In ancient Rome, public charity was more focused on what we might classify as civic philanthropy. The most common types of philanthropy were gifts for public building projects and gifts for entertainment (either sponsoring an entertainment or paying for tickets for less well off people). A lot of this was tied up with the political structure of the city of Rome, so politicians might personally sponsor nice things for the people living in their districts. There was some food assistance, mostly coming directly from the government. The phrase "panem et circenses", meaning bread and circuses, was used by Juvenal to satirize the political expediency of this type of public giving.

The religion of Rome did not have a concept of charity as an ameliorative act, and the priests/temples did not concern themselves with charity.

When Christianity began to increase in prominence, it brought in the concept of charity as an important aspect of religious life. This concept actually originates with Judaism, and was carried into Christian doctrine. Christians throughout the Roman Empire would engage in charitable acts because it was part of their new religion. One of the most famous aspects of this is the rescuing of abandoned babies. It is well known because it is the subject of a book called The Kindness of Strangers: The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance by John Boswell. Other practices of care for the poor also developed during this time. Funds to care for widows and orphans, charity hospitals, a focus on individual almsgiving, monasteries outreach to the poor, etc. all have their roots in the transition to Christianity.

There is a good, short book on the subject of the development of Jewish/Christian charity called Charity: The Place of the Poor in the Biblical Tradition. It discusses some of the changes that happened in the Roman world, and gives a good explanation for the development of Charity as an important part of Judaism and Christianity. The author, Gary Anderson, does have a strong Catholic bias, however.

The major book that covers charity in the late Roman Empire is Peter Brown's Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD.

Thanks for the feedback and for your time! These are quite illuminating!

Yes.

If you read Rodney Stark's The Rise of Christianity, you'll see the Christians' opposition to infanticide was one of the major criticisms they were given by prominent Roman citizens. It was "unnatural" to not want to toss a live baby down a drain apparently. Which is, incidentally, how they can measure the effect Christianity had on infanticide - when you dig out the drain, you get strata of little baby bones that you can date.

On the other hand, Christians won a lot of reputation and goodwill during the Plague of Galen, when they stayed behind to treat the ill whereas the pagan priests fled to the hills with the "sensible" people. Christians also survived the plague in greater numbers (probably due to them helping each other) which led to the idea their God was really helping them out, and the Roman gods weren't doing anything.

There's some really amusing extant letters between the emperor and the pagan high priests, where the emperor is criticizing them for making paganism look bad and maybe they should get into this whole "charity" thing for publicity sake, and the high priests bitching about the unfair competition.