Savigny, is mistaken in
supposing that there was but one kind of capitation tax; there was a
land tax, and a capitation tax, strictly so called. The land tax was,
in its operation, a proprietor's or landlord's tax. But, besides this,
there was a direct capitation tax on all who were not possessed of
landed property. This tax dates from the time of the Roman conquests;
its amount is not clearly known. Gradual exemptions released different
persons and classes from this tax. One edict exempts painters. In Syria,
all under twelve or fourteen, or above sixty-five, were exempted; at a
later period, all under twenty, and all unmarried females; still
later, all under twenty-five, widows and nuns, soldiers, veterani and
clerici--whole dioceses, that of Thrace and Illyricum. Under Galerius
and Licinius, the plebs urbana became exempt; though this, perhaps, was
only an ordinance for the East. By degrees, however, the exemption
was extended to all the inhabitants of towns; and as it was strictly
capitatio plebeia, from which all possessors were exempted it fell at
length altogether on the coloni and agricultural slaves. These were
registered in the same cataster (capitastrum) with the land tax. It
was paid by the proprietor, who raised it again from his coloni and
laborers.--M.]

[Footnote 181: Geryones nos esse puta, monstrumque tributum,

Hic capita ut vivam, tu mihi tolle tria.
Sidon. Apollinar. Carm. xiii.

The reputation of Father Sirmond led me to expect more satisfaction than
I have found in his note (p. 144) on this remarkable passage. The words,
suo vel suorum nomine, betray the perplexity of the commentator.]

[Footnote 182: This assertion, however formidable it may seem, is
founded on the original registers of births, deaths, and marriages,
collected by public authority, and now deposited in the Controlee
General at Paris. The annual average of births throughout the whole
kingdom, taken in five years, (from 1770 to 1774, both inclusive,) is
479,649 boys, and 449,269 girls, in all 928,918 children. The province
of French Hainault alone furnishes 9906 births; and we are assured, by
an actual enumeration of the people, annually repeated from the year
1773 to the year 1776, that upon an average, Hainault contains 257,097
inhabitants. By the rules of fair analogy, we might infer, that the
ordinary proportion of annual births to the whole people, is about 1 to
26; and that the kingdom of France contains 24,151,868