Название: Power and Public Finance at Rome, 264-49 BCE
Автор: Tan, James
Издательство: Oxford University Press
Год: 2017
Формат: pdf
Страниц: 249
Размер: 54.8 Мб
Язык: английский
In this book, James Tan examines the ways in which the profits of imperial expansion transformed Roman public life. Tan argues that the leaders of Rome’s early wars of expansion had been constrained by their dependence on taxpayer money. They relied on the state to fund wars, and the state in turn relied on citizens’ taxes to fill the treasury. This fiscal chain bound the elite to taxpayer consent. Without the cooperation of taxpayers, the war machine would grind to a halt. As the spoils of empire flooded into Rome, however, leaders found that they could fund any policy they chose without relying on the support of the citizens who funded them. This influx of wealth led to the end of taxation at home, and as the treasury ceased to depend on the Roman population, citizens lost what bargaining power they had enjoyed. Rome’s aristocratic leaders, Tan argues, were free to craft a fiscal system that prioritized the enrichment of their own private estates and that devoted precious few resources to the provision of public goods. The aristocrats’ hold on the citizens became even stronger as they tightened their control over how Rome’s impressive new wealth would be distributed.By examining changes in the way Rome raised and spent revenues, Tan shows that fiscal issues were of central importance in shaping the interactions of leaders and citizens from the Punic Wars to the tribunates of the Gracchi and on to the end of the Republic.