Tributary empires and the New Fiscal Sociology: some comparative reflections

TY - CHAP

T1 - Tributary empires and the New Fiscal Sociology: some comparative reflections

AU - Bang, Peter Fibiger

PY - 2015/1/1

Y1 - 2015/1/1

N2 - Imperator Caesar M. Aurelius Severus Alexander…proclaims… in order that through their desire to express the joy they have in my accession to the imperial office they not be forced into contributions greater than they can afford… Therefore, let all men in the cities both throughout Italy and among the other peoples be my witness: for other ‘gold crowns’, even though occasioned by my accession as emperor…I must cancel the claims made upon the cities… It is necessary that I…repair the declining state of things, not by searches for revenue, but by economy alone…to see the emperor administering the duties of kingship with so much orderliness and moderation and restraint. If we did not know better, this document might almost be thought to have issued from a chancellery staffed by Confucian literati. Certainly, the basic idea that the good emperor would remit taxes to spare the population and instead attempt to govern through an exemplary show of personal economy, self-restraint, and virtuous conduct seems to read almost like a textbook expression of the model of sage rulership espoused by generations of Chinese imperial monarchs. But, of course, the context is Roman, and the ideology fashioned in the crucible of Greek philosophy. There is a welcome reminder from 222 CE that for much of recorded history the question of “rule and revenue” played itself out within a constellation of social powers dominated by monarchs and landowners. This basic configuration produced a set of constraints and patterns of conduct that invite comparison across Eurasia, and beyond. But our example is also paradigmatic of the problems that this chapter seeks to address in a more narrow sense. The “tax” Alexander Severus remitted in a gesture of ostentatious magnanimity was not quite one of the regular taxes. The so-called aurum coronarium was, in appearance, a voluntary contribution spontaneously sent or voted by the individual cities and provinces to congratulate the ruler, sometimes even delivered in the form of a golden wreath by an official delegation.

AB - Imperator Caesar M. Aurelius Severus Alexander…proclaims… in order that through their desire to express the joy they have in my accession to the imperial office they not be forced into contributions greater than they can afford… Therefore, let all men in the cities both throughout Italy and among the other peoples be my witness: for other ‘gold crowns’, even though occasioned by my accession as emperor…I must cancel the claims made upon the cities… It is necessary that I…repair the declining state of things, not by searches for revenue, but by economy alone…to see the emperor administering the duties of kingship with so much orderliness and moderation and restraint. If we did not know better, this document might almost be thought to have issued from a chancellery staffed by Confucian literati. Certainly, the basic idea that the good emperor would remit taxes to spare the population and instead attempt to govern through an exemplary show of personal economy, self-restraint, and virtuous conduct seems to read almost like a textbook expression of the model of sage rulership espoused by generations of Chinese imperial monarchs. But, of course, the context is Roman, and the ideology fashioned in the crucible of Greek philosophy. There is a welcome reminder from 222 CE that for much of recorded history the question of “rule and revenue” played itself out within a constellation of social powers dominated by monarchs and landowners. This basic configuration produced a set of constraints and patterns of conduct that invite comparison across Eurasia, and beyond. But our example is also paradigmatic of the problems that this chapter seeks to address in a more narrow sense. The “tax” Alexander Severus remitted in a gesture of ostentatious magnanimity was not quite one of the regular taxes. The so-called aurum coronarium was, in appearance, a voluntary contribution spontaneously sent or voted by the individual cities and provinces to congratulate the ruler, sometimes even delivered in the form of a golden wreath by an official delegation.

KW - Faculty of Humanities

M3 - Book chapter

SN - 978-1-107-08920-4

SP - 537

EP - 556

BT - Fiscal Regimes and the Political Economy of Premodern States

A2 - Monson, Andrew

A2 - Scheidel, Walter

PB - Cambridge University Press

CY - Cambridge

ER -