Rome, the Greek World, and the East, Vol. 2 - Government, Society, and Culture in the Roman Empire

48 The Imperial Government

calstandpointfortheunderstandingofthedevelopmentoftheFiscusinthe
firsttwocenturiesoftheEmpirehasnever,tomyknowledge,beenclearly
understood.^7 Thesignificantfactoristheimportanceoftheemperor’sprivate
wealthintherunningofthestate.Inthewayinwhichthatwealthwasused
forpublicends,theEmpire,asinallthings,showsthepracticeofrepublican
magnateswritlarge.ThusAugustus’hugeexpenditureonpublicneeds,de-
tailedintheResGestae,wasatoncetheculminationofoneaspectofrepubli-
canpoliticsandthefoundationofapermanentelementinthestructureof
imperialfinance.Itistotheseimperialfundsthattheword‘‘fiscus’’refers—
anditisnormallybesttranslatedas‘‘theimperialestate.’’Therewasnomo-
mentatwhichaninstitutioncalled‘‘theFiscus’’wascreated.Thestrictlycor-
rectwayofdescribingwhattookplaceistosaythat‘‘fiscus’’graduallybecame
thepredominanttechnicaltermusedinspeakingoftheimperialwealth—
and it is only in legal sources that it is used invariably. In literary sources,
papyri,andinscriptions,otherterms,res familiaris,res dominica,patrimonium—
or justpecunia suaormea—to basilikon,to (ierōtaton) tameion,ta auktoratorika
chrēmataareoftenusedincontextswhere‘‘fiscus,’’or,o phiskosinGreek,or
cognateexpressions,mighthaveappeared.
Thefollowingdiscussionoftheknownusesof ‘‘fiscus’’intheearlyim-
perialperiodwillthereforebeatthesametimeasketch,thoughnecessarily
nomorethanasketch,ofthevarioussourcesofincomeoftheimperialestate,
andof itsroleinpublicfinanceandinthelifeoftheEmpire.Thesubject,
aswillappear,hasnoimmediateconnectionwiththequestionofhowthe
Aerarium(‘‘statetreasury’’)wascontrolledorhowtheemperoradministered
thepublicrevenuesinhisownprovinces.

ImperialProperties

The starting point must of course be the well-known passage of Seneca:
‘‘Caesar disposes of everything; hisfiscus, however, contains only private
property[privata],hisown[sua]:everythingissubjecttohisrule[imperium]
but only his own property [propria] is subject to the patrimony [patrimo-
nium].’’^8 Seneca thus makes a formal correspondence between ‘‘fiscus’’ and

7. C.H.V.Sutherland,‘‘AerariumandFiscusduringtheearlyEmpire,’’AJPh66(1945):
   151,givesthefullemphasistotheroleoftheemperor’sprivatewealthintheearlyPrinci-
   patebutthenrelatesthethemetoocloselytotheseparatesubjectoftheemperor’scontrol
   oftheAerarium—andclaimsthatthelatterhadbeenreducedtoinsignificancebythereign
   ofTrajan.
   8.de benef.7,6,3:‘‘Caesaromniahabet,fiscuseiusprivatatantumacsua:etuniversain
   imperioeiussunt,inpatrimoniopropria.’’