§ 1. Men, arms, and other things must be discussed, but I shall more suitably transfer these matters to the book on war. Let us now treat the remaining matters, among which the foremost is that the prince make provision for granaries and the grain supply. Hunger subdues every power; want has handed many cities and kingdoms over to the enemy. Yet even in peace there is no firmer defense for a prince than provisions, and nothing is more dangerous than hunger if the prince cannot appease it. One who does not prepare grain and other foods in good time is conquered without a sword. Indeed, he is endangered even in peace: a hungry soldier is useful to no one; a hungry citizen is restrained by no reverence for majesty.
§ 2. The state will therefore establish public granaries and storehouses of grain, wine, and oil. It can do this without great expense if it possesses public fields and if, when grain is cheap, it buys wheat, as Joseph did in Egypt. A distribution of grain is powerful for attracting the common people. By this method Maelius was aiming more effectively at kingship, and would have drawn the Roman Empire to himself by the gift of bread, had the leading men not opposed him. A prince who neglects that opportunity takes little thought for himself.
It is incredible to relate how much grain was stored at Rome. Lipsius treats this beautifully and learnedly in Admiranda, book 2, chapter 10. Distribution of grain at Rome was therefore ancient and was practiced even by the senate itself. In times of scarcity and a restricted grain supply, like a kindly father taking pity on the plebs, the senate sometimes divided grain among them—though not at no price, but for a moderate sum. The tribunes immediately followed and claimed this thoroughly popular measure for themselves, passing various grain laws. Last in this matter, Clodius carried an annona law that the grain which had previously been given to the people for half an as and a third of an as for each modius should be given FREE OF CHARGE. Thus Asconius. This was the origin and afterward the continuation of free grain.
The senate had indeed already employed such a distribution immediately after Catiline’s conspiracy, at Cato’s instigation, but I do not know whether without any price. The matter is related thus in Plutarch, but in words which must be weighed. He says that Gaius Caesar, during his praetorship, had attempted revolution while the people were agitated and unstable because of those Catilinarian disturbances. Cato therefore, in order to forestall him:
ἔπεισε τὴν βουλὴν ἀναλαβεῖν τὸν ἄπορον καὶ ἀνέμητον ὄχλον εἰς τὸ σιτηρέσιον, ἀναλώματος μὲν ὄντος ἐνιαυτῷ χιλίων καὶ διακοσίων καὶ πεντήκοντα ταλάντων.
He persuaded the senate to admit the needy and landless people to the distribution of grain, although the expense was one thousand two hundred and fifty talents. This is thirty million sesterces according to the Roman reckoning; according to ours, seven hundred and fifty thousand Philippics. You therefore see the expenditure made upon this matter in that age.
The institution remained thereafter under the emperors, except that, when during the civil wars the number of recipients had grown beyond measure, Julius Caesar reduced it. Suetonius says concerning him: “From the three hundred and twenty thousand who received grain from the public supply, he reduced the number to one hundred and fifty thousand”; or, if you listen to Dio, to one hundred and sixty thousand, because he says they were reduced by half. The difference is small. But Augustus afterward increased the number and made it two hundred thousand. Did Tiberius also increase it? Although he was very far from being popular, he nevertheless enumerates in the senate, in Tacitus, from which provinces and in how much greater quantity than Augustus he imported the grain supply. Therefore it was to be distributed to more people also, unless I am mistaken.
I have already condemned this type of distribution above. Here I wished only to show that it was always employed for winning the favor of the people. Nor can anyone safely wage war unless provision has been made concerning the grain supply. Caesar Augustus and Antony, because of the hunger of the people, were endangered although they were so much more powerful than Pompey. Dio relates the matter. Then the Romans—because Sardinia was occupied and the maritime region was being harassed—lacked grain. Therefore, when there was an immense famine and they were grievously afflicted by it, they exhorted Caesar and Antony to make peace with Sextus and raised a great clamor for that reason. But when they understood that they were accomplishing nothing, they hastened quickly to kill them. When Caesar perceived this, although his own men had already been wounded, he nevertheless tore his garment and, as a suppliant, began to entreat their good faith and implore their mercy. Antony resisted by employing greater force. At last they were compelled to send envoys to Sextus concerning peace.
Nor was provision made for the city thereafter. For near the end of Augustus’s life there was so great a famine that Caesar himself was compelled to dismiss the crowd of his servants, and a greater one occurred under Claudius, although that Claudian famine was universal.
Therefore defenses against famine must be established in every suitable place, so that, when the fields have been devastated or cultivation impeded, the subjects may live from the stored grain supply. For if a kingdom labors under famine, it will be easily captured. For this reason all fortifications are perishable. Accordingly, if the Spaniard could divert the northern grain from Batavia, he would easily subjugate those dominions—even if he did not cut off all provision, but merely made it difficult for them. For no kingdom is secure in which there is not produced a quantity of crops sufficient to feed its inhabitants.
For this reason Roman strength at home was always weak. For if anyone had made the sea dangerous or brought Africa or Egypt under his dominion and power, the eternal city would have had to perish by hunger. The Roman princes knew that internal evil, and Rome herself acknowledges it in Claudian:
Rome, already fearing destruction and wearied by crops denied her,
Was making her way to the threshold of swift Olympus,
Not with her accustomed countenance, nor as when she apportions laws to Britons
Or subjects trembling Indians to the fasces.
Her voice was feeble, her steps slow, her eyes downcast;
Her cheeks had sunk inward; hungry wasting consumed her arms;
On sick shoulders she scarcely sustained
Her rusting shield; her loosened helmet revealed
Her gray hair, and she dragged a spear full of rust.
When at last she reached heaven and fell at the knees of the Thunderer,
Sorrowful she began complaints such as these:
“If my walls, Jupiter, deserved to be born in order to remain;
If the Sibyl’s prophecies stand unshaken;
If you do not yet despise the Tarpeian citadel,
I come as a suppliant—not that an exultant consul may tread upon Araxes,
Or that the axes of the rostra may press quiver-bearing Susa,
Nor that we may plant eagles in the red sands.
These things, these things you formerly granted us; now I ask only food.
Have mercy, best of fathers, upon Rome, your own nation.
Ward off this final famine. We have satisfied your anger,
If there was any. We have drained what the Getae must lament and the Suebi bewail.
Parthia herself would shudder at my misfortunes.
Why should I recount pestilence and disease, tombs filled
With carnage, and frequent deaths beneath a corrupted sky?
Or the river wandering through roofs and threatening
The highest hills? Submerged, I carried immense ships,
Heard the sound of oars, and experienced the age of Pyrrha.
Alas for me! To what have Latian strength and the city’s power
Fallen? Into what a shadow have we gradually flowed?
Once I flourished through armed peoples and the counsels of the Fathers;
By my counsels I subdued lands and bound humankind with laws;
Victorious, I ran to each sun.
After fierce Caesar transferred the common laws to himself,
Conduct slipped away; and, unaccustomed to our ancestral arts,
I withdrew into the servile bosom of peace.
For so many merits they gave me Libya and the Nile,
So that they might feed the ruling plebs and the warrior senate
With summer fleets, and so that winds from opposite shores
Might fill my granaries in turn.
My safety stood assured: if Memphis should perhaps refuse,
I balanced an Egyptian year with Gaetulian harvests.
I saw crop-bearing ships contend, and far and wide
Punic canvas meet Nilotic sails.
When a Rome equal to me arose, and the divided Dawn assumed
Equal robes, the fields of Egypt
Passed to a new share. Libya remained our only hope,
And scarcely and painfully sustained us,
Carried by the south wind alone and never secure for the future;
Always needy, it demanded the fidelity of wind and year.
This also Gildo has now seized at the close of declining
Autumn. We measure the sea with a scant prayer:
Whether any ship may come, whether perhaps either shame has wrung anything
From our powerful master or plunder has left anything.
We are fed at the decision of a Moor. He boasts not that a debt is repaid,
But that he grants what is his own; and he rejoices to furnish daily
Food as to a maidservant. He weighs life and famine
With barbarian arrogance, exults in the tears of the crowd,
And holds suspended the fate of so great a ruin.
He sells Roman harvests and possesses fields
Acquired by my wounds.”
Every state, therefore, will estimate its strength from its provisions and grain supply: what it possesses at home, what grows there, what is imported from abroad, and whether it can be impeded. Hence it is especially necessary for the Venetian state to possess a grain supply stored for many years. For the entire seacoast and the islands are so exposed to Turkish arms that, even if they cannot easily be occupied and reduced beneath Turkish dominion, they can at least be devastated, burned, and despoiled. Therefore no grain supply can be obtained from them in time of war. Even if they abounded most greatly, navigation can nevertheless easily be closed or, what is sufficient to produce famine, rendered dangerous; for fear of danger restrains merchants, and the prices of merchandise increase with the dangers.
Their exceedingly populous city cannot be fed from the regions subject to it, but consumes food imported from the fields of its neighbors. The wealth of both the state and its individual citizens consists in commerce. If it is removed or diminished, the multitude must necessarily diminish and the city be deserted; for the associations of artisans are maintained by merchants, and, if the merchants’ profits cease, the industry of mechanical works will collapse for lack of a purchaser. Hence, unless provision has been made publicly and privately for the city’s grain supply for several years, it cannot be powerful, however much it may excel in money, soldiers, or fleet. It can nevertheless prepare power if, while it possesses wealth, it keeps grain stored in public granaries for two years and orders individual senators to possess enough for their household for three years, and likewise the richer citizens, while artisans keep enough for two years or one.
The Belgian dominions are pressed by the same difficulty. If the Dane and the Spaniard enter one alliance, if the Pole is offended, if the Swede joins marriages with the Spanish nation, whence will they feed so great a multitude of populous cities? The enemy besets the Rhine; the regions beyond the Meuse are hostile; bread comes from the north. Are there not many means by which that apparent power can be crushed unless they have made provision long beforehand? And that seafaring people would be equal to the Roman people, which said:
Now without honor and needy, it displays the pitiable punishment
Of peace; although plainly surrounded by no enemy,
It endures the crisis of the besieged. Death hangs over me
At every moment, and a few days prescribe
A doubtful allowance of food. Alas, prosperous fates!
Why did you give me seven hills and a crowd
Which could not be fed by a little? I would be happier
With straitened resources; I would prefer to endure the Sabines
And Veii. I passed a shorter age more securely.
My very mass harms me. Would that it were permitted to return
To my ancient limits and the walls of poor Ancus.
The cultivated fields of Etruria and Campania would suffice for me,
Together with the harvest of Quinctius and Curius; when the fatherland asked,
A rustic dictator would bring in his own ears of grain.