37

My aim in this paper is to examine child support schemes in the first and second centuries CE that were created both by private individuals, male and female, and by the State. These schemes, which were widespread in the Antonine period, developed out of the obligation and moral duty of Roman society to feed the sons and daughters of citizens, and were therefore incorporated into the law. The fact that these children benefited from the alimenta had a clear ideological significance for the imperial house and provided self-advertisement for local elites who contributed with endowments in their wills. This is supported by contemporary texts and the evidence of iconography and inscriptions.