Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

administration in operation 185
been argued that Africa after the Justinianic reconquest was so peaceful
that its inhabitants saw no advantage in paying taxes which would be used
to finance the defence of other parts of the empire, an attitude which ultimately
resulted in a lack of resistance to the Arabs in the late seventh
century. 94
However, generalizations about the quality and financial impact of late
Roman administration are dangerous – administration generates complaints
more often then praise, and complaints had to be extravagant to
have any chance of success, as in this appeal composed by Dioscorus for
his village of Aphrodito: ‘we are suffering more than places afflicted by
barbarians, with our minds constantly on exactions of diagraphai . . . abnormal
demands, and all surcharges of that type’. 95 A more appropriate starting-point
is the survival of the eastern empire throughout this period: its
fiscal structures were able to produce surpluses under Marcian, Anastasius
and Justin II, and, even if with difficulty, to cater for the Vandal expedition
of Leo, Justinian’s heavy expenditure, and the liberality of Tiberius. 96
There may have been tax rises under Justinian, but the evidence is complex
and contentious, since the indications for a rise in taxation in gold in Egypt
may reflect an increasing use of adaeratio, not an increase in overall tax
levels. Natural disasters and warfare caused problems which provoked
demands for remissions or cancellations, but the rhetoric of such requests
does not provide evidence for structural over-taxation. 97 Campaigns
which extended over several years, or even decades, as in the Balkans,
created local problems and a de facto rise in taxation: thus under Anastasius
coemptiones were a permanent element of the tax system in Thrace, whereas
elsewhere they were only to be levied in special circumstances, and in 575
the need for payments in kind to be maintained in Mesopotamia and
Osrhoene is specifically mentioned in the context of Tiberius’ remission
of taxation in gold. 98
The best tax regime was one which was stable and predictable, since both
rises and ultimately remissions in tax proved counter-productive: although
Basil of Caesarea could defend tax immunities for the clergy on the
grounds that the benefits could be passed on to the disadvantaged, a law of
Theodosius II asserted that ‘some men appear to have converted to their
own gain and booty the remission of taxes . . . so that what had been public
94 Durliat (1981) 526–31. 95 P. Lond. 1674, 21–4; MacCoull, Dioscorus 47.
96 Though for problems caused to the prefectural treasury, see John Lydus, De Mag. iii.43–4, 54, 56.
97 Life of Theodore of Sykeon 73; Joshua the Stylite 39, 82, 92–3. Johnson and West (1949) 62 claim
overall stability for Egyptian tenants during 600 years of Roman rule, but contrast Rémondon (1965),
whose argument is accepted by Liebeschuetz (1974) (using this as proof of increasing peculation) and
Banaji (1992) 124. Jones, LRE 820–1 bases his argument for a substantial rise in state demands on evidence
from Ravenna and Antaeopolis, but for greater caution see the discussions of Whittaker (1980)
8–9, 13, and Bagnall (1985) 302–6. Cf. also more generally MacMullen (1987).
98 CJ x.27.5–6; Nov. 163.
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