reason of
this difference may be found, not so much in the relative scarcity or
plenty of gold and silver, as in the different state of society, in
ancient Gaul and in modern France. In a country where personal freedom
is the privilege of every subject, the whole mass of taxes, whether they
are levied on property or on consumption, may be fairly divided among
the whole body of the nation. But the far greater part of the lands of
ancient Gaul, as well as of the other provinces of the Roman world, were
cultivated by slaves, or by peasants, whose dependent condition was a
less rigid servitude. [183] In such a state the poor were maintained at
the expense of the masters who enjoyed the fruits of their labor; and as
the rolls of tribute were filled only with the names of those citizens
who possessed the means of an honorable, or at least of a decent
subsistence, the comparative smallness of their numbers explains and
justifies the high rate of their capitation. The truth of this assertion
may be illustrated by the following example: The Aedui, one of the most
powerful and civilized tribes or cities of Gaul, occupied an extent of
territory, which now contains about five hundred thousand inhabitants,
in the two ecclesiastical dioceses of Autun and Nevers; [184] and
with the probable accession of those of Chalons and Macon, [185] the
population would amount to eight hundred thousand souls. In the time
of Constantine, the territory of the Aedui afforded no more than
twenty-five thousand heads of capitation, of whom seven thousand were
discharged by that prince from the intolerable weight of tribute. [186]
A just analogy would seem to countenance the opinion of an ingenious
historian, [187] that the free and tributary citizens did not surpass
the number of half a million; and if, in the ordinary administration of
government, their annual payments may be computed at about four millions
and a half of our money, it would appear, that although the share of
each individual was four times as considerable, a fourth part only of
the modern taxes of France was levied on the Imperial province of
Gaul. The exactions of Constantius may be calculated at seven millions
sterling, which were reduced to two millions by the humanity or the
wisdom of Julian.

[Footnote 180a: Two masterly dissertations of M. Savigny, in the Mem. of
the Berlin Academy (1822 and 1823) have thrown new light on the taxation
system of the Empire. Gibbon, according to M.