@504DR Specifically — it is not very widely known, but before Rome introduced public bread for the poor, as a part of the reforms geared towards recruiting people who couldn't buy their own weapons and armour into Rome's military, zillionaires handed out bread to the poor on a private basis.
Rome being Rome, and doing a lot of bad things that we later implemented safeguards for, it came with the string attached that the recipients of the bread were bound to vote for the zillionaire who had bought it.