Fiscus

Fiscus, from which comes the English term fiscal, was the name of the personal chest 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.

Augustus divided Rome's territory between senatorial provinces, whose tributes ended up in the aerarium (the already existing state's chest), and imperial provinces, whose incomes ended up into the fiscus, the emperor's chest. Upon the latter chest fell the most burdensome costs, namely the ones for army and fleet, bureaucracy and grants to urban plebs (distribution of wheat or moneys).

The imperial provinces, under Augustus’ reform, were the provinces non pacatae (i.e. the border provinces) who Augustus had advocated under his direct administration. Those provinces, that later started to be called provinciae Caesaris, were entrusted to equites and agents of the emperor with the title of procuratores Augusti.

Despite this separation, the emperor had the right to transfer moneys from the aerarium to the fiscus.

Several historians believe that the senatorial provinces were actually only 10, that is only one third of the total number of the imperial ones. This fact would prove that the fiscus were much richer and relevant than the aerarium already from its birth.

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 of Hadrian, any rationalis hailed from the Equestrian Order (equites) and remained so through the 3rd century and into the age of Diocletian.

Under the Flavian dynasty, a new official, rather than the rationalis, was in charge of the fiscus, it was called procurator fisci (or procurator a rationibus Augusti). He had some tasks like drawing up a state's financial statement and forecasting empire's incomes and outcomes. He also managed the assets of the emperor (patrimonium principii), the army's expenditures, the allocation of wheat, the restoration of aqueducts, temples and streets. At last he had the crucial role of establishing the annual quantity of metal to be minted.[1]

The incomes of the emperor's chest could derive from taxes or from other sources.

There are three different theories about the nature of the fiscus.

The first theory takes the fiscus as the private capital of the emperor.

The second theory states that the fiscus was a public capital entrusted to the emperor to maintain public order. It should have been used only for public welfare aims. Supporting this thesis there are the facts that some emperors, like Augustus, made its accounting public, that the emperor could leave as inheritance the fiscus only to his heir to the throne, and that Pertinax defined the fiscus as public.[5]

According to the third theory the fiscus was owned neither by the emperor nor by the people, but it was essentially a legal person. The emperors could use it only for public interest reasons. As a legal person it could be creditor or debtor, plaintiff and defendant. In support of this thesis it's showed that there was a proper legal structure around it. Nerva established one specific magistrate (praetor) designed to judge over the legal cases between private individuals and fiscus. The legal agents of the fiscus were the rationalis (and the procurator fisci from the Flavian dynasty ages), nevertheless the judicial actions themselves were made by the advocatus fisci, role created by Hadrian. They were appointed to defend its reasons in trial. According to this evidence the emperor never appeared in trial nor was he judged.

From its very introduction the fiscus started a continuous process of enforcement with respect to the aerarium, until the word aerarium ended up representing only the municipal chest of Rome.

With Diocletian came a series of massive reforms, and total control over the finances of the empire fell to the new stronger central government. With these reforms the distinction between aerarium and fiscus was definitely abolished, even though some historians believes this union was already realized under the empire of Septimius Severus.

In the late imperial period, probably under Constantine, the fiscus was renamed largitiones, and it was entrusted to the comes sacrarum largitionum (count of the sacred largess) a proper appointed minister of finance. He maintained the general treasury and the intake of all the revenues.

Beside the fiscus but independently from it Vespasian created the fiscus Alexandrinus and the fiscus Asiaticus to receive Egyptian and Asian revenues, formerly directed to the aerarium.

He also created the fiscus Iudaicus, to which the Jewish population was subjected.