all trades at Rome. In Dig. XVIII, 1, 26, 8 the faber, not necessarily a builder, who buys and trains a slave, is a master; in Cato, de agric. 21, 5 and Seneca, Benef. VI, 15, 8 he earns a daily wage. Waltzing II, 115–24 lists other collegia concerned in public works at Rome, e.g. structores (‘id est, aedificatores’, CJ X, 64, 1). A lapidarius and a tector are employees in Dig. XIII, 1, 5, 7; IX, 2, 27, 35.

³⁰ Waltzing I, 351; II, 118.

³¹ In ILS 7224 f.; CIL VI, 9405 only one or two officers give filiation. Cf. Meiggs, 319 for fabri tignarii at Ostia.

³² Meiggs, 317 and 226.

³³ Dig. XLV, 1, 137, 3. Venuleius: W. Kunkel. Herkunft u. soziale Stellung der röm. Juristen ² (1967), 181 ff.

³⁴ Juvenal the Satirist (1954), 8.

³⁵ JRS LXVII (1977), 27 ff.

³⁶ However, Dig. XLV, 1, 54, 1; 2, 5 perhaps refer only to operae libertorum, cf. n. 40.

³⁷ Variation of customary rules in locatio conductio rei by specific agreement: Dig. XIX, 2, 9, 2 with 15, 2; 13, 11; 19, 2. Gaius, in relation to leases of land, writes: ‘conductor omnia secundum legem conductionis facere debet’ (ibid. 25, 3); numerous texts indeed prove that in default of specific agreement general rules embodying current practice determined the liability of the parties; these might be fixed by local customs (CJ IV, 65, 8 (A.D. 231)), but it seems to be a new development when Diocletian pronounced that the lex itself was only binding ‘si nihil specialiter exprimatur contra consuetudinem regionis’ (ibid. 19). None of the texts relates specifically to locatio conductio operarum, but the trichotomy of locatio conductio (rei, operis faciendi, operarum) is modern (Schulz, Class. Roman Law (1951), 542 f.), and the same principles should apply.

³⁸ Dig. XXXVIII, 1, 1; 3, 1; XL, 7, 20, 5, cf. de Robertis, Rapporti 24; CJ IV, 65, 22 (A.D. 293).

³⁹ De agric. 5, 4: ‘operarium mercenarium politorem diutius eundem ne habeat die’; punctuation and sense are disputed. For hire of operarii cf. 4 and probably 1, 3.

⁴⁰ Dig. XXXVIII, 1, 9, 1; 23 pr.; 25, 2 (locatio); 27.

⁴¹ Dig. XXXVIII, 1, 50, 1 (Neratius): ‘non solum autem libertum, sed etiam alium quemlibet operas (evidently gratuitous) edentem alendum aut satis temporis ad quaestum alimentorum relinquendum’ (cf. ibid. 18–20). Cf. XLVI, 1, 56 pr. (Paul): ‘si quis pro eo, qui libertus non esset et operas praestaturum se iurasset, fideiussor erit, non tenebitur’. Could such a person be the iudicatus (Appendix 4)? It is probably such gratuitous operae to which we may refer Paul's dictum (XXXIII, 2, 3): ‘hominis quoque liberi operae legari possunt, sicut locari et in stipulationem deduci’.

⁴² Dig. VII, 1, 25, 2 (Ulpian); XIX, 2, 60, 7 (Labeo); XXXIII, a, 2 (Paul), rejected by T. Mayer-Maly, Locatio Conductio, 123. Cf. Crook, J. A., Law and Life of Rome (1967), 187–91Google Scholar.

⁴³ viz. 9, 1; 42; 43; 45, 1; 48, 1; 60, 7 (slaves); 19, 9 (free man); 26 and 38 pr. (of general import).

⁴⁴ XXXVIII, 1, 2, cf. Lenel, , Edictum Perpetuum³ (1956), 338 ff.Google Scholar The difficulties in interpretation do not concern my argument.

⁴⁵ XXXVIII, 1, 8 pr. cf. 7, 5.

⁴⁶ ibid. 23, 1; 26, 1; 39, 1, cf. next note.

⁴⁷ XXXVII, 14, 6, 1; XL, 9, 32, 2.

⁴⁸ XLV, 1, 54, 1.

⁴⁹ XXXVIII, 1, 8, 1; 37, 8; 44.

⁵⁰ ibid. 7, 5: librarius (cf. 49), nomenclator, calculator, histrio, alterius voluptatis artifex; 23 pr.; 24: faber (cf. 6 and 9, 1: fabriles operae) and pictor; 25–7: medicus and pantomimus; 42: cerdo; 45: negotiator vestiarius; crafts generally: 38 and 50.

⁵¹ Of nearly 80 actores and vilici recorded in the indexes of CIL v, ix and x almost all are slaves, as the reader of the agronomists would expect.

⁵² CIL III p. 948, all transcribed by de Robertis, Rapporti 151 f., two in FIRA III no. 150; see especially J. Carcopino, Rév. de Phil. 1937, 101 ff.; V. Arangio-Ruiz, St. et Docum. Hist. Iuris, 1939, 621 ff. (who showed that the workers were free men.)

⁵³ Dig. xix, 2, 19, 9; ix, 1, 3 (Gaius); 3, 7 (Gaius); 2, 5, 3 and 2, 7, 1 (Ulpian).

⁵⁴ Chapters vii and xx f.

⁵⁵ CJ. iv, 65, 22. Cf. Jones, A. H. M., The Roman Economy (1974), ch. xxiGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁶ II, 122.

⁵⁷ R. Duncan-Jones, 127–31. The Chronographer of 354 (Mommsen, , Chron. Minora I p. 146)Google Scholar says that Nerva provided a funeraticium of 250 HS for the urban plebs. Presumably, like congiaria (n. 75), this went to the grain recipients. It is not clear that it continued to be a regular grant. Members of collegia had somewhat similar burial allowances which were provided from their own monthly contributions. Some of them were able to build columbaria (which the rich might also construct for their freedmen and slaves); in these columbaria the ollae could be bought and sold (RE IV, 593 f.). Free persons in only casual employment could hardly have afforded to make such provision for their remains, which must still have been thrown into public puticuli (Varro, LL v, 25; Horace, Sat. I, 8, 8–10).

⁵⁸ H. Gummerus, RE IX, 1496 f.; IM 386 f.

⁵⁹ Loane, H. J., Industry and Commerce of the City of Rome (1938), 64 n. 14Google Scholar; ‘at Patavium, where large woollen mills are known to have been located (Str. 5, 1, 7), there are no epigraphical records of the slave weavers’. Note W. O. Moeller, The Wool Trade of Ancient Pompeii (1976). The dearth of records for textiles in South Italy is thus not as significant as IM 357; 362 f.; 367 f. may suggest. The workers may have been mainly slaves and freed (men or women).

⁶⁰ G. Rickman, Roman Granaries and Store Buildings (1971), 8; 11; 79; 86, cf. Waltzing II, 59 f.; Meiggs, 278–98 and ch. 14; Mommsen, Staatsr.³ I, 366. I wonder if they, or the navicularii, employed dockhands and porters.

⁶¹ Frank lists the imperial buildings in chs. II and III.

⁶² Friedländer, L., Sittengesch. II ⁹ (1920), 327 f.Google Scholar (Eng. tr. II, 185 ff.).

⁶³ Diod. xiv, 18, to which Giglioni p. 29 called my attention. We are told nothing of the labour employed on Dionysius' other public works (xv, 13, 5); his hiring of skilled craftsmen for rearmament (xiv, 41 f.) is another matter.

⁶⁴ F. Rakob, ap. Zanker, P., Hellenismus in Mittelitalien (1976), 372Google Scholar.

⁶⁵ We could simply assume that slave-owners understood this, but Cato, de agric., 39, 2 cf. 2, 2–3; 5, 2, offers confirmation; hence the landowner had not enough hands of his own for the various harvests or other major operations (building: Cato, de agric. 14; pastinatio: Colum. III, 13, 4 and 12; Ulpian, Dig. XLIII, 24, 15, I) and had to hire extra workers or let out the operations to contractors: Cato 144–7; Varro, RR I, 17; Columella III, 3, 13 and 21, 10. For such casual work free men were inevitably employed, as Varro makes explicit, cf. Cic., de orat. III, 46. Varro (loc. cit., cf. I, 4, 3) also recommends use of mercennarii on pestilential land; by the same token urban employers may have preferred to hire workers for dangerous operations, e.g. in building.

⁶⁶ Loane, op. cit. (n. 59), 79–85.

⁶⁷ Levick, B. M., Tiberius the Politician (1976), 123CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶⁸ See n. 60 and esp. Meiggs, 279–82; Pavis d'Escurac, 229–31. The famous relief which represents unloading of cargo (Meiggs, Plate xxvi a) casts no light on the legal status of the docker or porter.

⁶⁹ Festus 32 L; Cic., Parad. 23; Brut. 257 (cf. de orat. II, 40, associating ‘remigem aliquem aut baiulum’); Tusc. Disp. III, 77; Gell. v, 3, I; Petron. 117, etc.

⁷⁰ van Berchem, 26–54, cf. IM 382.

⁷¹ Pavis d'Escurac, ch. xi, esp. 260 ff.

⁷² Cato gave his slaves 3–5 modii, according to the heaviness of the work they had to do, plus wine and salt and olives or oil, fish-pickle and vinegar (de agric. 56–8). Republican legionaries received only 3 modii (Polybius vi, 39), but perhaps rather more supplementary food.

⁷³ IM 382; 387 f. Both Suet., Aug. 41, 2 and Dio LI, 21, 3 refer to boys getting congiaria, but Pliny, Paneg. 25–7 shows that when Trajan apparently reduced the qualifying age, the boys were enrolled on lists (25, 3; 26, 3) as entitled to distributions both of grain and cash (27, I), cf. n. 75. For very young boys as recipients see ILS 6063; 6066 f.; 6069. The anecdote in Suet., Aug. 46 may support my deduction from Paneg. loc. cit., that relatively few among the plebs frumentaria had children born in freedom, but more will at least have had wives, and females other than widows do not seem to have benefited before Marcus' time.

⁷⁴ Duncan-Jones, R., Chiron vi (1976), 241Google Scholar misunderstood my point.

⁷⁵ See, e.g. van Berchem, 127–30.

⁷⁶ Rostovtzeff, RE IV, 875 f. Marquardt, , Röm. Staatsverwaltung II ², 136 f.Google Scholar conveniently tabulated the evidence of die Chronographer of 354 and other texts, but more is known from coins (from Hadrian ‘liberalitates’ are numbered: Hadrian gave seven in twenty-one years, Pius nine in twenty-three, Marcus eight in sixteen from 161 to 177, and Cormmodus seven between 180 and probably 189) and from tesserae (Rostovtzeff, Röm. Bleitesserae (1905) 10–42). The Chronographer of 354 (n. 57), 145 f. is seldom aware of more than one per reign; if the sums he names in such cases all relate to the accession distributions, and not at times to the total largess of the reign, there is an enormous increase in scale from 75–100 denarii in the first century to 650 (Trajan), 1,000 (Hadrian), 800 (Pius), 850 (Marcus and Commodus) and 1,100 (Severus); I am uneasy about this hypothesis, since smaller sums appear for the shorter reigns in the early third century (e.g. 400 for Caracalla and 600 for Alexander Severus), and I suspect that we may have totals of largess, not necessarily accurate; in any case it seems evident that emperors were more liberal from Trajan's time and especially from Hadrian's. Oil: Pavis d'Escurac, 188–201; the praefectura annonae was concerned earlier with ensuring a supply of oil for the market.

⁷⁷ Friedländer (n. 62) I⁹, 223–32 (Eng. tr. I, 195 ff.).

⁷⁸ Dig. xxxiv, I. A bequest of alimenta to freedmen was construed to include ‘cibaria et vestitus et habitatio … quia sine his ali corpus non potest’ (Javolenus, ibid. 6), though a testator might provide for food alone to be given (Ulpian, ibid. 21), or specifically require clothing, etc., to be supplied (e.g. Scaevola, ibid. 17). Such bequests were not limited of course to freedmen.

⁷⁹ Life and Leisure in Ancient Rome (1969), 267–70.

⁸⁰ Conquerors and Slaves (1978), 107, n. 19.

⁸¹ JRS LII (1962), 70, where I probably underrated the extent of immigration before grain was distributed free.

⁸² Watson, J. Steven, Reign of George III (1960), 527 f.Google Scholar

⁸³ In Gnomon L (1978), 550 f. H. Beister justly criticized her book (n. I) for requiring specific evidence and setting aside considerations of probability.

⁸⁴ She also adduces Jos., AJ xx, 219–22, which Casson, n. 27, interprets as wholly exceptional.

⁸⁵ Aug. 28, 3, cf. Caes. 44, I; in general, he records imperial contributions merely as instances of liberality or prodigality (Tib. 47; Gaius 21; Claud. 20; Nero 19 and 31; Otho 7, I; Vesp. 9; Dom. 5), occasionally remarking on their utility.

⁸⁶ De Offic. II, 52–60, inadequately treated by Giglioni, 189.

⁸⁷ Giglioni fails to notice (p. 10) that the theoric fund of the fourth century, which Demades could call the cement of the democracy (Plut., Mor. 1011 B), was largely used for public works, see, e.g. Cawkwell, G. L., JHS LXXXIII (1963), 56 f.Google Scholar; G. E. M. de Ste Croix, CR N.S. 14 (1964), 191. Her own view that Pericles' aim was to put money in circulation and to raise the general level of prosperity by the ‘multiplier effect’, for which there is also no documentation, seems to me much more anachronistic, involving sophisticated economic theory. For recent scepticism on Plut., Per. 12 see Andrewes, A., JHS xcviii (1978), 1 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; I am not persuaded by his view on Plutarch's source, and wonder how the thetic rowers earned their living when not in the fleet.

⁸⁸ I suggested this in Social Conflicts in the Roman Republic (1971), pp. 58; 63; 86; 144; 146.

⁸⁹ Plut., C. Gr. 6, 3 f. (technitai); App., BC I, 23; iv, 41 (cheirotechnai).

⁹⁰ Giglioni notes (98) that there was no Via Sempronia and that no milestones refer to Gracchus. But Degrassi prints in ILLRP texts of only twelve Italian milestones of Republican date, at least six of which do not refer to the original author of the road concerned (his note to 450 cites two other milestones commemorating the author of the Via Aemilia, but this does not much affect the picture). Gracchus may well have rebuilt parts of existing roads, an ever recurring need, and Giglioni's hesitancy in accepting the testimony of Plutarch and Appian is quite unjustified.

⁹¹ For criticisms of Boren's, H. C. view (Am. Hist. Rev. 63 (1957/1958), 890–902CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reprinted in Seager, R., Crisis of the Roman Republic (1969)Google Scholar) that urban unemployment helps to explain Ti. Gracchus' initiative see Crawford, M. H., Roman Republican Coinage (1974), 636 cf. 699Google Scholar; F. Coarelli, PBSR XLV (1977), 1 ff. Coarelli regards the Gracchan period as one of ‘extraordinary activity’ in public building. This does not exclude intermittent employment crises. If we assume with Crawford that new issues of coinage were directly related to public expenditure in the years of issue, the cost of public buildings, especially the Aqua Marcia, no doubt explains the size of issues between 146 and 136; Gracchus became tribune in Dec. 134, and one or two years is a long time for an unemployed labourer.

⁹² Some of the public works I have in mind were outside Rome and would no doubt have given employment to citizens living in the country or in small towns; however, the poor at Rome could also have gone out to labour on them, as they could have supplied many of the seasonal labourers for harvesting operations; in the old days Londoners would pick the Kent hops.

⁹³ Tac., Hist. I, 4, 3; 78, 2; 11, 95, I Suet., Otho 7, who significantly records that Otho proposed to spend 50 million HS on the completion of the Golden House.

⁹⁴ I am indebted for sundry points to G. E. M. de Ste Croix, G. E. Rickman and members of the editorial committee.