economies effected by the suppression of pay and pensions usually granted by a state and to forfeitures of private property constantly decreed on slight pretexts.[1]
If Justinian's studied scheme of reform could have been applied successfully in practice, it is possible that fiscal oppression might have been banished from the Empire. But the Autocrator at Constantinople was scarcely more than a suzerain in the provinces, and his fiat was but slightly regarded by those who occupied any position of power in districts remote from the capital.[2] Doubtless his technical enactments as to the rank and territorial jurisdiction of diverse Rectors were received as indisputable, but at the same time they marked the limits of his power to work a change in methods of local rule which had been practised for centuries. Once invested with authority, the provincial governor departed to tread in the footsteps of his prede-*"; Edict xiii, praef.]
- ↑ Procopius, Anecd., 19-22. A particular impost called the "aerikon" (windfall) worked by the Praetorian Praefect, produced 3,000 pounds of gold (£120,000) annually. It seems to have been an income tax levied on governmental employees. Ibid., 21. The epibole (waste land tax; see p. 151; Cod. Theod., XIII, xi, 12; Cod., XI, lviii; Nov. clxv, etc.) was pushed to the most oppressive extreme in this reign. Ibid., 23. One special instance of the subterfuges resorted to for confiscating private property may be cited. A lady of Ascalon, married, inherited considerable wealth from her father, and subsequently as a widow, by the death of her only child, became heiress of her husband's property. Forthwith Justinian seized on the whole estate, declaring it iniquitous that the old lady, as she had now become, should be enriched by both father and husband. He, however, granted her a pension of one solidus a day, explaining that he did so "for the sake of piety, and because it is my custom to act in a holy and pious manner." Ibid., 29. Other examples in same chapter.
- ↑ Speaking of Egypt, he remarks that "matters have been so confounded down there that what is enacted in the province cannot be known here [CP.
