“When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer ‘Present’ or ‘Not Guilty’.”

–  Theodore Roosevelt

—

“No place is so strongly fortified that money cannot capture it.” 

– Marcus Tulllius Cicero

 

In our high school civics class we were taught that the primary role of our federal government is to serve the citizens through things like maintaining the domestic order, providing for our security, and protecting personal liberties.  It’s a testimony to the strength of the Constitution that this has primarily happened over the past 250 years.  This is manifest through our historically strong economy and presence on the global stage.

But as money and power pool together, you will see avarice and greed circling in search of an opportunity to exploit.  This is universally true in every country and throughout history.  They say you can buy anything in the world with money and that includes politicians who can shape policy that reflect your interests.  It just so happens that the United States is the biggest golden goose today just as Rome was the biggest target back in antiquity.

Moral societies all decry greed and corruption and some governments even try to establish laws and norms that limit the ability of a few to exploit the system for their benefit.  In this post I will focus on Rome and the US and provide examples of tactics deployed in both empires that have fostered corruption.  But to prove that I’m not all doom and gloom I will also provide in a later post examples in both empires where corruption was tamed to the benefit of the wider public.

Roman Corruption

“Look at the orators in our republics; as long as they are poor, both state and people can only praise their uprightness; but once they are fattened on the public funds, they conceive a hatred for justice, plan intrigues against the people and attack the democracy.”

– Aristophanes in Assemblywomen

 

Let’s start with Rome.  I’ll try to move beyond the more prominent examples, think Nero or Commodus, and provide some more nuanced examples.  Where possible I’ll call out corruption that happened towards the end of the empire.   But for now, I’ll start with the days of the late Republic.

One of the best examples that was sort of baked into the Roman system was the exploitation of governorships or other positions that had the ability to collect taxes.  During the Republic era this was often a stop along the cursus honorum that ambitious politicians would make in order to gather the necessary funds to curry favor and buy enough support to claim one of the two consul seats.

Gaius Verres was the ultimate poster child for provincial extortion. His time governing Sicily was so deeply corrupt that it prompted the locals to hire a young Marcus Tullius Cicero to prosecute him in Rome. This corruption included:

• The Grain Tax Scam: Verres was supposed to collect a tenth of Sicily’s harvest (decuma) for Rome. Instead, he systematically over-estimated the crops, forced farmers to pay the difference in cash at inflated rates, and threatened to execute anyone who complained.
• Art and Heritage Plunder: Verres was an obsessive art collector. He used his position to literally steal famous statues, gold plate, and sacred relics from Sicilian temples and private homes.
• The “Three-Year Plan” Quote: Verres allegedly joked that a governor needed three years in a province: one to pay off his campaign debts, one to bribe the jury at his future trial, and one to keep for himself. His corruption was so undeniable that his own defense lawyer gave up, and Verres fled into exile before the trial even ended.

Let’s move on to the richest man in the Republic, Marcus Crassus. He used his position under the First Triumvirate to secure the governorship of Syria. While he wanted military glory to rival Caesar and Pompey, he didn’t mind lining his pockets along the way. This included:

• Profiting from Sulla’s Proscriptions: During Sulla’s reign of terror, Crassus capitalized on the political purges by buying confiscated lands from political enemies at rock-bottom bargain prices. In some accounts, he even manipulated lists to ensure certain individuals were declared outlaws so he could seize their properties.
• Sacking the Temples: Upon arriving in the East, Crassus targeted local religious centers that had accumulated centuries of wealth. He marched into Jerusalem and stripped the Second Temple of its immense treasures, carrying off thousands of talents of gold. He did the exact same to the temple of the goddess Atargatis in Hierapolis.
• Bribery of Voters and Courts: He consistently used his vast fortune to buy political power, heavily bribing jurors to secure acquittals for allies, paying off magistrates, and funding the election campaigns of younger politicians who would be useful to him.
• The Toll of Greed: Crassus spent his first months checking ledger books and weighing treasure rather than training his army. His distractions cost him dearly; his poorly prepared legions were decimated by the Parthians at the Battle of Carrhae, where Crassus was killed. (Legend famously claims the Parthians poured molten gold down his throat as a symbol of his unquenchable greed).

One key facilitator of corruption during this period was the Publicani. You might remember from your reading of the Bible that this was the profession of Matthew. Governors didn’t always collect taxes themselves. They partnered with publicani (private tax-farming corporations). The Senate would auction off a province’s tax revenue to the highest-bidding publicani. Anything these corporations collected above that bid was pure profit. Governors were bribed to use their Roman soldiers to forcefully squeeze those excess profits out of the locals. 

Now let’s move on to the types of corruption that occurred in the later Empire.

During the later stages of the empire one of the key mechanisms that was exploited was a program called the latifundia.  Like most programs it started off with good intentions, a way to give some of the land from conquered people to military veterans, but over time it evolved to almost exclusively benefit a small few at the expense of many former farmers who were now displaced by large private estates driven by slave labor.

What exactly was a latifundia? It was essentially an industrial scale private agricultural estate that benefited from confiscated land and depended on cheap labor primarily driven by slaves. It was supposed to benefit the entire citizenry but, as with most things, the well connected political/business class used their influence to get the best leases or outright squat on the land.

The rise of the latifundia fundamentally altered Roman history. It pushed millions of unemployed, landless citizens off the countryside and into urban centers like Rome, creating a volatile underclass dependent on state grain subsidies. This stark inequality ultimately sparked violent political upheaval, inspiring the radical land-redistribution reforms championed by the Gracchi brothers and paving the way for the fall of the Roman Republic. It only grew and became more exploitative in the days of the Empire.

Another manifestation of corruption was the potentiories.  Like oligarchs there are people who understand that the government has the power and they use their money to effectively shape policies in their interest.  They undermined the tax code by creating loopholes and exemptions for themselves.  Examples of this included things like bribing tax collectors to undervalue their properties, hide key assets, or secure tax breaks. This placed a greater burden on the middle and lower classes.  Sound familiar? 

By the end of the Empire there simply wasn’t enough revenue to pay for the enormous government bureaucracy and support the military during times of crisis along its long borders.  Faith in government waned as the common citizen saw a smaller return on what they were getting for all the taxes that they were paying.  

American Corruption

“Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.”

-Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

In America we pride ourselves on doing things better and better and that includes perfecting the art of corruption.  Behind a polished veneer of international rules, the “American dream” and “American Exceptionalism” lies a complicated and sophisticated network of corruption managed by accountants, lawyers and financiers and facilitated by things like tax havens and favorable tax treatment.

We will call this crony capitalism and it has bastardized a lot of the pure tenets of capitalism that Adam Smith originated. For purposes of this essay I will focus on three tools of this nefarious beast- Regulatory Favoritism, Corporate Welfare, and Non-Competitive Bidding.

The first, regulatory favoritism, can be sold to the public under the guise of protecting key industries. But the reality is somewhat different.  Governments craft regulations, tariffs, or licensing requirements that intentionally shield established, well-connected firms from new competition.  Tariffs have been in the news lately and they serve a similar purpose.  While a case can be made to protect certain strategic industries (i.e. Advanced Chip Manufacturing) there is a long history of economic failure when these policies are enacted.  Just think of Smoot-Hawley.  

Recent examples of regulatory or tariff favoritism include:

• Private Equity: As returns within the industry have slowed down in recent years the Trump Administration has given into industry pressure by opening up these investments to the retail investor and with less oversight.
• Cryptocurrency Industry:  In exchange for massive donations to his 2024 campaign the Trump Administration has used agencies like the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and Office of the Comptroller to create favorable conditions for cryptocurrency.  It should be noted that the Trump family has numerous investments in this space.
• Repeal of Glass-Steagall under Clinton in 1999: This action led to megabanks who could now originate loans, securitize them, sell them to investors, and even bet against them. This led to things like CDO’s and Mortgage backed securities and were a principle cause of the Great Recession.

Next up we have Corporate Welfare. This is when well-connected companies receive disproportionate subsidies, tax breaks, or government bailouts.  All you need to do is look at the about-face that many leading CEO’s (I’m looking at you Mark Zuckerberg) made when Trump came back to office.  All of the sudden they were showing up at the White House bearing gifts like Tim Cook and cutting deals with Trump to benefit their companies.

Some notable examples from recent history include:

• Wal-Mart: The world’s largest retailer received numerous large subsidies while it continues to pay among the lowest wages in America.
• Big Oil: The largest companies (Exxon, BP, Conoco, Chevron, Shell) receive in excess of $4 Billion in breaks annually. In 2025 the combined profit of these same first was about $193 Billion.  (Source: Perplexity AI) 
• Tesla: Yes, this one will sting but if it wasn’t for government funding (~$38 Billion) there would be no Tesla and Elon Musk wouldn’t be the towering figure that he is today.

The final example is non-competitive bidding.  This is when government contracts are frequently awarded to politically favored insiders rather than the most qualified or cost-effective providers. While one the surface there measures in place to prevent this from happening, we all know the value of well-placed relationships

Among a long list is:

• Vulcan Materials: This small magnet company teamed up with Donald Trump Jr. to score a $620 million dollar loan from the Pentagon.
• Family Endeavors: During the migrant crisis in the Biden years it awarded, through the HHS over $530 Million a no-bid contract to Family Endeavors, a non-profit that was supposed to operate intake sites within Texas.
• The Trump Ballroom: Leading donors won $50 Billion in contracts after giving to the Ballroom that might or not have a hidden data center underneath it.

Ok, I’ll have to end the post here. I will spend some future time exploring other forms of corruption through things like special interests and lobbying groups as well as create a post regarding how these two empires attempted to limit corruption through legislation or penalties.  

Unfortunately there are plenty of examples of corruption across these two vast empires that can span multiple entries from me.  We aim to live in a political system that serves the people but most times that government ends up serving the interests of a connected few.  That’s just the nature of power and no system of government has successfully held it in check.  It doesn’t matter if you have an elected President or a crowned Emperor, the results will generally be the same.

 

Additional Resources:

• Good piece on how latifundias worked- link
• Heritage Foundation article on what Adam Smith would think of Crony Capitalism- link
• American Bar Association (ABA) article on Trump “Pay-to Play” corruption- link