iminals. Finally, it became hereditary,
and it is an amusing but pathetic thing to find that this honor, so highly
prized in the early period, became in the end a form of serfdom.

We have been looking at the effects of private generosity on official
life. Its results for the private citizen are not so clear, but it must
have contributed to that decline of independence and of personal
responsibility which is so marked a feature of the later Empire. The
masses contributed little, if anything, to the running expenses of
government and the improvement of the city. The burdens fell largely upon
the rich. It was a system of quasi-socialism. Those who had, provided for
those who had not--not merely markets and temples, and colonnades, and
baths, but oil for the baths, games, plays, and gratuities of money. Since
their needs were largely met by others, the people lost more and more the
habit of providing for themselves and the ability to do so. When
prosperity declined, and the wealthy could no more assist them, the end
came.

The objects for which donors gave their money seem to prove the
essentially materialistic character of Roman civilization, because we must
assume that those who gave knew the tastes of the people. Sometimes men
like Pliny the Younger gave money for libraries or schools, but such gifts
seem to have been relatively infrequent. Benefactions are commonly
intended to satisfy the material needs or gratify the desire of the
people for pleasure.

Under the old regime charity was unknown. There were neither almshouses
nor hospitals, and scholars have called attention to the fact that even
the doles of corn which the state gave were granted to citizens only. Mere
residents or strangers were left altogether out of consideration, and they
were rarely included within the scope of private benevolence. In the
following chapter, in discussing the trades-guilds, we shall see that even
they made no provision for the widow or orphan, or for their sick or
disabled members. It was not until Christianity came that the poor and the
needy were helped because of their poverty and need.

Some Reflections on Corporations and Trades-Guilds

In a recent paper on "Ancient and Modern Imperialism," read before the
British Classical Association, Lord Cromer, England's late consul-general
in Egypt, notes certain points of resemblance between the English and the
Roman methods of dealing with alien peoples. With the Greeks no s