[1507] These expressions are known only from the literature of the Empire; it may be a mere accident that in Republican literature tributum seems never to be used of imperial taxation. The form stipendium is preferred. In Liv. xxiii. 32 we have the tributum of Sardinia mentioned with reference to Republican times. The venditio tributorum and the ὠναί of Cilicia (Cic. ad Fam. iii. 8, 5; ad Att. v. 16, 2) probably refer to local taxes improperly sold to publicani.
[1508] Liv. xliii. 2 “(Hispani) impetraverunt ne frumenti aestimationem magistratus Romanus haberet.”
[1509] p. 319.
[1510] Cic. in Verr. iii. 33, 77.
[1511] ib. ii. 13, 32; 26, 63, etc.
[1512] ib. iii. 6, 12 “inter Siciliam ceterasque provincias ... in agrorum vectigalium ratione hoc interest, quod ceteris aut impositum vectigal est certum ... aut censoria locatio constituta est, ut Asiae lege Sempronia.”
[1513] Cf. Cic. ad Q. fr. i. 1, 11, 33 “nomen autem publicani aspernari non possunt, qui pendere ipsi vectigal sine publicano non potuerint, quod iis aequaliter Sulla discripserat.” The reference is to Sulla’s temporary abolition of the Gracchan principle of collection.
[1514] App. B.C. v. 4; Dio Cass. xlii. 6.
[1515] Nothing seems to be known about the conditions of sale of the provincial portoria, e.g. whether those of Asia were put up at Rome like the decumae.
[1516] Cic. in Verr. iii. cc. 81-96, 188-222.