s of producers at a few centres where it could be grown most
cheaply--Sicily, Spain and Africa. The Italian farmer had to turn his
attention to other produce--the cultivation of the olive and the vine,
and cattle and pig rearing. The greater the extension of the system
the more impossible was the regeneration of Rome. The Roman citizen
might well say that he was out of work, for, so far as the land was
concerned, the means of obtaining a living were placed out of his
reach. While not yet unfitted for the country by life in the town, he
at least could not "return to the land."

5. The method was the outcome of distress and political hopelessness.
Yet the rich also adopted it in distributing their private largess.
Cicero (_De Off._ ii. 16) writes as though he recognized its evil; but
though he expresses his disapprobation of the popular shows upon which
the _aediles_ spent large sums, he argues that something must be done
"if the people demand it, and if good men, though they do not wish it,
assent to it." Thus in a guarded manner he approves a distribution of
food--a free breakfast in the streets of Rome. One bad result of the
_annona_ was that it encouraged a special and ruinous form of
charitable munificence.

The sportula.

The _sportula_ was a form of charity corresponding to the _annona
civica_. Charity and poor relief run on parallel lines, and when the one
is administered without discrimination, little discrimination will
usually be exercised in the other. It was the charity of the patron of
the chiefs of the clan-families to their clients. Between them it was
natural that a relation, partly hospitable, partly charitable, should
grow up. The clients who attended the patron at his house were invited
to dine at his table. The patron, as Juvenal describes him, dined
luxuriously and in solitary grandeur, while the guests put up with what
they could get; or, as was usual under the empire, instead of the dinner
(_coena recta_) a present of food was given at the outer vestibule of
the house to clients who brought with them baskets (_sportula_) to carry
off their food, or even charcoal stoves to keep it warm. There was
endless trickery. The patron (or almoner who acted for him) tried to
identify the applicant, fearing lest he might get the dole under a false
name; and at each mansion was kept a list of persons, male and female,
entitled to receive the allowance. "The pilferer grab