My last act as Umpire was to agree a couple of Rule changes with Marco, which he has now put into effect.

The first was the abolition of the quarterly Productivity Values changes which you all know about. This was done by deleting Rule 7.9 in its entirety.

The second was to make the bread riot Rule a bit more serious by the addition of the words “ten times” in the first line of Rule 2.5.1. At present Egypt and Carthage each supply half of Rome’s grain needs, so this Rule rarely comes into play. When Egypt did suspend the supply recently the effect of the Rule was to cost the treasury only about D.900; in other words a negligible amount which Rome could bear indefinitely. If such a thing were to recur now the cost would be more worrying.