CHAP. IX. 



TAXATION. 217 



was compelled to be conveyed to Constanti- 

 nople, and that of the rest of Africa to Rome V 



The tribute of the provinces which in the 

 time of Pliny had been directed to be trans- 

 mitted in silver, was ordered to be collected and 

 forwarded in gold, or only in such silver money 

 as was of the imperial coinage. 



It has been seen that the treasure which 

 Rome by her conquests had drawn from Mace- 

 donia had been so great, as to make the levying 

 of taxes unnecessary during several generations, 

 and that the treasures of the Ptolemies, and the 

 continued supplies of the precious metals which 

 for some time after had continued to flow into 

 Rome from Egypt, had increased the quantity 

 of money, and had raised the price of all other 

 commodities. But in the three or four cen- 

 turies between the reign of Augustus and the 

 establishing of Constantinople, money had be- 

 come scarcer, and the emperor, instead of lower- 

 ing the taxes as the prices of commodities de- 

 clined, or, which is the same, as the value of 

 money had increased, raised them to a height 

 very far beyond the point they had ever reached 

 before. In addition to the taxes on articles of 

 consumption which had been before levied, an- 

 other was imposed which partook of the nature 

 of a tax upon property and a capitation tax. This 



1 Montesquieu, Grandeur et Decadence des Remains, cap. 

 xvii. 



