Roman Grain Route

The sea corridor that shipped Egyptian grain to Rome and kept the capital of the empire fed.

Overview

Each sailing season a state-supervised fleet ran from Alexandria to Puteoli and later Ostia, riding the Etesian winds in roughly two to three weeks. Egypt supplied perhaps a third of the grain consumed by the capital, with North Africa providing much of the rest, and the free grain dole reached on the order of 200,000 citizens at times. The cura annonae, the office that managed supply, was among Rome's most important bureaucracies. Shipwrecks along the route litter the Mediterranean floor. The system frayed in the third-century crisis and collapsed when the Vandals took North Africa in 439, a blow from which the western empire never recovered.