Publicani

Reading notes

• Ad Atticum 1.17 §9 Those who from the censors took the contract for Asia

  The publicani --- companies of equestrian tax-farmers who bid at auction (held by the censors) for the right to collect the revenues of a province. The Asian company, having overbid in 61 BC, demanded relief on its contract: the affair that dominates this letter and 1.18.

• Ad Atticum 1.18 §7 harassing the wretched publicans

  Cato blocked the Asian tax-farmers' demand for relief on their over-bid contract (the affair of letter 1.17.9), holding up all other senate business for months. His rigour drove the equites toward Caesar, who granted the relief in 59 BC.

• Ad Atticum 1.19 §6 our publicans were easily cut off from the senate

  The publicani (tax-farming companies of the equestrian order) had asked the senate to revise their over-bid Asian tax contract; in 60 the senate, led by Cato, refused, splitting the knights from the senate and undoing Cicero's cherished "concord of the orders."

• Ad Atticum 2.1 §8 the publicans renouncing their contract

  The publicani (equestrian tax-farming companies) had over-bid for the Asian tax contract and asked the senate to revise it; Cato blocked the relief, splitting the knights from the senate and undoing Cicero's cherished "concord of the orders."

• Ad Atticum 5.21 §4 the tax-farmers' couriers

  The publicani, the companies of Roman knights who farmed the provincial taxes, maintained a fast private courier network (tabellarii) across Asia Minor; Cicero and Atticus regularly entrusted their letters to it.

• Ad Familiares 5.20 §9 deposited at Ephesus with the publicans

  Cicero placed the lawful surplus of his province on deposit with the companies of tax-farmers (publicani) at Ephesus, who functioned as bankers across the eastern provinces. Pompey then requisitioned the whole sum for the war effort.

• Ad Quintum Fratrem 1.1 §6 publicans

  The publicani were companies of Roman businessmen who bought, by auction from the censors, the right to collect a province's taxes for profit. In Asia they were politically powerful and a constant source of friction between governor and provincials.

• Ad Quintum Fratrem 1.1 §32 the publicans bring great difficulty

  Cicero names the central dilemma: the tax-farming companies were the order to which he owed his political base, yet indulging them ruined the provincials a just governor was bound to protect.

• Ad Quintum Fratrem 1.4 §4 the fear of the tax-farmers

  The publicani, the companies that contracted to collect Rome's provincial taxes, were a powerful equestrian interest; their fright at the political crisis was one of the forces Cicero says unnerved him into flight rather than resistance.

• Ad Quintum Fratrem 3.2 §2 the publicans were brought in

  The publicani were the companies of tax-farmers who held the state revenue contracts; Gabinius had cheated them of their Syrian profits, so they testified against him in the Senate and joined its uproar.

• On the Nature of the Gods §3.49 Our own tax-farmers

  The publicani, private contractors who collected Rome's taxes and rents. Cotta reports that when Boeotian lands exempted as belonging to the immortal gods came into dispute, the publicani argued that no being who had once been a man could be immortal.

• For Gnaeus Plancius §23 tax-farmer

  Publicanus, a member of the companies that contracted to collect Rome's revenues. Drawn from the equestrian order, the publicani were a wealthy and influential bloc whose backing aided Plancius, whose father was a leading figure among them.