CHAP. annually received from the provinces of Asturia, Gallicia, and Lusitania94. VI. of the isle We want both leisure and materials to pursue this of Gyarus. curious inquiry through the many potent states that were annihilated in the Roman empire. Some notion, however, may be formed of the revenue of the pro vinces, where considerable wealth had been deposited by nature, or collected by man, if we observe the severe attention that was directed to the abodes of solitude and sterility. Augustus once received a petition from the inhabitants of Gyarus, humbly praying that they might be relieved from one-third of their excessive impositions. Their whole tax amounted indeed to no more than one hundred and fifty drachms, or about five pounds: but Gyarus was a little island, or rather a rock, of the Egean Sea, destitute of fresh water and every necessary of life, and inhabited only by a few wretched fishermen95. Amount of the revenue. Taxes on tizens, in From the faint glimmerings of such doubtful and scattered lights we should be inclined to believe, 1st. That (with every fair allowance for the difference of times and circumstances) the general income of the Roman provinces could seldom amount to less than fifteen or twenty millions of our money; and, 2ndly, That so ample a revenue must have been fully adequate to all the expenses of the moderate government instituted by Augustus, whose court was the modest family of a private senator, and whose military establishment was calculated for the defence of the frontiers, without any aspiring views of conquest, or any serious apprehension of a foreign invasion. Notwithstanding the seeming probability of both Roman ci- these conclusions, the latter of them at least is positivestituted by ly disowned by the language and conduct of Augustus. Augustus. It is not easy to determine whether, on this occasion, 94 Plin. Hist. Natur. 1. xxxiii. c. 3. He mentions likewise a silver mine in Dalmatia, that yielded every day fifty pounds to the state. 95 Strabo, l. x. p. 485. Tacit. Annal. iii. 69. and iv. 30. See in Tournefort (Voyages au Levant, Lettre viii.) a very lively picture of the actual misery of Gyarus. 96 Lipsius de magnitudine Romanâ (1. ii. c. 3.) computes the revenue at one hundred and fifty millions of gold crowns; but his whole book, though learned and ingenious, betrays a very heated imagination. 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 customs 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 citizens, who had been exempted from any kind of contribution above a century and a half. CHAP. VI. I. In a great empire like that of Rome, a natural The cusbalance of money must have gradually established it. toms. self. 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 I 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 purchaser, 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 of 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 imper 97 Tacit. Annal. xiii. 31, 98 See Pliny (Hist. Natur. 1. vi. c. 23. 1. xii. 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 eight hundred thousand pounds. CHAP. fect catalogue of eastern commodities, which about the VI. 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 which the diamond was the most remarkable for its price, and the emerald for its beauty99 Parthian and Babylonian leather, cottons, silks both raw and manufactured, ebony, ivory, and eunuchs100. We may observe that the use and value of those effeminate slaves gradually rose with the decline of the empire. The ex cise. Tax on le inheri tances. 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, and 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 101. III. When Augustus resolved to establish a perma. gacies and nent 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 emperor sug gested 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. He candidly referred the whole business to 99 The ancients were unacquainted with the art of cutting diamonds. 100 M. Bouchaud, in his treatise de l'Impot chez les Romains, has trancribed this catalogue from the Digest, and attempts to illustrate it by a very prolix commentary. 101 Tacit. Annal. i. 78. Two years afterwards, the reduction of the poor kingdom of Cappadocia gave Tiberius a pretence for diminishing the excise to one half; but the relief was of very short duration. VI. the senate, and exhorted them to provide for the public CHAP. 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 silence102. 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 an hundred pieces of goldi03, nor could it be exacted from the nearest of kin on the father's side 104. 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 105. and man Such a tax, plentiful as it must prove in every weal- Suited to thy community, was most happily suited to the situa- the laws tion of the Romans, who could frame their arbitrary ners. 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. But a rich childless old man was a domestic tyrant, and his power 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 102 Dion Cassius, 1. lv. p. 794. 1. lvi. p. 825. 103 The sum is only fixed by conjecture. 104 As the Roman law subsisted for many ages, the Cognati, or relations on the mother's side, were not called to the succession. This harsh institution was gradually undermined by humanity, and finally abolished by Justinian. 105 Plin, Panegyric, c. 37, 106 See Heineccius in the Antiquit. Juris Romani, 1, ii. VI. CHAP. satire, was divided between two parties, the hunters and their game107. Yet, while so many unjust and extravagant wills were every day dictated by cunning, and subscribed by folly, a few were the result of rational esteem and virtuous gratitude. Cicero, who had so often defended the lives and fortunes of his fellowcitizens, was rewarded with legacies to the amount of an hundred and seventy thousand pounds 108; nor do the friends of the younger Pliny seem to have been less generous to that amiable orator109. 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. Regula tions of rors. In the first and golden years of the reign of Nero, that prince, from a desire of popularity, and perhaps the empe- 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 republic110. Had it indeed been possible to realize this dream of fancy, such princes as Trajan and the Antonines would surely have embraced with ardor 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 ascertained 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 of the revenue. For it is somewhat singular that, in every age, the best and wisest of the Roman governors persevered in this pernicious 107 Horat. 1. ii. Sat. v. Petron. c. 116, &c. Plin. 1. ii. Epist. 20. 109 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 (v. 1.) 110 Tacit. Annal. xiii. 50. Esprit des Loix, 1. xii. c. 19. 111 See Pliny's Panegyric, the Augustan History, and Burman de tigal. passim. ec |