15% of state revenues to keep the citizens of Rome fed with free or cheap food

Grain dole amounted to 100,000 tons yearly, "more than 15% of the state revenues" were spent on it. pic.twitter.com/eOCGhCU35j

— LiorLefineder (@lefineder) August 13, 2024

The source material is Money and Prices in the Early Roman Empire by David Kessler and Peter Temin.  

The Imperial Metropole is always glorious and always depends on extracting surplus from the rest of the empire.

And regardless of the imperial city, always and everywhere it seems, governments end up spending an inordinate portion of their budget essentially as a bribe to keep the lower classes from getting too restive.