STARVATION IN ANCIENT ROME

By: Sophie Argus

THE PROBLEM

Countless Romans were experiencing starvation. Many of the people could not afford food and depended on the bread and circuses program, which was becoming harder and harder for the government to maintain.

ANCIENT ROME RESEARCH

Food shortage in Rome was due mainly to weather damage and flooding (Rome’s location near the Tiber river put them at great risk of floods)

Many land owners chose to have slaves work on their farms, which put many free men out of work leaving countless families without money for much food

Inflation in Rome caused food prices to go up, making it that much harder for people to buy food

The bread and circuses program allowed people in need to receive daily rations of grain from the government, but as the amount of poor people grew, this program became incredibly difficult to manage

One of the reasons that the problem of starvation was so hard to solve was because of the upper class. Many of the citizens who actually had the money to live luxurious lifestyles did not consider starvation to be much of a problem, so they did not give much of an effort towards helping the people in need

The upper class in Rome often ate large feasts filled with all different kinds of foods, while the lower class was struggling to survive off of the bread and circuses program

CURRENT STARVATION RESEARCH

Today, on the African continent, nearly 1 in 4 humans is malnourished, in Latin America almost 1 in every 8 people goes to bed hungry, in Asia and the Pacific, 28% of the population borders starvation.

Throughout the world, 1 out of every 6 people do not eat enough food to be healthy and have an active lifestyle

Every year somewhere between 40 and 60 million people die every year from starvation or hunger related diseases, many of these people are children

A current solution that is being used, especially in Haiti, is a food called "Medika Mamba, " an energy dense food similar to peanut butter that is easy to make store, preserve, and distribute. This food is made to ensure Haitian children that they will survive childhood.

One theory is that food is not the problem, the problem is how we are distributing it. For example, 2008 set a record in terms of harvest, and had the most food produced than ever before in history, so clearly the amount of food may not be the problem, the problem is that not every has access to it.

Some ideas of why world hunger is such a large problem at this point are that oil costs are making it more expensive to grow, harvest, and distribute food. Another theory is that the droughts and hurricanes have destroyed crops around the world and limited food, but only in certain areas of the world.

Hunger does not just weaken people. It can lead desperate people to commit crimes and put other people in danger in order to get food for their families, therefor, starvation is a problem and danger even to people who are not directly affected by it.

Countless organizations have been created throughout the world to try to solve world hunger.

ONE OUT OF MANY EXAMPLES OF HUNGER ORGANIZATIONS

THE SOLUTION

In my opinion, starvation in Rome all comes down to two main problems. The first one being the lack of help from the upper class, and the second one being the fact that Rome’s government could no longer maintain the service of giving the people in need free rations of grain daily. (part of the bread and circuses service) At the time, Rome did not know what they could possibly do to fix these problems.

The first thing that I would suggest to the Roman emperor is to set a goal. The world today has set several goals as to when they hope to have their problems solved. I feel that having a goal set for starvation in Rome would give the people some sense of a deadline, which would further motivate the people to take action and do what they can to solve the problem.

Next, the government could start an organization for people who are interested in helping out. The organization could collect donations of money or food, which would be used strictly towards solving starvation. The organization would be non-profit, but would not cost much money to operate.

An additional option could be that the government would create a welfare system such as the United States has today, that basically taxes the upper class citizens more than the lower class, and use the extra money to support their free grain program.