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The Aerarium and the Fiscus*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

A. H. M. Jones
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Extract

Early imperial arrangements must have been to some extent based on late Republican practice. I will therefore first set out the financial machinery of the last half-century of the Republic, as revealed in Cicero's speeches and correspondence, supplemented by secondary sources. The Aerarium at Rome was the central repository of the moneys of the Roman People. It was managed by the two urban quaestors, or rather by a body of scribae quaestorii under their nominal direction. Normally the Polybian rule that no payment might be made save under the authority of a senatusconsultum seems to have held: it does not appear that the old right of a consul to draw of his own initiative still survived. Magistrates proceeding to a province were voted a block grant to cover their estimated expenses: ornare provinciam is the technical term. On leaving his province a magistrate was obliged to account to the Aerarium for this sum. These accounts seem to have been somewhat summary. Those which Verres sent in on laying down his quaestorship were no doubt unusually brief, but if it was possible for a proconsul to distribute the unexpended balance of his grant among his staff—and Cicero's refusal to follow this practice was resented by his subordinates —auditing cannot have been very exact.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 40 , Issue 1-2 , November 1950 , pp. 22 - 29
Copyright
Copyright © A. H. M. Jones 1950. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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Footnotes

*

This article, which was read as a paper to the Oxford Philological Society on 5th November, 1948, is an attempt to develop in greater detail the ideas set forth in two earlier contributions to the Journal by Professor Tenney Frank (‘On Augustus and the Aerarium’, XXIII (1933), 143) and by Professor Last (‘The Fiscus: a Note’, XXXIV (1944), 51), and owes much to them. My thanks are also due to Mr. G. R. C. Davis, who has kindly allowed me to use much material from his unpublished thesis (D.Phil. Oxford) on ‘The Administrative Staff of the Roman Emperors at Rome from Augustus to Alexander Severus’, and to my pupil, G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, who furnished me with a number of useful references and acute criticisms.

References

1 Plut., Cato minor 16.

2 Polyb. VI, 13.

3 Polyb. VI, 12, 13.

4 Cic, ad Att. III, 24, I; ad Q.f. II, 3, I; in Pis. 5; Suet., Diu. Iul. 18.

5 Cic, ad. fam. II, 17; v, 20; ad Att. VI, 7.

6 Cic, II Verr. I, 36.

7 Cic., ad Att. VII, I, 6.

8 Cic, in Pis. 86.

9 Plut., Caesar 28.

10 Cic, ad fam. VIII, 4, 4.

11 Cic, de prov. cons. 28; pro Balbo 61.

12 Pompey 25.

13 Mith. 94.

14 II Verr. III, 197.

15 II Verr. III, 163 seqq.

16 Cic, ad fam. III, 5.

17 ad fam. v, 20, § 9; cf. II, 17, § 4.

18 de imp. Cn. Pompei 14.

19 Diu. Aug. 101; cf. Tac, Ann. I, II; Cassius Dio LVI, 33; and also Suet. Diu. Aug. 28; Cassius Dio LIII, 30, for a similar document drawn up in 23 B.C.

20 e.g. the ‘fiscus Gallicus provinciae Lugdunensis’ of ILS 1514.

21 II, 39, 2.

22 Calig. 16; also Cassius Dio LIX, 9. The fact that Tiberius, who in general kept rigidly to constitutional forms, omitted in the later years of his reign to publish the rationes imperii supports the view that they were not legally required of him.

23 Cassius Dio LIII, 2 and 32; Tac., Ann. XIII, 28–9.

24 Cassius Dio LX, 24, 1–3; Suet., Diu. Claud. 24; Tac, Ann. XIII, 28–9; ILS 966–7.

25 Tac, Ann. XIII, 28–9.

26 CIL VI, 8409.

27 ILS 1487.

28 ILS 1643, CIL VI, 3962, 8506.

29 VI, II, II.

30 de beneficiis IV, 39, 3.

31 NH VI, 84.

32 NH XII, 113, 123.

33 SIG 3 800.

34 OGIS 669.

35 VII, 6, 3.

36 NH XVIII, 114.

37 Ann. IV, 20.

38 Ann. VI, 2.

39 Ann. II, 48.

40 Hist. I, 46.

41 Hist. I, 58.

42 Suet., Diu. Vesp. 23; Juv. IV, 55.

43 CIL VI, 8540a, in the reign of Claudius, is the earliest mention.

44 See Frank, Tenney, JRS XXIII (1933), 143Google Scholar ff.

45 Tac, Ann. XV, 18.

46 Tac., Ann. XIII, 31.

47 AE 1932, 58. The inscription is not accurately dateable and might be late Julio-Claudian. This official was in my view the forerunner of the procurators of the ‘fisci Asiaticus’ and ‘Alexandrinus’, which are discussed below.

48 Suet., Dom. 12; coins of Nerva; cf. ILS 1519.

49 ILS 1540–4.

50 ILS 1570, 1651, 1660.

51 ILS 1648, 1650; CIL VI, 8519, 8521–2, 37744, VIII, 2702, 18250.

52 ILS 1518; N. d. Scavi 1901, 20; CIL VI, 5744, 8573, XV, 7974 a, b, ranging from the Flavian dynasty to Antoninus Pius.

53 ILS 1507, 1515–7; CIL XIII, 1800, ranging from Domitian to Commodus.

54 Tac, Hist. IV, 9.

55 Funisulanus Vettonianus (ILS 1005) and Pompusius Mettius, ‘praefectus aerarii Saturni annos IIII’ (CIL VI, 1495), may fall under Vespasian's reign, but might have held the office late in Nero's reign. The first certain Flavian praefectus aerarii Saturni is Antistius Rusticus (JRS XIV, 1924, 180) under Domitian.

56 Cassius Dio LXXII, 33.

67 ILS 309.

48 Pan. 42.

59 Pan. 36.

60 de aqu. 118. Here, it may be added, the distinction goes back to Claudius, but then meant something different. The emperor's slaves were his private property and would naturally be maintained out of his private funds, his ‘fiscus’ in the Julio-Claudian sense. Frontinus no doubt means no more than that the funds were in the one case issued by the praefecti aerarii Saturni, and in the other by the a rationibus.

61 Ann. II, 47. As much has been built on this passage, which deals with the remission for five years to Sardis of ‘quantum aerario aut fisco pendebant’, I should like to stress the extreme improbability on any theory that the tribute arising from each individual city was divided between two treasuries at Rome: surely, if there was at that date an imperial treasury at Rome which drew moneys from Asia, such moneys would have been a block grant from the ‘fiscus Asiaticus’.

62 Ann. VI, 17.

63 Diu. Vesp. 16.

64 In one passage (Ann. VI, 2) Tacitus contrasts Aerarium and ‘fiscus’: ‘bona Seiani ablata aerario ut in fiscum cogerentur, tamquam referret.’ By comparison with Ann. IV, 20, it would appear that Tiberius claimed the estate of Sejanus for himself, as being the product of his gifts, instead of allowing it to go as bona damnatorum into the Aerarium. ‘Fiscus’ thus here means the emperor's private estate.

65 ILS 6870, III.

66 Wilcken, , Chr. I, 174Google Scholar, of A.D. 199.

67 Keil, and Premerstein, , Denkschr. Ah. Wien LVII, 55Google Scholar.

68 Dig. L, VI, 6 (5), § 9.

69 CIL XV, 4102, 4111, 4114, etc. ‘fisci rationis patrimonii provinciae Baeticae,’ etc.

70 ILS 1387; AE 1945, 80; cf. ILS 5920 for the date.

71 ILS 1738, under Caracalla.

72 ILS 1330, 137l, 1439.

73 ILS 1347, 1370, 1422, 8852.

74 ILS 1491 ‘qui proc. Alexandriae ad rat. patrimonii’ under Hadrian; this may be a Latin version of the often attested procurator usiacus.

75 ILS 1330 and, if item means concurrently, 1439.

76 CIL VIII, 2702, 18250; VI, 2104, b, 40.

77 Dig. XLIX, XIV, 6, § 1.

78 Dig. XLIX, XIV, 3, § 10.

79 Dig. XLIX, VI, 1. pr.

80 SHA Vita Severi 12.

81 e.g. Cod. Just. XI, LXVIII (title), LXIX (title and laws 1 and 2), LXXI-LXXIV (titles); Marcian, Nov. 2; Just., Nov. 2; Theodoret, Ep. 42.

82 ILS 1452, 1740, 6333; cf. 1347, 2942.

83 ILS 478.