QUADRAGE´SIMA
QUADRAGE´SIMA (1.) The fortieth part of the imported
goods, or 2 1/2 per cent., was the amount of the portorium in some provinces
[
PORTORIUM]. Separate
stationes fisci seem to have looked after
this tax in each province, under the Empire (see Wilmanns,
Exemp.
Inscr. Lat. 1397, 1398; and see
STATIONES FISCI).
(2.)
Quadragesima litium (
Suet. Cal.
40); a tax imposed by Caligula of the fortieth part of the value
of all property about which there was a lawsuit.
In what sense does Tacitus (
Tac. Ann. 13.51）
mean that Nero abolished
quadragesima? Not (1),
for that tax is heard of later (see Symmachus,
Ep. 5.62; and
perhaps Suet.
Vesp. 1); nor (2), because Claudius had already
abolished the new taxes of Caligula (
D. C. 60.4;
though many persons think that the
quadragesima
litium was not abolished before Galba's principate), and also because a
quadragesima litium could not well be farmed,
whereas the context shows that the tax spoken of by Tacitus
was farmed. It is therefore probable that Tacitus is
speaking of charges otherwise unknown to us and (as
alia, &c. in the passage would show) illegal.
[
F.T.R]
