Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/254

 *

of Rome and the great landowners or merchants of the eastern provinces were, at first, induced to make it their place of residence by the assignment to them, on the part of Constantine, of many of the palaces and of the costly mansions he had erected. In time, however, such encouragements became unnecessary and were gradually abolished. The court, and the fact that Constantinople had become the chief seat of government, attracted to it the wealthiest inhabitants of the provinces; while others were induced to dwell there through motives of interest, business, or pleasure, so that, in less than a century from the time of its foundation, Constantinople rivalled, if it did not equal, Rome herself, in population and in wealth. Nor does it seem to have been much less extravagant or less luxurious than the Western capital in life and morals, for the magnificence of the first Cæsars was largely imitated by its founder. The natural results followed in the form of an oppressive system of taxation, which fell heavily upon the trading portion of the community. Tributes of corn were exacted from Egypt, and the poorest traders, the industrious manufacturers, and the most obscure retail dealer, were, with the rich merchants, alike obliged to admit the officers of the revenue into a partnership of their gains.

This general tax on industry, which was collected every fourth year, appears to have caused such lamentation, that the approach of the period for collecting it "was announced by the tears and terrors of the citizens, who were often compelled, by the impending scourge, to embrace the most abhorred and unnatural methods of procuring the sum at which