incomes of L160,000
a-year, equal to L300,000 of our money, whose expenditure maintained an
urban population of 1,200,000 souls.[48]

It may readily be conceived, that when this prodigious concentration of
wealth in the hands of the great proprietors of towns, and ruin of
industry in the country, came to coexist with the _solid_ obligations of
the rural municipalities for the sum assessed on their districts, the
burden of the public taxes, though light at first, compared with what is
little complained of in modern times, came to be altogether
overwhelming. This accordingly was the case in all the Northern
provinces of the empire in its later stages. What every where preceded
their ruin, was the desertion of the inhabitants in consequence of the
crushing weight of the public burdens. From the entire failure of the
indirect taxes amidst the ruin of agricultural, and the imposition of
taxation on urban industry, it had become necessary to make progressive
additions to the direct taxes till they became exterminating. "Three
great direct taxes," says Sismondi, "alike ruinous, impended over the
citizens. The first was the Indictions or Land-Tax, estimated in general
at a tenth of the produce, or a third of the clear revenue, and often
doubled or tripled by the _Super indictions_ which the necessities of
the provinces compelled them to impose. Secondly: the Capitation-Tax,
which sometimes rose as high as 300 francs (L12) ahead on the free and
taxable citizens; and, third, the Corvees, or forced contributions in
labour, which were for the service of the imperial estates, or the
maintenance of the public roads. These direct imposts in the declining
days of the empire, so entirely ruined the proprietors of rural estates,
that they abandoned them in all quarters. Vast provinces in the interior
were deserted; the enrolment for the army became daily more difficult
from the disappearance of the rural population; the magistrates of
municipalities in town or country, rendered responsible for the
assessment of their districts and the levy of their quota of soldiers,
fled the country, or sought under a thousand pretexts to escape the
perilous honour of public office. So far did the desertion of the
magistracy go in the time of Valentinian, (364-375, after Christ,) that
when that cruel tyrant ordered the heads of three magistrates of towns
in a particular province to be brought to him for some alleged offences,
'Will your Imperial Majesty