- Fiscus
Fiscus was the name of the personal treasury of the emperors of Rome. The word is literally translated as "basket" or "purse" and was used to describe those forms of revenue collected from the provinces (specifically the imperial provinces), which were then granted to the emperor. Its existence pointed to the division of power in the early era of the Empire between the imperial court and the Senate. In subsequent years, as the emperors assumed greater control over the finances of the Roman world, the size of the "fiscus" was increased.
Juvenal satirized the entire treasury by writing that a turbot of great size caught in the Adriatic had to be sent to Rome as part of
Domitian 's "fiscus".The head of the "fiscus" in the first years was the
rationalis , originally a freedman due to Augustus' desire to place the office in the hands of a servant free of the class demands of the traditional society. In succeeding years the corruption and reputation of the freedman forced new and more reliable administrators. From the time ofHadrian (117-138), any "rationalis" hailed from the Equestrian Order ("equites ") and remained so through the chaos of the 3rd century and into the age ofDiocletian .ee also
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Aerarium
*comes
*Congiarium
*rationalis
*rationibus
*Roman finance
*Fiscus Iudaicus External links
* [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA*/Fiscus.html Fiscus] , article in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities
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