e front is significant of the close
connection which existed later between imperialism and corporate finance,
but the later relations of corporations to the public interests cannot
always be interpreted in so charitable a fashion.

Our public-service companies find no counter-part in antiquity, but the
Roman societies for the collection of taxes bear a resemblance to these
modern organizations of capital in the nature of the franchises, as we
may call them, and the special privileges which they had. The practice
which the Roman government followed of letting out to the highest bidder
the privilege of collecting the taxes in each of the provinces, naturally
gave a great impetus to the development of companies organized for this
purpose. Every new province added to the Empire opened a fresh field for
capitalistic enterprise, in the way not only of farming the taxes, but
also of loaning money, constructing public works, and leasing the mines
belonging to the state, and Roman politicians must have felt these
financial considerations steadily pushing them on to further conquests.

But the interest of the companies did not end when Roman eagles had been
planted in a new region. It was necessary to have the provincial
government so managed as to help the agents of the companies in making as
much money as possible out of the provincials, and Cicero's year as
governor of Cilicia was made almost intolerable by the exactions which
these agents practised on the Cilicians, and the pressure which they
brought to bear upon him and his subordinates. His letters to his intimate
friend, Atticus, during this period contain pathetic accounts of the
embarrassing situations in which loaning companies and individual
capitalists at Rome placed him. On one occasion a certain Scaptius came to
him[102], armed with a strong letter of recommendation from the impeccable
Brutus, and asked to be appointed prefect of Cyprus. His purpose was, by
official pressure, to squeeze out of the people of Salamis, in Cyprus, a
debt which they owed, running at forty-eight per cent interest. Upon
making some inquiry into the previous history of Scaptius, Cicero learned
that under his predecessor in Cilicia, this same Scaptius had secured an
appointment as prefect of Cyprus, and backed by his official power, to
collect money due his company, had shut up the members of the Salaminian
common council in their town hall until five of them died of starvation.
In domestic