Under all these circumstances even a taxation moderate in theory
might become extremely oppressive in its actual operation; and that
it was so is beyond doubt, although the financial oppression, which
the Italian merchants and bankers exercised over the provinces, was
probably felt as a far heavier burden than the taxation with all
the abuses that attached to it.

Aggregate Financial Result

If we sum up, the income which Rome drew from the provinces was
not properly a taxation of the subjects in the sense which we now
attach to that expression, but rather in the main a revenue that
may be compared with the Attic tributes, by means of which the
leading state defrayed the expense of the military system which
it maintained. This explains the surprisingly small amount of the
gross as well as of the net proceeds. There exists a statement,
according to which the income of Rome, exclusive, it may be
presumed, of the Italian revenues and of the grain delivered in
kind to Italy by the -decumani- up to 691 amounted to not more
than 200 millions of sesterces (2,000,000 pounds); that is, but
two-thirds of the sum which the king of Egypt drew from his country
annually. The proportion can only seem strange at the first
glance. The Ptolemies turned to account the valley of the Nile as
great, plantation-owners, and drew immense sums from their monopoly
of the commercial intercourse with the east; the Roman treasury was
not much more than the joint military chest of the communities
united under Rome's protection. The net produce was probably still
less in proportion. The only provinces yielding a considerable
surplus were perhaps Sicily, where the Carthaginian system of
taxation prevailed, and more especially Asia from the time that
Gaius Gracchus, in order to provide for his largesses of corn, had
carried out the confiscation of the soil and a general domanial
taxation there. According to manifold testimonies the finances of
the Roman state were essentially dependent on the revenues of Asia.
The assertion sounds quite credible that the other provinces on an
average cost nearly as much as they brought in; in fact those which
required a considerable garrison, such as the two Spains,
Transalpine Gaul, and Macedonia, probably often cost more than they
yielded. On the whole certainly the Roman treasury in ordinary
times possessed a surplus, which enabled them amply to defray the
expense of the buildings of the state and city,