tax was imposed.[1] Similarly with respect to every animal which performed a task, horses, oxen, mules, and asses for draught purposes, and even dogs.[2] For this demand the landowner alone was dealt with by the authorities, but he was entitled to recover from his labourers whatever he paid on account of themselves or their families. As this capitation was very moderate, the individual was freed from it by the possession of the smallest holding, and subjected to the land-tax instead;[3] but the farmer still paid vicariously for his work-people, even when assessed on property of their own. Slaves were always, of course, a mere personal asset of their masters, and incapable of ownership. A sweeping immunity from poll-tax was conferred on all urban communities,[4] whence nobles and plutocrats escaped the impost for the hosts of servants they sometimes maintained at their city mansions; but even in the rural districts, virgins,[5] widows, certain professional men, and skilled artizans generally, were exempt.[6]*
- ↑ For this assessment the adult age was in general 18, but in Syria, males 14, females 12; Pand., L, xv, 3.
- ↑ "Capitatio humana atque animalium"; Cod. Theod., XI, xx, 6;
cf. Cedrenus, i, p. 627; Zonaras, xiv, 3; Glykas, iv, p. 493, etc. Owing
to the use in the Codes of the words caput and capitatio with respect to
both land-tax and poll-tax, these were generally confounded together,
till Savigny made the distinction clear in his monograph, Ueber d. röm.
Steuerverfassung, pub. 1823 in the Transact. of the Berlin Acad. of
Science. The poll-tax is usually distinguished as plebeia capitatio. The epigram
of Sidonius Ap. is always quoted, and has often misled the expositors
of the Codes, in this connection. To the Emperor Majorian he says:
Geryones nos esse puta, monstrumque tributum,
Hic capita, ut vivam, tu mihi tolle tria.The taxes must have been again very high for him to anticipate so much relief from the remission of only three heads (c. 460).
- ↑ Cod. Theod., XI, i, 14; "quantulacumque terrarum possessio."
- ↑ Ibid., XIII, x, 2.
- ↑ Ibid., XIII, x, 4, 6.
- ↑ Ibid., XIII, iii, iv. A list of thirty-five handicrafts exempted is
