CORN DOLE ARCHIVE

is enough to make it clear that they were tokens or coupons to be exchanged for a quantity of corn and that their validity lasted only as long as the term of the officials who distributed them (2924, see above, p. 6). In Augustus’ time they were coupons too, as we learn clearly from Suetonius’ account of the emperor’s unsuccessful attempt to simplify the administration of the dole by distributing tesserae for a four months’ supply three times a year (Aug. 40).

According to van Berchem’s account, pp. 87–8, it was before the end of the first century after Christ that the tessera changed into an identity document which was retained permanently by the person named in it and presented at the porticus Minucia a portico in Rome used for grain distribution on a fixed day in the month and at a fixed counter (ostium).

Once again, therefore, the conditions in Oxyrhynchus seem to reflect an early state of the corn dole in Rome and not a late one. We are faced with the three-fold choice of believing that the Oxyrhynchite corn dole was instituted before the end of the first century and that it preserved, until the second half of the third century, conditions that soon changed at Rome; or that it was founded nearer to the period for which we have evidence and reflected contemporary conditions at Rome; or that it was founded late but used an early Roman set of regulations. I continue to find the hypothesis that it was founded relatively late and in imitation of the contemporary Roman dole the most probable one, certainly probable enough to justify doubting the change in the function of the tessera.

The theory that the tessera was a document like an identity card goes back to Rostowzew, though he had the best of both worlds by supposing that the earlier tokens continued in use under the same name, e.g. Röm. Bleitesserae Roman lead tokens, pp. 16 seq., 38, RE vii 179. It rests on the following four passages of the Digest that speak of the buying and bequeathing of the tessera:

xxxi 49, 1. "If the tessera frumentaria grain token is bequeathed to Titius and he dies, some people think that the legacy is extinguished, but this is not true, for if anyone is left the tessera or a post in the public service it is as if he were left the monetary value of it" (Paul). original Latin: Si Titio frumentaria tessera legata sit et is decesserit, quidam putant exstingui legatum, sed hoc non est verum, nam cui tessera vel militia legatur, aestimatio videtur legata

xxxi 87 pr. "Titia wished that the tessera frumentaria should be bought for Seius after thirty days from her own death: I put the question whether, in the event that he begins to hold the tessera frumentaria during the lifetime of the testatrix by paying for it, an action is available to him, since he cannot claim the privilege which he already holds. The response of Paul was that the cost of the tessera should be given to the person concerned in the question, because the substance of such a trust fidei commissum lies more in the value than in the nature of it." original Latin: Titia Seio tesseram frumentariam comparari voluit post diem trigesimum a morte ipsius: quaero, cum Seius viva testatrice tesseram frumentariam ex causa lucrativa habere coepit, nec possit id quod habet petere, an ei actio competat. Paulus respondit ei, de quo quaeritur, pretium tesserae praestandum, quoniam tale fidei commissum magis in quantitate quam in corpore consistit.

xxxii 35 pr. "A patron had required that a (place in a) tribe should be bought for his freedman immediately: the freedman was subjected to a long delay by his patron’s heir and died leaving a senator as his heir: the question was put whether the value of the tribe...