This order of the equites—­that is to say, substantially, of the wealthy merchants—­in various ways came roughly into contact with the governing senate.  There was a natural antipathy between the genteel aristocrats and the men to whom money had brought rank.  The ruling lords, especially the better class of them, stood just as much aloof from speculations, as the men of material interests were indifferent to political questions and coterie-feuds.  The two classes had already frequently come into sharp collision, particularly in the provinces; for, though in general the provincials had far more reason than the Roman capitalists had to complain of the partiality of the Roman magistrates, yet the ruling lords of the senate did not lend countenance to the greedy and unjust doings of the moneyed men, at the expense of the subjects, so thoroughly and absolutely as those capitalists desired.  In spite of their concord in opposing a common foe such as was Tiberius Gracchus, a deep gulf lay between the nobility and the moneyed aristocracy; and Gaius, more adroit than his brother, enlarged it till the alliance was broken up and the mercantile class ranged itself on his side.

Insignia of the Equites

That the external privileges, through which afterwards the men of equestrian census were distinguished from the rest of the multitude—­ the golden finger-ring instead of the ordinary ring of iron or copper, and the separate and better place at the burgess-festivals—­were first conferred on the equites by Gaius Gracchus, is not certain, but is not improbable.  For they emerged at any rate about this period, and, as the extension of these hitherto mainly senatorial privileges(19) to the equestrian order which he brought into prominence was quite in the style of Gracchus, so it was in very truth his aim to impress on the equites the stamp of an order, similarly close and privileged, intermediate between the senatorial aristocracy and the common multitude; and this same aim was more promoted by those class-insignia, trifling though they were in themselves and though many qualified to be equites might not avail themselves of them, than by many an ordinance far more intrinsically important.  But the party of material interests, though it by no means despised such honours, was yet not to be gained through these alone.  Gracchus perceived well that it would doubtless duly fall to the highest bidder, but that it needed a high and substantial bidding; and so he offered to it the revenues of Asia and the jury courts.

Taxation of Asia

The system of Roman financial administration, under which the indirect taxes as well as the domain-revenues were levied by means of middlemen, in itself granted to the Roman capitalist-class the most extensive advantages at the expense of those liable to taxation.  But the direct taxes consisted either, as in most provinces, of fixed sums of money payable by the communities—­which of itself excluded the intervention of Roman capitalists—­or,