Continuity and change have been constant features in the development of ideologies and theories of welfare throughout history. It is rarely possible to assign specific dates to the birth or death of ideologies or theories. They tend to emerge from the past and to merge into the future in gradual ways, sometimes to reappear under different guises later on in history. In most instances, it is impossible to say whether continuity or change is the dominant feature of development. Only in very rare cases is it possible to hazard an opinion.

The development of the various ideologies of welfare during the Graeco Roman period illustrates these difficulties quite well. Although they initially drew many of their ideas from Plato and Aristotle, they gradually became distinct enough to justify the conclusion that they were different ideologies. It would not be possible to claim with any degree of credibility that either continuity or change was the dominant feature of this development of ideas. Both processes played their part to create something new but also overlapping in several ways with the past.

The period discussed in this chapter begins with the defeat of Athens and the ascendancy of the empire of Alexander the Great and ends with the supremacy of the Roman Empire – from about the 4th century BC to the 4th century AD. It was a world that was different from that of the city-states of Greece in several significant ways and, as such, it was bound to spawn different ideologies. To begin with, it was a far larger geographical administrative unit; trade and travel were far more intense than before; the military victories of Rome ensured a long period of political order; and Rome became a far more affluent and powerful city than Athens.

Although this period witnessed the emergence of several ideologies of welfare – Scepticism, Cynicism, Epicureanism and Stoicism – we shall concentrate on the latter two because they had something special to say about welfare: Epicureanism because it was the first major ideology to put forward a taxonomy of needs for welfare that has stood the test of time, and Stoicism because it became the dominant ideology of imperial Rome.