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 provinces 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. The 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 fishermen.*

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 15,000,000l. or 20,000,000l. of our money;† and, 2ndly, That so ample a revenue must to the state. * Strabo, 1. 10, p. 485. Tacit. Annal. 3, 69, and 4, 30. See in Tournefort, (Voyages au Levant, lettre 8), a very lively picture of the actual misery of Gyarus. Lipsius (de Magnitudine Romanâ, 1. 2, 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. [If the revenue of the Roman empire was exaggerated by Justus Lipsius, it was, on the other hand, placed too low by Gibbon. Even with the aid of the best information, it is difficult to calculate, with any degree of exactness, the income of a great empire. In the present case it is doubly so, through want of trustworthy information. The following observations may however afford some light-1. Gibbon reckons it at about fifteen or twenty millions of pounds sterling. The taxes, levied only on the provinces named by him, must have produced, on a moderate computation, this sum, especially after Augustus had increased those on Egypt, Gaul, and Spain. ("Opus novum et inadsuetum Gallis," are the words attributed to the Emperor Claudius. Lips. Excurs. k. ad Tac. Ann. 1). But to these must then be added Italy, Rhotia, Noricum, Pannonia, Dalmatia, Dacia, Moesia, Macedonia, Thrace, Greece, Britain, Sicily, Cyprus, Crete, and the long train of other islands. 2. At the present time, France pays to its king a hundred millions of crowns yearly, and other former Roman provinces in the same proportion, to their rulers. Can it be credited that the whole Roman empire raised no more than one of its provinces now yields? Its imposts, no doubt, varied under different emperors; but it is wonderful to see how high and manifold they were; most rigid too was the severity used in collecting them, for

206

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[CH. VI. 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 these conclusions, the latter of them at least is positively dis

never yet did the virtue of mercy generally characterize the taxgathering tribe. 3. Every attentive reader of Roman history traces on each successive page of its writers, circumstances that prove the large revenues of antiquity. Then consider the enormous expenditure on long lines of road, stretching from one extremity of the empire to the other, and on public buildings and establishments, such as no other state has yet rivalled, besides other extraordinary disbursements. Augustus often distributed, among the citizens, sums (congiaria) which at a moderate estimate amounted to twenty millions of crowns or more; his successors did the same; and even the frugal Severus once gave five thousand myriads of drachmæ, or more than a million of crowns. The worst emperors were the largest bestowers of donations on the troops, and indulged most freely in all other expenses. The sums lavished, for instance, within a short space of time, by Nero and Vitellius, were immense. Vespasian, who succeeded them, said that he required "quadringenties millies (Sueton. Vesp. 16, though some, but without documentary authority, read " quadragies") or more than 1,937 millions of crowns, to bring the finances into proper order; and it is well known that he did restore them. Yet, notwithstanding all this expenditure, many emperors at their death left large accumulated treasures, as, for example, Tiberius, "vicies ac septies millies," (nearly 131 millions of crowns, or 22,000,000%. sterling), and Antoninus Pius the same. Gibbon regarded only the last ages of the republic, while Justus Lipsius, whom he condemned, looked at the imperial times. If a larger revenue had not been derived from the provinces especially, as subsequently augmented, it cannot possibly have sufficed to meet so enormous an expenditure. The writers of the Universal History (part 12, p. 86) fix forty millions sterling as the probable amount of the public income during the last years of the Roman Republic.-WENCK.] [This long note is founded on a strange misapprehension of Gibbon's meaning. He expressly estimates "the general income of the Roman provinces" at the sum which M. Wenck represents him as stating to be "the revenue of the Roman empire." The whole remaining portion of this chapter is also devoted to show how, to this amount of provincial tribute, was added all that accrued from the customs, excise, and tax on inheritances, which the "Roman citizens" paid; how, by the extension of this franchise, extravagant emperors raised additional sums to support their prodigality; and how, when it was made universal by Cara

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 as well as the new taxes.-ED.] * Such intimations as these from 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 portorium. Dufresne explains the term (vol. v., p. 65) as "præstatio, 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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[CH. VI

citizens, who had been exempted from any kind of contribution 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. În 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 thar 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 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, 1. 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 800,000Z. § In the Pandects,

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, 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.§

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

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