Glossop Guild  for  enquiring minds

Rome is one of the few pre-modern states that attempted to create a working logistics system of a city of over a million inhabitants.  This was not out of a feeling of charity, but because food shortages translated straight into political unrest in the capital, which endangered the ruling families.  So, instead they created on the one hand a carefully monitored dole system that provided 1000,000 male Roman citizens with grain (and later oil and ham) on a monthly basis.  The system continued in place for 400 years.  In addition to this they also created a public/private partnership that allowed huge amounts of subsidised grain to be brought from Egypt, North Africa and Sicily to Rome where it was stored and released bit by bit as the need arose, creating a guaranteed affordable food staple that was always available.  Organising this is a gargantuan task involving specialised harbours, warehouse districts on both sides of the Mediterranean, canal building, ship insurance, as well as a large number of staff who were trained to ensure that things didn’t go wrong. 

Our tutor, Birgitta, will present this system  and help us compare it with modern logistics systems and recent experiences of empty shelves and how resilient a system has to be to work like that – in the absence of trains and lorries.