owned by the language and conduct of Augustus. It is not easy to determine whether, on this occasion, he acted as the common father of the Roman world, or as the oppressor of liberty; whether he wished to relieve the provinces, or to impoverish the senate and the equestrian order. But no sooner had he assumed the reins of government, than he frequently intimated the insufficiency of the tributes, and the necessity of throwing an equitable proportion of the public burden upon Rome and Italy.* In the prosecution of this unpopular design, he advanced, however, by cautious and well-weighed steps. The introduction of customst was followed by the establishment of an excise, and the scheme of taxation was completed by an artful assessment on the real and personal property of the Roman calla, the provinces were compelled, in both capacities, to pay the old Such intimations as these from as well as the new taxes.-ED.] Augustus, ought not to excite in us any surprise, since his liberalities became necessary items in the new financial system. In the time of Nero, the senate also declared, that the state could not exist without the taxes, not only as first levied, but also as afterwards increased by Augustus. (Tacit. Ann. lib. xiii., c. 50). When Italy was relieved from fiscal burdens, by the foolish law passed A.U.C. 646, and by the Julian, 694, 695, when the rents of public lands, pastures, and woods (scriptura) were relinquished, and the prætor Cæcilius Metellus Nepos, A.U.C. 694, had abolished all the tolls, the state reserved for itself, from the whole of that country, no other payment than five per cent. on the enfranchisement of slaves (vicessima manumissionum). Cicero may be found complaining of this on many occasions, particularly when writing to Atticus. See letter 15, book 2.—WENCK.

The customs (portoria) existed under the ancient kings of Rome. They were suppressed in Italy, A.U.C. 694, by the prætor Cæcilius Metellus Nepos. They were only restored by Augustus. See the preceding note.-WENCK. [The ancient portorium did not correspond with our modern idea of customs or douanes. It was properly a toll, sometimes inland, as the "portorium castrorum," but generally a portdue paid by vessels on entering or leaving a harbour, and for the right of trading there. Livy, Pliny, and Tacitus distinguish it from vectigal, and this explains what Strabo says (lib. 4, p. 306) when he speaks of the revenue derived by the Romans from Britain, in the time of Augustus and Tiberius, which Baxter (Gloss. art. Brit. p. 225) calls "præstatio, portorium. Dufresne explains the term (vol. v., p. 65) as quæ datur pro navium applicatione, seu statione et mercatione quacunque, facta in portu." The Romans denominated their public taxes "tituli fiscales" (Dufresne, vi., 1157), and the tower at the entrance of a harbour, serving both for a pharos and for the collection of the portorium, was called "tituli lapis." The first of these two words, the Celts and Saxons abbreviated into Tol, Toill, or Thol, as we find

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THE ROMAN FINANCES.

[CH. VI.

citizens, who had been exempted from any kind of contribu tion above a century and a half.*

I. In a great empire like that of Rome, a natural balance of money must have gradually established itself. It has been already observed, that as the wealth of the provinces was attracted to the capital by the strong hand of conquest and power, so a considerable part of it was restored to the industrious provinces by the gentle influence of commerce and arts. In the reign of Augustus and his successors, duties were imposed on every kind of merchandise, which through a thousand channels flowed to the great centre of opulence and luxury; and in whatsoever manner the law was expressed, it was the Roman purchase, and not the provincial merchant, who paid the tax. The rate of the customs varied from the eighth to the fortieth part of the value of the commodity; and we have a right to suppose that the variation was directed by the unalterable maxims of policy; that a higher duty was fixed on the articles of luxury than on those or necessity, and that the productions raised or manufactured by the labour of the subjects of the empire were treated with more indulgence than was shewn to the pernicious, or at least the unpopular, commerce of Arabia and India. There is still extant a long but imperfect catalogue of eastern commodities, which about the time of Alexander Severus were subject to the payment of duties; cinnamon, myrrh, pepper, ginger, and the whole tribe of aromatics, a great variety of precious stones, among them in Lhuyd's Archæologia, and Somner's Lexicon. The German Zoll, though now used, as by the Zollverein, to denote customs, was taken from this source, and had originally the same meaning. In the laws of Edward the Confessor (Wilkins, p. 202), Thol signifies the "libertatem vendendi et emendi," and Tolingpeni occurs in early monastic grants. (Dugdale, Monast. Ang., vol. ii., p. 286). After the Norman Conquest, the portorium seems to have been still continued as a royal due in England, for the king in his ports received "fourpence for every ship of bulk, and twopence for every boat." Blomefield's Hist. of Norfolk, 8vo., vol. iii., p. 81.-ED.] *It was only from the personal tribute that they had been for so long a period exempted; from all others they were not free till the years 649, 694, and 695. See the preceding notes.--WENCK. Tacit. Annal. 13, 31. + See Pliny. Hist. Natur. 1. 6, c. 23, l. 12, c. 18). His observation that the Indian commodities were sold at Rome at a hundred times their original price, may give us some notion of the produce of the customs, since that original price amounted to more than 800,0007. § In the Par decta,

which the diamond was the most remarkable for its price, and the emerald for its beauty,* Parthian and Babylonian leather, cottons, silks both raw and manufactured, ebony, ivory, and eunuchs. We may observe that the use and value of those effeminate slaves gradually rose with the decline of the empire.

II. The excise,‡ introduced by Augustus after the civil wars, was extremely moderate, but it was general. It seldom exceeded one per cent; but it comprehended whatever was sold in the markets or by public auction, from the most considerable purchase of lands and houses, to those minute objects which can only derive a value from their infinite multitude, a..d daily consumption. Such a tax, as it affects the body of the people, has ever been the occasion of clamour and discontent. An emperor well acquainted with the wants and resources of the state, was obliged to declare, by a public edict, that the support of the army depended in a great measure on the produce of the excise.§

III. When Augustus resolved to establish a permanent military force for the defence of his government against foreign and domestic enemies, he instituted a peculiar treasury for the pay of the soldiers, the rewards of the veterans, and the extraordinary expenses of war. The ample revenue of the excise, though peculiarly appropriated to those uses, was found inadequate. To supply the deficiency, the emlib. 39, tit. 4, de Publican. Compare Cicero, in Verrem 2, c. 72 and 74. -WENCK. * The ancients were unacquainted with the art of cutting diamonds. + M. Bouchaud, in his treatise De l'Impôt chez les Romains, has transcribed this catalogue from the Digest, and attempts to illustrate it by a very prolix commentary. The Romans called this, "vectigal rerum venalium," 'venalitium," or according to the nature of the thing sold, and the rate of duty, "vicesima quinta," quinquagesima," centesima," or "ducentesima." See Burmann, p. 68. The finance system of the Romans needs to be better explained and exhibited than it has hitherto been. Burmann's work deserves to be read; but it requires to be completed and corrected, by many observations of modern statistical writers. It embraces, too, only a part of the subject; and that part the industrious collector has viewed too much with the eye of an antiquary.—WENCK. [This note shows still more clearly the impropriety of making the Latin portorium equivalent to our customs. That term evidently designated what was paid for the liberty or facility given to traffic; and vectigal, the tax laid on whatever was brought to market.-ED.] § Tacit. Annal. 1, 78. Two years afterwards, the reduction of the poor kingdom of Cappadocia gave Tiberius a pretence for diminishing the excise to one half; but

66

VOL. 1.

66

P

210

LEGACY DUTY.

[CH. VI. peror suggested a new tax of five per cent on all legacies and inheritances. But the nobles of Rome were more tenacious of property than of freedom. Their indignant murmurs were received by Augustus with his usual temper. lle candidly referred the whole business to the senate, and exhorted them to provide for the public service by some other expedient of a less odious nature. They were divided and perplexed. He insinuated to them, that their obstinacy would oblige him to propose a general land-tax and capitation. They acquiesced in silence.* The new imposition on legacies and inheritances was, however, mitigated by some restrictions. It did not take place unless the object was of a certain value, most probably of fifty or a hundred pieces of gold; nor could it be exacted from the nearest of kin on the father's side. When the rights of nature and poverty were thus secured, it seemed reasonable that a stranger or a distant relation, who acquired an unexpected accession of fortune, should cheerfully resign a twentieth part of it, for the benefit of the state.§'

Such a tax, plentiful as it must prove in every wealthy community, was most happily suited to the situation of the Romans, who could frame their arbitrary wills according to the dictates of reason or caprice, without any restraint from the modern fetters of entails and settlements. From various causes the partiality of paternal affection often lost its influence over the stern patriots of the commonwealth, and the dissolute nobles of the empire; and if the father bequeathed to his son the fourth part of his estate, he removed all ground of legal complaint.T But a rich childless old man was a domestic tyrant, and his power

the relief was of very short duration. * Dion Cassius, 1. 55, p. 794; 1. 56, p. 825. [No mention is made by Dion, either of such a proposition or of the capitation. He says only that the emperor imposed a land-tax, and sent round commissioners to prepare a schedule of it, but without fixing how or how much each individual was to pay. The senators, to avoid a greater sacrifice, submitted to the imposition on legacies and inheritances. This took place A.U.C. 759-760, not long before the death of Augustus.--WENCK.] The sum is only fixed by conjecture. As the Roman law subsisted for many ages, the cognati, or relations on the mother's side, were not called into the succession. This harsh institution was gradually undermined by humanity, and finally abolished by Justinian. Plin. Panegyric. See Hei.eccius, in the Antiquit. Juris Romani, L. 2.

8.37.

increased with his years and infirmities. A servile crowd, in which he frequently reckoned prætors and consuls, courted his smiles, pampered his avarice, applauded his follies, served his passions, and waited with impatience for his death. The arts of attendance and flattery were formed into a most lucrative science; those who professed it acquired a peculiar appellation; and the whole city, according to the lively descriptions of satire, was divided between two parties, the hunters and their game.* Yet, whilst so many unjust and extravagant wills were every day dictated by cunning and subscribed by folly, a few were the results of rational esteem and virtuous gratitude. Cicero, who had so often defended the lives and fortunes of his fellow-citizens, was rewarded with legacies to the amount of 170,000l.,† nor do the friends of the younger Pliny seem to have been less generous to that amiable orator. Whatever was the motive of the testator, the treasury claimed, without distinction, the twentieth part of his estate; and in the course of two or three generations, the whole property of the subject must have gradually passed through the coffers of the state.

In the first and golden years of the reign of Nero, that prince, from a desire of popularity, and perhaps from a blind impulse of benevolence, conceived a wish of abolishing the oppression of the customs and excise. The wisest senators applauded his magnanimity; but they diverted him from the execution of a design which would have dissolved the strength and resources of the republic.§ Had it indeed been possible to realize this dream of fancy, such princes as Trajan and the Antonines would surely have embraced with ardour the glorious opportunity of conferring so signal an obligation on mankind. Satisfied, however, with alleviating the public burden, they attempted not to remove it. The mildness and precision of their laws ascer tained the rule and measure of taxation, and protected the subject of every rank against arbitrary interpretations, antiquated claims, and the insolent vexation of the farmers

* Horat. 1. 2. sat. 5. Petron. c. 116, &c. Plin. 1. 2. epist 20. + Cicero in Philipp. 2. c. 16. See his epistles. Every such will gave him an occasion of displaying his reverence to the dead, and his justice to the living. He reconciled both, in his behaviour to a son who had been disinherited by his mother. (5, 1). § Tacit. Annal.