Customs' duties. had the power of almost unlimited taxation. Gibbon estimates the income of these provinces during the reign of Augustus at from fifteen to twenty millions of our money.[1] Customs, too, were introduced during this period, and were followed by a regulated scheme of excise, whereby both the real and the personal property of the Roman citizens were made subject to a system of taxation from which they had been exempt for more than a century and a half.
But in great empires, such as Rome, the natural balance of money soon establishes itself. The wealth at first attracted to the capital, as the chief place of abode for the aristocracy, by degrees finds its way to the industrial people in the provinces, to be employed in the development of arts and manufactures, and is thus spread throughout the whole kingdom, to find its way back to the capital, through the medium of those who, having by commerce or otherwise accumulated a superabundance, resort thither to spend it. In the reign of Augustus and of his successors, the duties also imposed on every kind of merchandise found their way through numerous channels to Rome, the great centre of opulence and luxury, so that, in whatever manner the law was expressed, the Roman purchaser, rather than the provincial merchant, paid the tax. A higher duty was imposed on articles of luxury than on those of necessity, varying from an eighth to the fortieth part of the value of the commodity; and the productions raised or manufactured by the labour of the people were wisely treated with more indulgence than was shown to the luxurious products of India and Arabia.[2] "There is
