ECONOMIC MANAGEMENT OF CILICIA IN THE TIME OF CICERO
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Different kinds of exploitation can be ascertained after the Roman annexation of Asia Minor in 133 B. C. A number of governors were corrupt, cruel, and inefficient. Those with corrupt governments did great damage to the image of their successors and to Roman administration in general. Governors had to deal with a number of problems, including relations with the publicani in the province and senators in Rome. The first problem concerned economic management, particularly, malpractice in the field of tax gathering. Up to the time of Cicero, numerous decrees had been passed on this subject, and tax collecting was almost settled. Based on derisive comments contained in a dispatch by Cicero to the Senate, however, it appears that the Senate gave governors authority to collect money for public needs in the province in difficult times. Cicero would not allow tax collectors to get away with abuses under his governorship. The second problem was the debt and interest that the people of Cilicia owed Roman moneylenders, who were in general members of the Roman elite. After the annexation of the province of Asia, the inhabitants there were forced to borrow money from the Roman elite in order to pay their taxes and relieve their situation. This, however, often resulted in debt problems arising between provincials and Roman senators and, rather than relieving the people in the provinces, placed them in an impossible situation. The resolution of these problems was as important as tax collection, because the state sought neither to lose its sources of revenues through the bankruptcy of cities or individuals in the provinces nor to vex senators. Cicero, as a provincial governor of Cilicia, played an important role in contacts between Rome, the Roman elite, Roman businessmen, and native peoples of Asia Minor. He is a good example of a governor who knows how to use initiative, in light of his rights, to preserve and ensure the rights of his friends in the provinces through friendly involvement and the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) use of privilege.