last two years of his reign, he excited the murinurs of the inhabitants by a strict enforcement of the market dues on the sales of animals and vegetables, by quartering soldiers in monasteries and episcopal mansions, by selling for the public benefit gold and silver plate which had been dedicated in churches, by confiscating the property of wealthy patricians. He raised the taxes paid by churches and monasteries, and he commanded officials, who had long evaded the taxation to which they were liable as citizens, to discharge the arrears which they had failed to pay during his own reign. This last order, striking the high functionaries of the Court, seemed so dangerous to Theodosius Salibaras, a patrician who had considerable intluence with the Emperor, that he ventured to remonstrate. "My lord,” he said, “all are crying out at us, and in the hour of temptation all will rejoice at our fall." Nicephorus is said to have made the curious reply: “If God has harilened my heart like Pharaoh's, what good can my subjects look for! Do not expect from Nicephorus save only the things which thou seest."

The laxity and indulgence which had been permitted in the financial administration of the previous reign rendered the severity of Nicephorus particularly unwelcome and unpopular. The most influential classes were hit by his strict insistence on the claims of the treasury. The mouks, who suspected him of heterodoxy and received no favours at his hands, cried out against him as an oppressor. Some of his measures inay have been unwise or unduly oppressive-we have not the means of criticizing them; but in his general policy he wils simply discharging his duty, an unpopular duty, to the State.

Throughout the succeeding reigns we obtain no such glimpse into the details or vicissitudes of Imperial finance. If there was a temporary reaction under Michael I. against the severities of Nicephorus, the following Emperors must have drawn the reins of their financial administration sufliciently tight. After the civil war, indeed, Michael II. rewarded the provinces which had been faithful to his cause by a temporary remission of half the hearth-tax. The facts seem to show that the Amoriun rulers were remarkably capable and successful in their · Theoph. 488-489.

In May A.d. 811 (ib.).

finance. On one hand, there was always an ainple surplus in the treasury, until Michael JII. at the very end of his reign deplenished it by wanton wastefulness. On the other, no complaints are made of fiscal oppression during this period, notwithstanding the fuct that the chroniclers would have rejoiced if they had had any pretext for bringing such a charge against heretics like Theophilus and his father.

If our knowledge of the ways and means by which the Imperial government raised its revenue is sadly incomplete and in many particulars conjectural, we have no information as to its amount in the ninth century, and the few definite figures which have been recorded by chance are insufficient to enable us to guess either at the income or the expenditure. It is a remarkable freak of fortune that we should possess relatively ample records of the contemporary finance of the Caliphate,' and should be left entirely in the dark as to the budget of the Empire.

We have some figures bearing on the revenue in the twelfth century, and they supply a basis for a minimum estimate of the income in the ninth, when the State was stronger and richer. We learn that Constantinople alone furnished the treasury with 7,300,000 nomismata £1,380,000, including the profits of taxation on commerce and the city markets. It has been supposed that the rest of the Empire contributed five times as much, so that the total revenue would be more than £26,280,000. At this period the greater part of Asia Minor was in the hands of the Seljuk Turks, while, on the other hand, the Empire possessed Bulgaria and Crete. It might therefore be argued that the Emperor Theophilus, who also held Calabria and received a certain yearly sum from Dalmatia, may have enjoyed a revenue of twenty-seven to thirty millions.

But the proportion of 1 to 5, on which this calculation

or

See below, p. 2336. 2 Benjamin ol' Tudela, p. 13 (ed. and tr. M. N. Adler, 1907); cp. Papar. rliegoulos, Ιστορία του Ελληνικού Ovous, iii. 74.

Cp. Andreades, les l'inances byr. 20. In 1205 tlie Crusaders assured Baldwin the daily income of 30,000 nomismatit = 40,570,000 annually. Supposing this represents it quarter of

3

the revenue of the whole Empire before the conquest, we get £26,280,000, liguro which a grees with the other result (but in both cases the propor. tions aro quite problematical). See l'aparthegopiulos, op. cit. iv. 11847. ; Diehl, Erules byzantincs, 125 ; Andreades, loc. cit. For the whole question of the finances op. also killigus, Μελέται 268 .

3 *asts, is such an arbitrary hypothesis that we must seek some ther means of forming a rough evaluation. We are told what in the twelfth century the island of Corcyra yielded 1500 pounds of gold or £64,800 to the Imperial treasury. The sotal area of the Imperial territory in the reign of Theophilus "ounting Sicily as lost, and not including Calabria, Dalmatia, mp'y prus, or Cherson) was about 546,000 kilometres. The

ren of Corcyra is 770, so that if its contribution to the jreasury was as large in the ninth as in the twelfth century,

nd was proportional to its size, the amount of the whole a Ventie would be about £40,000,000. But the population of the islands was widoubtedly denser than in most regions of she mainland, and it is probably an insullicient sot-off to linvo It out of account Calabrin and somo other outlying Imperial possessions, and to have inade no allowance for the vast smount contributed by Constantinople. Yet this line of alculation suggests at least that the Imperial revenue may itve exceeded thirty millions and was neurly half as lurye gain as the revenue of the Caliphs. 3

If we accept £25,000,000 as a minimum figure for the » venue arising from taxation of all kinds, we must add a ponsiderable sum for the profits arising from the Imperial zistates in Asia Minor. Disregarding this source of income,

hich we have no data for estimating, we must remember int tho weight of gold which if sent to the mint to-ılay would le coined into twenty-five million sovereigns represented it Byzantium a far higher purchasing power.

It is now enerally assumed that the value of noney was five times as reat, and this is probably not an exaggeration. On this ypothesis the Imperial revenue froin taxation would correDond in rend value to £125,000,000. 1 It is impossible to conjecture how the expenditure was

| John of Brompton, Chronicon, p. of Nicophorus Gregoras, viji. 6, p. 317 219 (Twynden's llisl. Angl. scrip (od. Bonn), that in A.)). 1321 tho ros X. vol. i., 1652), states that the revenue was increased by special efforts land of Cuntu (Corfu) yielded (of the relwrai and popołóvoi) to the quintallos auri purissimi quindecim

of

million nomismata innatim ; et pondus quintalli est (£600,000), cannot be utilized. The ondus centum librarum auri" (A.D). conditions of the time were exceptional. .90).

I do not understand why Zachariä v. ? I have based this on the figures Lingenthal (Zur Kenntniss, 14) refers ven by Beloch in his Bevölkerung this statement to the land-tax only. Fyricchisch-römischen Welt (1886). * See Paparrhegopulos, loc. cit.; - See below p. 236. The statement Diehl, loc. cit. ; Andreades, 7.

sum

one

apportioned. Probably a sum of more than £1,000,000 was annually spent on the maintenance of the military establishment, not including the cost of campaigns. The navy, the civil service in all its branches, religious foundations, doles to charitable institutions, liberal presents frequentiy given to foreign potentates for political purposes, represented large claiins on the treasury, while the upkeep of a luxurious Court, and the obligutory gifts (evoeßiai) on stated occasions to crowds of officials, consumed no small portion of the Emperor's income. Theophilus must have laid out more than a million u your on his buildings.' It is only for the army and navy that we posseny some figures, but these are too uncertain and purtiul to enable is to reconstruct a military budget.

Perhaps the most striking evidence of the financial prosperity of the Empire is the international circulation of its gold currency. “In the period of 800 years from Diocletian to Alexius Comnenus the Roman government never found itself compelled to declare bankruptcy or stop payments. Neither the ancient nor the modern world can offer a complete parallel to this phenomenon. This prodigious stability of Roman financial policy therefore secured the " byzant” its universal currency On account of its full weight it passed with all the neighbouring nations as a valid medium of exchange. By her moncy Byzantium controlled both, the civilised and the barbarian worlds." ?

$ 2. Military and Naval Organization . I. Under the Amorian dynasty considerable administrative changes were made in the organization of the military provinces into which the Empire was divided, in order to ineet new conditions. In the Isaurian period there were five great Themes in Asia Minor, governed by stratégoi, in the following order of dignity and importance: the Anatolic, the Armeniac, the Thrakesian, the Opsikian, and the Bukellarian. This system of “the Five Themes," as they were called, lasted till the reign of Michael II., if not till that of

| The cost of St. Sophia is said to cannot have cost less, liave been 300,000 gold litrai lasted a little more than twelve years. £12,960,000. The buildings of Thco. Gelzer, Byz. Kulturyesch. 78. philus, including the Palace of Bryan,

His reign

2

3

5

Theophilus. But it is probable that before that time the

' penetration of the Moslems in the frontier regions had rendered it necessary to delimit from the Anatolic and Armeniac provinces districts which were known as kleisurarchies," and were under minor commanders, kleisurarchs, who could take measures for defending the country independently of the stratégoi. In this way the kleisurarchy of Seleucia, west of Cilicia, was cut off from the Anatolic Theme, and that of Charsianon from the Armeniac. Southern Cappadocia, which was constantly exposed to Saracen invasion through the Cilician gates, was also formed into a frontier province. We have no record of the times at which these changes were made, but we may suspect that they were of older date than the reign of Theophilus.

This energetic Emperor male considerable innovations in the thematic system throughout the Empire, and this side of his administration has not been observed or appreciated. In Asia Minor he created two new Themes, Paphlagonia and Chaldia." Paphlagonia seems to have been cut off from the Bukellarian province; probably it had a separate existence alrendy, is a “katepanate," for the governor of the new Theme, while he was a strategos, bore the special title of katepano, which looks like the continuation of an older arrangement.