324 The military rule. Charity 



temporary emergencies, or by the evasions incident to occasions of 

 civil warfare. It still remained in force. When Pliny was governor of 

 the Province of Bithynia and Pontus he had to deal with a question 

 arising out of this rule. Recruiting was in progress, and two slaves 

 were discovered among the men enlisted. They had already taken the 

 military oath, but were not yet embodied in any corps. Pliny reported 

 the case 1 to Trajan, and asked for instructions. The emperor sent a 

 careful answer. ' If they were called up (lecti\ then the recruiting 

 officer did wrong: if they were furnished as substitutes 2 (yicarii datt), 

 the fault is with those who sent them : but if they presented them- 

 selves as volunteers, well knowing 3 their disqualification, they must be 

 punished. That they are not as yet embodied, matters little. For they 

 were bound to have given a true account of their extraction on the 

 day when they came up for inspection.' What came of it we do not 

 know. But it is no rash guess that the prospect of escaping into 

 the ranks of the army would be attractive 4 to a sturdy rustic slave, 

 and that a recruiting officer might ask few questions when he saw a 

 chance of getting exceptionally fine recruits. Probably the two de- 

 tected suffered the capital penalty. Such was still the rigid attitude of 

 the great soldier-emperor, determined not to confess the overstraining 

 of the empire's man-power. But the time was not far distant when 

 Marcus, beset by the great pestilence and at his wits' end for an army 

 of defence, would enrol slaves 8 and ruffians of any kind to fight for 

 Rome. 



It is not necessary to cite the numerous references in the letters to 

 slaves and slavery that are not connected with agriculture. Nor need 

 I pursue in detail the circumstances of one of his generous public 

 benefactions, the alimentary endowment 6 for freeborn children, prob- 

 ably at Comum. It has been mentioned in another chapter, and its 

 chief point of interest is in the elaborate machinery employed to secure 

 the perpetuity of the charity. To leave money to the municipality was 

 to risk its being squandered. To leave them land meant that the 

 estate would not be carefully managed. What he did was to convey 7 

 the property in some land to a representative of the burgesses, and to 

 take it back subject to a rent-charge considerably less than the yearly 

 value of the land. Thus the endowment was safe, for the margin al- 



1 x 29, 30, with Hardy's notes. 



2 The first reference to a practice that was common later. 



3 cum haberent condicionis suae conscientiam. 



4 On the other hand we hear of free citizens trying to shirk army service earlier than this. 

 Cf Sueton Aug 24, Tib 8. 



8 Capitolinus Marcus 21 6, 7. vn 18. 



7 actori publico mancipavi. See chapter on the alimenta of Trajan's time. References to 

 municipal benefactions are very numerous in the Digest. 



