Well, the Via Appia does run from Brindis to Rome....Rome began its fall when it instituted the Dole to foster the “finer tastes” and to “institute tranquility” - they called it “Cura Annonae” or “grain dole”...so says Wikipedia and other more “modern” versions of history....when I was in school, history teachers were allowed to speak the truth that Rome’s version of Welfare/EBT was a deciding factor in the fall of the empire because it wasn’t just as Wiki and others state today, it was also used to support “artistes”...
HMMM. Trying to think of another great empire that is following the same path.
The grain dole was set up by the Gracchius brothers before 100BC, still in the time of the Republic.
Considering that the Roman empire survived another 1553 years, we can say that that welfare wasn’t the or even a cause of collapse