Note 249 — Chapter XV · THE ROMANS

The chief political asset of the triumvirs was the orientalized plebs of the city, whose origin and poverty would combine to make them bitterly detest the organized tax-farmers. Now Crassus, one of the triumvirs, was himself the head of a powerful financial group. It may be that the tax-farmers persecuted by Gabinius belonged to a rival organization, or that Crassus had withdrawn from that form of speculation before 60 B.C.E. In the case of Flaccus, the complaint of the tax-financier Decianus was a pretext, or else Decianus may have been forethoughtful enough to have joined the right syndicate.