per cent on the purchase-money. Occasionally there was a tax on
bachelors. In Italy, but not elsewhere, 5 per cent legacy duty was
paid when the recipient was not a near relative, and when the legacy
was not under £1000.

Add to these revenues the rents of state pastures, state forests, and
state mines. Into the treasury came also unclaimed property and the
property of certain classes of condemned criminals.

So much for the nature of the taxation. In point of government, the
Romans were singularly liberal. When a province was conquered or
annexed, the Senate sent out a commission of ten persons, who
carefully considered the existing state of things, the laws and forms
of administration actually in vogue, and drew up a constitution for
the province, embodying as much of these as was possible or at all
commendable; as much, in fact, as was compatible with the Roman
connection. This constitution, when sanctioned by the Senate, was
binding, whatever governor might be appointed by Rome to the province.
Such a governor might interpret the law; he could not alter it.

But though a province was a unit in so far as it was under one
governor, the Romans were firm believers in strictly local
administration. Their policy in this, as in conquest, was "divide and
rule." It did not suit their ends to make any large part of the empire
conscious of a corporate existence. The unit of administration was,
therefore, a town and its district--a "community." In Gaul there were
about sixty such divisions, each roughly corresponding in size to a
modern French "department." Such a community had its own local council
and officials, who were ultimately responsible to the governor. So
long as they performed their municipal or communal functions correctly