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No, the Romans never went bankrupt.

The emperor Caligula Caligula's exhausted the state's treasury through political payments for support, generosity to the poor and extravagant expenditure. However, Rome did not go bankrupt. Caligula resorted to asking the public to lend the state money, levied taxes on lawsuits, marriage and prostitution, allegedly auctioned the lives of the gladiators at shows, centurions (junior military officers) who had acquired property during war plundering were forced to turn it over to the state, current and former road highway commissioners were falsely accused of incompetence and embezzlement and fined. It was said that he had people executed in order to seize their estates (which was common practice with executed people).

Successive emperors responded to shortage of funds by reducing the precious metal content of gold and silver coins so that they could mint more coins.

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10y ago

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