may observe that the use and value of those effeminate slaves gradually rose with the decline of the empire. The excise. 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 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 clamor 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.10 Tax on legacies and inheritances. 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 de ficiency, 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 indig nant 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 land-tax and capitation. They acquiesced in silence. The new imposition on lega b 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.a 102 Dion Cassius, 1. lv. [c. 25] p. 799, 1. lvi. [c. 28] p. 827. This tax, however, was abolished altogether by Caligula. Dion, lix. 9. Suet. Calig. c. 15.-S. The tax of five per cent. on all legacies and inheritances (vicesima heredita 104 103 103 cies 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.' 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 fol Suited to the laws and manners. 103 The sum is only fixed by conjecture. 100 104 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 grad. ually undermined by humanity, and finally abolished by Justinian. 105 Plin. Panegyric. c. 37. 106 See Heineccius in the Antiquit. Juris Romani, l. ii. tium 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. 416), 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 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, etc., in Ausgewählte Lehren des Römischen Civilrechts, Bonn, 1848.-S. 107 lies, 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, 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 a hundred and seventy thousand pounds; 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. 109 Regulations of the emperors. 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 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 110 107 Horat. 1. ii. Sat. v. [v. 23 seq.]. Petron. c. 116, etc. Plin. 1. ii. Epist. 20. 108 Cicero in Philip. ii. c. 16. 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 behavior to a son who had been disinherited by his mother (v. 1). 110 Tacit. Annal. xiii. 50. Esprit des Loix, 1. xii. ch. 19. 111 the subject of every rank against arbitrary interpretations, an tiquated 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.' Edict of 112 The sentiments, and indeed the situation of Caracalla, were very different from those of the Antonines. Inattentive, or rather averse, to the welfare of his people, he found himself 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 terms" 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 honors and fortune. that was thrown open to their ambition. But the favor which implied a distinction was lost in the prodigality of Caracalla, and the reluctant provincials were compelled to assume the vain title and the real obligations of Roman citizens. Nor was the rapacious son of Severus contented with such a measure of taxation as The freedom of the city given to all the provin cials, for the purpose of taxation. had appeared sufficient to his moderate predeces Instead of a twentieth, he exacted a tenth of all legacies 111 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. 113 The situation of the new citizens is minutely described by Pliny (Panegyric, c. 37, 38, 39). Trajan published a law very much in their favor. a Some writers, whom Wenck has followed, attribute to M. Aurelius the edict which conferred the citizenship upon the provincials. But there is no doubt that the statement in the text is correct, since the contemporary Dion expressly assigns the edict to Caracalla, and the other authorities do not deserve notice in comparison with him.-S. Temporary the tribute. 114 and inheritances; and during his reign (for the ancient proportion was restored after his death) he crushed alike every part of the empire under the weight of his iron sceptre.' When all the provincials became liable to the peculiar impositions of Roman citizens, they seemed to acquire a legal exemption from the tributes which they had paid reduction of in their former condition of subjects. Such were not the maxims of government adopted by Caracalla and his pretended son. The old as well as the new taxes were, at the same time, levied in the provinces. It was reserved for the virtue of Alexander to relieve them in a great measure from this intolerable grievance, by reducing the tributes to a thirtieth part of the sum exacted at the time of his accession. It is impossible to conjecture the motive that engaged him to spare so trifling a remnant of the public evil; but the noxious weed, which had not been totally eradicated, again sprang up with the most luxuriant growth, and in the succeeding age darkened the Roman world with its deadly shade. In the course of this History we shall be too often summoned to explain the land - tax, the capitation, and the heavy contributions of corn, wine, oil, and meat which were exacted from the provinces for the use of the court, the army, and the capital.a 115 114 Dion, 1. lxxvii. [c. 9] p. 1294. 115 He who paid ten aurei, the usual tribute, was charged with no more than the third part of an aureus, and proportional pieces of gold were coined by Alexander's order. Hist. August. p. 127 [Lampr. Alex. Sev. c. 39], with the commentary of Salmasius. a Gibbon has omitted to mention the important change introduced during the first two centuries of the empire in the system of taxation in the provinces. The following is a brief account of this change, taken from Savigny's admirable essay quoted above: In the time of the republic the system of taxation differed in the various provinces, partly in consequence of the different circumstances attending their subjugation, and partly because it was found more convenient and advantageous to preserve the system of taxation which was in existence before the Roman conquest. All provinces, however, except Sicily, paid either a fixed land-tax (vectigal stipendiarium), or variable duties, such as tithes or other portion of the produce (Cic. Verr. iii. 6); but, without any respect to these differences, all the land in the provinces bore the general name of "agri vectigales," which consequently was the name for all land that paid taxes, since Italy, as we have already seen, was exempt. At the very commencement of the imperial government an attempt was made to introduce a uniform system of taxation in the provinces, by abolishing the variable |