ewhat
more than eleven shillings. * Note: See, likewise, a Dissertation of
M. Letronne, "Considerations Generales sur l'Evaluation des Monnaies
Grecques et Romaines" Paris, 1817--M.]

I. It is obvious, that, as long as the immutable constitution of human
nature produces and maintains so unequal a division of property,
the most numerous part of the community would be deprived of their
subsistence, by the equal assessment of a tax from which the sovereign
would derive a very trifling revenue. Such indeed might be the theory of
the Roman capitation; but in the practice, this unjust equality was no
longer felt, as the tribute was collected on the principle of a
real, not of a personal imposition. [180a] Several indigent citizens
contributed to compose a single head, or share of taxation; while the
wealthy provincial, in proportion to his fortune, alone represented
several of those imaginary beings. In a poetical request, addressed to
one of the last and most deserving of the Roman princes who reigned in
Gaul, Sidonius Apollinaris personifies his tribute under the figure of
a triple monster, the Geryon of the Grecian fables, and entreats the new
Hercules that he would most graciously be pleased to save his life
by cutting off three of his heads. [181] The fortune of Sidonius far
exceeded the customary wealth of a poet; but if he had pursued the
allusion, he might have painted many of the Gallic nobles with the
hundred heads of the deadly Hydra, spreading over the face of the
country, and devouring the substance of a hundred families. II. The
difficulty of allowing an annual sum of about nine pounds sterling, even
for the average of the capitation of Gaul, may be rendered more evident
by the comparison of the present state of the same country, as it is
now governed by the absolute monarch of an industrious, wealthy, and
affectionate people. The taxes of France cannot be magnified, either
by fear or by flattery, beyond the annual amount of eighteen millions
sterling, which ought perhaps to be shared among four and twenty
millions of inhabitants. [182] Seven millions of these, in the capacity
of fathers, or brothers, or husbands, may discharge the obligations of
the remaining multitude of women and children; yet the equal proportion
of each tributary subject will scarcely rise above fifty shillings of
our money, instead of a proportion almost four times as considerable,
which was regularly imposed on their Gallic ancestors. The