ABSTRACT

In this chapter we shall begin by considering a range of activities which in some respects resemble private enterprise more closely than any of those discussed in the previous chapters-the economic activities of the Roman state contractors, or publicani (who were so termed because they dealt with the public property, publica, of the Roman people).1 As we shall see in detail shortly, the publicani were an extremely wealthy group who acquired their riches through organizations which in certain respects have the character of businesses. Yet any attempt to identify such a group, along with the equestrian order to which they generally belonged, as an ‘ancient bourgeoisie’ is most questionable owing to the absence of a genuinely productive orientation and the commercial and industrial ethos normally associated with the idea of the bourgeoisie. Nonetheless, we shall argue in what follows that an understanding of the role of the publicani reveals a great deal about the socio-economic development of Roman antiquity. Especially important is the close association of profit making with the exploitation of political power-while this is not unique to antiquity, we shall maintain that the forms of enterprise involved in this type of capitalism were developed to a particularly high degree in antiquity, greatly enhancing its distinctive plutocratic character.