388 Taxation in kind. Italy 



from them : the government was literally paid in its own coin. The 

 policy of Diocletian was to extend an old practice of exacting payment 

 in kind, and this became the principal method 1 of imperial taxation. 

 We must bear in mind that the supply of corn for the city of Rome, 

 the annona urbis, went on as before, though the practical importance 

 of Rome was steadily sinking. Diocletian made it no longer the resi- 

 dence of emperors, and Constantine founded another capital in the 

 East : but Rome was still fed by corn -tributes from the Provinces, 

 chiefly from Africa and Egypt. When the New Rome on the Bosporus 

 was fully equipped as an imperial capital, Egypt was made liable for 

 the corn-supply of the Constantinopolitan populace. Old Rome had 

 then to rely almost entirely on Africa, with occasional help from other 

 sources. Italy itself 2 was now reduced to the common level, cut up 

 into provinces, and liable for furnishing supplies of food. But it was 

 divided into two separate regions : the northern, officially named Italia, 

 or annonariae regiones, in which a good deal of corn was grown, had 

 to deliver its annona at Mediolanum (Milan) the new imperial head- 

 quarters : the southern, suburbicariae (or urbicariae) regiones, in which 

 little corn was grown, sent supplies of pigs cattle wine firewood lime etc 

 to Rome. The northern annona, like that from other provinces, helped 

 to maintain military forces and the host of officials employed by the 

 government. For it soon became the practice to pay salaries in kind. 

 In the pitiful state of the currency this rude method offered the best 

 guarantee for receipt of a definite value. 



Unhappily this exaction and distribution in kind was at best a 

 wasteful process. At worst it was simply ruinous. The empire was 

 subject to constant menace of attack, and was in dire need of the largest 

 possible income raised on the most economical system. If the ultimate 

 basis of imperial strength was to be found in the food-producers, it 

 was all-important to give the farming classes a feeling of security suf- 

 ficient to encourage industry and enterprise, and at all costs to avoid 

 reducing them to despair. Nor was the new census as designed by 

 Diocletian on the face of it an unjust and evil institution. Taking 

 account of arable lands and of the persons employed in cultivating 

 them, it aimed at creating a fixed number 8 of agricultural units each 

 of which should be liable to furnish the same amount of yearly dues 

 in kind. But it is obvious that to carry out this doctrinaire scheme 

 with uniform neatness and precision was not possible. To deal fairly 

 with agriculture a minute attention to local differences and special 

 peculiarities was necessary, and this attention could not be given on 



1 Seeck n 249, 284. See Cod Th xi i 1-5 (dates 365-389), not in Cod Just. 



2 Heisterbergk p 59 with references. Seeck, Schatzungsordnung pp 302-5. 



3 The details of this system are fully discussed in Seeck's great article, die Schatzungs- 

 or dnung Diocletian s, in the Ztschr fiir social und Wirthschaftsgeschichte 1896. 



