BOOK War indemnities. Conquered lands. 1 After the victorious wars in Italy, Spain, Africa, Macedonia, and Syria, immense sums were brought home by the generals and exhibited in triumphal processions, or were paid by the conquered nations by way of war indemnities. It would be interesting to know what became of these sums. Now at least, if not sooner, the administrators of the public funds ought to have been called upon to render to the people an account of the sums entrusted to their management.2 But the Roman people calmly left the disposal of these sums to the senate-i.e. to the ruling families. In what manner these fulfilled the duty is shown by the disappearance of three thousand talents in the hands of Lucius Scipio Asiaticus, the victor of Magnesia. This want of vigilance as to the disposal of booty gained in war extended even to the most important part of this booty, the conquered territory which became ager publicus. Here the practice of 'occupation' became customary. The land was appropriated by individuals in an apparently irregular manner, and thus the state lost a 3 In 293 B.C. Papirius Cursor brought home from the Samnite war 2,535,000 asses and 1,830 pounds of silver; in 205 B.C. Scipio brought from Spain 14,342 pounds of silver, besides large sums in coined money; in 201 he brought from Carthage 100,000 pounds of silver; in 197 B.C. the sums of 79,000 and again of 53,200 denarii were brought home from the war with the Insubrians; in 196 B.C. 234,000 denarii; in 194 B.C. Cato brought from Spain 123,000 denarii, 25,000 pounds of silver, 1,040 pounds of gold; in the same year Flaminius brought home 252,000 denarii, 14,515 gold pieces (philippei), 18,270 pounds of silver, 3,714 pounds of gold; in 189 B.c. the victory over Antiochus yielded 258,700 Attic tetradrachmas, 462,070 cistophors, 140,000 philippei, 138,844 pounds of silver, 1,024 pounds of gold; the victory over Perseus, 168 B.C., yielded 120,000,000 sesterces. Probably not all of these reports are trustworthy. No errors are more frequent in the ancient manuscripts than those of figures; and even if correctly handed down these statements are subject to historical doubts. Still so much is certain, that large sums must have been deposited in the public treasury after every successful war, and that there was plenty of opportunity for dishonest commanders for enriching themselves at the public cost. 2 Comp. Mommsen, Röm. Gesch. i. pp. 806, 808. 3 The process of occupation' of newly-acquired and waste lands cannot have been without certain rules and regulations; as otherwise collisions between the occupiers would have been unavoidable. We are not told what these regulations were. It is possible that the magistrates who so freely source of revenue which under a better regulated system of financial administration it would never have parted with. CHAP. VII. The neglect of the state in the administration of Public and private public lands produced a systematic dishonesty in the lands. ruling families with regard to public property, and nourished that spirit of cupidity, rapacity, and violence which has always been a peculiar feature of the Roman nobility. Their selfishness, cruelty, and overbearing increased with the extension of the Roman dominion, and became, in the end, fatal to the conquered nations, and then to the conquerors themselves. Although the law required a tax to be paid into the public treasury for occupied public lands and for the use of public pastures, and although it made a clear distinction between public domains and private property, the large landed proprietors managed, with the connivance of the magistrates, not only to evade the payment of the tax, but also to obliterate the difference between private and public lands to the detriment of the state. In this manner, not only a large amount of the land conquered in the Samnite wars and in the war against Pyrrhus was lost to the state, but even the valuable possession of the Campanian territory, taken in the war with Hannibal, was encroached upon by private persons. Even the financial reformer Cato appears not to have ventured during his censorship, 184 B.C., to expose and to abolish these malpractices. It was not till ten years later that an attempt was made.1 We see in every chapter of the wars with Philip, Effects of Antiochus, and Perseus, how the cupidity of the Roman disposed of the moveable booty, had also the control over the manner in which the conquered land was to be occupied. 1 Liv. xlii. 1, 6: Senatui placuit L. Postumium consulem ad agrum publicum a privato terminandum in Campaniam ire, cuius ingentem modum possidere privatos paulatim proferendo fines constabat. Liv. xlii. 19, 1: Eodem anno [172 B.C.] quia per recognitionem Postumii consulis magna pars agri Campani, quam privati sine discrimine passim possederant, recuperata in publicum erat, M. Lucretius tribunus plebis promulgavit, ut agrum Campanum censores fruendum locarent, quod factum tot annis post captam Capuam non fuerat, ut in vacuo vagaretur cupiditas privatorum. conquest. BOOK VI. Applica tion of fines. Expendi ture on the public games. nobility increased when the wars in Greece and Asia placed within their reach the treasures of these countries. The aristocracy now gained those colossal fortunes which fired their political ambition and made them impatient of republican equality; while the middle class, especially the free peasantry which had been the strength of the old republic, sank into hopeless poverty. Almost the same degree of freedom with which the Roman consuls disposed of the booty made in war was shown in the manner in which the magistrates, especially the ædiles, employed the fines imposed by them for offences against the fiscal laws. These fines they did not deliver up, as we should expect, into the public treasury, but they employed them as they thought proper, for public buildings, monuments, roads, and other public improvements, and especially for adorning temples.' It appears that the people took no heed of these proceedings; and as the sums thus spent were not voted by the senate, the magistrates in all probability were not even obliged by law to await the sanction of the senate before they applied them, although there is reason to suppose that they usually acted in accordance with the understood wishes of that body. The money needed for the public games which certain magistrates had to exhibit had in former times been provided by the state. But these means were far from sufficient when the love of splendour had increased with foreign conquests and the wealth of the great. The 1 Liv. x. 23, 11: Eodem anno [296 B.C.] Cn. et Q. Ogulnii ædiles curules aliquot fœneratoribus diem dixerunt; quorum bonis multatis ex eo quod in publicum redactum est, ænea in Capitolio limina et trium mensarum argentea vasa in cella Iovis Iovemque in culmine cum quadrigis et ad ficum Ruminalem simulacra infantium conditorum urbis sub uberibus lupa posuerunt. Liv. x. 31, 9. Liv. x. 47, 4: Eodem anno [293 B.C.] ab ædilibus curulibus damnatis aliquot pecuariis via a Martis silice ad Bovillas perstrata est. Liv. xxiv. 16, 19; xxvii. 6, 19; xxx. 39, 8; xxxiii. 25, 3, 42, 10; xxxiv. 53, 4; xxxv. 10, 12: Edilitas insignis eo anno [193 B.C.] fuit M. Æmilii Lepidi et L. Æmilii Paulli; pecuarios damnarunt; ex ea pecunia clipea inaurata in fastigio Jovis ædis posuerunt; porticum unam extra portam Trigeminam, emporio ad Tiberim adiecto, alteram ab porta Fontinali ad Martis aram, qua in Campum iter esset, perduxerunt. Liv. xxxv. 41, 9; xxxviii. 35, 5. magistrates frequently found themselves compelled to add considerable sums to defray the expenses. At first they were naturally obliged to draw upon their own private resources, but they soon found ways and means of shifting this burden upon others. They induced the Roman allies in Italy and the subjects in the provinces to give voluntary contributions, by which they were enabled not only to add splendour to the games recognised and demanded by the state, but, moreover, to arrange votive games which the state did not require and which served principally to satisfy personal or family vanity. These voluntary contributions must in most cases have been rather compulsory than voluntary, and hence we see that the senate by a formal decree limited the expenses of such festivals and endeavoured to protect the subjects from the demands or exactions of the magistrates.2 Such attempts at exaction could not be practised upon Roman citizens, but only upon subjects who were exposed without protection to the arbitrary power of Roman functionaries. Although the proceedings of the magistrates were not contrary to any constitutional law and could be restrained by the senate only from considerations of equity, it is nevertheless strange that the people should have looked with so much indifference on exactions which so severely taxed the subjects of Rome for the private benefit of individuals, and by which vast sums were spent which might have been better employed for the general good. The magistrates acted with similar freedom and the people showed similar indifference in their dealings with the farmers of the public revenue. In these transactions the private interest of the persons concerned was taken 'One might be inclined to call these voluntary contributions 'benevolences,' a word so appropriately applied to similar exactions of English kings. 2 Liv. ix. 44, 8. The senatorial decree was: Ne quid Q. Fulvius ad eos ludos accerseret, cogeret, acciperet, faceret adversus id senatus consultum, quod L. Æmilio Cn. Bæbio consulibus de ludis factum esset. Decreverat id senatus propter effusos sumptus factos in ludos Ti. Sempronii ædilis qui graves non modo Italiæ ac sociis Latini nominis, sed etiam provinciis externis fuerant. CHAP. VII. The farm ing of the revenue. BOOK Waste of public revenues and resources. into consideration more than the interest of the state. The magistrates did not venture to press the influential capitalists too hard, to exact the highest offers from the farmers of the revenue, or to demand punctual and exact payment. This we may infer from the discontent which ensued when upon one occasion a man of firmness and integrity, the unflinching Cato, keeping in view only the advantage of the state, raised the sums payable by the collectors above the usual amount. The excitement among the farmers of the revenue was so great that even the stern Cato was compelled to yield, to annul the contracts which he had made, and to prepare new contracts rather more favourable to the publicani. From such an exceptional case we can understand what the usual course of proceeding in financial matters must have been. As the senate had it in its power to extend the terms of payment and to grant other facilities to the contractors and farmers, it is not likely that such a scheme for favouring the interests of a political party was from conscientious motives thrown aside in the interest of the general good. 2 Though individually the Romans were exceedingly economical and careful in the management of their private property, the state as such was extravagant and careless with the state revenue. It was found impossible to protect the public property from being plundered by private individuals, and the feeling of powerlessness resulted in reckless indifference. It was felt that revenues which could not be preserved intact and devoted to the common good were of no value to the state and might as well be abandoned. The most striking example of this financial incompetency of the Romans was perhaps their course of proceeding with regard to the Macedonian 1 Liv. xxxix. 44, 8: Et vectigalia summis pretiis, ultro tributa [the public contracts] infimis locaverunt; quas locationes cum senatus precibus et lacrimis victus publicanorum induci et de integro locari iussisset, censores edicto submotis ab hasta, qui ludificati priorem locationem erant, omnia eadem paululum imminutis pretiis locaverunt. Plut. Cato maior, 19. 2 Polyb. vi. 17, 5. |