Are there figures for how it accounted for a certain amount of the total production of Rome? Is there a way to compare to contemporary GDP?
I am taking an undergraduate course on Ancient Rome this semester, and it seems like a recurring theme is that Romans liked to force their defeated enemies to repay the cost of the war through indemnities paid over a set number of years. Source: the main text for this course is A History of the Roman People by Allen Ward et al.