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 wellweighed 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. The customs. 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 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 shown to the pernicious, or at least the unpopular, commerce of Arabia and India.98 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 which the diamond was the most remarkable for its price, and the emerald for its beauty ;99 Parthian and Babylonian leather, cottons, silks, 97 Tacit. Annal. xiii. 31. 98 See Pliny (Hist. Natur. 1. vi. c. 28 [s. 32] 1. xii. c. 18 [s. 41]). 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. a 99 The ancients were unacquainted with the art of cutting diamonds. Augustus only re-established the customs, which had existed from the earliest times of the republic, and had been suppressed by a law of Metellus but a few years previously. See note on p. 295.-S. both raw and manufactured, ebony, ivory, and eunuchs.100 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 ex- The excise. ceeded one per cent.; but it comprehended whatever was sold in the markets or by public auction, from the most considerable purchases 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 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 inherit III. When Augustus resolved to establish a permanent military force for the defence of his government against foreign and Tax on domestic enemies, he instituted a peculiar treasury for the legs and pay of the soldiers, the rewards of the veterans, and the ances. 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 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. He 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 landtax and capitation. They acquiesced in silence. 102 The new im 100 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.a 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.b 102 Dion Cassius, 1. lv. [c. 25] p. 799, 1. lvi. [c. 28] p. 827. In the Pandects, 39 [tit. 6, 1. 16, § 7] de Publican. Compare Cicero in Verrem, ii. c. 72-74.-W. b This tax, however, was abolished altogether by Caligula. Dion, lix. 9. Suet. Calig. c. 16.-S. The tax of five per cent. on all legacies and inheritances (vicesima hereditatium et legatorum) was only levied upon property bequeathed by Roman citizens, and was therefore paid chiefly by the inhabitants of Italy. It was an ingenious mode of imposing a property-tax upon the inhabitants of Italy, and was a sort of equivalent for the land-tax paid by the provinces. As the army no longer consisted exclusively of Italians, there was no reason for exempting them from direct taxation (see note, p. 295), and Augustus seems to have adopted this new tax as a substitute for the old tributum, which he would probably have hardly ventured to reimpose. A modern Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Gladstone) in Great position 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 gold;103 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 Suited to the laws and manners. 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.106 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 satire, was divided between two parties, the hunters and their game.107 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 fellow-citizens, was rewarded with legacies to the amount of an hundred and seventy thousand pounds;108 nor do the friends of the younger Pliny seem 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. Petron. c. 116, &c. Plin. 1. ii. Epist. 20. 106 See Heineccius in the Antiquit. Juris Romani, 1. ii. Britain, has, in like manner, imposed a tax upon successions, in order to obviate the necessity, and thus avert the unpopularity, of a property-tax. All inheritances below 100,000 sesterces, and the nearest relations by blood, were exempt from this tax; but in consequence of the large fortunes of the Roman nobles, and of the prevalence of celibacy among them, it must have yielded a large annual revenue. See Bachofen, Die Erbschaftssteuer, &c., in Ausgewählte Lehren des Römischen Civilrechts, Bonn, 1848.-S. דדו to have been less generous to that amiable orator.109 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. tions of the In the first and golden years of the reign of Nero, that prince, from a desire of popularity, and perhaps from a blind impulse Regula of benevolence, conceived a wish of abolishing the oppression emperors. 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.110 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 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 method of collecting the principal branches at least of the excise and customs.1 111 112 The sentiments, and indeed the situation of Caracalla, were very different from those of the Antonines. Inattentive, or Edict of rather averse, to the welfare of his people, he found him- Caracalla. self under the necessity of gratifying the insatiate avarice which he had excited in the army. Of the several impositions introduced by Augustus, the twentieth on inheritances and legacies was the most fruitful as well as the most comprehensive. As its influence was not confined to Rome or Italy, the produce continually increased with the gradual extension of the ROMAN CITY. The new citizens, though charged on equal terms113 with the payment of new taxes which had not affected them as subjects, derived an ample compensation from the rank they obtained, the privileges they acquired, and the fair prospect of honours and fortune that was thrown open to their 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. See Pliny's Panegyric, the Augustan History, and Burman. de Vectigal. passim. 112 The tributes (properly so called) were not farmed; since the good princes often remitted many millions of arrears. 13 The situation of the new citizens is minutely described by Pliny (Panegyric, c. 37, 38, 39). Trajan published a law very much in their favour. Seditions murder of Ulpian. The Prætorian guards were attached to the youth of Alexander. They loved him as a tender pupil whom they had saved from a tyrant's fury and placed on the Imperial throne. guards, and That amiable prince was sensible of the obligation; but, as his gratitude was restrained within the limits of reason and justice, they soon were more dissatisfied with the virtues of Alexander than they had ever been with the vices of Elagabalus. Their præfect, the wise Ulpian, was the friend of the laws and of the people ; he was considered as the enemy of the soldiers, and to his pernicious counsels every scheme of reformation was imputed. Some trifling accident blew up their discontent into a furious mutiny; and a civil war raged during three days in Rome, whilst the life of that excellent minister was defended by the grateful people. Terrified at length by the sight of some houses in flames, and by the threats of a general conflagration, the people yielded with a sigh, and left the virtuous but unfortunate Ulpian to his fate. He was pursued into the Imperial palace, and massacred at the feet of his master, who vainly strove to cover him with the purple and to obtain his pardon from the inexorable soldiers." Such was the deplorable weakness of government that the emperor was unable to revenge his murdered friend, and his insulted dignity, without stooping to the arts of patience and dissimulation. Epagathus, the principal leader of the mutiny, was removed from Rome by the honourable employment of præfect of Egypt; from that high rank he was gently degraded to the government of Crete; and when at length his popularity among the guards was effaced by time and absence, Alexander ventured to inflict the tardy but deserved punishment of his crimes.74 Under the reign of a just and virtuous prince the tyranny of the army threatened with instant death his most faithful ministers who were suspected of an intention to correct their intolerable disorders. The historian 74 Though the author of the Life of Alexander (Hist. August. p. 132 [Lampr. Alex. Sev. c. 51]) mentions the sedition raised against Ulpian by the soldiers, he conceals the catastrophe, as it might discover a weakness in the administration of his hero. From this designed omission we may judge of the weight and candour of that author. a Gibbon has confounded two events altogether different the quarrel of the people with the Prætorians, which lasted three days, and the assassination of Ulpian by the latter. Dion relates first the death of Ulpian; afterwards, reverting back according to a manner which is usual with him, he says that during the life of Ulpian there had been a war of three days between the Prætorians and the people. But Ulpian was not the cause. Dion says, on the contrary, that it was occasioned by some unimportant circumstance; whilst he assigns a weighty reason for the murder of Ulpian, the judgment by which that Prætorian præfect had condemned his predecessors, Chrestus and Flavian, to death, whom the soldiers wished to revenge. Zosimus (1. i. c. 11.) attributes this sentence to Mamma; but even then the troops might have imputed it to Ulpian, who had reaped all the advantage, and was otherwise odious to them.-W. |