CENTE´SIMA
CENTE´SIMA namely
pars,
or the hundredth part, also called
vectigal rerum
venalium, or
centesima rerum
venalium, was a tax of one per cent. levied upon all goods that
were exposed for public sale, probably not only at Rome and in Italy, but
throughout the empire. This tax, as Tacitus (
Tac.
Ann. 1.78) says, was introduced after the civil wars, and its
produce assigned to the
aerarium militare.
Tiberius reduced the tax to one-half per cent. (
ducentesima), after he had changed Cappadocia into a province
(A.D. 17), and had thereby increased the revenue of the empire (
Tac. Ann. 2.42), but apparently raised it to
one per cent. again after the fall of Sejanus (
D. C.
58.16). Caligula in the beginning of his reign abolished the tax
altogether for Italy, as is attested by Suetonius (
Calig. 16)
and also by a coin of Caligula of A.D. 39, on which we find R. CC. (i.e.
ducentesima remissa), and by Dio Cassius
(59.9). Suetonius, in speaking of this remission, calls the tax
ducentesima, probably ignoring the restoration by
Tiberius to the original amount. It seems to have been soon re-imposed,
probably by Caligula, for we find it exacted at a later date. (
Dig. 50,
16,
7; Cod.
Just. 12.19,
4. Cf. Marquardt,
Röm.
Staatsverw. 2.269.)
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