t
the expense of the subjects, so thoroughly and absolutely as those
capitalists desired. In spite of their concord in opposing a common
foe such as was Tiberius Gracchus, a deep gulf lay between the nobility
and the moneyed aristocracy; and Gaius, more adroit than his brother,
enlarged it till the alliance was broken up and the mercantile class
ranged itself on his side.

Insignia of the Equites

That the external privileges, through which afterwards the men of
equestrian census were distinguished from the rest of the multitude--
the golden finger-ring instead of the ordinary ring of iron or copper,
and the separate and better place at the burgess-festivals--were first
conferred on the equites by Gaius Gracchus, is not certain, but is not
improbable. For they emerged at any rate about this period, and, as
the extension of these hitherto mainly senatorial privileges(19) to
the equestrian order which he brought into prominence was quite in
the style of Gracchus, so it was in very truth his aim to impress on
the equites the stamp of an order, similarly close and privileged,
intermediate between the senatorial aristocracy and the common multitude;
and this same aim was more promoted by those class-insignia, trifling
though they were in themselves and though many qualified to be equites
might not avail themselves of them, than by many an ordinance far
more intrinsically important. But the party of material interests,
though it by no means despised such honours, was yet not to be
gained through these alone. Gracchus perceived well that it would
doubtless duly fall to the highest bidder, but that it needed a high
and substantial bidding; and so he offered to it the revenues of Asia
and the jury courts.

Taxation of Asia

The system of Roman financial administration, under which the indirect
taxes as well as the domain-revenues were levied by means of
middlemen, in itself granted to the Roman capitalist-class the most
extensive advantages at the expense of those liable to taxation.
But the direct taxes consisted either, as in most provinces, of fixed
sums of money payable by the communities--which of itself excluded
the intervention of Roman capitalists--or, as in Sicily and Sardinia,
of a ground-tenth, the levying of which for each particular community
was leased in the provinces themselves, so that wealthy provincials
regularly, and the tributary communities themselves very frequently,
farmed the tenth of their dis