Roman Land Tax.—Under LAND Tax, ROMAN, a reference was made to this article.
The old Roman Tributum was in effect chiefly a land tax. It is described by Niebuhr (i. 459, Engl. tr.) "as a direct tax upon objects, without any regard to their produce, like a land and house tax: indeed, this formed the main part of it ; included however in the general return of the census." He states that it was by the plebs that this regular tax according to the census was paid, and its name Tributum was deduced from the tribes (tribus) of this order. All this, however, is vaguely stated and ill supported by proof. There seems no reason to doubt that the nobles (patres) also paid tribu tum. Livy (ii. 9) states that the plebs were released from portoria (port duties and tolls) and the tributum, in order that the rich alone might pay it. But neither is this statement satisfactory. The tri butum is often mentioned by Livy (iv. 60; v. 10, 12; vi. 32; xxiv. 15; xxxix. 7, 44), but nothing precise can be stated about it, except that it was a tax on pro perty, was paid in money, and applied to maintaic the army after a certain date (Livy, ii. 59), and for other public pur poses. The tributum was paid until the close of the Macedonian war, B.c. 147, when the Roman treasury was replenished by the conquest of Macedonia. It was not restored near the close of the Repub lican period, as is sometimes erroneously stated.
From the end of the Macedonian war the revenue of the state chiefly arose from the taxes levied in the provinces, a great part of which were paid in kind. [CORN TRADE, ROMAN.] Italy continued free from direct taxes, though the provinces paid them, until the time of the Emperor Maximian, who established the pro-. vincial taxation in Italy. The freedom of land in Italy from all tax made a marked distinction between Italian and provincial land, anti this was one of the peculiar privileges comprehended in the term Jus Italicum. When a provincial city received a grant of the Jus Ileum, it received with other privileges that of exemption from land tax: the land was then considered to he Italian land. The
provincial taxes consisted of money pay ments and of contributions in kind, as already stated. Under Augustus a com mencement was made of a general regis tration of property (cadastre), the object of which was to change all the .taxes into a money payment. We may trace the progress of this change: in Cicero's time the tenths of the province of Asia were leased to the Publicani ; in the time of Trajan a fixed sum was paid. It appears that before the time of Ulpian, who lived under the Emperor Alexander Severna, the new system was completed ; and it is collected from Gaius (ii. 21), who says that provincial lands were subject either to stipendium or tributum, that this system must have been partially established even when he wrote, which was in the age of the Antonines. It is worthy of note that Cicero (In Verem, iii. 6) con trasts the " vectigal certum," or "stipen diarinm," a fixed payment, which at that time obtained in some cases, with the " censoria locatio," the leasing of the tenths. Under the Christian emperors, the country was divided into equal por tions of land called capita (heads), each of which capita paid a certain sum of money ; and the amount of tax required for each year was distributed (indictuna) over these several capita. The cadastre was renewed every fifteen years, and on this was founded the use of the cycle of indiction, a term which survived the sys tem of taxation to which it owed its origin. The change of payment of taxes in kind into a money payment was an improved financial measure, and it must have been beneficial to agriculture. It is true that it also offered facilities for im posing a heavier taxation whenever the government had or pretended to have a necessity for it.
The subject is discussed by Savigny, Zeitschrift fir Geschichtliche Rechtswiss, vi. xi., Ueber die Rom. Steuervolassung ; and by Dureau de la Malle, Economic Politique des Romatns, ii. 4(12-437, who dissents from some of Savigny's opinions, but the opinion of Savigny has been fol lowed here.