of some enemy, such as Mithridates or Ariovistus, who by defeating a Roman army might break into Roman territory and destroy the prospects of a successful contractual enterprise.  Assuredly Cicero’s love for the Forum was not a political one only; he loved it indeed as the scene of his great triumphs as an advocate, but also no doubt because he was concerned in some of the companies which had their headquarters there.  When urging the people to give Pompeius extraordinary powers to drive Mithridates out of reach of Roman Asia, where he had done incalculable damage, he dwells both with knowledge and feeling on the value of the province, not only to the State, but to innumerable private citizens who had their money invested in its revenues[118].  “If some,” he pleads, “lose their whole fortunes, they will drag many more down with them.  Save the State from such a calamity:  and believe me (though you see it well enough) that the whole system of credit and finance which is carried on here at Rome in the Forum, is inextricably bound up with the revenues of the Asiatic province.  If those revenues are destroyed, our whole system of credit will come down with a crash.  See that you do not hesitate for a moment to prosecute with all your energies a war by which the glory of the Roman name, the safety of our allies, our most valuable revenues, and the fortunes of innumerable citizens, will be effectually preserved.[119]”

This is a good example of the way in which political questions might be decided in the interests of capital, and it is all the more striking, because a few years earlier Sulla had done all he could to weaken the capitalists as a distinct class.  Pompeius went out with abnormal powers, and might be considered for the time as their representative; the result in this case was on the whole good, for the work he did in the East was of permanent value to the Empire.  But the constitution was shaken and never wholly recovered, and nothing that he was able to do could restore the unfortunate province of Asia to its former prosperity.  Four years later the company which had contracted for raising the taxes in the province sought to repudiate their bargain.  This was disgraceful, as Cicero himself expressly says;[120] but it is quite possible that they had great difficulty in getting the money in, and feared a dead loss,[121] owing to the impoverishment of the provincials.  This matter again led to a political crisis; for the senate, urged by Cato, was disposed to refuse the concession, and the alliance between the senatorial class and the business men (ordinum concordia), which it had been Cicero’s particular policy to confirm, in order to mass together all men of property against the dangers of socialism and anarchy, was thereby threatened so seriously that it ceased to be a factor in politics.