is, if we
choose, may be put down as a crude form of income-tax, although it was
not actually assessed on income. In another sense it may be regarded
as a tax on a license, assuming that we demand a license for every
kind of occupation. Italy again was exempt from this taxation also.
Obviously a census, and a regularly revised census, was necessary to
carry out this system; and Rome required a whole army of agents, just
as a modern state would require one, for assessing and collecting
these dues.

The land-tax and the person-tax were the two chief sources of Roman
revenue. These were regular and direct. There were others, subject,
like our own taxes, to increase or decrease according to
circumstances, but for the most part kept at very much the same
standards under several consecutive emperors. For instance there were
customs duties, paid on the frontiers of the empire and also on those
of provinces or natural groups of provinces, not as part of any
protective system, since the empire is all one, but as a means of
raising money from commodities. In Italy there was a duty of 2-1/2 per
cent. Luxuries from India and Arabia via Red Sea ports were specially
taxed at 25 per cent. If you sold a slave, you would pay from 2 to 4
per cent on the purchase-money. Occasionally there was a tax on
bachelors. In Italy, but not elsewhere, 5 per cent legacy duty was
paid when the recipient was not a near relative, and when the legacy
was not under L1000.

Add to these revenues the rents of state pastures, state forests, and
state mines. Into the treasury came also unclaimed property and the
property of certain classes of condemned criminals.

So much for the nature of the taxation. In point of government, the
Romans were singularly liberal. When a province was conquered or
annexed, the Senate sent out a commission of ten persons, who
carefully considered the existing state of things, the laws and forms
of administration actually in vogue, and drew up a constitution for
the province, embodying as much of these as was possible or at all
commendable; as much, in fact, as was compatible with the Roman
connection. This constitution, when sanctioned by the Senate, was
binding, whatever governor might be appointed by Rome to the province.
Such a governor might interpret the law; he could not alter it.

But though a province was a unit in so far as it was under one
governor, the Romans were firm believers in strictly local
administration.