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taxation and military organization 655
nomic exchanges. 45 The assumption that Arsacid copper coinage was still
used in many parts of the Sasanid kingdom is unconvincing, 46 and the conclusion
must be that much economic activity was based on barter.
This situation explains a good deal about the Sasanid system of taxation
before the beginning of the sixth century. It was based on crop-sharing, the
exaction of agricultural produce proportionate to annual yield, as assessed
by royal tax-collectors on the spot, and levied in kind. In addition, a poll tax
was imposed on most subjects, which may largely have been paid in money,
though part was perhaps commuted to goods. The system was inefficient
and wasteful, especially with regard to the land-tax; it was subject to frequent
fluctuations, and allowed little scope for advance financial planning.
The necessity of waiting for the tax-collector with the crops untouched in
the field or on the tree involved the risk that some would be damaged or
destroyed before being enjoyed by farmers or the king. Only lands held
directly by the king could be effectively taxed in this manner, but even on
royal domains the avarice of corrupt tax-assessors will have hampered collection.
47
Towards the end of the fifth century, the burden of taxation on the peasantry
seems to have become increasingly oppressive: the complex relations
with the Hephthalite khanate, the threat of which loomed in the east,
resulted in heavy demands when recurrent famines were compelling kings
to grant occasional, and not entirely adequate, tax remissions. This oppression
contributed significantly to the popularity of Mazdak, a heretic
Zoroastrian priest, who advocated the economic equality of all human
beings and regarded the higher classes of the Sasanid kingdom as the worst
enemies of his doctrines. For some time he managed to enlist the support
of king Kavadh himself, who appears to have used this movement precisely
to humble his recalcitrant nobility. 48 When he ultimately turned his back
upon the movement and allowed his son to put it down, the battered nobles
needed royal support to recuperate and regain a fraction of their former
grandeur. They were obviously in no position to form a viable opposition
to the one serious attempt to introduce a tax reform in the Sasanid realm,
begun apparently towards the end of Kavadh I’s reign (531) and continued
by his son Khusro I Anushirwan. 49
On the basis of a general land survey, a new system for exacting the landtax
was devised. Fixed rates of tax were imposed on agricultural land
45 See Göbl in Altheim and Stiehl (1954) 96–9; cf. Göbl (1971) 25–30; Göbl in Yar-Shater (1983)
328–9. On Merv, see Loginov and Nikitin 1993.
46 Göbl in Altheim and Stiehl (1954) 98; also Göbl (1971), where continued circulation is only suggested
for the earlier period, and no explanation is offered for the subsequent mechanics of exchange.
47 For a very different picture, see Howard-Johnston (1995), who postulates the existence of an
efficient tax-raising system not dissimilar to that in the Roman empire.
48 For summary and bibliography on Mazdak, see Guidi (1992); Crone (1991).
49 For more detailed discussion of sources, see Rubin (1995).
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