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and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom.

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We can give this to each other.

In what is almost certainly his greatest piece of writing on the shortness of life,

Seneca is writing to his newly retired father-in-law, Polinas.

The good news, Seneca writes, is that Polinus will have time to produce the balance sheet of his own life rather than that of the grain market.

The grain market, what was he referring to?

Well, Polinus was the longtime supervisor of Rome's grain doll.

What was that?

The Roman Empire was at that time enormous, with the population of some 45 million citizens.

Jobs were scarce, unemployment was high.

Rapid expansion and economic stagnation had led to a sort of economic recession, something that might sound familiar today.

And in response, the upper enrueling classes came together and instituted something called the care of the grain.

Basically, the government distributed free grain to the poor and the suffering, ensuring that everyone had enough to eat, doing their stoic duty to care for the common good. And continuing

until the last years of the empire, this was one of the most lasting and impactful of all

Roman government programs. And it's actually an inspiring legacy that lives

on to this day. And in fact, it's one that we've tried not just to speak to here at Daily Stoke,

but to act on. As we've said before, right, there's this Roman Stoke and Hierocles. You spoke of

...