PUBLICA´NI
PUBLICA´NI The name was applied to the
farmers-general of the Roman revenues; the word
publicum denotes both state revenue and state service (
Dig. 39,
4,
1;
Tac. Ann. 13.51; Livy,
23.49,
1), and
publicani, which is derived from it, combines both these ideas, in its
meaning of persons who served the state in the collection of its revenues.
The mode of collection is shown further by the definition of publicani in
the Digest as “contractors for the public vectigalia” (
Dig. 39,
4,
12). From a very early period the Roman state employed a
peculiar mode of getting in a very large amount of its revenues. It was a
system of indirect collection by means of middlemen, a class of individuals
intermediate between the government itself and the subjects of governmental
taxation, Such a system was probably employed for the collection of the old
port-dues of Ostia on goods exposed for sale (
promercale), and certainly for the working of the salt monopoly,
which originated as early as the year 508 B.C. (Livy,
2.9,
6). The system was simply that of the
purchase or lease by a publicanus of a prospective source of revenue, which
he farmed at his own risk and for his own profit. This was the general
principle, as illustrated by all the sources of revenue to which the system
was applied; but its application was different, as the sources of revenue
themselves differed; and we can distinguish two methods of tax-farming,
which were regarded as distinct both in law and in fact. In one of these the
publicanus is not directly employed in working the source of revenue, in the
other he is; in the one case, therefore, the publicanus is not the
possessor or occupant of the land, or other source
of wealth, from which the revenue is derived: in the other case the
possessor and
publicanus are identical. It is only to the first of these two
classes of tax-farmers--to those, that is, who are regarded as collecting
vectigal from
possessores other than themselves--that the name
publicanus is strictly applied; the latter class are
regarded in law not as publicani, but as
publicanorum
loco (
Dig. 39,
4,
12,
13),
although, in the current literature of Rome, they were, equally with the
former class, called
publicani.
It will be more convenient to treat the latter class of publicani first;
their relations to the state were simpler, and their sphere of action more
limited. To this class belong the revenue-farmers who worked certain fixed
sources of wealth, such as mines, salt-works, fisheries and the like, which
belonged wholly to the state, and which the state, for purposes of revenue,
leased directly to the publicanus as a contractor. The publicanus is, in
this case, a contractor (
conductor) for
supplying a fixed revenue to the state from such property. The terms of his
contract are fixed by a
lex censoria made with
the censor as the representative of the state; and the
lex censoria, besides specifying the revenue that the state
requires him to pay, also states certain conditions under which the contract
is to be undertaken. To this class of fixed sources of revenue directly
contracted for by the publicanus belong fisheries (
Dig.
43,
14,
7), amongst
which the right of fishing in the Lucrine lake was a monopoly vested in a
publicanus; salt-works, perhaps the oldest of this; class at Rome (Livy,
2.9,
6;
Dig. 50,
16,
17),
[p. 2.521]the monopoly of which
was continued down to a very late period of the Empire [
SALINAE]; mines, in connexion
with which we find certain conditions stated in the
lex
censoria, as, for instance, that not more than five hundred
workmen should be employed in the gold mines of Vercellae (Pliny,
Plin. Nat. 33.78) by the contractor who
worked them; and forest-land (
silva caedua),
which was also let to a contractor who paid a fixed revenue to the state.
These were all in the nature of state monoplies; either wholly so, as in the
case of the mines and saltworks, or partially, as in the case of certain
fisheries retained by the state; while new monopolies might be artificially
created, as were the quarries in Crete, by forbidding the exportation of
such goods to any one but the government contractor (
Dig.
39,
4,
15). The
reason of their being worked by this class of middlemen can only be found in
the incapacity of the Roman government, as it was constituted, to work them
for itself. The rapid succession of magistrates and the singular absence of
permanent officials at Rome accounts for its putting such sources of wealth
into the hands of publicani, to the equal injury of the consumer and loss of
the state. Before the powers of the senate were firmly established and
distinctly recognised there was no really permanent administrative body in
Rome; and when the powers of the senate were established, the system of
middlemen was found established too. But this system of direct farming was
not applied to remunerative monopolies only; it was applied, in certain
exceptional cases, to Roman domainland. The only land in Italy believed to
have been so dealt with was the Campanian land, which, for this reason, was
specially exempted from the agrarian legislation of the Gracchi (
Cic. de leg. Agr. 2.2. 9, 81;
ad Att. 2.16, 1). Certain lands in the provinces, which
had been royal domains of the kings whom Rome had either conquered or
supplanted, were also dealt with in this way; such were the royal
domainlands in Bithynia, the lands of Attalus in the Chersonnese, those
which had been the private property of the Macedonian kings Philip and
Perseus, and which were, in Cicero's time, a
censoribus
locati to the publicani (Cic.
de leg. Agr.
2.19, 50); in the same way certain portions of confiscated territory were
leased to
conductores, among which we find
mentioned the territory round Corinth (ib. 2.19, 51).
But, as a whole, we find the public land of Rome (
ager
publicus) dealt with in quite a different manner by the state.
The greater part of the land over which the Roman state claimed dominion was
either tilled land (
ager) or pasture (
silva pascua, saltus,
Dig. 50,
16,
30; Varro,
L. L. 5, 36). As such it
was enjoyed, if tilled land, by the
possessor;
if pasture land, by the
pastor: but the state
makes no fixed bargain with either of these, it only tolerates them, and the
possessor in this case is not the publicanus. The publicanus is the man who
has a right to collect
vectigal (
ἀποφορά, App.
Civ. Bell. 1.7;
Plut. TG 8) from the person who uses the
land. The revenue to be paid is determined by the
lex
dicta, under which the censor sold the right to the publicanus
(Lex Agraria, § 85,
ex lege dictâ,
quam censores deixerunt, publicano dare oportuit). The conditions
of sale with the publicanus obviously determine what the possessor or pastor
has to pay. The possessor according to Appian, paid one-tenth of the produce
of sown land, one-fifth of the produce of planted (
Bell. Civ.
1.7), although the vectigal actually collected seems to have been in most
cases less. The pastor paid a vectigal, which in this case was called
scriptura (Festus, s. v.
scriptuarius ager). The relations between the publicanus and the
occupants of the land were regulated by the
lex
dicta of the censor. The third great class of revenues collected
in this manner were the custom-dues (
portoria),
which were similarly leased to the publicanus by the censor, who fixed the
conditions under which they were to be collected.
A very great extension was given to the system of tax-farming by the adoption
of this method in provincial administration. The first province to which the
system was directly applied was the province of Asia. In Sicily and Sardinia
it had been found already in force on the Roman occupation, and by the Lex
Sempronia (C. Gracchi) this method of raising revenues, with a nearer
approximation to the Italian system, was applied to Asia (C. Gracch. ap.
Gel. 11.10;
Cic.
in Verr. 3.6, 12-14). The theory which this
system implied was that most of the provincial land was
ager publicus, and that the dominium had therefore passed to
the Roman people; that its occupiers were only possessores, and should
therefore pay the customary revenues, the
decumae and
scriptura on, the land,
as well as the
portoria, all included i: under
the generic name
vectigal (Cic.
pro lege
Alan. 6, 15), which were paid in Italy [see
PROVINCIA]. While, however, in
Sicily the existing Lex Hieronica was adhered to, and the tenths of the soil
(
decumae) were sold in Sicily itself (
Cic. in Verr. 2.25, 63;
2.60,
147;
3.7, 16), Asia was subject to a
lex
venditionis, which enjoined that the Asiatic taxes should be put
up for sale for the province as a whole and in Rome (
in Verr.
3.6, 14).
For the collection of such provincial taxes the publicani made a fixed
contract with the state, and then farmed the taxes at their own risk (
Cic. ad Quint. Fr. 1.1, 11;
ad Att. 5.13, 1); sometimes they over-estimated the
resources of the province, with the result that they farmed them at a loss
(Cic.
ad
Att. 1.17, 9; 2.1, 8). The connexion of the publicani with
the provinces, especially with that of Asia, was much closer than that of
being merely its tax-farmers. They invested their money largely in the
province (
Cic. de leg. Man. 7,
17), and themselves carried on business as
negotiatores there (Id. ib. 7, 18). This double character of
public contractors and private investors gave them an opportunity for unfair
exactions. The provincials were often in arrears with the publicani, either
from bad years or the peculations of their own magistrates (
Cic. Att. 6.2,
5), and would have to borrow from these same publicani in their
character of bankers. Another source of unfair dealing was the interest
provincial governors sometimes had in these exactions. Interference with the
customary modes of collection might be sanctioned, and more or less
legalised by the governor's edictum perpetuum. Thus Verres' edicts in Sicily
were altogether in favour of the tax-farmers (
Cic.
in Verr. 3.10,
[p. 2.522]24),
and he is accused by Cicero of sharing the profits with the decumani; and
although it was illegal, or at least considered highly improper, for a Roman
governor or magistrate to be a member of a society of publicani (ib. 3.56,
130), yet, by collusion with a decumanus, and with the large powers a
governor had of making new rules in his edict, indirect interference and
profit were easily possible (ib. 3.30, 71). In Asia we know that
considerable interference with the conditions of the
lex
dicta was permitted, nominally for the convenience of both
parties (
Cic. ad Quint. Fr. i.
1, 12), and with this permission it is clear how the publicani could
increase their exactions, when backed up by the representative of Roman
authority in the province. Instances of what the additional charges of a
provincial publicanus might be are given by Cicero (
in Verr.
3.78, 181). In this case there were charges made for the examination of the
corn-dues (
pro spectatione), for discount on
foreign money (
pro collybo), for writing
materials and stamp (
pro cerario), four per
cent. (
binae quinquagesimae) for the secretary,
and six per cent. (
ternae quinquagesimae) for
an additional present to the collector. The difficulty of a Roman governor
was to be in favour both with the publicani and the provincials at once
(
Cic. ad Quint. Fr.
1.1, 12); Cicero boasts to have effected this as proconsul of Cilicia
(
ad Att. 6.25), and remarks how much easier matters were
made for him, on his arrival in the province, by the fact of the
arrangements between the publicani and the provincials having been already
concluded (
ad Att. 5.13, 1). Other injuries were inflicted,
without the cognisance of the publicani themselves, by the lower officials
employed for the actual work of collection, especially in the case of the
portoria (
Dig. 39,
4,
12;
Cic. ad Quint. Fr. 1.1,
11).
With the Empire came a great restriction of the operations of the publicani.
Tax-farming as a general mode of raising provincial revenue had ceased [
PROVINCIA], and private
enterprise in the working of monopolies was also largely restricted (
Suet. Tib. 49), But publicani are still found
employed for a great many public purposes in the reign of Tiberius; for the
working of the
publici fructus, such as mines,
forests and the like, and for the supply of corn to the army (
Tac. Ann. 4.6;
13.51). They still, in Nero's time, collected the
portoria (ib. 13.50); and we find, in much later
inscriptions, the
conductores mentioned by the
side of the
procuratores, for the collection of
different sorts of revenue from the same province (Henzen, 6648, 6650). But
they were, from this time, subject to much greater scrutiny than formerly.
Nero issued an edict that the laws which regulated their several contracts
should be formally published, and increased the powers of the praetors at
Rome and the governors of the provinces, of dealing summarily with such
matters (Tac.
l.c.). The title in the Digest that
treats of the publicani (
Dig. 39, tit. 4,
De
publicanis et vectigalibus et commzissis) shows us a number of
laws made by later emperors on the subject, the object of most of them being
to restrain the illegal exactions of the publicani: as, for instance, that
the penalty for illegal claims was double the amount so exacted; or, if
force had been used, quadruple (
Dig. 39,
4,
9,
15); and that the publicanus was to be held responsible for the
misdeeds of his slaves who were employed in collecting the revenue (ib. 39,
4, 12, 1).
From the earliest times we find that the publicani do not undertake their
contracts singly; the extent of the undertakings, and the amount of security
which the state required them to deposit, would have rendered it impossible.
They worked in companies (
societates
publicanorum or
socii publicorum
vectigalium), which were composed of shareholders (
socii), who might have a greater or smaller share in
the concern (
partes or
particulae). These companies had a legal representative
(
manceps) who acted for the
societas as its formal head (
princeps publicanorum, Ps.-Asc.
in Div. p.
113). The manceps bid for the contract, agreed to the terms imposed by the
censor, saw that security (
praedia) was
deposited by the sureties (
praedes or
fidejussores, Ps.-Asc.
in Verrin. p.
196;
Dig. 39,
4,
9), and undertook the risk of the contract on behalf
of the company. Polybius (
6.17) mentions three
stages in the business of a company of publicani: the bidding for the
contract, the depositing of the security, and finally the handing of the
vectigal due into the treasury. He mentions the manceps and praedes as
distinct persons; they were very often so in fact, but the
manceps himself was called
praes, inasmuch as he was equally responsible for the fulfilment
of the contract (Festus, s. v.
manceps). The
word
lustrum, primarily denoting the ceremonies
attending the taking of the census, was applied to the period during which
the contract ran (
Cic. Att. 6.2,
5), which was usually a period of five years.
Fresh contracts were made at the close of each lustrum, and open competition
invited; the contract was purely voluntary,--no state contract was
compulsory; and consequently any company that outbid all the others, when
the vectigalia were put up to auction, might undertake their collection,
provided it could find sufficient security (
Dig.
39,
4,
9,
1,
2). The conditions of the
contract were contained in a
lex censoria or lex
dicta, of which frequent mention has been made, and which was also
called a
lex locationis (Lex Julia Municip.
50.72). Occasionally, however, the people or senate modified the terms fixed
by the census, in the interest of the publicani (
Plut. Flam. 19;
Plb. 6.17;
Liv. 39.44), and in some cases even the tribunes
of the people interfered to effect this object (
Liv.
43.16). Each company of publicani had a central manager and
banker at Rome, called
magister societatis;
these magistri were appointed annually, and handed over their accounts at
the end of each year to their successors (
Cic.
Att. 5.1. 6,
3;
in
Verr. 2.74, 182). They had under them a staff of subordinate
officials who were said
operas dare publicanis
or
in operis esse publicanorum (
Cic. Fam. 13.6. 5), and who were also called
the
familia of the publicani, this term
including not only slaves, but all subordinate officials (
Dig. 39,
4,
1).
Where the business of the publicani was extended to the provinces, they had
a deputy in each local centre called
pro
magistro, with a corresponding
familia under his direction (
Cic.
in Verr. 2.70, 171;
de leg.
Man. 6.16). There was an organised system of communication kept up
between the provinces
[p. 2.523]and Rome by means of
letter-carriers (
tabellarii), of whose services
general correspondents frequently availed themselves (
Cic. Att. 5.1. 5,
3; Ter.
Phorm. 1.2, 100). The companies of publicani
received their names from the respective dues it was their business to
collect. Thus the collectors of
decumae were
called
decumani; they ranked highest, and are
described by Cicero as “the chiefs and, as it were, senate of the
publicani” (
in Verr. 2.71, 173), The collectors
of scriptura were called
pecuarii, scriptuarii or
pascuarii
(Ps.-Asc.
in Divin. p. 113); and the
contractors for salt-works and the collectors of
portoria were termed
socii salarii
and
portitores respectively. There is, however,
some doubt about the meaning of
portitores. The
Pseudo-Asconius classes them with pascuarii as a division of the publicani
(
in Divin. p. 113); elsewhere they are
spoken of as though they were the servants or lower officials of this branch
of the publicani (Plaut.
Asin. 1.3, 7;
Cic. Off. 1, 42, and perhaps
Cic. ad Quint. Fr. 1.1,
11). It is not, however, impossible to reconcile these two meanings, and to
suppose that the staff (
familia) of a certain
company of tax-farmers might themselves be called by the name applicable to
this company. Usually each company seems to have collected but one kind of
revenue; but we find an instance in which two kinds, the
portoria and the
scriptura, were
farmed by the same company (
Cic. in
Verr. 2.70, 171).
It only remains to touch briefly on the political position and importance of
the publicani. They had always been the great capitalists of Rome, and
whenever capital was needed for state purposes they were always to the
front. As early as the Second Punic War we see them coming forward to offer
their assistance, when the state was in pressing pecuniary difficulties;
after the battle of Cannae (
Liv. 24.18), and
again in 215 B.C., when the Scipios wrote from
Spain for supplies, which the state was unable to afford them (
Liv. 23.48). As the representatives of capital,
Cicero calls them the
firmamentum ceterorum
ordinum (
pro leg. Man. 7, 17), and maintains that
their claims should be primarily regarded in any act of state
administration. Their political importance was heightened by the
organisation of the capitalists of Rome as the body of Equites, probably
brought about by C. Gracchus. In one respect this political organisation
reacted on the administration of their provincial functions; for, between
the times of C. Gracchus and Sulla (123 to 81 B.C.), the Equites formed the
judicial body at Rome; and, as they consisted in great part of publicani,
they had the power of approving, by their treatment of provincial governors
accused of extortion, the regulations of these governors connected with the
position of the provincial tax-farmers. In Cicero's letters <
publicani is used almost indiscriminately
with
equites, to denote a political power in
the state (
Cic. Att. 1.1. 7,
9;
2.1,
8). Many political actions that had the
most important consequences were brought about by a representation of their
claims backed by their influence, as, for instance, the passing of the
Manilian law (B.C. 66): and in one instance the neglect of the claims of the
publicani was the cause of a breach between the equites and a the senatorial
government (
Cic. Att. 2.1,
8), that helped to accelerate the downfall of
the Republic.
[
A.H.G]
