The New Deal in Old Rome

APPENDIX I

CHRONOLOGY OF ROMAN NEW DEAL MEASURES AND OTHER ECONOMIC EXPERIMENTS

367 B.C. — Licinius Stolo: moratorium on debts; Small Holdings Act; Farm-Labour Act.

357 B.C. — Maximum interest rate set at 8 per cent.

352 B.C. — Government Land Bank; Farm Debt Conciliation Committee.

342 B.C. — Interest abolished to favour debtors; law soon ignored.

217 B.C. — Monetary devaluation to meet financial stringency in second war with Carthage.

133 B.C.–121 B.C. — The Gracchi: Resettlement Administration (R.A.); Public Works Administration (P.W.A.); Ever Normal Granary; two-price system for wheat, sold by the government at 32 cents a bushel, considerably below the market price, to those willing to stand in line. (For history of cheap wheat and wheat dole, see below.)

90 B.C.–86 B.C. — Frozen credits from civil war in Italy and war in Asia Minor; panic from collapse of Asiatic stocks and overspeculation; currency devalued and debts scaled down 75 per cent.

63 B.C.–61 B.C. — Severe stringency from indebtedness caused by wild speculation. Flight of gold, loans called. Relieved by embargo on gold exports and cheap credits offered by Rome’s J. P. Morgan; followed by easy money made possible by gold and silver spoils from Asia.

49 B.C.–44 B.C. — Julius Cæsar; panic in Rome when Cæsar crosses Rubicon; flight of capital; collapse in real estate. Remedies: debts scaled down on basis of pre-war values; Resettlement Administration; 80,000 taken off relief and settled away from Rome; relief cut in half with means test (320,000 to 150,000); anti-hoarding measures, with compulsory investment in Italian land; P.W.A. work on roads, public buildings, reclamation projects.

29 B.C.–9 B.C. — Augustus: extensive P.W.A.; large soldier bonuses; easy-money policy from spoils of Egypt and large coinage of gold and silver from government mines; inflationary activity with high prices; relief rolls, which had expanded after Cæsar’s death, cut from 320,000 to 200,000.

9 B.C.–A.D. 33 — Augustus and Tiberius: public spending cut, with funds exhausted and coinage reduced by 95 per cent; Tiberius attempts to balance budget without raising taxes; deflationary hard times culminating in panic of A.D. 33; collapse of land values; mortgages called. Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (H.O.L.C.) set up with loans for three years without interest to real-estate owners.

91 — Domitian: Agricultural Adjustment Administration (A.A.A.), half of provincial vineyards destroyed to stop overproduction of wine.

97–106 — Nerva and Trajan: Farm Credit Administration (F.C.A.), with loans to farmers at half the market rate; government aid to children of poor families; senators required to invest one third of their property in Italian land.

117–211 — Hadrian and successors: extravagant spending on public works by central government and cities, followed later by heavy expenditures for wars, exhausting reserves and tax resources.

212–284 — Heavy spending continues on army, bureaucracy, and extension of dole; military anarchy combining with ruinous taxes and inflation to demoralize business and break down the middle class.

284–476 — Diocletian and successors: increasing taxation; inflation from overvalued currency with skyrocketing prices; price- and wage-control; totalitarian state; end of Western Empire.

CHEAP WHEAT AND THE DOLE

123 B.C. — Wheat sold at 32 cents a bushel, considerably below the market price.

103 B.C. — Proposed reduction to 4 cents a bushel; probably annulled.

  82 B.C. — Cheap wheat distribution abolished by Sulla.

  78 B.C. — Wheat again sold at 32 cents a bushel.

  58 B.C. — Wheat furnished free as a dole.

  46 B.C. — Relief rolls reduced by Cæsar from 320,000 to 150,000, mounting again after his death.

    2 B.C. — Rolls reduced by Augustus from 320,000 to 200,000.

274 A.D. — Aurelian: Relief extended, with bread substituted for wheat and addition of free pork, olive oil, and salt. Right to relief made hereditary.

327 — Right of relief attached to new houses by Constantine to encourage building in new capital of Constantinople.

DEVALUATION OF DENARIUS

(Approximate Dates)