Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/134

 118 HISTORY OF GREECE. schedule as possessed of a taxable capital, calculated with a certain reference to his annual income, but in a proportion dimin- ishing according to the scale of that income, and a man paid taxes to the state according to the sum for which he stood rated in the schedule ; so that this direct taxation acted really like a gradu- ated income-tax. The ratable property of the citizens belonging to the richest class, the pentakosiomedimnus, was calculated and entered on the state-schedule at a sum of capital equal to twelve times his annual income : that of the hippeus, or knight, at a suuo equal to ten times his annual income : that of the zeugite, at a sum equal to five times his annual income. Thus a pentakosio- medimnus, whose income was exactly five hundred drachms, the minimum qualification of his class, stood rated in the schedule for a taxable property of six thousand drachms, or one talent, being twelve times his income, if his annual income were one thou- sand drachms, he would stand rated for twelve thousand drachms, or two talents, being the same proportion of income to ratable capital. But when we pass to the second class, or knights, the proportion of the two is changed, the knight possessing an income of just three hundred drachms, or three hundred medimni, would stand rated for three thousand drachms, or ten times his real income, and so in the same proportion for any income above three hundred and below five hundred. Again, in the third class, or below three hundred, the proportion is a second time altered, the zeugite possessing exactly two hundred drachms of income, was rated upon a still lower calculation, at one thousand drachms, 5r a sum equal to five times his income ; and all incomes of this ?lass, between two hundred and three hundred drachms, would in like manner be multiplied by five in order to obtain the amount of ratable capital. Upon these respective sums of scheduled capital, all direct taxation was levied : if the state required one per cent, of direct tax, the poorest pentakosiomedimnus would pay (upon six thousand drachms) sixty drachms ; the poor est hippeus would pay (upon three thousand drachms) thirty ; the poorest zeugite would pay (upon one thousand drachms) ten drachms. And thus this mode of assessment would operate like a graduated income-tax, looking at it in reference to the three different classes, but as an equal income-tax, looking at it in