The Roman Senate and Equestrian Tax Farmers

Cicero was born in 106 BCE, and by that time the practice of predatory tax farming was essential to the functioning of Rome's highest offices. Having a political campaign in the late Republic was cripplingly expensive; large-scale bribery pervaded it. Proprietors and proconsuls had unique opportunities for money-making because they could govern provinces and command armies. A proprietor's army might sack a region that had committed a slight offense and sell its citizens into slavery as a result.