[614] Thus the first, the fifteenth, indiction were the first and last years of the round of fifteen. This method of reckoning mostly superseded all other dates, both in speaking and writing. The first Indiction is usually calculated from 1st September, 312. Fundamentally, indiction means rating or assessment.
[615] Hyginus, de Limitibus, etc., is our chief source of knowledge as to Roman land-surveying. Permanent maps were engraved on brass plates and copies were made on linen, etc. See Godefroy ad Cod. Theod., XI, xxvii.
[616] Pand., L, xv, 4; Cod. Theod., IX, xlii, 7; Cod., IX, xlix, 7.
[617] From a Syriac MS. in the British Museum, it appears that to every caput or jugum of 1,000 solidi (£560) were reckoned 5 jugera (about ⅝ acre) of vineyard, 20, 40, or 60 of arable land, according to quality, 250 olive trees, 1st cl., and 450 2nd cl.; see Mommsen on this document, Hermes, iii, 1868, p. 429; cf. Nov. Majorian, i. The amount exacted for each head varied with time and place. When Julian was in Gaul (c. 356), the inhabitants were paying 25 solidi (£14) per caput or jugum, which he managed to reduce to 7 solidi (£4); Ammianus, xvi, 5.
[618] Cod. Theod., XI, i, 10; XIII, xi, 12; Cod., XI, lviii, etc. Deserted lands were mostly near the borders, from which the occupiers had been driven by hostile incursions. Barren lands presumably were put in the worst class.
[619] The duties of these officials are nowhere precisely defined, and a consistent account must be presumed from the scattered indications contained in the Codes, Cassiodorus, etc.; see Cod. Theod., XIII, xi; Cod., XI, lvii, etc.
[620] Cod. Theod., XIII, x, 5; xi, 4, etc.
[621] Ibid., XIII, x, 8.
[622] For this assessment the adult age was in general 18, but in Syria, males 14, females 12; Pand., L, xv, 3.
[623] “Capitatio humana atque animalium”; Cod. Theod., XI, xx, 6; cf. Cedrenus, i, p. 627; Zonaras, xiv, 3; Glykas, iv, p. 493, etc. Owing to the use in the Codes of the words caput and capitatio with respect to both land-tax and poll-tax, these were generally confounded together, till Savigny made the distinction clear in his monograph, Ueber d. röm. Steuerverfassung, pub. 1823 in the Transact. of the Berlin Acad. of Science. The poll-tax is usually distinguished as plebeia capitatio. The epigram of Sidonius Ap. is always quoted, and has often misled the expositors of the Codes, in this connection. To the Emperor Majorian he says: