further aid in the maintenance of the primitive state. Financial organization makes its earliest appearance in the great Eastern monarchies, in which tribute was regularly collected and the oldest and most general form of taxation—that levied on the produce of land—was established. In its normal shape this impost consisted in a given proportion of the yield, or of certain portions of the yield, of the soil; one-fourth as in India, one-fifth as in Egypt, or two separate levies of a tenth as in Palestine, are examples of what may from the last instance be called the “tithe” system. Dues of various kinds were gradually added to the land revenue, until, as in the later Egyptian monarchy, the forms of revenue reached a bewildering complexity. But no Eastern state advanced beyond the condition generally characterized as the “patrimonial,” i.e. an organization on the model of the household. The part played by money economy was small, and it is noticeable that the revenues were collected by the monarch’s servants, the farming out of taxes being completely unknown. Tribute, however, was paid by subject communities as a whole, and was collected by them for transmission to the conquerors.
A much higher stage was reached in the financial methods of the Greek states, or more correctly speaking of Athens, the best-known specimen of the class. Instead of the comparatively simple expedients of the barbarian monarchies, as indicated above, the Athenian city Ancient Greek. state by degrees developed a rather complex revenue system. Some of the older forms are retained. The city owned public land which was let on lease and the rents were farmed out by auction. A specially valuable property of Athens was the possession of the silver mines at Laurium, which were worked on lease by slave labour. The produce, at first distributed amongst the citizens, was later a part of the state income, and forms the subject of some of the suggestions respecting the revenue in the treatise formerly ascribed to Xenophon. The reverence that attached to the precious metals caused undue exaltation of the services rendered by this property.
One of the characteristics of the ancient state was its extensive control over the persons and property of its citizens. In respect to finance this authority was strikingly manifested in the burdens imposed on wealthy citizens by the requirements of the “liturgies” (λειτουργίαι), which consisted in the provision of a chorus for theatrical performances, or defraying the expenses of the public games, or, finally, the equipment of a ship, “the trierarchy,” which was economically and politically the most important. Athenian statesmanship in the time of Demosthenes was gravely exercised to make this form of contribution more effective. The grouping into classes and the privilege of exchanging property, granted to the contributor against any one whom he believed entitled to take his place, are marks of the defective economic and financial organization of the age.
Amongst taxes strictly so called were the market dues or tolls, which in some cases approximated to excise duties, though in their actual mode of levy they were closely similar to the octrois of modern times. Of greater importance were the customs duties on imports and exports. These at the great period of Athenian history were only 2%. The prohibition of export of corn was an economic rather than a financial provision. In the treatment of her subject allies Athens was more rigorous, general import and export duties of 5% being imposed on their trade. The high cost of carriage, and the need of encouraging commerce in a community relying on external sources for its food supply, help to explain the comparatively low rates adopted. Neither as financial nor as protective expedients were the custom duties of classical societies of much importance.
Direct taxation received much greater expansion. A special levy on the class of resident aliens (μετοίκιον), probably paralleled by a duty on slaves, was in force. A far more important source of revenue was the general tax on property (εἰσφορά), which according to one view existed as early as the time of Solon, who made it a part of his constitutional system. Modern inquiry, however, tends towards the conclusion that it was under the stress of the Peloponnesian War that this impost was introduced (428 B.C.). At first it was only levied at irregular intervals; afterwards, in 378 B.C., it became a permanent tax based on elaborate valuation under which the richer members paid on a larger quota of their capital; in the case of the wealthiest class the taxable quota was taken as one-fifth, smaller fractions being adopted for those belonging to the other divisions. The assessment (τίμημα) included all the property of the contributor, whose accuracy in making full returns was safeguarded by the right given to other citizens to proceed against him for fraudulent under-valuation. A further support was provided in the reform of 378 B.C. by the establishment of the symmories, or groups of tax-paying citizens; the wealthier members of each group being responsible for the tax payments of all the members.
The scanty and obscure references to finance, and to economic matters generally, in classical literature do not elucidate all the details of the system; but the analogies of other countries, e.g. the mode of levying the taille in 18th century France and the “tenth and fifteenth” in medieval England, make it tolerably plain that in the 4th century B.C. the Athenian state had developed a mode of taxation on property which raised those questions of just distribution and effective valuation that present themselves in the latest tax systems of the modern world. Taken together with the liturgies, the “eisphora” placed a very heavy burden on the wealthier citizens, and this financial pressure accounts in great part for the hostility of the rich towards the democratic constitution that facilitated the imposition of graduated taxation and super-taxes—to use modern terms—on the larger incomes. The normal yield of the property tax is reported as 60 talents (£14,400); but on special occasions it reached 200 talents (£48,000), or about one-sixth of the total receipts.
On the administrative side also remarkable advances were made by the entrusting of military expenditure to the “generals,” and in the 4th century B.C. by the appointment of an administrator whose duty it was to distribute the revenue of the state under the directions of the assembly. The absence of settled public law and the influence of direct democracy made a complete ministry of finance impossible.
The Athenian “hegemony” in its earlier and later phases had an important financial side. The confederacy of Delos made provision for the collection of a revenue (φόρος) from the members of the league, which was employed at first for defence against Persian aggression, but afterwards was at the disposal of Athens as the ruling state. The annual collection of 460 talents (£110,400) shows sufficiently the magnitude of the league.
Too little is known of the financial methods of the other Greek states and of the Macedonian kingdoms to allow of any definite account of their position. In the latter, particularly in Egypt, the methods of the earlier rulers probably survived. Their finance, like their social life generally, exhibited a blending of Hellenic and barbarian elements. The older land-taxes were probably accompanied by import dues and taxes on property.
In the infancy of the Roman republic its revenues were of the kind usual in such communities. The public land yielded receipts which may indifferently be regarded as rents or taxes; the citizens contributed their services or commodities, and dues were raised on certain articles coming Roman. to market. With the progress of the Roman dominion the financial organization grew in extent. In order to meet the cost of the early wars a special contribution from property (tributum ex censu) was levied at times of emergency, though it was in some cases regarded as an advance to be repaid when the occasion of expense was over. Owing to the great military successes, and the consequent increase of the other sources of revenue, it became feasible to suspend the tributum in 167 B.C., and it was not again levied till after the death of Julius Caesar. From this date the expenses of the Roman state “were undisguisedly supported by the taxation of the provinces.” Neither the state monopolies nor the public land in Italy afforded any appreciable revenue. The other charges that affected Italy were the 5% duty on manumissions, and customs dues on seaborne imports. But with the acquisition of the important provinces of Sicily, Spain and Africa, the formation of a tax
