Book 3
32
Meanwhile sums of money, requisitioned with the utmost harshness, were being exacted throughout the province. Many kinds of extortion, moreover, were specially devised to glut their avarice. A tribute was imposed on every head of slaves and children; pillar-taxes, door-taxes, corn, soldiers, arms, rowers, engines, freightage, were requisitioned; any mode of exaction, provided a name could be found for it, was deemed a sufficient excuse for compelling contributions. Men armed with military power were set not merely over cities but almost over every hamlet and stronghold. Among these he who had acted with the greatest harshness and cruelty was accounted the best of men and the best of citizens. The province was full of lictors and military authorities, crammed with prefects and extortioners, who apart from the moneys requisitioned had an eye also to their own private gain; for they gave out that, having been driven from home and country, they were in need of all necessaries, so that by a respectable plea they might cover up the foulest action. Added to this there was the heaviest usury, as usually happens in war, money being exacted from the whole population; and in these proceedings a postponement of the day of payment was termed a free gift. Consequently, in these two years the debt of the province was multiplied. Yet none the less on that account were fixed sums of money exacted from the Roman citizens of the province, not individually, but by separate corporations and communities, and they tried to make out that these sums were being taken as loans in accordance with a decree of the senate; from the tax-farmers they demanded the tax of the following year as an advance loan, as they had done in Syria.
