Power and Public Finance at Rome, 264-49 BCE

"In the first study of fiscal sociology in the Roman Republic, James Tan argues that much of Roman politics was defined by changes in the fiscal system. Tan offers a new conception of the Roman Republic by showing that imperial profits freed the elite from dependence on citizen taxes"-- "Rome's wars delivered great wealth to the conquerors, but how did this affect politics and society on the home front? In Power and Public Finance at Rome, James Tan offers the first examination of the Roman Republic from the perspective of fiscal sociology and makes the case that no understanding of Roman history is complete without an appreciation of the role of economics in defining political interactions. Examining how imperial profits were distributed, Tan explores how imperial riches turned Roman public life on its head. Rome's lofty aristocrats had traditionally been constrained by their dependence on taxpayer money. They relied on the state to fund wars, and the state in turn relied on citizens' taxes to fuel the war machine. This fiscal chain bound the elite to taxpayer consent, but as the spoils of Empire flooded into Rome, leaders found that they could fund any policy they chose without r