How were taxes collected in the ancient world: from Egyptian priests to Roman legionaries
The state treasury was kept full even in an era before coins. Using the tax relief on the Rosetta Stone and Augustus's inheritance tax as examples, we compare the ancient tax system with today's.
Imagine you are a temple priest in ancient Egypt. A message arrives from the Pharaoh's palace: "No more tax will be taken from you than in our father's time". You carve this good news in stone and set it up where everyone can see it. More than two thousand years later that stone becomes famous all over the world, but not as a document about taxes.
We are talking about the Rosetta Stone. Everyone knows it as the key to reading ancient Egyptian writing. But the text on the stone is itself a decree issued by a council of priests in 196 BC, listing the privileges that King Ptolemy V granted to the temples, including tax relief.
What were taxes paid in where there was no money?
According to Britannica's historians, taxation did not play as large a role in the ancient world as it does today. State revenue often came from the spoils of war, royal lands and forced labour. Taxes, for their part, were often collected in kind: grain, livestock, craftsmen's goods.
Let us look at the logic with a simple example (prepared by the author, hypothetical). Sennefer, a farmer on the banks of the Nile, harvested ten sacks of wheat. A scribe comes, records the harvest and takes part of it to the granary. Here the "tax base" is the harvest, and the "tax return" is kept not by the farmer but by the state scribe. The profession of the accountant grew out of exactly this need.
How did the Roman state expand taxation?
In Rome the types of tax multiplied. According to Britannica, there were consumption taxes and customs duties, while in the provinces mainly a poll tax and a land tax were collected.
The most interesting innovation was the inheritance tax. To pay soldiers on their retirement, Emperor Augustus set up a separate military treasury (aerarium militare). Dictionaries of antiquity date this to AD 6 (the year of the consulship of Lepidus and Arruntius). The treasury's main revenue was a 5 per cent tax on inheritances and legacies. Close relatives were exempt from this tax.
Note: this tax was tied to a specific purpose. Today we might call it a "dedicated fund".
Then and now: what has changed?
| Feature | Ancient world | Today |
|---|---|---|
| Form of payment | Often in kind (grain, livestock) | Money, mainly through banks |
| Who calculates | The state scribe or the tax collector | In many cases the taxpayer or a tax agent |
| How relief is announced | A decree carved in stone | A legal act, official publication |
| Where the tax goes | The royal treasury, sometimes a dedicated treasury | The state budget and funds |
| Document | The scribe's ledger, a potsherd or papyrus | Electronic returns and invoices |
The core idea, however, has not changed: the state spends, takes a share of income or property to cover it, and keeps a record of this. At the next stage, in the Middle Ages, the most important question about taxation arose: with whose consent may a tax be imposed?
See also
Sources
- Britannica: History of taxation · consumption taxes and customs duties in the ancient world, poll and land taxes in the provinces; the 5% inheritance tax in Rome and the exemption of close relatives
- Britannica: What Does the Rosetta Stone Say? · the decree of the reign of Ptolemy V on the Rosetta Stone (196 BC)
- W. Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities: Aerarium · the aerarium militare set up by Augustus to provide for the army; the year of the consulship of M. Aemilius Lepidus and L. Arruntius (AD 6)
- W. Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities: Vicesima · the vicesima hereditatium and the procurators who collected it
- Examples and table · prepared by the author