Sacred Texts  Christianity  Early Church Fathers  Index  Previous  Next 

Chapter II.—Remission of a Fourth Part of the Taxes.

The extent to which he studied the general happiness and prosperity may be understood from a single instance most beneficial and universal in its application, and still gratefully remembered. He remitted a fourth part of the yearly tribute paid for land, and bestowed it on the owners of the soil; so that if we compute this yearly reduction, we shall find that the cultivators enjoyed their produce free of tribute every fourth year. 3309 This privilege being established by law, and secured for the time to come, has given occasion for the emperor’s beneficence to be held, not merely by the then present generation, but by their children and descendants, in perpetual remembrance.


Footnotes

541:3309

For directly contrary account of his taxations, compare Prolegomena, under Character.


Next: Chapter III