In Imperial Rome, Cura Annonae ("care of Annona") was the logistics system which procured and distributed grain for the cities of Rome and, after its foundation, Constantinople. The term was used in honour of the goddess Annona. The city of Rome imported all the grain consumed by its population, estimated to number 1,000,000 by the 2nd century AD. This included recipients of the grain dole or corn dole, a state-run social welfare program which gave out heavily subsidized and later free grain or bread to about 200,000 of Rome's adult male citizens.
Rome's grain subsidies were originally ad hoc emergency measures taken to import cheap grain from trading partners and allies at times of scarcity, to help feed growing numbers of indebted and dispossessed citizen-farmers. The programmes expanded over time, such that by the end of the Republican era, the grain dole was a permanent social welfare program which comprised a substantial part of the state budget. The grain dole was reluctantly adopted by Augustus and later emperors as a free monthly issue to those who qualified to receive it. In 22 AD, Augustus' successor Tiberius publicly acknowledged the Cura Annonae as a personal and imperial duty, which if neglected would cause "the utter ruin of the state".
