Religious Intolerance in the Later Roman Empire - Bad request ...

taxation. However, if the law was intended to be mainly for the benefit of the lay
workers, who were of low social and economic means, then it was not particularly
generous since such people would have had little to contribute to the treasury; if so,
then it would have been of more symbolic, than practical, importance.
It should be noted however, that exemptions generally were not just granted to
the clergy; secular professionals also enjoyed immunity. Constantine had exempted
soldiers, veterans and the close relatives of both from capitatio in his CTh. 7.20.4 of 17
June 325 38 and Valentinian confirmed the exemption in his CTh. 7.13.6 of 18
September 370. Moreover, whole classes of people were permanently exempt from the
capitatio. It was a rural tax and therefore the urban plebs throughout the empire were
exempt; Valentinian had exempted all the provinces of Illyricum in 371. 39 At the same
time, abolition of the tax appears to have been a recognised means of courting
popularity; Constantine II appears to have abolished capitatio at some time before he
lost his dominions. 40
Nevertheless, a sympathetic reader of the law could well have interpreted it to
refer to pagans and conceivably even to Jews as well. They are not excluded by the
law and if Theodosius had intended to include only Christian clerics and exclude those
of other religions, then there seems no reason why he could not have simply said so.
Such ambiguity was probably not an accident.
CTh. 11.39.8 of 29 June 381 is an example of a law issued for a specific and
occasional reason and is, unusually, in the form of a transcript purportedly recording
Theodosius' actual words during a meeting of the consistory. It is almost certainly
related to the recent ecumenical Council of Constantinople which had just ended. The
38 Constantine appears to have exempted troops even earlier in 311, see Jones (1964) 617.
39 On urban plebs see Goffart (1974) 46, 48-49; for Illyricum see Jones (1964) 147-148 citing CJ 11.53.1
40 CTh. 11.12.1 of 29 April 340; see also Goffart (1974) for Maximinus Daja’s intention to abolish the tax
in Bithynia.
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