Financing War in the Roman Republic

To support its armies, the Roman Republic continually adapted its financial system, evolving from early forms of taxation based on bronze ingots to the more sophisticated fiscal regimes of later centuries. Bringing together fiscal and military history, François Gauthier traces the evolution of the mechanisms used to finance Rome’s most costly institution from c. 200 BCE to 30 CE, offering a fresh perspective on the end of the Republic and the emergence of imperial rule.

Gauthier argues that the Senate financed war reactively and through improvisation, rather than by a coherent, centralized system. As powerful generals rose in the early first century BCE and civil war fractured the Republic, control of military finance became increasingly decentralized and regionalized before the first emperor undertook a major reorganization. The book demonstrates how taxation of Roman citizens, provincial requisitions of food and materiel, plunder, and war indemnities from defeated communities all underpinned the funding of war. It also shows that Rome’s incorporation of non-Romans into its armies – troops often financed by their own communities – provided a substantial source of relatively low-cost military manpower.

How did a state with comparatively rudimentary financial institutions fund the rapid conquest of the Mediterranean? Financing War in the Roman Republic offers a compelling answer.