census of the kind was that undertaken in the three Gauls in 27 B.C.,[1] which we find renewed in the years 14, 17, and 61 A.D.[2] There is a trace of an Augustan census in Spain,[3] and a similar task was undertaken in Syria.[4] When these great preliminary estimates were over, provision had to be made for a periodical revision of the assessment. This was done under imperial control and for each province separately. A special imperial decree was issued, and under it the commissioner (censor, censitor, ad census accipiendos)[5] made a renewed estimate, with the assistance of delegates, in the shape of equestrian officers and procurators, for the special communities or districts in the provinces subject to the census. Originally the chief officials were of senatorial rank, but after the end of the second century equestrian procurators were generally entrusted with the census[6]—a circumstance which is probably to be accounted for by the fact that in the course of years the duty of making out the returns had become more automatic and therefore simpler.[7] It is not known whether there were fixed dates for the regular recurrence of the census in each province;[8] but there were taxes, such as the tributum capitis in Syria, paid only by people of an age that fitted them for labour,[9] which would have demanded renewed registration at somewhat short intervals; and in Egypt there was a cycle of fourteen years for the payment at least of the poll-tax, which goes back to the time of Tiberius and perhaps of Augustus.[10] The careful nature of the estimate of the land-tax is shown by the official form of the schedule of returns (forma censualis), which has been preserved. This specified the community and pagus in which the farm wasin the Gallic provinces, adds [Greek: kanteuthen es te tên Ibêrian aphiketo, kai katestêsato kai ekeinên].]. . . pro ea domo tributa usque ad recensum depən[dat]" (Bruns Fontes).]
- ↑ Liv. Ep. 134; cf. Dio Cass, liii. 22.
- ↑ Tac. Ann. i 31 and 33; ii. 6; xiv. 46.
- ↑ Dio Cassius (liii. 22), after saying that Augustus made [Greek: apographai
- ↑ St. Luke ii. 2; Joseph. Antiq. xvii. 355.
- ↑ See the inscriptions collected by Kubitschek in Pauly-Wissowa Real-Encyclopädie, s.v. census.
- ↑ The tres Galliae honour a procurator as "primus umquam eq(ues) R(omanus) a censibus accipiendis" (Wilmanns 1269). The inscription is attributed to the joint rule of Severus and Caracalla.
- ↑ Kubitschek l.c.
- ↑ The chief evidence that there was comes from the province of Dacia. In a document of sale from Alburnum Majus, dated May 6, 159 A.D. the purchaser of a house binds himself "[uti
- ↑ Dig. 50, 15,3 "in Syriis a quattuordecim annis masculi, a duodecim feminae usaue ad sexagensimum quintum annum tributo capitis obligantur."
