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Rationibus
The ''a rationibus'' was the secretary of finance in the Roman Empire and in charge of the imperial treasury, the ''fiscus''. His responsibilities involved monitoring the state's revenues and expenditures and maintaining the accounts of the ''fiscus'', giving the ''a rationibus'' considerable influence. The role of the ''a rationibus'' was originally created by Augustus, who needed accurate and comprehensive accounts of the state's finances in order to exercise budgetary control, and was thus given to members of his household, probably freedmen. This role was then institutionalized in the position of the ''a rationibus'', who was paid a salary by the ''aerarium'' and given an office in the Palatine bureaus, under Tiberius. Roman patrician families such as the Junii Silani may also have designated their accountants as "a rationibus", although this custom fell out of practice when the imperial office of the ''a rationibus'' became institutionalized and had vanished at the latest under ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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. Origins 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roman Finance
The practices of ancient Roman finance, while originally rooted in Greek models, evolved in the second century BC with the expansion of Roman monetization. Roman elites engaged in private lending for various purposes, and various banking models arose to serve different lending needs. Private finance Pooling capital Before banks were established in Rome there was little ability to mobilize large amounts of capital, leaving Romans to operate within the constraints of the wealth of their households. When household wealth was exhausted, the elites in Roman society would often extend loans amongst themselves. The value of these loans to the lender was not always derived from interest payments, but rather from the social obligations that were an implication of being a lender. The formation of a '' societas'' allowed for the utilization of pooled capital. ''Societates'' were groups who could combine their resources to place a bid for a government contract and then share in the result ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Congiarium
Of Ancient Roman containers, a congiarium, or congiary (Latin, from ''congius''), was a vessel containing one congius, a measure of volume equal to six sextarii. In the early times of the Roman Republic, the congius was the usual measure of oil or wine which was, on certain occasions, distributed among the people; and thus congiarium became a name for liberal donations to the people, in general, whether consisting of oil, wine, grain, or money, or other things, while donations made to the soldiers were called ''donativa'', though they were sometimes also termed ''congiaria''. Congiarium was, moreover, occasionally used simply to designate a present or a pension given by a person of high rank, or a prince, to his friends; and Fabius Maximus called the presents which Augustus made to his friends, on account of their smallness, ''heminaria'', instead of congiaria, because hemina was only the twelfth part of a congius. Tiberius gave a congiarium of 72½ denarii (300 sesterces) to eac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterranean Sea in Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia, and was ruled by emperors. From the accession of Caesar Augustus as the first Roman emperor to the military anarchy of the 3rd century, it was a Principate with Italia as the metropole of its provinces and the city of Rome as its sole capital. The Empire was later ruled by multiple emperors who shared control over the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire. The city of Rome remained the nominal capital of both parts until AD 476 when the imperial insignia were sent to Constantinople following the capture of the Western capital of Ravenna by the Germanic barbarians. The adoption of Christianity as the state church of the Roman Empire in AD 380 and the fall of the Western ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Economy Of Ancient Rome
The study of the Roman economy, which is, the economies of the ancient city-state of Rome and its empire during the Republican and Imperial periods remains highly speculative. There are no surviving records of business and government accounts, such as detailed reports of tax revenues, and few literary sources regarding economic activity. Instead, the study of this ancient economy is today mainly based on the surviving archeological and literary evidence that allow researchers to form conjectures based on comparisons with other more recent pre-industrial economies. During the early centuries of the Roman Republic, it is conjectured that the economy was largely agrarian and centered on the trading of commodities such as grain and wine.Garnsey, Peter, et al. The Roman Empire: Economy, Society and Culture. 2nd ed., University of California Press, 2015, www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt9qh25h. Financial markets were established through such trade, and financial institutions, which ext ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Government Of The Roman Empire
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, Executive (government), executive, and judiciary. Government is a means by which organizational policies are enforced, as well as a mechanism for determining policy. In many countries, the government has a kind of constitution, a statement of its governing principles and philosophy. While all types of organizations have governance, the term ''government'' is often used more specifically to refer to the approximately 200 List of sovereign states, independent national governments and Governmental organization, subsidiary organizations. The major types of political systems in the modern era are democracies, monarchies, and authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. Historically prevalent forms of government include monarchy, aristocracy, timocracy, oligarchy, democracy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rationalis
A ''rationalis'' was a high-ranking fiscal officer in the Roman Empire. Until replaced by the ''comes sacrarum largitionum'' by Emperor Constantine in the early 4th century, the ''rationalis summarum'' – comparable to a modern-day finance minister – was one of two state officials who had authority over the imperial treasury, the other one being the ''rationalis rei privatae'' (manager of imperial estates and city properties). Examples for tasks that were performed by a ''rationalis'' are "the collection of all normal taxes and duties, the control of currency and the administration of mines and mints". Each province also had various classes of ''rationales'', and Emperor Diocletian's administrative reforms had mirrored the dual structure on the diocesis–level, instituting the local positions ''rationalis summarum'' and ''magister rei privatae'' above the '' procuratores''. The former continued to exist after the reforms, one example are the ''comes et rationalis summarum ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comes
''Comes'' ( ), plural ''comites'' ( ), was a Roman title or office, and the origin Latin form of the medieval and modern title "count". Before becoming a word for various types of title or office, the word originally meant "companion", either individually or as a member of a collective denominated a "''Comitatus (classical meaning), comitatus''", especially the suite of a magnate, being in some instances sufficiently large and/or formal to justify specific denomination, e.g. a "''cohors amicorum''". "''Comes''" derives from "''com-''" ("with") and "''ire''" ("go"). Ancient Roman religion ''Comes'' was a common epithet or title that was added to the name of a hero or god in order to denote relation with another god. The coinage of Constantine I (emperor), Roman Emperor Constantine I declared him "''comes''" to Sol Invictus ("Unconquered Sun") ''qua'' god. Imperial Roman curial titles and offices styled ''Comites'' Historically more significant, "''comes''" became a secular ti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Cognitionibus
In Ancient Rome, ''a cognitionibus'' was one of the four offices in the chancellor's Imperial Rome office that helped the emperor in his judicial function. It was a formal office function, like the ''ad legationes''. With the restoration in Hadrian's era, it is possible that the office ''a libellis'' dominated the other three: ''a cognitionibus'', ''a studiis'' and ''a censibus''. ''A studiis'' was a documentation office, and ''a cognitionibus'' was the office that studied the process of the emperor's appeal. A correspondence office (''ab epistulis'') and an office that controlled the Roman Empire's finances (''a rationibus'') existed. In the Third century the offices of ''a libellis'' and ''a censibus'' or ''a libellis'' and ''a cognitionibus'' were merged. Marcius Agrippa was ''a cognitionibus'' and ''ab epistulis'' of Caracalla. Popular culture The ''a cognitionibus'' appears in works of Cassius Dio and Philostratus performing a job that arranges the order of cases before the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comes Sacrarum Largitionum
The ''comes sacrarum largitionum'' ("Count of the Sacred Largesses"; in el, , ''kómes tōn theíon thesaurōn'') was one of the senior fiscal officials of the Late Antiquity, late Roman Empire and the early Byzantine Empire. Although it is first attested in 342/345, its creation must date to ca. 318, under Emperor Constantine the Great (r. 306–337). The ''comes'' was the successor of the Principate-era ''rationalis'', and supervised those financial sectors that were left outside the purview of the praetorian prefects: the taxation of Roman Senate, senators, the ''chrysargyron'' tax, customs duties, mines, mints and state-run mills and textile factories. Initially, the ''comes'' also controlled the emperor's private domains, but these passed under the control of the ''comes rerum privatarum'' by the end of the 4th century. He also exercised some judicial functions related to taxation in his administrative courts in particular in matters of fiscal debt. The office of the ''come ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diocletian
Diocletian (; la, Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus, grc, Διοκλητιανός, Diokletianós; c. 242/245 – 311/312), nicknamed ''Iovius'', was Roman emperor from 284 until his abdication in 305. He was born Gaius Valerius Diocles to a family of low status in the Roman province of Dalmatia. Diocles rose through the ranks of the military early in his career, eventually becoming a cavalry commander for the army of Emperor Carus. After the deaths of Carus and his son Numerian on a campaign in Persia, Diocles was proclaimed emperor by the troops, taking the name Diocletianus. The title was also claimed by Carus's surviving son, Carinus, but Diocletian defeated him in the Battle of the Margus. Diocletian's reign stabilized the empire and ended the Crisis of the Third Century. He appointed fellow officer Maximian as ''Augustus'', co-emperor, in 286. Diocletian reigned in the Eastern Empire, and Maximian reigned in the Western Empire. Diocletian delegated further on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Equites
The ''equites'' (; literally "horse-" or "cavalrymen", though sometimes referred to as "knights" in English) constituted the second of the property-based classes of ancient Rome, ranking below the senatorial class. A member of the equestrian order was known as an ''eques'' (). Description During the Roman kingdom and the first century of the Roman Republic, legionary cavalry was recruited exclusively from the ranks of the patricians, who were expected to provide six ''centuriae'' of cavalry (300 horses for each consular legion). Around 400BC, 12 more ''centuriae'' of cavalry were established and these included non-patricians (plebeians). Around 300 BC the Samnite Wars obliged Rome to double the normal annual military levy from two to four legions, doubling the cavalry levy from 600 to 1,200 horses. Legionary cavalry started to recruit wealthier citizens from outside the 18 ''centuriae''. These new recruits came from the first class of commoners in the Centuriate Assembly orga ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
