could be productive only of envy and reproach, of expense and danger, were imposed on the Decurions, who formed the corporations of the cities, and whom the severity of the Imperial laws had condemned to sustain the burthens of civil society.172 The whole landed property of the empire (without excepting the patrimonial estates of the monarch) was the object of ordinary taxation; and every new purchaser contracted the obligations of the former proprietor. An accurate census,173 or survey, was the only equitable mode of ascertaining the proportion which every citizen should be obliged to contribute for the public service; and from the well-known period of the indictions, there is reason to believe that this difficult and expensive operation was repeated at the regular distance of fifteen years. The lands were measured by surveyors, who were sent into the provinces ; their nature, whether arable or pasture, or vineyards or woods, was distinctly reported; and an estimate was made of their common value from the average produce of five years. The numbers of slaves and of cattle constituted an essential part of the report; an oath was administered to the proprietors which bound them to disclose the true state of their affairs; and their attempts to prevaricate, or elude the intention of the legislator, were severely watched, and punished as a capital crime, which included the double guilt of treason and sacrilege.174 A large portion of the tribute was paid in money; and of the current coin of the empire, gold alone could be legally 172 The title concerning the Decurions (1. xii. tit. i.) is the most ample in the whole Theodosian Code; since it contains not less than one hundred and ninety-two distinct laws to ascertain the duties and privileges of that useful order of citizens." 173 Habemus enim et hominum numerum qui delati sunt, et agrorum modum. Eumenius in Panegyr. Vet. viii. [vii.] 6. See Cod. Theod. 1. xiii. tit. x. xi. with Godefroy's Commentary. 174 Siquis sacrilegâ vitem falce succiderit; aut feracium ramorum foetus hebetaverit, quo declinet fidem Censuum, et mentiatur callide paupertatis ingenium, mox detectus capitale subibit exitium, et bona ejus in Fisci jura migrabunt. Cod. Theod. l. xiii. tit. xi. leg. 1. Although this law is not without its studied obscurity, it is, however, clear enough to prove the minuteness of the inquisition, and the disproportion of the penalty. The Decuriones, also called Curiles, were the members of the senate in the municipal towns. This senate was called Ordo Decurionum, subsequently Ordo simply, and sometimes also Curia. In the times of the republic admission into the Ordo Decurionum was considered an honour; but under the despotism of the empire the position of the Decurions was most lamentable, as we see from the Theodosian Code. The plebeians carefully avoided this dangerous distinction, and the Decurions themselves sought to escape from it in every possible way. Many became soldiers and even slaves in order to con ceal themselves, but they were sought after and dragged back to the Curia. Their miserable condition arose from the oppression of the government. For the Decurions had not simply to collect the taxes, but they were responsible for their colleagues; they had to take up the lands abandoned by the proprietors on account of the intolerable weight of taxes attached to them; and they had finally to make up all deficiencies in the taxes out of their own private resources. Savigny, Gea. chichte des Römischen Rechts, rol. i p. 40, seq., 2nd erì.—S. accepted. 175 The remainder of the taxes, according to the proportions determined by the annual indiction, was furnished in a manner still more direct, and still more oppressive. According to the different nature of lands, their real produce in the various articles of wine or oil, corn or barley, wood or iron, was transported by the labour or at the expense of the provincials to the Imperial magazines, froin whence they were occasionally distributed, for the use of the court, of the army, and of the two capitals, Rome and Constantinople. The commissioners of the revenue were so frequently obliged to make considerable purchases, that they were strictly prohibited from allowing any compensation, or from receiving in money the value of those supplies which were exacted in kind. In the primitive simplicity of small communities this method may be well adapted to collect the almost voluntary offerings of the people; but it is at once susceptible of the utmost latitude and of the utmost strictness, which in a corrupt and absolute monarchy must introduce a perpetual contest between the power of oppression and the arts of fraud. 176 The agriculture of the Roman provinces was insensibly ruined, and, in the progress of despotism, which tends to disappoint its own purpose, the emperors were obliged to derive some merit from the forgiveness of debts, or the remission of tributes, which their subjects were utterly incapable of paying. According to the new division of Italy, the fertile and happy province of Campania, the scene of the early victories and of the delicious retirements of the citizens of Rome, extended between the sea and the Apennine from the Tiber to the Silarus. Within sixty years after the death of Constantine, and on the evidence of an actual survey, an exemption was granted in favour of three hundred and thirty thousand English acres of desert and uncultivated land, which amounted to one-eighth of the whole surface of the province. As the footsteps of the barbarians had not yet been seen in Italy, the cause of this amazing desolation, which is recorded in the laws, can be ascribed only to the administration of the Roman emperors. 177 175 The astonishment of Pliny would have ceased. Equidem miror P. R. victis gentibus [in tributo] semper argentum imperitasse, non aurum. Hist. Natur. xxxiii. 15. 176 Some precautions were taken (see Cod. Theod. 1. xi. tit. ii. and Cod. Justinian. 1. x. tit. xxvii. leg. 1, 2, 3) to restrain the magistrates from the abuse of their authority, either in the exaction or in the purchase of corn: but those who had learning enough to read the orations of Cicero against Verres (iii. de Frumento) might instruct themselves in all the various arts of oppression, with regard to the weight, the price, the quality, and the carriage. The avarice of an unlettered governor would supply the ignorance of precept or precedent. 177 Cod. Theod. 1. xi. tit. xxviii, leg. 2, published the 24th of March, A.D. 395, by the emperor Honorius, only two months after the death of his father Theodosius He speaks of 528,042 Roman jugera, which I have reduced to the English measure The jugerum contained 28,800 square Roman feet. Either from design or from accident, the mode of assessment seemed to unite the substance of a land-tax with the forms 178a Assessed in a capitation. of a capitation.' The returns which were sent of every the form of province or district expressed the number of tributary subjects, and the amount of the public impositions. The latter of these sums was divided by the former; and the estimate, that such a province contained so many capita, or heads of tribute, and that each head was rated at such a price, was universally received, not 178 Godefroy (Cod. Theod. tom. v. p. 116 [1. xiv. tit. x. leg. 2]) argues with weight and learning on the subject of the capitation; but while he explains the caput as a share or measure of property, he too absolutely excludes the idea of a personal assessment. Gibbon and most other writers have fallen into error respecting the finances of this period of the empire, by supposing that the word capitatio had only one signification. Savigny, however, in his masterly dissertation on the finances of the empire, has shown that capitatio signified both a land-tax and a poll-tax, which were the two principal taxes at this period. I. The Land-tar.-For the purposes of the land-tax the whole land of the empire was measured and divided into a certain number of pieces, each of which had to pay the same sum of money as a tax. Such a piece of land was called caput, sometimes jum, whence the tax was named capitatio and sometimes jugatio, Since each caput was of the same value, and paid the same tax, its size must of course have varied according to the nature of the land composing it. It appears from an edict of Majorian that the assessed value of the capital of each caput was 1000 solidi, or 5007. (see note on p. 328), but whether this was its real value or not may be doubted: probably its real value was greater than its assessed value. (Nov. Majoriani in the Berlin ed. of the Jus Civ. Antejust. Nov. xcii. § 16.) The nature of the census or general register of the land of the empire is described at length by Ulpian (Dig. 50, tit. 15, 1. 4). In the middle ages the registers were called capitastra, because they contained lists of the capita. Hence the word catastrum, which continues in use on the continent down to the present day. There was a periodical revision of the census, in the time of Ulpian every ten years, and at a later period every fifteen years. For each financial year, which commenced on the 1st of September, the whole amount of the land-tax was fixed, and was then divided among the capita. The payment had to be made in three instalments-on the 1st of January, the 1st of May, and VOL. II. the 1st of September. The tribute appointed for each year was called indictio, a term which also came to be applied to the financial year. (See preceding note, p. 533.) II. The Poll-tar.-The poll-tax was called sometimes simply capitatio, sometimes humana capitatio, capitalis illatio, and capitatio plebeia. The amount of this tax is unknown. Every person in the empire was liable to pay it, with the exception of the following classes. 1. All persons who paid the land-tax were exempt from the poll-tax. Consequently the poll-tax was a kind of supplement to the land-tax, and was intended as a direct tax upon those persons who would otherwise have escaped direct taxation, because they possessed no landed property. 2. All persons above the rank of plebeians were also exempt. The expression plebein capitatio shows that it was a peculiar burthen of the plebeians; but if the latter possessed property in land, it follows from the preceding exemption that they did not pay the poll-tax as well as the land-tax. Consequently the classes from whom the poll-tax was chiefly levied were1. The free inhabitants of towns, who possessed neither rank nor landed property. 2. The Coloni in the country. 3. The slaves. But by an edict of Diocletian, which, though repealed by Galerius, was renewed by Licinius, the plebs urbana and their slaves were exempt, so that the tax henceforth fell exclusively upon the Coloni and agricultural slaves. The proprietor of the land had to pay the tax for the Coloni upon his estate, from whom he recovered it. In like manner, the owners of slaves had to pay the tax upon their slaves; but as the latter had ro property, the tax was in reality a tax upon the masters. Savigny, ut supra, vo】 ii. p. 67, foll.-S. only in the popular, but even in the legal computation. The value of a tributary head must have varied, according to many accidental, or at least fluctuating circumstances: but some knowledge has been preserved of a very curious fact, the more important since it relates to one of the richest provinces of the Roman empire, and which now flourishes as the most splendid of the European kingdoms. The rapacious ministers of Constantius had exhausted the wealth of Gaul, by exacting twenty-five pieces of gold for the annual tribute of every head. The humane policy of his successor reduced the capitation to seven pieces.179 A moderate proportion between these opposite extremes of extraordinary oppression and of transient indulgence may therefore be fixed at sixteen pieces of gold, or about nine pounds sterling, the common standard, perhaps, of the impositions of Gaul.1 But this calculation, or rather indeed the facts from whence it is deduced, cannot fail of suggesting two difficulties to a thinking mind, who will be at once surprised by the equality and by the enormity of the capitation. An attempt to explain them may perhaps reflect some light on the interesting subject of the finances of the declining empire. I. It is obvious that, as long as the immutable constitution of human nature produces and maintains so unequal a division of property, the most numerous part of the community would be deprived of their subsistence by the equal assessment of a tax from which the sovereign would derive a very trifling revenue. Such, indeed, might be the theory of the Roman capitation; but, in the practice, this 179 Quid profuerit (Julianus) anhelantibus extremâ penuriâ Gallis, hine maxime claret, quod primitus partes eas ingressus, pro capitibus singulis tributi nomine vicenos quinos aureos reperit flagitari: discedens vero septenos tantum, munera universa complentes. Ammian. 1. xvi. c. 5. 180 In the calculation of any sum of money under Constantine and his successors, we need only refer to the excellent discourse of Mr. Greaves on the Denarius for the proof of the following principles: 1. That the ancient and modern Roman pound, containing 5256 grains of Troy weight, is about one-twelfth lighter than the English pound, which is composed of 5760 of the same grains. 2. That the pound of gold, which had once been divided into forty-eight aurei, was at this time coined into seventytwo smaller pieces of the same denomination. 3. That five of these aurei were the legal tender for a pound of silver, and that consequently the pound of gold was exchanged for fourteen pounds eight ounces of silver, according to the Roman, or about thirteen pounds according to the English weight. 4. That the English pound of silver is coined into sixty-two shillings. From these elements we may compute the Roman pound of gold, the usual method of reckoning large sums, at forty pounds sterling, and we may fix the currency of the aureus at somewhat more than eleven shillings. a a According to Savigny's calculations, the aureus in the time of Constantine was equal to three thalers eight groschen (Saxon), that is ten shillings English. After the preceding note, it need hardly be observed that the capita in Gaul were not "heads of tribute," but pieces of land. Each piece of land had to pay before Julian's administration twenty-five aurei, or 127, 10s., which he reduced to seven aurei, or 31. 10s. Properly these sums should be somewhat less in English money, since the relation of silver to gold in Constantine's time was 1 to 143, while the difference at present is somewhat greater. Savigny, ut supra, vol. ii. p. 144.-S. unjust equality was no longer felt, as the tribute was collected on the principle of a real, not of a personal imposition. Several indigent citizens contributed to compose a single head, or share of taxation; while the wealthy provincial, in proportion to his fortune, alone represented several of those imaginary beings. In a poetical request, addressed to one of the last and most deserving of the Roman princes who reigned in Gaul, Sidonius Apollinaris personifies his tribute under the figure of a triple monster, the Geryon of the Grecian fables, and entreats the new Hercules that he would most graciously be pleased to save his life by cutting off three of his heads. 181 The fortune of Sidonius far exceeded the customary wealth of a poet; but if he had pursued the allusion, he must have painted many of the Gallic nobles with the hundred heads of the deadly Hydra, spreading over the face of the country, and devouring the substance of an hundred families. II. The difficulty of allowing an annual sum of about nine pounds sterling, even for the average of the capitation of Gaul, may be rendered more evident by the comparison of the present state of the same country, as it is now governed by the absolute monarch of an industrious, wealthy, and affectionate people. The taxes of France cannot be magnified, either by fear or by flattery, beyond the annual amount of eighteen millions sterling, which ought, perhaps, to be shared among four-and-twenty millions of inhabitants.182 Seven millions of these, in the capacity of fathers, or brothers, or husbands, may discharge the obligations of the remaining multitude of women and children; yet the equal proportion of each tributary subject will scarcely rise above fifty shillings of our money, instead of a proportion almost four times as considerable, which was regularly imposed on 181 Geryones nos esse puta, monstrumque tributum, Sidon. Apollinar. Carm. xiii. [v. 19.] The reputation of Father Sirmond led me to expect more satisfaction than I have found in his note (p. 144) on this remarkable passage. The words, suo vel suorum nomine, betray the perplexity of the commentator. 182 This assertion, however formidable it may seem, is founded on the original registers of births, deaths, and marriages, collected by public authority, and now deposited in the Contrôle Général at Paris. The annual average of births throughout the whole kingdom, taken in five years (from 1770 to 1774, both inclusive), is 479,649 boys and 449,269 girls, in all 928,918 children. The province of French Hainault alone furnishes 9906 births; and we are assured, by an actual enumeration of the people, annually repeated from the year 1773 to the year 1776, that, upon an average, Hainault contains 257,097 inhabitants. By the rules of fair analogy, we might infer that the ordinary proportion of annual births to the whole people is about 1 to 26; and that the kingdom of France contains 24,151,868 persons of both sexes and of every age. If we content ourselves with the more moderate proportion of 1 to 25, the whole population will amount to 23,222,950. From the diligent researches of the French government (which are not unworthy of our own imitation) we may hope to obtain a still greater degree of certainty on this important subject." * In 1851 the total population of France was 35,781,628.—S. |
