Stipendium
(from
stips and
pendo). The pay of a Roman
soldier. Originally each tribe had to contribute the necessary means to provide for its
contingent. It was only at the beginning of the war against Veii in B.C.
404 that payment of a sum by the State was introduced. This was given to the soldiers, either
before or after the campaign, as compensation for the cost of their living during its
continuance. When this had gradually become a regular payment, it grew customary, in making
it, to deduct everything which the State had provided for the army in the way of clothing,
arms, and food; but under the Empire maintenance was given free. In the time of Polybius the
pay of legionaries was 120
denarii ($20); of centurions twice, and of
knights three times that amount. Caesar increased it to 225
denarii
($37.50) for a legionary, Domitian to 300 ($50). The praetorians received under Tiberius 720
denarii ($120). See
Exercitus;
Praetoriani.
Stipendium is also the name of the fixed normal tax imposed on conquered
provinces, which might consist of money, or produce, or both (see
Provincia). During the Republic, when a country was conquered, this was
usually fixed according to the amount of the existing taxes, and the country divided into
fiscal districts, and the officials of the chief places in each compelled to pay in the
portion which fell to them. Under Augustus the taxes were for the first time fixed upon the
basis of a measurement of the ground occupied, and of a computation of property (
census). The stipendium was either a ground-tax (
tributum
soli) or a personal tax (
tributum capitis), which was partly a
poll-tax, partly a property-tax, partly a tax on the trade carried on by the individual. In
exceptional cases special taxes were also imposed. Those bound to pay the
stipendium were called
stipendiarii.
See Mommsen,
Staatsverwaltung, v. pp. 90 foll.; Durean de la Malle,
Économie Politique des Romains, i. pp. 134 foll.; and Mommsen,
Die römische Tribus, pp. 131 foll.
