When called upon to rule Cilicia in 51 B.C.he found the people quite unable to pay their taxes and driven into the hands of the middleman in order to do so;[122] his sympathies were thus divided between the unfortunate provincials, for whom he felt a genuine pity, and the interests of the company for collecting the Cilician taxes, and of those who had invested their money in its funds.

In his edict, issued before his entrance into the province, he had tried to balance the conflicting interests; writing of it to Atticus, who had naturally as a capitalist been anxious to know what he was doing, he says that he is doing all he can for the publicani, coaxing them, praising them, yielding to them--but taking care that they do no mischief;[123] words which perhaps did not altogether satisfy his friend.

All honest provincial governors, especially in the Eastern provinces, which had been the scene of continual wars for nearly three centuries, found themselves in the same difficulty.

They were continually beset by urgent appeals on behalf of the tax-companies and their agents--appeals made without a thought of the condition of a province or its tax-paying capacity--so completely had the idea of making money taken possession of the Roman mind.

Among the letters of Cicero are many such appeals, sent by himself to other provincial governors, some of them while he was himself in Cilicia.