Note 83 — Below is a copy of the deeds of the divine Augustus, by which he subjected the whole world to the dominion of the Roman people, and of the amounts which he expended upon the commonwealth and the Roman people, as engraved upon two brazen columns which are set up at Rome.1

This form of benefaction began in 736. It is a little remarkable that Augustus should not mention the exact years of its continuance, its amount, or the beneficiaries, while he does name the minimum number of men who received aid from time to time. Perhaps he did not go into details because these gifts concerned the provincials and would be of slight interest to the city people for whose reading the inscription was intended. In 742, “when Asia was in need of aid on account of earthquakes, he paid the year’s tribute of the province out of his own means.” Dio, LIV, 30.

His supplying grain as well as money rose from the fact that taxes were imposed both in kind and in money. Cf. Tac. Ann. IV, 6; Agr. XIX and XXXI; C. I. Gr. 4957, 47. These passages all speak of taxes both in money and in produce. As to the method of levy, Hyginus is interesting (De Lim. p. 205). “The tax on agriculture is arranged in many ways. In some provinces the harvest is chargeable with a certain proportion, here a fifth, there a seventh, elsewhere a cash payment, and for this purpose certain values are determined for the fields by an estimation of the soil; as in Pannonia there is arable of the first class, of the second, meadows, mast-bearing woods, common woods, pastures: upon all these the tax is laid by the single acre, according to the fertility of the soil.” This was in the time of Trajan.