FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85  
86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   >>   >|  
exorbitant schedule of food rates. The following facts of history, as recorded by Lord, will serve to make the matter clear: "The taxes required in the Roman empire, to sustain the court and civil service, the army and desolating wars, and the hungry brood of office-holders, as well as to provide largesses to the soldiers, were excessive in the extreme, so as to prove an almost insupportable burden to the people. The ordinary and economical expenses of the government were great; but when we take into view that during a period of seventy-two years previous to Diocletian, there were twenty-six individuals who held the imperial crown, besides a great number of unsuccessful aspirants, and that each of these must secure the favor of the army and the people by large donations of money, we may well conceive that the taxes and exactions laid to raise the needed amount must have proved a crushing burden. They were so great as sometimes to strip men of their wealth and reduce them to poverty. These were laid upon everything that could be brought into service. Nothing was too insignificant to escape.... The taxes might be paid in money, or in produce, grain, fruit, oil, or whatever else it might be;... The exactions were so excessive that the people were led to avoid them in every possible mode, as men always will under such circumstances." Once in fifteen years, a Roman indiction, an assessor would go round to levy upon the products of the soil, and the assessment was made according to the amount of the yield. One method adopted to secure a lower assessment at this time was that of mutilating their fruit trees and vines. We find among the Roman laws severe enactments against such as "feign poverty, or cut a vine, or stint the fruit of a tree" in order to avoid a fair valuation, and the penalty attached was the death of the offender and the confiscation of all his property. The fact that this law existed shows that the offense was committed and also that the exactions of the government must have been of the most oppressive kind. With these facts before us it is easy to discern the nature of the symbol, being that of a Roman magistrate prepared to enforce his severe exactions upon the people at the exorbitant rate of three measures of wheat for a penny and three measures of barley for a penny, accompanied by the solemn injunction, "See thou hurt not the oil and the wine," that is, the olive-trees and the vines. It is evident tha
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85  
86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

people

 

exactions

 

secure

 

government

 

amount

 
burden
 

poverty

 

severe

 

assessment

 
service

measures

 
exorbitant
 

excessive

 

adopted

 

method

 

injunction

 

solemn

 

barley

 

mutilating

 

accompanied


assessor

 

fifteen

 

indiction

 

evident

 

products

 

confiscation

 

offender

 

valuation

 

penalty

 

attached


property

 
symbol
 

committed

 

nature

 

offense

 
existed
 

enactments

 

discern

 

oppressive

 

enforce


magistrate

 

prepared

 

insupportable

 

ordinary

 

economical

 

expenses

 
provide
 

largesses

 

soldiers

 

extreme