CHAP. XVII.
The agriculture of the Roman provinces was insensibly ruined; and, in the progress of despotism, which tends to disappoint its own purpose, the emperors were obliged to derive some merit from the forgiveness of debts, or the remission of tributes, which their subjects were utterly incapable of paying. According to the new division of Italy, the fertile and happy province of Campania, the scene of the early victories and of the delicious retirements of the citizens of Rome, extended between the sea and the Apennine from the Tiber to the Silarus. Within sixty years after the death of Constantine, and on the evidence of an actual survey, an exemption was granted in favour of three hundred and thirty thousand English acres of desert and uncultivated land; which amounted to one eighth of the whole surface of the province. As the footsteps of the barbarians had not yet been seen in Italy, the cause of this amazing desolation, which is recorded in the laws, can be ascribed only to the administration, of the Roman emperors[1].
Assessed in the form of a capitation. Either from design or from accident, the mode of assessment seemed to unite the substance of a landtax with the forms of a capitation[2]. The returns which were sent of every province or district, expressed the number of tributary subjects, and the amount of the public impositions. The latter of these sums was divided by the former; and the estimate, that such a province contained so many capita, or heads of tri-
- ↑ Cod. Theod. 1. xi. tit. xxviii. leg. 2. published the twenty-fourth of March, A. D. 395, by the emperor Honorius, only two months after the death of his father Theodosius. He speaks of five hundred and twenty-eight thousand and forty-two Roman jugera, which I have reduced to the English measure. The jugerum contained twenty-eight thousand eight hundred square Roman feet.
- ↑ Godefroy (Cod. Theod. tom. vi. p. 1 16.) argues with weight and learning on the subject of the capitation ; but while he explains the caput, as a share or measure of property, he too absolutely excludes the idea of a personal assessment.
their authority, either in the exaction or in the purchase of corn : but those who had learning enough to read the orations of Cicero against Verres, (iii. de Frumento,) might instruct themselves in all the various arts of oppression, with regard to the weight, the price, the quality, and the carriage. The avarice of an unlettered governor would supply the ignorance of precept or precedent.
