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On Augustus and The Aerarium
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2012
Extract
In a very persuasive article in the Sitzungsberichte of the Berlin Academy (1931, p. 772 ff.) Wilcken has argued that Augustus in the third section of his Res Gestae enumerated only the expenses that he paid out of his patrimonium ,his privatum, and the manubiae, and that Mommsen, Hirschfeld, and Rostovtzeff were probably in error when they supposed that some of these payments derived from the Fiscus. To Wilcken's argument, which I accept in the main, I wish only to add some calculations of the amounts attributed to the various chests, in order to see how far his theory stands the test of practical application. And before doing this I wish also to call attention to some slight matters in his article that may need closer examination.
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- Copyright ©Tenney Frank 1933. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies
References
1 The fact that Augustus, when ill in 23 B.C., turned over military and financial accounts to the consul (Dio 53, 30) does not prove that he did not balance accounts with the Aerarium regularly. At that time he had been in Gaul and Spain nearly four years and would naturally have many acta to deposit. The accounts left at the end of his life may have been a summary of his work drawn up for purposes of public justification, even if the proper officials had received statements periodically. Since Augustus also supervised all the activities of the Aerarium, and the treasury had to keep its books balanced, it is difficult to comprehend how the State's business could have been recorded unless Augustus made frequent statements. Even when Augustus took full administrative responsibility for the water system in II B.C., the Aerarium paid the bills (Frontinus, de aquis, 101).
2 See the Economic Survey of Ancient Rome, i, p. 142 (edited by Frank, , Johns Hopkins Press, 1933).Google Scholar
3 Domaszewski, Rangordnung, p. 140 ff.
4 About 250,000 men (Augustus, Res Gestae, 15) received 60 modii the year. Wheat sold at about a denarius the modius at that time.
5 For the cost of the regular games see Friedländer, Sittengesch. 10, ii, 10. The cost of the Vigiles, instituted in A.D. 6, was defrayed by a new sales-tax on slaves.
6 If it continued, as I assume, to receive the tribute of all the provinces.
7 See the list compiled by Rostovtzeff, Soc & Ec. Hist., Ital. ed., p. 338. I do not believe, however, that Augustus turned crown lands into booty, nor that he gave any to members of his family. Augustus seems to have been scrupulous in his handling of what the Republic called ager publicus (JRS, xvii, 1927, 159). What the late Ptolemies had still left untouched as crown lands was probably assigned to the Aerarium by Octavian. What had been given by them to individuals would suffice for the confiscations of Octavian. The assumption that Octavian gave Egyptian plots to members of his family also seems to me impossible to believe (cf my Econ. Hist., 1927, p. 388 ff.). Even Julius Caesar did not do that kind of thing. The agents of relatives like Livia may have bought properties at the auctions of confiscated Egyptian land, and one may be offended at such participation, but at least the legal Roman forms were probably observed. Finally, I do not believe that the emperors subsequently sold ge basilike The estates of Cleopatra's partisans that were confiscated and sold for booty in 30–28 would account for the land holdings of individual Romans in Egypt and for many of the later οὐσίαι that had come back through inheritance. In 1929 Rostovtzeff (Jour. Ec and Business Hist., p. 326 ff.) emended several of the generalisations of his larger history, but he did not include these revisions in the last edition of his Soc. & Ec. Hist.
8 The repairs of temples (Res Gestae 20) were undertaken in 28, but Augustus did not pay for all (Dio 53, 2). In 29 there were triumphal games (Dio 53, 1) and games given at the dedication of the Julian temple (Dio 51, 2). Gladiatorial games at which war captives served as gladiators were not necessarily expensive. The inscription on the arch at Ariminum (pl. xviii, I) was made in 27, so that the roads were probably ordered to be repaired a year or two before. Augustus does not debit the expense to the booty in his Res Gestae 20, but Suetonius (Aug. 30) does. Augustus does not include in this list the gifts taken from Egypt for the Roman temples (Res Gestae 4, 24), but when he says ‘they cost me 100,000,000 HS.’ he implies that he might have sold this booty and used the proceeds.
9 See some items in the Economic Survey, cited above, pp. 153, 373 f.
10 See, for example, Bang's calculations in Friedländer, Sittengesch., iv, 297.
11 There must be some reasonable meaning in the famous line of the Res Gestae: ‘Aegyptum imperio populi Romani adieci.’ And when the later papyri frequently use the word δημόσιος for what the Romans later spoke of as ‘fiscal,’ we may infer that the first arrangements of Augustus justified the use of this word. See note 7, p. 146 above.
12 This fact confirms our view that Octavian confiscated only private estates and assigned the ge basilike to the class of ager publicas. Finally, let us suppose that some treasury at Rome, whether the Aerarium or the Fiscus, drew from Egypt as much as 600,000,000 sesterces per year for 44 years. This would make the amazing sum of 26,000,000,000 sesterces (more than the sum total for the whole reign), of which we seem unable to find any trace in the public finances of the period !