#443 – Gregory Aldrete: The Roman Empire – Rise and Fall of Ancient Rome

10963.782 - 10986.366 Gregory Aldrete

But they often didn't collect the taxes directly. Instead, they would sell contracts to private businesses to collect taxes. So the private businesses would bid and say, all right, if you give us the contract to collect taxes in Sicily, we'll give you X number of money up front. And then we go out and try to collect enough to make back that money and make ourselves a profit.