Institutions of public charity, founded on the doctrine that the State owes paternal duties to its subjects, were not much developed until after the reigns of Nerva and Trajan.[17.52] A few traces of them, however, are found in the first century.[17.53] There were already charities for children,[17.54] distributions of food to the poor, fixed rates for the sale of bread with indemnity provided for the tradesmen, precautions in regard to supply of provisions, assurance against pirates, and orders enabling persons to buy grain at reduced prices.[17.55] All the emperors, without exception, manifested the greatest solicitude on these topics, which may indeed be called subordinate, but which at certain times rule everything else. In remote antiquity there was not much need of public charity. The world was young and strong, and required no hospital. The good and simple Homeric morality, according to which the guest and the beggar are sent by Jove, is the morality of strong and cheerful youth.[17.56] Greece, in her classic age, enounced the most touching maxims of pity and benevolence, without connecting with them any conception of sadness or social misfortune.[17.57] Man was yet at that epoch healthy and happy; how could he look forward and provide against evil days! But in respect to institutions for mutual assistance, the Greeks were far in advance of the Romans.[17.58] Not a solitary liberal or benevolent arrangement was ever devised by that cruel aristocracy which, as long as the republic endured, wielded such an oppressive authority. At the epoch we are now considering, the colossal fortunes and luxury of the nobility, the vast agglomerations of people at certain points, and above all the peculiar and implacable hard-heartedness of the Romans, had caused the rise of pauperism.[17.59] The indulgence of some of the emperors to the Roman mob had aggravated this evil. The public distributions of corn encouraged idleness and vice, and provided no remedy for misery. In this, as in many other things, the Oriental world was superior. The Jews possessed real institutions of charity. The Egyptian temples seem to have sometimes had a fund for the poor.[17.60] The male and female colleges of the Serapeum at Memphis were also to some extent charitable establishments.[17.61] The terrible crisis through which humanity was passing in the capital was scarcely perceived in distant provinces where the mode of life remained simple. The reproach of having poisoned the whole earth, the likening of Rome to a harlot who had made the earth drunk with the wine of her fornication, was in many respects just.[17.62] The provinces were better than Rome; or more properly, the impure elements which gathered together from all quarters into the metropolis, made her a sink of iniquity, in which the old Roman virtues were smothered, and the good seed brought from elsewhere grew with difficulty.