Dictionary
PUBLICANI	100.00%
The Romans gave this name to those who did business with the State by becoming contractors for public buildings and for supplies, and to farmers of public lands, especially those who farmed the public taxes (vectigalia) for a certain time, on payment of a fixed sum. In Rome, as indeed throughout the ancient world (cp.TELONAe), the collection of taxes was made not by paid officials, but by farmers of taxes, who belonged to the equestrian order, as the senators were excluded from such business. The farmers of taxes, by the immense profits which they made, became a politically powerful class of capitalists. As the various taxes in the different provinces were let out as a whole by the censors, joint-stock companies were formed, societates publicanorum, whose members received a proportionate return for their invested capital. One member, the manceps, made a tender at the public auction, concluded the contract with the censors, and gave the necessary security. The duration of the contract was a lustrum, i.e. the period between one censorship and another, in imperial times always five years; it began on the 15th of March. The general superintendence was given to a magister societatis in Rome, who vacated office every year; the management of details was in the hands of numerous officials. According to the amount of the taxes farmed, the publicani received special names. The highest class, decumani, were the farmers of the decuma, the tenth part of the produce of the agricultural lands which had been taken from the old possessors. The pecuari or scripturarii, were the farmers of the scriptura, the tax levied for the use of the State pastures. The conductores portoriorum were the farmers of the portoria, the import and export dues, etc. In order to make the greatest possible gain, the publicani were guilty of the most grievous oppression of the provincials, whose only hope of relief lay in the governor, who was rarely able to help them for fear of these influential societies. Under the Empire the position of the provincials was improved; for the emperor, as the governor-in-chief of all the provinces, heard the final appeal in the case of any grievances. In imperial times, the decumani ceased to exist, and the letting out of taxes was entrusted to the official boards specially concerned with them.
TAXES	45.60%
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On the other hand, among the residents who were not citizens, the metoeci (q.v.) paid a yearly protection tax of twelve drachmae (8s.) for each independent man, and six drachmoe for every woman who managed her own house, and the freedmen paid the triobolon in addition. Besides this, all tradesmen who were not citizens had to pay a trade tax. (For extraordinary taxes on property see EISPHORA; for the more or less costly public services undertaken by wealthy citizens, see LEITOURGIA.) As indirect taxes may be mentioned: (1) the tax of 1 per cent. on the selling price paid at the sale of a piece of land. (2) The market tax, which was paid, partly at the gates, partly at the place of sale, by strangers and metoeci for the wares offered for sale in retail dealing; different articles were charged at different rates. (3) The tax on imports and exports, which was 2 per cent. on all imported or exported goods without distinction of kind. The State did not levy its dues and taxes itself, but caused them to be let out to individuals or companies by special officials, called the Poletoe (q.v.). (See TELONAe.) As at Athens, so under the Roman Republic, there was no direct taxation for citizens, except the property tax raised in extraordinary cases. (See TRIBUTUM.) The Roman citizen paid indirect taxes in the harbour tax (see PORTORIUM), and the tax introduced after 357 B.C. on the manumission of slaves at the rate of 5 per cent. of the value of the slave set free (vicesima manumissionis). Both taxes were let by the State to publicani (q.v.). Rome did not receive from her allies in Italy either direct or indirect taxes, apart from the obligations as to supplying soldiers and ships imposed on them by the alliance. After the right of citizenship was granted to them in 89 B.C. they were placed on the same footing as the citizens with respect to indirect taxes. But the provinces had to pay all the more to Rome, partly by direct, partly by indirect taxation. Yet, especially with regard to the former, there was no similarity of treatment, but every province had its own form of taxation, which, as a rule, was assimilated to the system existing in it at the time of its conquest. Some provinces paid a fixed yearly sum (see STIPENDIUM), which was raised by communal districts through the chief towns of each district, while others paid a certain quota of the varying produce of the cultivated land in the province (see DECUMA), which was farmed out to publicani. The provinces felt indirect taxation chiefly through the harbour tax, and indeed every province seems to have formed a separate fiscal district. Under the Empire it was only the indirect taxes that were at first made higher for the citizens, as Augustus added to the taxes on harbours and manumission the centesima rerum venalium, 1 per cent. on the price of articles sold at auctions; the quinta et vicesima mancipiorum, or 4 per cent. on the price of every slave bought, and the vicesima hereditatum et legatorum, of 5 per cent. on all inheritances above 100,000 sesterces, which did not fall to the nearest blood-relations, and on all legacies. The freedom of the citizens from direct taxation continued unimpaired, and when Caracalla, in 212 A.D., had granted to all free subjects of the Empire the right of citizenship, Italy, at least, maintained its freedom from taxation, until Diocletian (in 284) removed the last distinctions between the inhabitants of Italy and of other parts of the Empire, and introduced into Italy the same taxation as obtained in the provinces. It had in course of time been reduced to a more uniform system, on the basis of a general census of the Empire. The chief tax was the land tax (tributum soli), the total sum of which was promulgated every year by the emperor for the whole Empire, and divided amongst the provinces according to the number of taxable units (iuga or capita) which each province was set down as containing in the periodically revised registers. Connected with this tax in money were contributions in kind to the imperial stores for the army and the officials, who had a claim to them. The male and female population of the country not possessing land paid after a certain age (20-25 years) a poll tax (tributum capitis), the amount of which was fixed by imperial ordinance, and for women was about half the sum imposed on men. Citizens resident in towns, and not possessing land, paid a tax partly on their property, partly, as far as they happened to be engaged in a trade, on their working capital and on the trade itself. The taxes apportioned to each town with its districts were raised by tax collectors (exactores), but the decuriones, or members of the municipal senates (see MUNICIPIUM), were responsible for the amount and had to advance it themselves.