Notwithstanding their privileges the Jews were heavily taxed [TaxEs ; TRIBUTE]. These con sisted of the poll-tax (KCwo-os, cb6pos, Matt. xxii.
; Luke XX. 22) and the custom-tax (ran, Matt. xvii. 25). Various passages in the N. T. show how odious the collectors of the tributes (portitores, A. V. publicans) were to the Jews (Matt. v. 46 ; Mark. ii. 15, ; Luke iii. 12), insomuch that the Pharisees would hold no communication with them (Matt. ix. ro, ; xxi. 31, 32).
The Romans carefully abstained from forcing their own language upon the inhabitants of the countries they conquered, though the strictness with which every official act, even to the farthest limits of the empire, was carried out in the Roman language, was never relaxed, but the edicts were generally translated into Greek (Joseph. Antiq. xiv. ro. 2). The better educated Romans un doubtedly spoke Greek. The inscription on the cross was written in Hebrew, Roman, and Greek (Luke xxiii. 38 ; John xix. 20); the Hebrew for the common people, the Latin the official language, and the Greek that usually spoken (Alford, in /oc.) All the official inscriptions put up by the Romans were called titu/i (cf. Suet. in Calig. 34 ; in Dom. io) ; and St. John (/. c.) uses the same expression (typatke The freedom of religious worship enjoyed by the nations subject to Rome was remarkably great, though foreign religions were not allowed to be in troduced among the Romans (Liv. xxxix. r6) ; and it is recorded by Dion Cassius (lii. 36) that Mmcenas advised Augustus not to permit such innovations, as they would only tend to destroy the monarchy. This rule was strictly maintained by all his suc cessors. Judaism was an exception, though, as we have seen, the Jews were sometimes expelled from Rome.
Notwithstanding the attempts of Augustus to stop all tendencies to corruption, by punishing im morality, it was chiefly immorality that undermined the empire. With a high civilisation, a flourishing commerce, and general outward refinement, was associated a terrible depravity of morals. Yet the prosperous state of the empire was confessed by the provinces as well as the Romans. They
acknowledged that the true principles of social life, laws, agriculture, and science, which had been first invented by the wisdom of Athens, were now firmly established by the power of Rome, under whose auspicious influence the fiercest barbarians were united by an equal government and common language' (Gibbon, ch. ii.) The cruelties and exactions of the provincial magistrates were sup pressed by Augustus and Tiberius (Tac. Ann. iv. 6). Roads were constructed and commerce in creased, but all of no avail. Society would not be reformed, and St. Paul draws a striking picture of the corruption of the age (Rom. i. 14-23). Charity and general philanthropy were so little regarded as duties that it requires a very extensive acquaintance with the literature of the time to find any allusion to them. There were no public hospitals, no in stitutions for the relief of the infirm and poor ; no societies for the removal of abuses or the improve ment of the condition of mankind from motives of charity. Nothing was done to promote the instruc tion of the lower clagses, nothing to mitigate the miseries of domestic slavery, and far less to stop altogether the perpetual atrocities of the kidnapper and the slave-market ' (Arnold, Encyc. Metropol. Hist., vol. ii. p. 38o). But the spirit of Christian ity was floating in the atmosphere, and the wisdom of providence was preparing a knowledge which struck root as deeply as the literature of the Au gustan age had been scattered superficially' (Arnold, /. c.) The Roman Empire terminated with the anarchy which followed the murder of Justinian II., the last sovereign of the family of Heraclius ; and Leo III. or the Isaurian, must be ranked as the first Byzan tine monarch (Finlay, Greece under the Romans, p. 433)• For the prophetical notices of Rome as the fourth empire, in Daniel xi. 30, 40 ; vii. 23, etc., see article DANIEL ; and for the mention of Rome in the Apocalypse, see article ROME. —F.W.M.