Ancient & Modern | 04 April 2009

As the true depth of the recession emerges, and fury increases against bankers for the massive bonuses they have demanded, effectively from the taxpayer, for creating it, Roman generals might set an unexpected example.

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Manubiae, probably derived from manus ‘hand’ and habere ‘to have’, meant the booty which a general could claim as his own, to do what he liked with, after a successful campaign. But unlike bankers, he knew where his duty lay. First and foremost, there would be handsome hand-outs to those who made it possible: troops, officers and family. He would then memorialise his achievements in Rome with public buildings, magnificent games and dinners for the plebs.

Asinius Pollio, for example, used the manubiae from his victory in the Balkans in 39 bc to build Rome’s first public library and to commission and establish a public art collection. Pompey, after his victories in the East that doubled Rome’s annual revenues, devoted some of his manubiae to building Rome’s first permanent stone theatre (dedicated in 55 bc), with spacious gardens attached, its porticos filled with antique statuary and paintings, and a room for meetings of the Senate. Julius Caesar is said to have dipped into his manubiae to the tune of 100 million sesterces to build a new Julian forum next to the Forum Romanum.

These were the days of private armies, doing the state’s work but owing their loyalty to their general. When the first emperor Augustus (27 bc-ad 14) created Rome’s first professional, standing army, the practice of manubiae was abandoned, and the emperor took the proceeds (Augustus had earlier suggested that generals granted a triumph should use their manubiae to finance public road-building projects). But the use of that money did not change: the Colosseum was built from booty taken during the sack of Jerusalem and its Temple in ad 70.