ich immunity from taxation
was specially conferred (-civitates immunes-), such as Centuripa
in Sicily. The direct taxes consisted partly--as in Sicily and
Sardinia--of a title to the tenth(8) of the sheaves and other field
produce as of grapes and olives, or, if the land lay in pasture,
to a corresponding -scriptura-; partly--as in Macedonia, Achaia,
Cyrene, the greater part of Africa, the two Spains, and by Sulla's
arrangements also in Asia--of a fixed sum of money to be paid
annually by each community to Rome (-stipendium-, -tributum-).
This amounted, e. g. for all Macedonia, to 600,000 -denarii-
(24,000 pounds), for the small island of Gyaros near Andros to 150
-denarii- (6 pounds, 10 shillings), and was apparently on the whole
low and less than the tax paid before the Roman rule. Those
ground-tenths and pasture-moneys the state farmed out to private
contractors on condition of their paying fixed quantities of grain
or fixed sums of money; with respect to the latter money-payments
the state drew upon the respective communities, and left it to
these to assess the amount, according to the general principles
laid down by the Roman government, on the persons liable, and to
collect it from them.(9)

Customs

The indirect taxes consisted--apart from the subordinate moneys
levied from roads, bridges, and canals--mainly of customs-duties.
The customs-duties of antiquity were, if not exclusively, at any
rate principally port-dues, less frequently frontier-dues, on
imports and exports destined for sale, and were levied by each
community in its ports and its territory at discretion. The Romans
recognized this principle generally, in so far as their original
customs-domain did not extend farther than the range of the Roman
franchise and the limit of the customs was by no means coincident
with the limits of the empire, so that a general imperial tariff
was unknown: it was only by means of state-treaty that a total
exemption from customs-dues in the client communities was secured
for the Roman state, and in various cases at least favourable
term for the Roman burgess. But in those districts, which had
not been admitted to alliance with Rome but were in the condition
of subjects proper and had not acquired immunity, the customs fell
as a matter of course to the proper sovereign, that is, to the Roman
community; and in consequence of this several larger regions within
the empire were constituted as separate Roman customs-dis