e under the XIIth dynasty as well
as the collection of a tax.

The year would have to be a very bad one before the authorities would
lower the ordinary rate: the State in ancient times was not more willing
to deduct anything from its revenue than the modern State would be.*

* The two decrees of Rosetta and of Canopus, however,
mention reductions granted by the Ptolemies after an
insufficient rise of the Nile.

The payment of taxes was exacted in wheat, durra, beans, and field
produce, which were stored in the granaries of the nome. It would seem
that the previous deduction of one-tenth of the gross amount of the
harvest could not be a heavy burden, and that the wretched fellah ought
to have been in a position on land at a permanent figure, based on the
average of good and bad harvests.

It was not so, however, and the same writers who have given us such a
lamentable picture of the condition of the workmen in the towns, have
painted for us in even darker colours the miseries which overwhelmed the
country people. "Dost thou not recall the picture of the farmer, when
the tenth of his grain is levied? Worms have destroyed half of the
wheat, and the hippopotami have eaten the rest; there are swarms of rats
in the fields, the grasshoppers alight there, the cattle devour, the
little birds pilfer, and if the farmer lose sight for an instant of
what remains upon the ground, it is carried off by robbers;* the thongs,
moreover, which bind the iron and the hoe are worn out, and the team has
died at the plough. It is then that the scribe steps out of the boat at
the landing-place to levy the tithe, and there come the keepers of
the doors of the granary with cudgels and the negroes with ribs of
palm-leaves, who come crying: 'Come now, corn!' There is none, and they
throw the cultivator full length upon the ground; bound, dragged to the
canal, they fling him in head first;** his wife is bound with him, his
children are put into chains; the neighbours, in the mean time, leave
him and fly to save their grain."

* This last danger survives even to the present day. During
part of the year the fellahin spend the night in their
fields; if they did not see to it, their neighbours would
not hesitate to come and cut their wheat before the harvest,
or root up their vegetables while still immature.

** The same kind of torture is mentioned in the decree of
Harmhabi, in which the lawl