The history of Rome

by Theodor Mommsen

  His Funeral

  Italy never witnessed a grander funeral solemnity. In every place through which the deceased was borne in regal attire, with his well-known standards and fasces before him, the inhabitants and above all his old soldiers joined the mourning train: it seemed as if the whole army would once more meet round the hero in death, who had in life led it so often and never except to victory. So the endless funeral procession reached the capital, where the courts kept holiday and all business was suspended, and two thousand golden chaplets awaited the dead - the last honorary gifts of the faithful legions, of the cities, and of his more intimate friends. Sulla, faithful to the usage of the Cornelian house, had ordered that his body should be buried without being burnt; but others were more mindful than he was of what past days had done and future days might do: by command of the senate the corpse of the man who had disturbed the bones of Marius from their rest in the grave was committed to the flames. Headed by all the magistrates and the whole senate, by the priests and priestesses in their official robes and the band of noble youths in equestrian armour, the procession arrived at the great market-place; at this spot, filled by his achievements and almost by the sound as yet of his dreaded words, the funeral oration was delivered over the deceased; and thence the bier was borne on the shoulders of senators to the Campus Martius, where the funeral pile was erected. While the flames were blazing, the equites and the soldiers held their race of honour round the corpse; the ashes of the regent were deposited in the Campus Martius beside the tombs of the old kings, and the Roman women mourned him for a year.

  Chapter XI

  The Commonwealth and Its Economy

  External and Internal Bankruptcy of the Roman State

  We have traversed a period of ninety years - forty years of profound peace, fifty of an almost constant revolution. It is the most inglorious epoch known in Roman history. It is true that the Alps were crossed both in an easterly and westerly direction[1], and the Roman arms reached in the Spanish peninsula as far as the Atlantic Ocean[2] and in the Macedono-Grecian peninsula as far as the Danube[3]; but the laurels thus gained were as cheap as they were barren. The circle of the "extraneous peoples under the will, sway, dominion, or friendship of the Roman burgesses"[4], was not materially extended; men were content to realize the gains of a better age and to bring the communities, annexed to Rome in laxer forms of dependence, more and more into full subjection. Behind the brilliant screen of provincial reunions was concealed a very sensible decline of Roman power. While the whole ancient civilization was daily more and more distinctly embraced in the Roman state, and embodied there in forms of more general validity, the nations excluded from it began simultaneously beyond the Alps and beyond the Euphrates to pass from defence to aggression. On the battle-fields of Aquae Sextiae and Vercellae, of Chaeronea and Orchomenus, were heard the first peals of that thunderstorm, which the Germanic tribes and the Asiatic hordes were destined to bring upon the Italo-Grecian world, and the last dull rolling of which has reached almost to our own times. But in internal development also this epoch bears the same character. The old organization collapses irretrievably. The Roman commonwealth was planned as an urban community, which through its free burgess-body gave to itself rulers and laws; which was governed by these well-advised rulers within these legal limits with kingly freedom; and around which the Italian confederacy, as an aggregate of free urban communities essentially homogeneous and cognate with the Roman, and the body of extra-Italian allies, as an aggregate of Greek free cities and barbaric peoples and principalities - both more superintended, than domineered over, by the community of Rome - formed a double circle. It was the final result of the revolution - and both parties, the nominally conservative as well as the democratic party, had co-operated towards it and concurred in it - that of this venerable structure, which at the beginning of the present epoch, though full of chinks and tottering, still stood erect, not one stone was at its close left upon another. The holder of sovereign power was now either a single man, or a close oligarchy - now of rank, now of riches. The burgesses had lost all legitimate share in the government. The magistrates were instruments without independence in the hands of the holder of power for the time being. The urban community of Rome had broken down by its unnatural enlargement.

  The Italian confederacy had been merged in the urban community. The body of extra-Italian allies was in full course of being converted into a body of subjects. The whole organic classification of the Roman commonwealth had gone to wreck, and nothing was left but a crude mass of more or less disparate elements.

  The Prospect

  The state of matters threatened to end in utter anarchy and in the inward and outward dissolution of the state. The political movement tended thoroughly towards the goal of despotism; the only point still in dispute was whether the close circle of the families of rank, or the senate of capitalists, or a monarch was to be the despot. The political movement followed thoroughly the paths that led to despotism; the fundamental principle of a free commonwealth - that the contending powers should reciprocally confine themselves to indirect coercion - had become effete in the eyes of all parties alike, and on both sides the fight for power began to be carried on first by the bludgeon, and soon by the sword. The revolution, at an end in so far as the old constitution was recognized by both sides as finally set aside and the aim and method of the new political development were clearly settled, had yet up to this time discovered nothing but provisional solutions for this problem of the reorganization of the state; neither the Gracchan nor the Sullan constitution of the community bore the stamp of finality. But the bitterest feature of this bitter time was that even hope and effort failed the clear-seeing patriot. The sun of freedom with all its endless store of blessings was constantly drawing nearer to its setting, and the twilight was settling over the very world that was still so brilliant. It was no accidental catastrophe which patriotism and genius might have warded off; it was ancient social evils - at the bottom of all, the ruin of the middle class by the slave proletariate - that brought destruction on the Roman commonwealth. The most sagacious statesman was in the plight of the physician to whom it is equally painful to prolong or to abridge the agony of his patient. Beyond doubt it was the better for the interests of Rome, the more quickly and thoroughly a despot set aside all remnants of the ancient free constitution, and invented new forms and expressions for the moderate measure of human prosperity for which in absolutism there is room: the intrinsic advantage, which belonged to monarchy under the given circumstances as compared with any oligarchy, lay mainly in the very circumstance that such a despotism, energetic in pulling down and energetic in building up, could never be exercised by a collegiate board. But such calm considerations do not mould history; it is not reason it is passion alone, that builds for the future. The Romans had just to wait and to see how long their commonwealth would continue unable to live and unable to die, and whether it would ultimately find its master and, so far as might be possible, its regenerator, in a man of mighty gifts, or would collapse in misery and weakness.

  Finances of the State

  It remains that we should notice the economic and social relations of the period before us, so far as we have not already done so.

  Italian Revenues

  The finances of the state were from the commencement of this epoch substantially dependent on the revenues from the provinces. In Italy the land-tax, which had always occurred there merely as an extraordinary impost by the side of the ordinary domanial and other revenues, had not been levied since the battle of Pydna, so that absolute freedom from land-tax began to be regarded as a constitutional privilege of the Roman landowner. The royalties of the state, such as the salt monopoly[5] and the right of coinage, were not now at least, if ever at all, treated as sources of income. The new tax on inheritance[6] was allowed to fall into abeyance or was perhaps directly abolished. Accordingly the Roman exchequer drew from Italy including Cisalpine Gaul nothing but the produce of the domains, particul
arly of the Campanian territory and of the gold mines in the land of the Celts, and the revenue from manumissions and from goods imported by sea into the Roman civic territory not for the personal consumption of the importer. Both of these may be regarded essentially as taxes on luxury, and they certainly must have been considerably augmented by the extension of the field of Roman citizenship and at the same time of Roman customs-dues to all Italy, probably including Cisalpine Gaul.

  Provincial Revenues

  In the provinces the Roman state claimed directly as its private property, on the one hand, in the states annulled by martial law the whole domain, on the other hand in those states, where the Roman government came in room of the former rulers, the landed property possessed by the latter. By virtue of this right the territories of Leontini, Carthage, and Corinth, the domanial property of the kings of Macedonia, Pergamus, and Cyrene, the mines in Spain and Macedonia were regarded as Roman domains; and, in like manner with the territory of Capua, were leased by the Roman censors to private contractors in return for the delivery of a proportion of the produce or a fixed sum of money. We have already explained that Gaius Gracchus went still farther, claimed the whole land of the provinces as domain, and in the case of the province of Asia practically carried out this principle; inasmuch as he legally justified the decumae, scriptura, and vectigalia levied there on the ground of the Roman state's right of property in the land, pasture, and coasts of the province, whether these had previously belonged to the king or private persons[7].

  There do not appear to have been at this period any royalties from which the state derived profit, as respected the provinces; the prohibition of the culture of the vine and olive in Transalpine Gaul did not benefit the state-chest as such. On the other hand direct and indirect taxes were levied to a great extent. The client states recognized as fully sovereign - such as the kingdoms of Numidia and Cappadocia, the allied states (civitates foederatae) of Rhodes, Messana, Tauromenium, Massilia, Gades - were legally exempt from taxation, and merely bound by their treaties to support the Roman republic in times of war by regularly furnishing a fixed number of ships or men at their own expense, and, as a matter of course in case of need, by rendering extraordinary aid of any kind.

  Taxes

  The rest of the provincial territory on the other hand, even including the free cities, was throughout liable to taxation; the only exceptions were the cities invested with the Roman franchise, such as Narbo, and the communities on which immunity from taxation was specially conferred (civitates immunes), such as Centuripa in Sicily. The direct taxes consisted partly - as in Sicily and Sardinia - of a title to the tenth[8] of the sheaves and other field produce as of grapes and olives, or, if the land lay in pasture, to a corresponding scriptura; partly - as in Macedonia, Achaia, Cyrene, the greater part of Africa, the two Spains, and by Sulla's arrangements also in Asia - of a fixed sum of money to be paid annually by each community to Rome (stipendium, tributum). This amounted, e. g. for all Macedonia, to 600,000 denarii(24,000 pounds), for the small island of Gyaros near Andros to 150 denarii (6 pounds, 10 shillings), and was apparently on the whole low and less than the tax paid before the Roman rule. Those ground-tenths and pasture-moneys the state farmed out to private contractors on condition of their paying fixed quantities of grain or fixed sums of money; with respect to the latter money-payments the state drew upon the respective communities, and left it to these to assess the amount, according to the general principles laid down by the Roman government, on the persons liable, and to collect it from them[9].

  Customs

  The indirect taxes consisted - apart from the subordinate moneys levied from roads, bridges, and canals - mainly of customs-duties. The customs-duties of antiquity were, if not exclusively, at any rate principally port-dues, less frequently frontier-dues, on imports and exports destined for sale, and were levied by each community in its ports and its territory at discretion. The Romans recognized this principle generally, in so far as their original customs-domain did not extend farther than the range of the Roman franchise and the limit of the customs was by no means coincident with the limits of the empire, so that a general imperial tariff was unknown: it was only by means of state-treaty that a total exemption from customs-dues in the client communities was secured for the Roman state, and in various cases at least favourable term for the Roman burgess. But in those districts, which had not been admitted to alliance with Rome but were in the condition of subjects proper and had not acquired immunity, the customs fell as a matter of course to the proper sovereign, that is, to the Roman community; and in consequence of this several larger regions within the empire were constituted as separate Roman customs-districts, in which the several communities allied or privileged with immunity were marked off as exempt from Roman customs. Thus Sicily even from the Carthaginian period formed a closed customs-district, on the frontier of which a tax of 5 per cent on the value was levied from all imports or exports; thus on the frontiers of Asia there was levied in consequence of the Sempronian law[10] a similar tax of 21 per cent; in like manner the province of Narbo, exclusively the domain of the Roman colony, was organized as a Roman customs-district This arrangement, besides its fiscal objects, may have been partly due to the commendable purpose of checking the confusion inevitably arising out of a variety of communal tolls by a uniform regulation of frontier-dues. The levying of the customs, like that of the tenths, was without exception leased to middlemen.

  Costs of Collection

  The ordinary burdens of Roman taxpayers were limited to these imposts; but we may not overlook the fact, that the expenses of collection were very considerable, and the contributors paid an amount disproportionately great as compared with what the Roman government received. For, while the system of collecting taxes by middlemen, and especially by general lessees, is in itself the most expensive of all, in Rome effective competition was rendered extremely difficult in consequence of the slight extent to which the lettings were subdivided and the immense association of capital.

  Requisitions

  To these ordinary burdens, however, fell to be added in the first place the requisitions which were made. The costs of military administration were in law defrayed by the Roman community.

  It provided the commandants of every province with the means of transport and all other requisites; it paid and provisioned the Roman soldiers in the province. The provincial communities had to furnish merely shelter, wood, hay, and similar articles free of cost to the magistrates and soldiers; in fact the free towns were even ordinarily exempted from the winter quartering of the troops - permanent camps were not yet known. If the governor therefore needed grain, ships, slaves to man them, linen, leather, money, or aught else, he was no doubt absolutely at liberty in time of war - nor was it far otherwise in time of peace - to demand such supplies according to his discretion and exigencies from the subject-communities or the sovereign protected states; but these supplies were, like the Roman land-tax, treated legally as purchases or advances, and the value was immediately or afterwards made good by the Roman exchequer. Nevertheless these requisitions became, if not in the theory of state-law, at any rate practically, one of the most oppressive burdens of the provincials; and the more so, that the amount of compensation was ordinarily settled by the government or even by the governor after a one-sided fashion. We meet indeed with several legislative restrictions on this dangerous right of requisition of the Roman superior magistrates: for instance, the rule already mentioned, that in Spain there should not be taken from the country people by requisitions for grain more than the twentieth sheaf, and that the price even of this should be equitably ascertained[11]; the fixing of a maximum quantity of grain to be demanded by the governor for the wants of himself and his retinue; the previous adjustment of a definite and high rate of compensation for the grain which was frequently demanded, at least from Sicily, for the wants of the capital. But, while by fixing such rules the pressure of those requisitions on the economy of the communities and of indiv
iduals in the province was doubtless mitigated here and there, it was by no means removed. In extraordinary crises this pressure unavoidably increased and often went beyond all bounds, for then in fact the requisitions not unfrequently assumed the form of a punishment imposed or that of voluntary contributions enforced, and compensation was thus wholly withheld. Thus Sulla in 670-671 compelled the provincials of Asia Minor, who certainly had very gravely offended against Rome, to furnish to every common soldier quartered among them forty-fold pay (per day 16 denarii = 11 shillings), to every centurion seventy-five-fold pay, in addition to clothing and meals along with the right to invite guests at pleasure; thus the same Sulla soon afterwards imposed a general contribution on the client and subject communities[12], in which case nothing, of course, was said of repayment.

  Local Burdens

  Further the local public burdens are not to be left out of view. They must have been, comparatively, very considerable[13]; for the costs of administration, the keeping of the public buildings in repair, and generally all civil expenses were borne by the local budget, and the Roman government simply undertook to defray the military expenses from their coffers. But even of this military budget considerable items were devolved on the communities - such as the expense of making and maintaining the non-Italian military roads, the costs of the fleets in the non-Italian seas, nay even in great part the outlays for the army, inasmuch as the forces of the client-states as well as those of the subjects were regularly liable to serve at the expense of their communities within their province, and began to be employed with increasing frequency even beyond it - Thracians in Africa, Africans in Italy, arid so on - at the discretion of the Romans[14]. If the provinces only and not Italy paid direct taxes to the government, this was equitable in a financial, if not in a political, aspect so long as Italy alone bore the burdens and expense of the military system; but from the time that this system was abandoned, the provincials were, in a financial point of view, decidedly overburdened.