inople. The commissioners of the revenue were so frequently
obliged to make considerable purchases, that they were strictly
prohibited from allowing any compensation, or from receiving in money
the value of those supplies which were exacted in kind. In the primitive
simplicity of small communities, this method may be well adapted to
collect the almost voluntary offerings of the people; but it is at once
susceptible of the utmost latitude, and of the utmost strictness, which
in a corrupt and absolute monarchy must introduce a perpetual contest
between the power of oppression and the arts of fraud. [176] The
agriculture of the Roman provinces was insensibly ruined, and, in the
progress of despotism which tends to disappoint its own purpose, the
emperors were obliged to derive some merit from the forgiveness of
debts, or the remission of tributes, which their subjects were utterly
incapable of paying. According to the new division of Italy, the fertile
and happy province of Campania, the scene of the early victories and of
the delicious retirements of the citizens of Rome, extended between the
sea and the Apennine, from the Tiber to the Silarus. Within sixty years
after the death of Constantine, and on the evidence of an actual survey,
an exemption was granted in favor of three hundred and thirty thousand
English acres of desert and uncultivated land; which amounted to one
eighth of the whole surface of the province. As the footsteps of the
Barbarians had not yet been seen in Italy, the cause of this amazing
desolation, which is recorded in the laws, can be ascribed only to the
administration of the Roman emperors. [177]

[Footnote 170: The cycle of indictions, which may be traced as high
as the reign of Constantius, or perhaps of his father, Constantine, is
still employed by the Papal court; but the commencement of the year
has been very reasonably altered to the first of January. See l'Art de
Verifier les Dates, p. xi.; and Dictionnaire Raison. de la Diplomatique,
tom. ii. p. 25; two accurate treatises, which come from the workshop of
the Benedictines. ---- It does not appear that the establishment of the
indiction is to be at tributed to Constantine: it existed before he had
been created Augustus at Rome, and the remission granted by him to
the city of Autun is the proof. He would not have ventured while only
Caesar, and under the necessity of courting popular favor, to establish
such an odious impost. Aurelius Victor an