Political Cohesion and Fiscal Systems in the Roman Republic

James Tan

doi:10.3389/fpos.2022.803030

Abstract

For over two centuries, the largest public revenue of the Roman Republic was a levy on property that was earmarked for infantry pay. It was collected by wealthy local landowners and redistributed to soldiers in the district. This article argues that the period oftributumwas largely one of political calm because the tax systems effectively reinforced social and political hierarchies. Within three to four decades oftributum's invention, intra-elite politics began to stabilize, and within three to four decades of its cancellation, intra-elite politics began to destabilize. With little role for a central bureaucracy, local elites across the countryside used their roles as tax collectors to derive bargaining power in politics, but also to control local economies and to demonstrate their high rank in a society that revered public leadership in service of the military.

Highlights

The goal of this article is to show that the Roman Republic’s durability was aided by a tax system that was unusually well-integrated into the social networks and political ideology of the regime
Understanding the principal-agency relationship in this kind of “social extraction” requires something other than bureaucratic control (Lust and Rakner, 2018). This was not the “compulsory cooperation” that sees so many states co-opt the services of local elites (Mann, 1986; Bang, 2015), but was more akin to politicians performing public service to elevate status and influence. Because these social forces were so important, this article will draw upon research into the performative politics of the Roman Republic, and in particular into Rome’s hierarchical “political culture.”16 While many scholars have emphasized the Republic’s democratic elements—especially its many annual elections and the constant need for leaders to address the people through oratory—others have argued that the potential structural powers of Rome’s direct democracy were never actualised in practice
The fiscal system ensured that the dynamics of creating hierarchy through political spectacle was available to the tribuni aerarii who, year after year, before the eyes of the community, collected taxes and paid infantry in each rural district

Summary

James Tan*

The largest public revenue of the Roman Republic was a levy on property that was earmarked for infantry pay. It was collected by wealthy local landowners and redistributed to soldiers in the district. This article argues that the period of tributum was largely one of political calm because the tax systems effectively reinforced social and political hierarchies. With little role for a central bureaucracy, local elites across the countryside used their roles as tax collectors to derive bargaining power in politics, and to control local economies and to demonstrate their high rank in a society that revered public leadership in service of the military.

INTRODUCTION

THE REGIME

THE TRIBUTUM SYSTEM

POLITICAL EFFECTS OF TRIBUTUM

Findings

DISCUSSION