THE CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY I 021
Taxation and the Depreciation of Imperial Coinage
2-9. Taxation and the Depreciation of Imperial Coinage
The reorganisation of finance brought into existence a host of officials who either bore new names or old titles to which new duties had been assigned. The great and complex system of taxation initiated by Diocletian and carried further by his successors can hero be only sketched in broad outline. Although, like all the institutions of the new monarchy, the scheme of taxation had its roots in the past, the new development in its completed form stands in such marked contrast to old conditions, that there is not much to be gained by detailed references to the earlier Empire. Before Diocletian's time the old aerarium Saturni had ceased to be of imperial importance, and the aerarium militare of Augustus had disappeared. The general census of Roman citizens, carried out at Rome, is not heard of after Vespasian's time.
Of the ancient revenues of the State very many were swept away by Diocletian's reform, even the most productive of all, the five percent tax on inherited property (vicesima hereditaturri) by which Augustus had subjected Roman citizens in general to taxation. The separate provincial census, of which in Gaul, for example, we hear much during the early Empire, was rendered unnecessary. The great and powerful sodetates publicanorum had dwindled away, though publicani were still employed for some purposes. Direct collection of revenue had gradually taken the place of the system of farming. Where any traces of the old system remained, it was subject to strict official supervision.
Before Diocletian the incidence of taxation on the different parts of the Empire had been most unequal. The reasons for this lay partly in the extraordinary variety of the conditions by which in times past the relation of different portions of the Empire to the central government had been fixed when they first came under its sway; partly in Republican or Imperial favour or disfavour as they afterwards affected the burdens to be endured in different places; partly by the evolutions of the municipalities of different types throughout the Roman dominions. Towns and districts which once had been immune from imposts or slightly taxed had become tributary and vice-versa. The reforms instituted by Augustus and carried further by his successors did something towards securing uniformity, but many diversities continued to exist. Some of these were produced by the gift of immunitas which was bestowed on many civic communities scattered over the Empire. Without this gift even communities of Roman citizens were not exempt from the taxation which marked off the provinces from Italy.
In order to understand the purpose of Diocletian's changes in the taxation of the Empire, it is necessary to consider the struggle which he and Constantine made to reform the imperial coinage. The difficult task of explaining with exactness the utter demoralisation of the currency at the moment when Diocletian ascended the throne cannot be here attempted. Only a few outstanding features can be delineated. The political importance of sound currency has never been more conspicuously shewn than in the century which followed on the death of Commodus (A.D, 180). Augustus had given a stability to the Roman coinage which it had never before possessed. But he imposed no uniform system on the whole of his dominions. Gold (with one slight exception) he allowed none to mint but himself. But copper he left in the hands of the Senate. Silver he coined himself, while he permitted many local mints to strike pieces in that metal also as well as in copper. Subsequent history extinguished local diversities and brought about by gradual steps a general system which was not attained till the fourth century. Aurelian deprived the Senate of the power which Augustus had left it.
Although the imperial coins underwent a certain amount of depreciation between the time of Augustus and that of the Severi, it was not such as to throw out of gear the taxation and the commerce of the Empire. But with Caracalla a rapid decline set in, and by the time of Aurelian the disorganisation had gone so far that practically, gold and silver were demonetised, and copper became the standard medium of exchange. The principal coin that professed to be silver had come to contain no more than five percent of that metal, and this proportion sank afterwards to two percent. What a government gains by making its payments in corrupted coin is always far more than lost in the revenue which it receives. The debasement of the coinage means a lightening of taxation, and it is never possible to enhance the nominal amount receivable by the exchequer so as to keep pace with the depreciation.
The effect of this in the Roman Empire was greater than it would have been at an earlier time, since there is reason to believe that much of the revenue formerly payable in kind had been transmuted into money. A measure of Aurelian had the effect of multiplying by eight such taxes as were to be paid in coin. As the chief silver coin had twenty years earlier contained eight times as much silver as it had then come to contain, he claimed that he was only exacting what was justly due, but his subjects naturally cried out against his tyranny. No greater proof of the disorganisation of the whole financial system could be given than lies in the fact that the treasury issued sackloads (folles) of the Antoniani, first coined by Caracalla, which were intended to be silver, but were now all but base metal only. These folles passed from hand to hand unopened.
Diocletian's attempts to remove these mischiefs were not altogether fortunate. He made experiment after experiment, aiming at that stability of the currency which had, on the whole, prevailed for two centuries after the reforms of Augustus, but never reaching it* Finally, discovering that the last change he had made led to general raising of prices, he issued the celebrated edict of A.D. 301 by which the charges for all commodities were fixed, the penalty for transgression being death.
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