Child Assistance.
As discussed in an earlier episode, Roman society had a welfare system, particularly when it came to the support of children. However, sometimes they had to react to practices that seem barbaric
Unwanted infants were sometimes cast out to die or to be picked up by a passer-by. The Hellenistic tradition of the eastern provinces was that such a child could be raised free or a slave, on the whim of the finder, thereby bypassing Roman Law. The law, however, determined that the status of the child was determined by its parentage, so that foundlings who were freeborn could not be reduced to slavery. Trajan extended the laws to make it possible for freeborn children reared as slaves to reclaim their freedom, without the obligation to repay the rearer for their expenses.
Whilst this sounds cool in principle, it had the effect of deterring the raising of exposed children if their parentage was uncertain. They would simply be left to die.
To counter this, Romans realized that they had to incentivize parents to keep their children in the first place and as financial pressures were the principal reason that children were exposed, a support system needed to be introduced.
A law shall be written on bronze or waxed tablets or on linen cloth, and posted throughout all the municipalities of the realm, to restrain the hands of parents from infanticide and to turn their hopes to the better. Your office shall administer this regulation, so that, if any parent should report that he has offspring which on account of poverty he is unable to rear, there shall be no delay in issuing food and clothing, since the rearing of a new-born infant cannot tolerate delay. For this matter we order that both the fisc and our privy purse shall furnish their services without distinction.
(Theodosian Code xi.xxvii.1 AD315)
And also:
We have learned that provincials suffering from scarcity of food and lack of sustenance are selling or pledging their children. Therefore, if any such person is found who is sustained by no substance of family possessions and is supporting his children with hardship and difficulty, he shall be assisted through our fisc before he becomes prey to calamity. The proconsuls, governors, and procurators of accounts throughout all Africa shall have the power and shall distribute the necessary support to all persons who they observe to be placed in dire need, and they shall immediately assign adequate sustenance from the [state] storehouses. For it is repugnant to our customs to allow any person to be destroyed by hunger or rush forth to the commission of a shameful deed.
(Theodosian Code xi.xxvii.2 AD322)
”It is repugnant to our customs to allow any person to be destroyed by hunger” is something that a lot of modern governments should still aspire to.