Now, if the taxation had continued at actually so much per yoke of oxen, the system would have been simple enough; and it would be easy to understand how, whilst the jugum represented the unit of taxation for land, the caput might be the unit corresponding in value with the jugum, but applying to other kinds of property, such as slaves and cattle, and including the capitation tax levied in respect of wives and children. And this, probably, may be the meaning of the double nomenclature—jugum vel caput. At any rate, we know from the Theodosian Code, that the members of a veteran's family were constituent parts of his 'caput.' [422]
The subject is obscure, but the reform of Diocletian seems to have aimed at an equalisation of the taxation according to the value of property.
The jugum became a unit of taxation,
This seems to have involved an assessment of various kinds of land in hypothetical juga, of the same value (said to be fixed at 2,000 solidi); and this involved a variation in the acreage of the hypothetical jugum, according to the richness or otherwise of the land, just as according to Flaccus was the case also as regards the actual centuriæ and allotments.
and varied in area.
In one instance in which the figures have been [p291] preserved, viz. for Syria, under the Eastern Empire, the assessment was as follows under the system of Diocletian:[423]—
| Of vine-land | 5 jugera, or 10 plethra or half-acres. |
| Arable, first class | 20 jugera, or 40 plethra or half-acres. |
| Arable, second class | 40 jugera, or 80 plethra or half-acres. |
| Arable, third class | 60 jugera, or 120 plethra or half-acres. |
In the east, therefore, sixty jugera, or 120 Greek plethra or half-acres, of ordinary arable land, were assessed as a jugum.
This instance makes it clear that while originally the actual allotment to a single or double yoke of oxen may have been taken as the basis of taxation, the 'jugum' had already become a hypothetical unit of assessment, just as, by a similar process, was the case with the English hide. Property had come to be assessed at so many juga under the jugation, without any attempt to make the assessment accord with the actual number of yokes employed.
The Indiction.