In light of the rise of New Fiscal Theory and New Institutional Economics within Ancient State and Economic Studies, interest in ancient taxation has regained momentum of late. Consequently, questions regarding the institutional set-up of fiscal regimes, control of and by relevant bureaucracies, or the exploitation schemes of both roving and stationary banditries (according to Mancur Olson), including not only ancient states, but also specific groups such as (often private) tax-collectors or ruling elites taking advantage of their public functions, have seemingly replaced previous discussions of tax classification and terminology. Nonetheless, such terminological issues can hardly be ignored since fiscal language obviously mattered in respect to tax-related institutions, regulations, actors and discourses, and thus formed the basic framework for the success (or failure) of any fiscal regime. Hence, S.'s study on the Roman fiscal term stipendiarius is welcome, given that the lemma in the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae is yet to be published. Her complete collection of the occurrences of the term in Latin literature, legal and gromatic writings, and inscriptions reveals the changing connotations of this adjective. Alongside its noun stipendium, it originated in the context of military payment and was then transferred to Roman taxation of subjected people (individuals or communities), albeit probably first of all in an ad-hoc, non-systematic manner (cf. T. Ñaco del Hoyo, e.g. in Museum Helveticum 76 [2019]), only becoming associated with categories of land in imperial times, within an ever-growing legal-administrative apparatus.
In a short introduction S. discusses the origin of stipendium and its derivative stipendiarius as soldiers’ payment that was eventually transposed onto subjected people as well as its counterpart tributum / tributarius, first an irregular war-tax imposed on Roman citizens (abolished in 167 bce and only revived in emergency situations such as the Civil Wars, see C. Nicolet, Tributum [1976]; or used as threat aimed at the Roman elite, see S. Günther, MBAH 33 [2015] and Byzantium in China [2019]) similar to the Athenian εἰσφορά and then applied to the tax-rate of a whole province or provincial inhabitant. The terms vectigal / vectigalis signifying any state revenue from leases of Roman publica (and thus at times including portoria, ‘custom dues’) could also have been discussed here (cf. most recently P. Kritzinger, MBAH 36 [2018]), since this would have completed an overview of Roman terms for taxation and furnished a framework for the later discussion of literary sources (esp. §2.2) where vectigalis / stipendiarius often appear paired. Thus, I would not agree that both can be used synonymously (cf. S. on p. 47, summarising Livy's use), since the different, increasing degree of dependency (vectigalis ≈ subject to taxes / stipendiarius ≈ subject to tribute) seems obvious; in particular, see the crucial passage Cic. Verr. 2.3.6.12, where the lighter tax-status of Sicilia is compared with those of other provinces (quod ceteris aut impositum vectigal est certum, quod stipendiarum dicitur, ut Hispanis et plerisque Poenorum quasi victoriae praemium ac poena belli, aut censoria locatio constituta est, ut Asiae lege Sempronia) (cf. §2.2.1, esp. p. 45). To these should be added Sall. Cat. 20.7 (semper illis [sc. paucis potentibus] reges tetrarchae vectigales esse, populi nationes stipendia pendere) (not discussed by S., probably due to the use of the noun stipendium rather than the adjective): according to Sallust's moralising view, a few oligarchic rulers in Republican Rome had already assumed essential public, that is, state functions, i.e., receiving regular payments from ‘client-kings’ and extracting tribute from (subjected) people as practised by the res publica. Hence, she is certainly right to emphasise the connotation of submission accompanying most of the literary sources, realiter in terms of tribute-paying or figuratively (esp. §2.3), while the original relation to the military sphere remains somehow present (cf. §2.4 and p. 61, AE 2010, 1328 on the use for ‘mercenary’ soldiers).
The following section (§3) provides a careful discussion of the few epigraphic attestations from Africa with the many different scholarly interpretations. Important is the concept that stipendarius is primarily linked to persons or distinct communities / entities of persons, and not to land, while the concrete categories of tax assessment and the relation to the actual use of land being mentioned in the respective context remain unclear due to the fragmentary state of the evidence. Thus, her proposal ‘essa va con buona probabilità ricondotta ad una forma di tassazione in moneta dall'ammontare non variabile e non direttamente applicate ai terreni ma alle persone, basata sul rapporto tra la terra e chi la coltivava’ (in ‘Conclusioni’, p. 113) is all that might be said without scholarly conjecture.
The terminology's longevity throughout the imperial period is visible in the juridical and gromatic (Pseudo-Agennius Urbicus) writings, where it is applied to categories of land instead of referring to persons’ or communities’ status (§§4–5). Especially important is Gai. Inst. 2.14a, 21, wherein, under the category res nec mancipi, we find the distinction between praedia provincilia stipendiaria, located in provinces that are considered (intelleguntur) those of the populus Romanus, and praedia provincilia tributaria in provinces that are believed (creduntur!) to belong to the Roman emperor (cf. §4.1). This can be explained by the different status of ‘senatorial’ provinces, being already ‘pacified’ and thus subject to regular tax-allocations, i.e. stipendium, and ‘imperial’ provinces still bound to necessary ‘immediate’ war-funding taxes, i.e. regularly assessed tributa on the heads or soil of the provincials living there (see Kritzinger, op. cit., pp. 120–1). Hence, this juristic distinction should be merely seen as an ideal administrative scheme, especially in regard to the different treasuries (aerarium populi Romani vs imperialis fiscus) into which the respective taxes flowed, and not be mixed with ‘historical’ records (see the discussion on Pliny the Elder's accounts of populi and oppida in imperial provinces as stipendiarii, S., pp. 84–6, cf. §2.1.1); thus, late antique legal sources could also merge both categories (e.g. Frg. Vat. 61: in fundo stipendiario vel tributario ≈ Ulp. Dig. 7.4.1pr: in fundo vectigali; see p. 88), and we find similar approximations in gromatic writings (p. 103).
The concise summary is accompanied by a useful table classifying the attestations of stipendiarius in different categories (soldiers, persons, person-based communities, land, figurative uses etc.) while the bibliography is testament to the vast literature devoted to this subject. This is a useful reference work for approaching tax terminology, albeit the exact usage in any given case will still remain subject to a careful analysis of the immediate context and intention, especially in literary sources that need not be linked to the legal-administrative system underlying the tax discourse.
