Blood & Denarii: The Brutal Reality of Roman Taxes

[@tribunateSPQR]

Do you believe a superior taxation system could have helped save the Roman Republic?

[@JackReedGaming]

Somehow I think a land value tax would have saved the Roman Republic.

[@CBrace527]

couldn't have hurt

[@thomasdavies2555]

@@JackReedGamingGeorgians never quit

[@xavisanchez7522]

The romans collapsed due to the size of its empire and the integration as roman citizens of countries that until then were “ milked” or taking from them the resources needed to keep going( specially slaves and primary resources).

[@partydean17]

​@@thomasdavies2555 can't stop won't stop. It's the only ethical way of taxing

[@SansSanity]

how many people will see this and realize they forgot to file their taxes

[@tribunateSPQR]

Keeping people out of jail is just one of the many services we offer

[@Ahnenerbe1944]

I literally got a turbo tax ad on this video hahaha

[@tribunateSPQR]

@@Ahnenerbe1944 as a private company that only exists because their lobbying efforts have made filing taxes so difficult, Turbo Tax is carrying on the tradition of the Publicani

[@apontel]

Procrastinating doing my taxes watching videos about roman taxes on KZbin

[@tribunateSPQR]

You can keep watching more of my videos, still plenty of time to file

[@amogusenjoyer]

Thank you for explaining the reasoning behind the private tax collection system! It originally kind of makes sense in context, even though it was an extremely flawed taxation system. Provincial governors must have been a very real potential source of instability during the republic. As proven by the late roman Empire period!

[@tribunateSPQR]

Governors weren't so much a source of political instability as they were economic instability. One of the reasons that tax farmers in Asia Minor needed the bailout advocated by Crassus was that they bid too much without knowing that the province had effectively already been picked clean.

[@Ancient__Wisdom]

One of the most insane tax systems imaginable

[@laisphinto6372]

Its normal taxation Just without all the bullshit to convince you the government doesnt cut you Up and exploits you Like a Slave. I rather want to know how rich people get away with Not playing taxes instead of the bullshit increased taxes for the riches that Always and i mean Always only results in No one wanting to make more legal Money and General increase of taxes for the poor.

[@laisphinto6372]

You mean the Most honest taxation, No lies about helping you or some bullshit Just straight Up honest taxing

[@cupidsfavouritecherub9327]

Not to get too Marxist, but I loved how you called out how much the superstructure is based on the material conditions. People don't talk enough about how tax farming and slavery shaped Rome's culture and ruling system (and guaranteed its eventual downfall imo)

[@tribunateSPQR]

Thanks! The historical materialist critique is vital to our approach, we recognize its limits of course but when properly applied it is an excellent tool for demystifying the ancient past.

[@mokithepepe2454]

this channel never fails to have the best takes possible

[@tribunateSPQR]

thank you!!

[@Lazyguy22]

What I've never understood about the publicani is, what determined how much they were allowed to charge? Was there a Roman system of tax assessors that calculated what the "actual" tax rate per person in a province was, and then the publicani just whacked their 30% on top illegally, knowing they could run to the legions if anyone protested?

[@tribunateSPQR]

Because publicani knew that they could keep all revenue in excess of the contract bid (what the senate identified as expected income) they were highly incentivized to sniff out tax cheats and smugglers. So if Rome needed a hypothetical 30% tax rate out of a province to balance its books, the set rate would be something like 45% to account for people hiding income and property. Publicani were despised because they employed locals who knew exactly how to catch people in the act of cheating and were vigorous in hounding taxpayers for every penny of the legally allowable 45% rate. There were actual checks on their power though as they could not go beyond the legal top rate (at least not officially but who knows what the more unscrupulous ones got up to) needed a governor's permission to call on state resources to compel payment.

[@geordiejones5618]

It's not until Diocletian organized what amounted to the first empire wide census that the imperial network truly knew the extent of what was available. At first it was a massive amount for one imperial family, but as the imperial government and populations both grew, expenses also ballooned along with inflation, which made this system less than useless and actively detrimental to basic infrastructure.

[@Tinil0]

Deleted my incorrect response since you got a better answer!

[@amendingamerica]

"So no taxation with representation?" *slams phone on floor

[@tribunateSPQR]

For much of Roman history citizens of Rome and Italy paid no direct taxes - import duties, manumission fees and other such taxes were the only things they were subject to. They realized it was politically astute to cut taxes on voters but had to make up for this with increased tax burdens in the provinces

[@matthewct8167]

“Tyranny for some leads to tyranny for all” couldn’t have put it better myself!!

[@MatthewCaunsfield]

Now that's a piece of Roman "innovation" I've not heard much about! Thanks for sharing the knowledge 👍

[@tribunateSPQR]

They were quite adept at taking foreign ideas and making them more useful - unfortunately in this instance it was only useful to the ruling clique

[@VivaSepulchre]

This is such a cool channel 😎 🐧

[@benitoharrycollmann132]

Nothing is certain but death and taxes... Rome was effective in bringing about both of these things

[@tribunateSPQR]

Very true - so good that I wish I had included that exact line in the video

[@LucasDimoveo]

Rome was a mess, even before the transformation into the empire. I see why various politicians tried to reform it. The case of Rufus shows that even well meaning people had no chance

[@android65mar]

excellent

[@marcusmoonstein242]

One of the more interesting aspects of the tax system was that there wasn't even a pretense that the tax money was going to be used for the benefit of the taxpayers. Taxes were basically straight-up extortion, as in "give us your money or we'll do bad things to you". This is very different from the modern approach, where politicians at least pretend that the taxes will be used for the pubic good.

[@laisphinto6372]

Funnily enough ancient politicians have much more Back to the people than modern ones , because they didnt Just Talk a Lot only but also build stuff beneficial to the citizens to get them to Vote for them so they indirectly have some Things Back to the taxpayers unlike modern politicians. Granted ancient people werent so docile hell even modern Veterans dont do anything when politicians screw them over. Ancient people however Go nuts when you do Something they dont Like , helps that almost every ancient citizen was a Warrior to some extent and has some very convincing Arguments to remind the politicians promises He talked and Bodyguards didnt save many politicians in ancient Times. Several Times politicians we're torn to pieces by angry Mobs.

[@ElvingsMusings]

Can you publish citations and sources for your videos? I think it's good but if you provide citations these videos can be used in reference material for others.

[@tribunateSPQR]

We're working on how best to integrate citation and bibliography into our videos but here are our sources for this episode: War and Imperialism in Republican Rome - William V. Harris The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World - G.E.M. de Ste. Croix Sulla, the Elites and the Empire - Frederico Santangelo Power and Public Finance at Rome, 264-49 BCE - James Tan The Education of Julius Caesar - Arthur Kahn Social Conflicts in the Roman Republic - P.A. Brunt Jewish War - Josephus

[@ElvingsMusings]

@@tribunateSPQR Thanks

[@mbapum6363]

Please where is Jeju Uprising Part 2???

[@StanGB]

great work

[@tribunateSPQR]

thanks!

[@evanthesquirrel]

A large chunk of big defense and non defense spending can be considered a form of unemployment benefit. I am of course referring to those employed by the government who would otherwise not be working.

[@tribunateSPQR]

Certainly. I don't believe that all money allocated to defense simply disappears into a black hole and hope my use of the graph didn't imply that. In fact the reason the US adopted the heavy defense budgets post WWII was to help stimulate the economy through an indirect Keynesian approach as an alternative to the European welfare state. However, I do believe that money invested in defense has a much lower rate of return across the entire economy than money invested in vital services like healthcare

[@evanthesquirrel]

@tribunateSPQR not at all. I'm mostly just emphasizing a point I don't see a lot of people talk about when they talk about big government or big military. A lot of that money is going to our neighbors who are working the dangerous and tedious jobs of keeping everything running. We can talk about cutting back bloat, but remember there are real people and real jobs tied to it all. They just see a big number and want it to be smaller. While I have your attention I just want to thank you for the high quality content. The recent piece on the historical Jesus was perfectly mint and every documentary and essay you put out is off the highest vintage. You are S tier gentlemen and classical KZbin scholars. Right between Historia Civilis and DJ Peach Cobbler.

[@tribunateSPQR]

@@evanthesquirrel Thank you! That's elite company and we appreciate the recognition. The growth so far has been beyond our wildest expectations as has all of the support!

[@laisphinto6372]

Very questionable increase funding in defense Budget almost never equals a better Army Heck Most of the time when a country goes to war IS firing all the useless fast around to make it more effecient, all the bureacrats and Generals that are useless will be removed , best example of that IS the Bundeswehr IT IS a Shitshow that IS so Trash even much smaller countries with a much smaller defense Budget have a way better Military than Germany can ever dream of having in the modern day, for crying Out loud WE have way more bureacrats than actual soldiers

[@boozecruiser]

​@@evanthesquirrelTo be fair, even less people talk about how superfluous landlords and the capital owning class are in the functioning of society, all while draining even more of it's resources

[@CBrace527]

Another great video - makes me a little less pessimistic about paying taxes

[@B_Estes_Undegöetz]

2:40 “This unprecedented access to wealth was both a symptom and a cause of Republican political decay …” Sounds to me exactly like the situation the US capitalist oligarchs considered after the accumulation of three decades of post WWII abundance and new found global hegemony when they decided to transform the U.S. economy from a mixed economy based on industrial capitalism to the new finance capitalism in the 1980s under Reagan which promoted the cessation of decades of detente with labor and the working class, smashing of labor union power, deregulation of banks and corporations, privatization of all possible public assets and institutions and quick short term gain over long term growth and the exploitation of their US political connections to penetrate the democratic political system itself and begin the slow process of rendering it inoperable as a means of achieving economic interests of the majority of Americans, and transforming party politics into performative culture war antics. After the 1970s the U.S.”aristocrats [of wealth and political influence ] were willing participants in schemes which they knew full well would have disastrous consequences for [the U.S.] as a whole but did offer immediate short term private benefits. The public interest was of little concern when so much money was up for grabs by those with political connections. This decline commitment to the public good was … “ It’s like the script for the video was written to describe the last half century of US history, my comrades. Sobering.

[@tribunateSPQR]

Comparisons between the US and the late republic can be overwrought, but the parallels are there is you know where to look.

[@Ixor779]

Woe to the vanquished

[@geordiejones5618]

I wonder when the first tax return or something analogous was first issued. I can't imagine any Roman ever got one.

[@laisphinto6372]

Oh they got plenty from their local Patron whenever He or His Sons were campaigning for magistrates and they were usually way more prepaered to spend Money ON even the dirtiest pleb because that ensures loyalty ( also governship IS the Cheat get rich and pay debts quickly Back)

[@CelticLifer]

One day I hope I'm rich enough to not pay taxes

[@Yallquietendown]

I wonder if some of the revenuers ever just vanished without a trace 😂

[@Michigander269]

I'd love to pay my taxes, but the Romans took it all!

[@lwaldron9745]

@00:59 Quoting Obama? I won't look for objectivity here.

[@tribunateSPQR]

It’s an MLK quote

[@LucasDimoveo]

My sibling in Christ, how did you mix up Obama and MLK? 😅🤦🏾‍♂️

[@ouss]

The populares brought to Rome the 2 worst policies: tax farming(gracchus) and the empire(ceasar)

[@di3727]

The Republic lost when the Optimates lost.

[@laisphinto6372]

IT was doomed when slaves took over Farming and any Work besides the Army. You have now a massive Low class Population that can only Work well in the Army and No Sure Future plan