But with Asia finally brought into the Roman fold, the Republic was about to see yet another enormous transfer of wealth to Italy. Asia became by far the most lucrative imperial holding and delivered riches into both private and public hands, exacerbating the rising inequality that had already been undermining the stability of the Republic.
HISTORY BOOKS ARE filled with the names of Roman military and political leaders because those were the men Roman historians wrote about—giving the impression that every Roman was a triumph-hunting political intriguer. But plenty of wealthy Roman citizens had no interest in the lunatic jockeying for consulships and triumphs that consumed the great noble houses. And because no member of the Senate was allowed to engage in commerce, there was plenty of room for the nonpolitical rich to take on the business of the growing empire and make huge fortunes without the pathos of high politics.32
The families who constituted the nonpolitical rich of Rome were called the Equestrian class. Originally these were men with enough wealth to equip and maintain a warhorse so they filled the ranks of Rome’s early cavalry—hence the name “Equestrians.” But by the age of the Gracchi, the Equestrian name referred generally to the class of families worth more than four hundred thousand sesterce. To say these families formed the “middle class” of Rome is tecÚically accurate—their fortunes fell somewhere in between the senatorial oligarchs and the mass of subsistence peasants—but Equestrian fortunes were still considerable, and they were a part of the economic elite.33
At the intersection of private and state business was a special group of Equestrians called the
The most lucrative contracts were for operating the state-owned mines. The first batch of state mines came under Roman control during the Punic Wars after Rome expelled Carthage from Spain. The Romans discovered the Carthaginians had opened rich silver mines and so claimed these mines as state-owned ager publicus. Every five years contracts would be auctioned off to operate the mines, and though it is difficult to calculate actual figures, the revenue involved dwarfed anything the Romans had ever handled. Conditions in these mines were awful. Diodorus describes that slaves “wear out their bodies both day and night in the diggings under the earth… dying in large numbers because of the exceptional hardships they endure… For no respite or pause is granted them in their labors, but compelled beneath blows of the overseers to endure the severity of their plight, they throw away their lives in this wretched manner.” The work was fatal, but the profits astronomical.35
The second-most lucrative contracts were for tax collection. The Roman provincial administrators did not directly collect provincial taxes. Instead publicani investors would form companies to buy five-year contracts, offering a lump sum of cash in exchange for the right to go collect what was owed Rome—the amount of money a company made over the amount paid was their profit. It was a system begging to be abused because the publicani had every incentive to extort as much as they could—even if it was more than what was legally owed. With limited oversight out in the provinces, the publicani tax farmers soon gained a notorious reputation that wherever they went there was neither law nor freedom. But despite this reputation for vigorous avarice, the publicani was still the one group that could actually handle the logistical load of empire. The Republic had no standing bureaucracy, so someone had to do it.36
