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  • 8 - The Imperial finances

  • from PART II - THE GOVERNMENT AND ADMINISTRATION OF THE EMPIRE
  • Edited by Alan K. Bowman, University of Oxford, Edward Champlin, Princeton University, New Jersey, Andrew Lintott, University of Oxford
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    08 February 1996, pp 309-323

  • Summary

    This chapter discusses the management of the imperial finances and the imperial coinage and its production. The collection of imperial indirect taxes continued in the early Principate as in the Republic to be farmed out to publicani. The relative value to the imperial government of indirect as against direct taxes is impossible to assess, but they were probably crucial to the imperial finances. The imperial patrimonium passed from emperor to emperor as part of the office rather than through normal inheritance, as is patent in the cases of the emperors from Otho to Vespasian but was perhaps first recognized on Gaius' accession, whereas no consul, for example, inherited his predecessor's personal fortune. The stability of Roman taxation at a level which was low for each community as a whole is often used to help explain the acceptance and support of Roman rule by the upper classes of the provinces.