Imperial Finance & Coinage Part Three

On page 73 Millar goes on to say: "In other words the type of Imperial activity we know about is essentially that in response to the needs or conflicts of individuals of individuals communities. It cannot be denied, indeed, that such activity took up a large part of the Emperor's working life; this type of work will be discussed in the last part of this chapter...Tiberius, as a demonstration of his Republican attitude, allowed the Senate to debate about revenues, public works, the recruitment and dismissal of soldiers, military commands and letters to client kings. The implication must be that these things were normally decided by the Emperor, presumably with his friends. What evidence have we about decision-making on such matters?

The best evidence of a debate about finance is the occasion in 58 when the people complained of the exactions of the publicani; Nero, it is stated, thought of abolishing the indirect taxes altogether, but was dissuaded by his advisers, who said that the Empire would collapse if they were abolished-and the people would go on to ask for the abolition of tribute also. The Emperor's friends apart, however, there was the freedman's 'in charge of accounts' a rationibus supseded at the end of the first century by an eques (his subordinates however remained freedman.). Some of these subordinates had purely domestic functions; a rationalis mentioned by Galen had the job of supplying from the Imperial stores the herbs which Galen mixed daily for the antidote taken by Marcus Aurelius (161-180). As for the functions of the rationibus himself, Augustus left in 14 a general statement of the finances of the Empire, adding the names of slaves and freedmen from whom more details could be obtained. He, Tiberius (until he left Rome in 26) and Gaius also published public accounts, but later Emperors did not. The accounts themselves presumably continued to be kept; but our only evidence is the passage of Statius mentioned earlier in which he described in poetic terms the functions of the dead a rationibus, 'Now we entrusted to him alone the control of the Imperial wealth (a list of revenues follows)... quickly he calculates what the Roman arms beneath every sky demand, how much the tribes (the people of Rome) and the temples, how much the lofty aqueducts, the fortresses by the courts or the far-flung roads require...'

To be continued....