Roman Republic Problems

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advertisement The problems that led to the fall of the Roman Republic The Roman Republic was in trouble. It had three major problems. First the Republic needed money to run, second there was a lot of graft and corruption amongst elected officials, and finally crime was running wild throughout Rome. 1. Rome needed money to run. The Republic needed money to pay the legions, to build roads, sewers, aqueducts, and arenas, and to pay for the welfare programs that fed the poor. To get this money Rome created a system called tax farmers. A tax farmer was a person who bought the right from the Senate to tax all the people and business in a certain area. The biggest problem with this system is that the senate didn't set up any controls on the tax farmers. They didn't say how much taxes were, or who got taxed. They left all that up to the tax farmer. …show more content…

While most Romans were willing to pay taxes, and even allow the tax farmer some profit, many of the tax farmers went way beyond what people expected. Many of them saw this as a way to get rich. Plus, since the tax farmer decided who got taxed and who didn't, you could bribe the tax farmer to make your taxes low or maybe tax your competitors out of business, or if you had enough bribe money, maybe both. If a Roman citizen didn't pay their taxes at whatever amount the tax farmer set, you and your entire family could be sold into slavery. Even with the tax farmer system, the Roman government wasn't getting enough money and Rome was going broke. 2. Elected officials were

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