we
should be inclined to believe, 1st, That (with every fair allowance for
the differences of times and circumstances) the general income of the
Roman provinces could seldom amount to less than fifteen or twenty
millions of our money; and, 2dly, That so ample a revenue must have been
fully adequate to all the expenses of the moderate government instituted
by Augustus, whose court was the modest family of a private senator,
and whose military establishment was calculated for the defence of
the frontiers, without any aspiring views of conquest, or any serious
apprehension of a foreign invasion.

Notwithstanding the seeming probability of both these conclusions,
the latter of them at least is positively disowned by the language
and conduct of Augustus. It is not easy to determine whether, on this
occasion, he acted as the common father of the Roman world, or as the
oppressor of liberty; whether he wished to relieve the provinces, or
to impoverish the senate and the equestrian order. But no sooner had
he assumed the reins of government, than he frequently intimated
the insufficiency of the tributes, and the necessity of throwing an
equitable proportion of the public burden upon Rome and Italy. In the
prosecution of this unpopular design, he advanced, however, by cautious
and well-weighed steps. The introduction of customs was followed by the
establishment of an excise, and the scheme of taxation was completed
by an artful assessment on the real and personal property of the Roman
citizens, who had been exempted from any kind of contribution above a
century and a half.

I. In a great empire like that of Rome, a natural balance of money must
have gradually established itself. It has been already observed, that as
the wealth of the provinces was attracted to the capital by the strong
hand of conquest and power, so a considerable part of it was restored to
the industrious provinces by the gentle influence of commerce and arts.
In the reign of Augustus and his successors, duties were imposed on
every kind of merchandise, which through a thousand channels flowed to
the great centre of opulence and luxury; and in whatsoever manner the
law was expressed, it was the Roman purchaser, and not the provincial
merchant, who paid the tax. The rate of the customs varied from the
eighth to the fortieth part of the value of the commodity; and we have
a right to suppose that the variation was directed by the unalterable
maxims of policy; th