Lucullus was now busy in looking after the cities of Asia, and having no war to divert his time, spent it in the administration of law and justice, the want of which had for a long time left the province a prey to unspeakable and incredible miseries; so plundered and enslaved by tax-farmers and usurers that private people were compelled to sell their sons in the flower of their youth, and their daughters in their virginity, and the states publicly to sell their consecrated gifts, pictures, and statues. In the end their lot was to yield themselves up slaves to their creditors, but before this worse troubles befell them, tortures, inflicted with ropes and by horses, standing abroad to be scorched when the sun was hot, and being driven into ice and clay in the cold; insomuch that slavery was no less than a redemption and joy to them.
tl;dr:
Lucullus, a Roman magistrate in the Republic era, is sent to govern provinces in Asia. The Romans had a practice of ‘tax farming’ at the time, where (basically) they would contract out to private tax collectors, who would then travel to the provinces and extorted as much wealth as they could; a certain, previously agreed-upon amount was sent back to the state, and the collectors were legally permitted to keep whatever else they could scrape off the top. This led to rampant abuse, to the point where the local populace was so stripped of wealth that they were forced to sell their loved ones – and themselves – into slavery to pay off insane amounts of debt. Lucullus was famous for having curbed this practice to a more manageable extent.
Further Reading:
Plutarch, John Dryden, and Arthur Hugh Clough. "Lucullus." Plutarch's Lives. New York: Modern Library, 2001. 675. Print.
Further Reading:
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