Eastern Alimenta and an Inscription of Attaleia

Abstract

A characteristic phenomenon of the High Empire, though it is found both earlier and later, is the alimentary scheme, whereby foundations established by emperors or private persons provide a kind of family allowance for the children of free-born but not wealthy parents. Though such schemes may well have had Hellenistic antecedents, the earliest known example is from Julio-Claudian Italy, where T. Helvius Basila, a senator from Atina, leaves 400,000 sesterces to his fellow-citizens ‘ut liberis eorum ex reditu, dum in aetatem pervenirent, frumentum et postea sestertia singula milia darentur’.In the second century, probably beginning with Nerva, alimentary schemes become part of the system of imperial benefactions, and their workings are attested for many cities of Italy by inscriptions and by letters of the younger Pliny.