The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 05

by Unknown

The property of the state was, as has often been noticed, very large. Much of the public land, however, had been distributed to colonies, and the rent received for the rest seems to have been small. Yet the quantity of undistributed land in Italy and Sicily was so great that it must have yielded a considerable revenue. Besides this, the fisheries, with all mines and quarries, were considered public property. Even the manufacture of salt was a state monopoly from the censorship of M. Livius, who thenceforth bore the name of Salinator, or the salt-maker.

Besides these rents and monopolies, custom duties were levied on certain kinds of goods, both exports and imports, and tolls (called portoria) were demanded for passengers and goods carried by canals or across bridges and ferries.

There was also an ad valorem duty of five per cent imposed on the manumission of slaves. This was not carried to the account of the year, but laid by as a reserve fund, not to be used except in great emergencies.

The revenue derived from the provincial land tax was only beginning to be productive, but in a few years it formed the chief income of the republic.

It appears that for the civil government of the republic the ordinary revenues were found sufficient. The current expenses, indeed, were small. The Italian and provincial communities defrayed the expenses of their own administration. Rome herself, as we have said, claimed the services of her statesmen and administrators without paying them any public salaries.

In time of war, however, the ordinary revenues failed, and to meet the expenses of each year’s campaign an extraordinary tax was levied as required. This was the tributum, or property tax. Its mode of assessment marks its close association with war expenses. We have seen above that the whole arrangement of the centuriate assembly was military. Not the least important of these was the census or register of all citizens, arranged according to their age and property. It was made out by the censors at intervals of five years, and served during the succeeding period as the basis of taxation. The necessities of each year determined the amount to be levied. It was usually one in a thousand, or one-tenth per cent; but once, in the Second Punic War, the rate was doubled. The senate had the power of calling for this payment.

At length it became necessary to call on wealthy individuals to furnish seamen, and to advance money by way of loan; and contracts were formed with commercial companies to furnish stores and clothing for the army, in return for which they received orders on the treasury payable at some future time. The obligations thus contracted were not left as a national debt. The first instalment of repayment was made in the year 204 B.C., immediately after the submission of Carthage; the second and third at successive intervals of four years.

At length, in the year 167 B.C., the payments exacted from the provincials became so large that the senate was enabled to dispense with extraordinary taxes altogether; and thus the ordinary revenues sufficed for the expenses of all future wars, as well as for the civil administration.

The allied communities of Italy, the municipia and colonies, were free from all direct burdens, except in time of war. Then each community was required, according to a scale furnished by its own censor, to supply contingents of soldiery to the Roman army, such contingents bearing a proportion to the number of legions levied by the Romans themselves in any given year. The Italian soldiery were fed by Rome; but their equipments and pay were provided at the expense of their own states; and therefore it is plain that every Italian community was indirectly subject to a war tax. But though these communities suffered the burdens of war like Rome, they did not like Rome profit by war. The Roman treasury repaid taxes raised for the conduct of war. But such repayment was confined to Romans. The soldiers of the Latin and Italian towns obtained their share of booty; but their citizens at home had no hope of repayment. Moneys paid into the Roman treasury were applicable to Roman purposes only. The Italians, though they shared the danger and the expense, were not allowed to share the profit. Here was a fertile field for discontent, which afterwards bore fatal fruits.