Pupius, an employe of the company,[126] by
every sort of kindness and liberality in your power, and to secure, as
you easily may, that his services shall be as satisfactory as possible
to the company, while at the same time securing and promoting the
property and interests of the partners--as to which I am well aware
how much power a quaestor possesses. You will be doing me in this
matter a very great favour, and I can myself from personal experience
pledge you my word that you will find the partners of the Bithynia
company gratefully mindful of any services you can do them."
If Cicero, the most tender-hearted of Roman public men, could urge
the claims of the companies so strongly, and, as in this last letter,
without any allusion to the interests of the province and its people,
we may well imagine how others, less scrupulous, must have combined
with the capitalists to work havoc in regions that only needed peace
and mild government to recover from centuries of misery. Such a letter
is the best comment we can have on the pernicious system of raising
taxes by contract--a system which was to be modified, regulated, and
eventually reduced to harmless dimensions under the benevolent and
scientific government of the early Empire.
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