wrote letters on behalf of Theodoric in the guise of a pious lawgiver. “As it is my
desire, when petitioned, to give a lawful consent, so I do not like the laws to be
cheated through my favors, especially in that area where I believe reverence for God
to be concerned,” Cassiodorus wrote (in Theodoric’s name) to Jews at Genoa,
allowing them, in accordance with Roman law and reverence for God, to add a roof
to their synagogue, but nothing more.^11 Since the fourth century, Romans had
become used to barbarian leaders; in the sixth, there was nothing very strange in
having them as kings.
Far stranger was the disappearance of the urban middle class. The new taxes of
the fourth century had much to do with this. The town councilors—the curiales,
traditional leaders and spokesmen for the cities—had been used to collecting the taxes
for their communities, making up any shortfalls, and reaping the rewards of prestige
for doing so. In the fourth century, new land and head taxes impoverished the
curiales, while very rich landowners—out in the countryside, surrounded by their
bodyguards and slaves—simply did not bother to pay. Now the tax burdens fell on
poorer people. Families pressed to pay taxes they could not afford escaped to the
great estates of the rich, giving up their free status in return for land and protection.
By the seventh century, the rich had won; the barbarian kings no longer bothered to
collect general taxes.
