but it comprehended whatever was sold in the markets or by public
auction, from the most considerable purchases of lands and houses, to
those minute objects which can only derive a value from their infinite
multitude and daily consumption. Such a tax, as it affects the body
of the people, has ever been the occasion of clamor and discontent. An
emperor well acquainted with the wants and resources of the state was
obliged to declare, by a public edict, that the support of the army
depended in a great measure on the produce of the excise. [101]

[Footnote 101: Tacit. Annal. i. 78. Two years afterwards, the reduction
of the poor kingdom of Cappadocia gave Tiberius a pretence for
diminishing the excise of one half, but the relief was of very short
duration.]

III. When Augustus resolved to establish a permanent military
force for the defence of his government against foreign and domestic
enemies, he instituted a peculiar treasury for the pay of the soldiers,
the rewards of the veterans, and the extra-ordinary expenses of war.
The ample revenue of the excise, though peculiarly appropriated to
those uses, was found inadequate. To supply the deficiency, the emperor
suggested a new tax of five per cent. on all legacies and inheritances.
But the nobles of Rome were more tenacious of property than of freedom.
Their indignant murmurs were received by Augustus with his usual temper.
He candidly referred the whole business to the senate, and exhorted
them to provide for the public service by some other expedient of a less
odious nature. They were divided and perplexed. He insinuated to them,
that their obstinacy would oblige him to propose a general land tax
and capitation. They acquiesced in silence. [102]. The new imposition on
legacies and inheritances was, however, mitigated by some restrictions.
It did not take place unless the object was of a certain value, most
probably of fifty or a hundred pieces of gold; [103] nor could it be
exacted from the nearest of kin on the father's side. [104] When the
rights of nature and poverty were thus secured, it seemed reasonable,
that a stranger, or a distant relation, who acquired an unexpected
accession of fortune, should cheerfully resign a twentieth part of it,
for the benefit of the state. [105]

[Footnote 102: Dion Cassius, l. lv. p. 794, l. lvi. p. 825. Note: Dion
neither mentions this proposition nor the capitation. He only says that
the emperor imposed a tax upon landed property,