Vectigalia
A Roman term originally denoting only the revenues flowing into the State chest from the
State domains, and for the most part collected by contract. The domains consisted of
cultivated grounds, the rent of which was paid in money or kind; of pastures and meadows, for
the use of which a payment (
scriptura) was made (see
Scriptura); of forests, from which revenue was derived
mainly by the letting of pitch huts; of lakes and rivers let for fishing; and of mines and
salt-works. With a view to protecting the citizens from exorbitant prices, the sale of salt
had already been made a State monopoly in the earliest years of the Republic, and it remained
such till late into the times of the Empire. In letting salt mines the price of the salt was
fixed in the contract, as was also the case with many articles produced from mines (see
Metallum). The term
vectigal also
includes the rent paid for buildings, shops, booths, and baths erected on public sites; the
payment for the use of bridges and roads, of public water-ways, and sewers in cases where
private properties drained into them; export and import tolls (see
Portorium), as well as all other indirect taxes. Such was the tax which
was introduced into Rome in B.C. 357, and under the emperors was levied throughout the whole
Empire, the
vicesima libertatis or
manumissionis; a
tax of five per cent. paid on every manumitted slave, either by himself or his master (see
Servus). To these were added under Augustus the
centesima rerum venalium, a tax of one per cent. on all articles sold at
auctions; the
quinta et vicesima mancipiorum, a tax of four per cent. on
every slave sold; and the
vicesima hereditatum et legatorum, a tax of
five per cent. on all inheritances over 100,000 sesterces ($4000), and on all legacies not
falling to the next of kin. This impost, with the increase of celibacy and the custom of
leaving complimentary legacies to the whole circle of one's friends, proved exceedingly
productive, and, though originally limited to Roman citizens, was, with the franchise,
extended by Caracalla to all the inhabitants of the Empire, and at the same time raised to ten
per cent. Plutarch states (
Pomp. 45) that before Pompey's earlier conquests the vectigalia of the
Roman State amounted to the annual sum of 200,000,000 sesterces
($8,000,000). See Naquet,
Les Impôts Indirects chez les Romains
(Paris, 1875); and the articles
Aerarium;
Publicani.
