1921 AND HIS SUCCESSORS 11 In a letter of Pliny, 1 we hear of Bassus as a man who had ' held the highest magistracies, controlled armies, and devoted himself entirely to the service of the state '. It is surely not rash to conclude that such a leading man would not have been asked to undertake the investment of the money, unless the scheme had from the beginning been one of some magnitude. Apparently Bassus and Gallicanus, and a third commissioner whose name is not given, had no official title, but were ' extra ordinem ' in the sense that a definite hierarchy of alimentary officials had not yet been constituted. That such a hierarchy was soon formed is proved by the large number of inscriptions which refer to • magistratus alimentarii ', 2 and extend to every part of Italy. These fall into two classes, the imperial officials, and those appointed by the municipalities. How the work was divided must be left to the imagination, but we may assume that most of the executive work, in this as in other spheres of public service, was in the hands of the local authorities. Among imperial offices, that of the ' praefectus aliment orum ' ranked highest. More than a dozen inscriptions point to a close connexion between the alimentary administration and the ' cura viarum '. 3 Apparently under Hadrian and Antoninus Pius the district marked out for both purposes was the same, and both branches of the public service were entrusted to one man, an official of praetorian rank. Distinct from the prefects over a specified district are those officials who had the title ' praefectus alimentorum ' without any local limitation. The individuals men- tioned are, without exception, of consular rank. 4 The inscriptions which refer to them appear at the end of the reign of Marcus Aurelius, and continue for only about forty years. During this period there are no inscriptions referring to district prefectures. Hirschfeld has, therefore, suggested that an attempt was made to centralize the administration, but that the earlier method was returned to again under Macrinus. 5 Next in rank to the prefects 1 Epistle, iv. 23. 2 The administration of the alimenta is discussed by Hirschfeld in Die kaiser- lichen Verwaltungsbeamten, pp. 212 f. See also Ruggiero, Diz. Epigr. i. 402, and Mommsen, Staatsrecht, ii. 2. 949, and Hermes, iii. 124. 3 e.g. Corpus Inscript. Latin, ii. 4510 ' curator viae Flam, praefectus alimentorum' ; ibid. vi. 1509 'curator viae Salariae et alimentorum'. Orelli, Inscript. Latin. Select. Collect. 3935 ' praefectus alimentorum per Aemiliam '. Corpus Inscript. Latin. xi. 6338, shows how closely (and incorrectly) titles were combined, ' cur. viae et prae- fectus aliment. Clodiae et cohaerent '. Inscriptions prove that the ' cura alimentorum ' was combined with the charge of the following roads : Aemilia, Appia, Clodia, Flaminia, Tiburtina, Valeria, Salaria. 4 Ibid. v. 7783, x. 3805, xiv. 3609. Spartianus, Life of Didius Julianus, 1-2, says : ' consulatum meruit, testimonio imperatoris ; Cattos etiam debellavit ; inde Dalma- tian! regendam accepit . . . post Germaniam inferiorem rexit ; post hoc curam alimen- torum in Italia meruit.' Cf. Capitolinus, Life of Pertinaz, 3-4. 5 Hirschfeld (loc. cit.) connects this centralization with the establishment by
