severally acquired.[111] The government had no apparatus for carrying
out these undertakings itself; it had not, as we have, separate
departments or bureaux with a permanent staff of officials attached to
each, and even if it had been so provided, it would still have
found it most convenient, as modern governments also do, to get the
necessary work carried out in most cases by private contractors. Every
five years the censors let the various works by auction to contracting
companies, who engaged to carry them out for fixed sums, and make what
profit they could out of the business (_censoria locatio_). This saved
an immense amount of trouble to the senate and magistrates, who were
usually busily engaged in other matters; nor was there at first any
harm in the system, so long as the Romans were morally sound, and
incapable of jobbing or scamping their work. The very fact that they
united into companies for the purpose of undertaking these contracts
shows that they were aware of the risk involved, and wished as far as
possible to neutralise it; it did not mean greed for money, but rather
anxiety not to lose the capital invested.

But as Rome advanced her dominion in the second century B.C., and
had to see to an ever-increasing amount of public business, it was
discovered that the business of contracting was one which might indeed
be risky, but with skill and experience, and especially with a trifle
of unscrupulousness, might be made a perfectly safe and paying
investment. This was especially the case with the undertakings for
raising the taxes in the newly acquired provinces as well as in Italy,
more particularly in those provinces, viz. Sicily and Asia, which paid
their taxes in the form of tithe and not in a lump sum. The collection
of these revenues could be made a very paying concern seeing that it
was not necessary to be too squeamish about the rights and claims of
the provincials. And, indeed, by the time of the Gracchi all these