The Treasury became increasingly dependent on foreign revenues. At first Rome did not, it seems,
always impose taxes, but just demanded reparations, or large sums for which no special justification was
claimed; Antiochus III was mulcted of 1,500 talents. In civilized Sicily Rome took over the tax system
existing under Syracuse, but it was perhaps gradually that proper taxes were imposed in Spain and the
mines let. Contractors' fees, 'indemnities', taxes, and booty became so valuable that direct tax on citizens
was abolished after Pydna, even though the armies, now serving all year round, were increasingly
expensive to maintain. Taxes were sometimes lowered when an area was reorganized, but new customs
dues, for example, were also imposed. Later, particularly after the Social War and Sulla's dictatorship,
the state, with heavy wars on hand, faced severe financial problems; it now had to pay for the large part
of the army previously financed by the Italian allies, and soon C. Gracchus' corn subsidies in Rome,
abolished by Sulla, were re-introduced. Cicero claimed in 66 that the only province to provide a surplus
after defence and administration was Asia. But Plutarch says the tax income was doubled by Pompey's
new arrangements. Gaul was also to contribute, and Egypt even more.
Finally, many senators made private fortunes from the Empire. Polybius believed that until his time
Roman magistrates were remarkable for probity. Cato certainly reiterated that he had not made a
sesterce from his service abroad. But Cicero's speeches illustrate the behaviour too common in his day,
though we need not think that every governor was a Verres, emulated in rapacity by all his staff. Cicero
himself was honest enough, and says in a letter from Cilicia that the other governors then in the East
were all decent (though his own predecessor, Ap. Pulcher, was 'not a man, but some sort of wild beast').
The Verrine Orations detail every possible abuse, from conniving with pirates to stealing statues on such
a scale that the Sicilian tourist trade was ruined. From the second century governors could be prosecuted
for extortion, but it was hard for provincials to organize a trial at Rome, or to secure conviction, even at
periods when it was the equites, not the senators, who formed, or formed a majority on, the jury.
The Reluctance to Annex
If senators and equites, private soldiers and the public Treasury, even the urban plebs, all profited from
Rome's expansion, why was she so slow to annex territories that fell into her lap? Occasionally moral
reluctance might be mooted: Flamininus refused to abolish the kingdom of Macedon at the Aetolians'
demand, saying that it was unRoman to annihilate an enemy. There was hesitation about the final razing
of Carthage, which was felt hard to justify to public, especially Greek, opinion; and the idea that states
need an external threat to prevent corruption and decline was perhaps put forward. Not that the Romans
doubted the morality of ruling an Empire as such; when the provocative Greek philosopher Carneades,
in a lecture at Rome in 155, suggested that justice would demand that they should give up their
conquests and return to shepherds' huts, there was outrage. At most, individual wars might be attacked as
inspired by one's opponents' greed: thus Cato opposed a project of war with Rhodes in 167, and many
objected to Crassus' Parthian campaign.
But it is significant that many people did just as well where annexation had not taken place. 'Kings,