The daily allowance of
three pounds of bread was reduced to one-half, to one-third, to nothing;
and the price of corn still continued to rise in a rapid and extravagant
proportion. The poorer citizens, who were unable to purchase the
necessaries of life, solicited the precarious charity of the rich; and
for a while the public misery was alleviated by the humanity of Laeta,
the widow of the emperor Gratian, who had fixed her residence at Rome,
and consecrated to the use of the indigent the princely revenue which
she annually received from the grateful successors of her husband. But
these private and temporary donatives were insufficient to appease the
hunger of a numerous people; and the progress of famine invaded the
marble palaces of the senators themselves. The persons of both sexes,
who had been educated in the enjoyment of ease and luxury, discovered
how little is requisite to supply the demands of nature, and lavished
their unavailing treasures of gold and silver to obtain the coarse and
scanty sustenance which they would formerly have rejected with disdain.
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