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Many severe regulations and new orders were made in his time. A sumptuary law was enacted. Public suppers were limited to the Sportulae ; and victualling-houses restrained from selling any dressed victuals, except pulse and herbs, whereas before they sold all kinds of meat. He likewise inflicted punishments on the Christians, a sort of people who held a new and impious superstition.
It is true, that largesses from the public treasury, gratuitous coin, or corn sold at diminished rates, not to mention the sportulae or stated doles of private Roman nobles, had been distributed amongst the indigent citizens of Western Rome for centuries before Constantine; but all these had been the selfish bounties of factious ambition or intrigue.
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