Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/656

584 Emperor Diocletian they became more and more destructive of industry, and fell with special weight upon agriculture. According to Sir James Stephen, the land tax in Gaul rose to "the almost incredible amount of one third of the net produce of the land"; but what is more singular and incredible, the present tax on the peasant agriculturist of Italy is equivalent to the value of an even larger share of his product.

The provincial taxes which gave rise, however, to the greatest discontent were the poll tax and a tax upon funerals. These were easy to collect, and consequently in favor with the Roman tax-gatherers; but being levied at fixed and undiscriminating rates, pressed with great and unequal severity upon the poor. The last-mentioned tax—i. e., upon funerals, which required payment before the burial of the dead—was said to have formed one of the principal causes of the revolt of the Iceni (Britons), under their famous warrior. Queen Boadicea. The decree mentioned in St. Luke's Gospel, of Cæsar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed, and in pursuance of which "every one went into his own city," unquestionably referred to a poll-tax assessment, and to its required payment in person by every adult at the Roman tax-collector 's office nearest to an established center of Roman authority.

In the province of Gaul the annual tribute exacted from every head under the reign of Constantine was reported to have been twenty-five pieces of gold. But the possibility of the payment of such a high capitation tax has been explained by the circumstance that in all the provinces of the Roman world the majority of the people were slaves, or peasants whose condition was little different from slavery; and that the rolls of tribute embraced only the names of citizens who possessed the means of an honorable or at least of a decent subsistence.

The whole record of Roman experience in respect to revenue collection or taxation before the decadence of the empire, alike in the city of Rome and in her provinces, is, however, of no value, save from an historical point of view. It does not appear, as before noted, to have been based upon any well-devised and harmonious fiscal system, or to have had any influence whatever in originating or developing one; for, unlike other Roman customs and institutions, it everywhere fell into disuse when the authority of Rome was withdrawn. In one feature alone was Rome consistent in her views and harmonious in her practice in respect to taxation: she always levied taxes for the purpose of getting money into the public treasury and for no ulterior reason. The nearest approach on the part of the Romans to a recognition of the policy of stimulating a branch of industry through the instrumentality of bounties or subsidies seems to have occurred in connection with the distribution of wheat gratuitously, or at