CHAP. VII. FROM THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 



it was the occasion of murmurs even in the 

 popular reign of Augustus, and of still greater 

 complaints and opposition in the reign of his 

 successor, Tiberius. 



A further tax also imposed by Augustus was 

 that on legacies and inheritances ; a tax which 

 that emperor fixed at a twentieth part of the pro- 

 perty of the defunct, and from which there was 

 no exemption, except as regarded the smallest 

 fortunes and the nearest of kin on the side of 

 the father. From the habits of the Roman peo- 

 ple this tax was never the occasion of complaint. 

 Gibbon l accounts for this acquiescence by say- 

 ing, " From various causes, the partiality of pa- 

 ternal affection often lost its interest over the 

 stern patriots of the commonwealth and the dis- 

 solute nobles of the empire; and if the father 

 bequeathed to his son the fourth part of his 

 estate, he removed all ground of legal complaint." 



The tax, even at the lower rate at which it was 

 imposed by Augustus, must in process of time 

 have brought the greater portion of the indivi- 

 dual wealth of the community into the public 

 treasury ; but when doubled in the reign of 

 Severus, a few generations must have been suffi- 

 cient to have transferred it from the hands of 

 private persons to the imperial exchequer. 



When we consider the sums of money brought 



1 See Gibbon's Decline and Fall, book vi. 



