are paid out for permanent improvements, and
the running expenses of the municipality. We have just been looking at the
second class of expenditures, and our brief examination of it shows
clearly enough that the ancient city took upon its shoulders only a small
part of the burden which a modern municipality assumes. It will be
interesting now to see how far the municipal outlay for running expenses
was supplemented by private generosity, and to find out the extent to
which the cities were indebted to the same source for their permanent
improvements. A great deal of light is thrown on these two questions by
the hundreds of stone and bronze tablets which were set up by donors
themselves or by grateful cities to commemorate the gifts made to them.
The responsibility which the rich Roman felt to spend his money for the
public good was unequivocally stated by the poet Martial in one of his
epigrams toward the close of the first century of our era. The speaker in
the poem tells his friend Pastor why he is striving to be rich--not that
he may have broad estates, rich appointments, fine wines, or troops of
slaves, but "that he may give and build for the public good" ("ut donem,
Pastor, et aedificem"), and this feeling of stewardship found expression in
a steady outpouring of gifts in the interests of the people.

The practice of giving may well have started with the town officials. We
have already noticed that in Rome, under the Republic, candidates for
office, in seeking votes, and magistrates, in return for the honors paid
them, not infrequently spent large sums on the people. In course of time,
in the towns throughout the Empire this voluntary practice became a legal
obligation resting on local officials. This fact is brought out in the
municipal charter of Urso,[95] the modern Osuna, in Spain. Half of this
document, engraved on tablets, was discovered in Spain about forty years
ago, and makes a very interesting contribution to our knowledge of
municipal life. A colony was sent out to Urso, in 44 B.C., by Julius
Caesar, under the care of Mark Antony, and the municipal constitution of
the colony was drawn up by one of these two men. In the seventieth
article, we read of the duumvirs, who were the chief magistrates: "Whoever
shall be duumvirs, with the exception of those who shall have first been
elected after the passage of this law, let the aforesaid during their
magistracy give a public entertainment or plays in honor of the