1 - Eating with the Tax Collectors

Summary

The budgetary earmark was a key feature of public finance in the expanded Attalid kingdom and contributed to the success of the Pergamene imperial project. The dynamics and meaning of this administrative technique are thus explored in depth. Earmarking not only increased the quantity of money available to royal bureaucrats; it also made money into a medium for messaging. In a pointedly transparent manner, specific royal taxes and other revenues were earmarked for specific public goods. A series of inscriptions record the neat and final arrangements, but it is possible and even illuminating to reconstruct the entanglements of the process of negotiation by which these earmarks came into existence. The creation of an earmark required an interlocking of royal and civic fiscal institutions that further entrenched Attalid rule. The earmarking process posed ideological risks, as kings delved into the domain of private property and devolved agency to local actors, while also providing an arena for the display of providential care (pronoia) for royal subjects.