Giving away free meals to the people was a common gesture of the Roman elite. From the third century onwards, these communal meals gradually disappeared, but it was not entirely clear why. Until now.
Wealthy Romans organized and paid for free meals for the people on several occasions. For example, as a thank you after the elections, in exchange for placing a statue, on their birthday or as a commemoration after death. But this was not a custom everywhere in the Roman Empire and at some point its popularity waned.
Historian Shanshan Wen obtained his doctorate this week at Leiden University for his research into community meals in the Western Roman Empire in the first four centuries of our era. She looked at the locations within the empire where meals were organized and found an explanation for the disappearance of this precious benefactor.
Featured by the editors
MedicineWhat are the microplastics doing in my sunscreen?!
AstronomySun, sea and science
BiologyExpedition to melting land
Inscriptions
It was known that these free banquets for citizens were frequent in the Italian, Spanish and North African areas, but it was not clear why exactly there. Wen discovered the reason while studying 349 stone inscriptions dealing with charity in the form of public meals. The researcher is the first to have examined and compared the inscriptions on this scale.
Wen argues that Romans were charitable in different ways throughout their empire. In the Mediterranean, for example, the local elite within a particular city were very much focused on each other. They tried to outdo each other in honor and prestige. In addition, it was the custom in these areas for the rich to dedicate themselves to their city. Free meals for the people were part of this.
In the north of the empire, on the other hand, for example in our areas or present-day England, inscriptions about free meals did not occur at all, Wen discovered:“I think a different political situation in the north is the explanation. In Britain, for example, local power was vested in a small group, who probably felt the need to compete with neighboring settlements rather than each other. That is why they had imposing public buildings built in their city instead of spending their money on meals for the residents.”
Elite getting richer
Wen argues that organizing public banquets was a holdover from the time of the Republic (until 27 BC), a time when citizens chose those in power and had to be placated. The historian therefore found the reason for the disappearance of the free meal in the Mediterranean in the changing position of the elites within their city. The popular assemblies for the election of the local magistrates lost more and more importance and influence. The wealthier elite began to divide the official jobs more and more among themselves. To reinforce this growing social hierarchy and to show citizens that they still value the community, the elite organized free meals for them, according to Wen.
At the banquets, the elite initially only invited men who were eligible to vote and councilors. In the later centuries, when suffrage no longer meant much, women, children and residents without official citizenship were also allowed to join. So whoever fell under the community expanded. Wen shows from the inscriptions that the benefactors themselves were also citizens of the city for which they organized charity. Giving away expensive banquets no longer earned them voters, but they did gain social status.
Women were not only allowed to eat with them, female members of the elite also organized public meals themselves, together with male relatives or alone. Local politics increasingly became a family affair, and according to Wen, it was generally accepted that wealthy women do their part. Wen:“Through charity, these women reinforced the social position of their families within the city and the legitimacy of their rule.”
Hand on the cut
From the late third and early fourth centuries, Wen saw a sharp decline in the number of mentions of public meals in the inscriptions. She thinks new career opportunities within the immense and bureaucratic empire played a part in this:they separated local elites from their communities to pursue careers elsewhere. You no longer gained social status by holding local offices and spending your money on charities in your city, so why should you?