A Mr A.M. Burnham has introduced a clear blueprint and legislative goals intended to lift hundreds of thousands of children out of hardship. One can hardly wait – but for the record, in ad 101 the emperor Trajan reintroduced a system invented by Augustus, of alimenta (‘maintenance, means of livelihood’) for poor children. Perhaps this could hold the fort while Burnham’s legislation for the blueprint, or vice versa, is clarified.
Alimenta worked as follows. The imperial treasury offered loans to farmers against the security of a proportion of their land. These loans were not repayable, but interest on them was charged, though at a lower than usual rate. That interest was diverted into the local community to support poor children.
An inscription from the northern Italian town of Veleia provides an example. Trajan issued a capital sum of 1,044,000 sesterces (ss) out of his personal estate as mortgage-backed loans, distributed across about 50 local estates. Named landowners pledged their land (valued collectively at over 13 million) as collateral. Instead of paying back the principal loan, landowners paid a perpetual 5 per cent annual interest to the local public treasury. This directly financed monthly cash allowances for poor boys and girls to work for them.
We can see the results from the inscription. The scheme raised a total of 55,800ss a year. The 264 boys received 16ss a month, the 35 girls 12ss – very useful, given a labourer’s daily wage was around two to four. Landowners presumably used the children to work on their farms in whatever capacity they wanted them to. This taught them skills and prepared them for adulthood, increased the value of the property and compensated for the annual interest.
This scheme had never been tried before on the scale organised by Trajan. He was rightly very proud of it – coins boast of the RESTITUTIO ITALIAE, the ‘restoration of Italy’. It lasted 174 years, creating a valuable range of communal benefits for farmers, the poor and the state. ‘Ingenious, Sir Trajan!’ ‘Alimentary, my dear Andy.’
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