Imperial demesnes lay chiefly in Cappadocia, which contained some breadths of pasture land unequalled in any other part of the Empire.[1] The province was from the earliest times famous for its horses, which were considered as equal, though not quite, to the highly-prized Spanish breeds in the West.[2] Mines for gold, silver, and other valuable minerals, including marble quarries, were regularly worked by the Byzantine government in several localities both in Europe and Asia; but history has furnished us with no precise indications as to the gains drawn from them.[3] Under the penal code, to send criminals to work in the mines was classed as one of the severest forms of punishment.[4]
The exaction of the annones and tributes, expressions which virtually included all the imposts, was the incessant business of the official class. At the beginning of each financial year the measure of the precept to be paid by each district was determined in the office of the Praetorian Praefect, subscribed by the Emperor, and disseminated through the provinces by means of notices affixed in the most public places.[5] A grace of four months was conceded and then the
- ↑ Cod. Theod., VI, xxx, 2; Nov., xxx, etc.
- ↑ Cod. Theod., X, vi; XV, x, and Godefroy ad loc.
- ↑ Ibid., X, xix; Cod., XI, vi; see Dureau de la Malle (op. cit., iv, 17), who summarizes with refs. our scanty information on the subject. It seems that the ancient methods of working the ore were very defective, and the scoriae of the famous silver mines at Laurium have been treated for the third time in recent years with good results; see Cordella, Berg u. hüttenmän. Zeitung, xlii, 1883, p. 21; Strabo, IX, 1.
- ↑ Cod. Theod., I, v, 1, etc. Chrysostom alludes to the severity of the miner's existence; Stagirium, 13; Mart. Aegypt., 2 (in Migne, i, 490; ii, 697). During the Gothic revolt of 376 the Thracian miners joined the insurgents; Ammianus, xxxi, 6.
- ↑ Cod. Theod., XI, i, 1, 34; v, 3, 4; xvi, 8, etc.
