''Quadragesima Galliarum'' (lit. "Gallic one-fortieth"), also written ''XXXX Galliarum'' or ''XL Galliarum'', was a 2.5% tax charged on trade in the
Gallic provinces of the Roman Empire. It was a customs-duty tax on all incoming and outgoing goods in land and sea frontiers in addition to other inland ports. The stopping points on the borders, called ''Fines'' or ''Ad Fines'', were the partitions at which this tax was extracted.
Collection of the tax was left to the
equestrian
The word equestrian is a reference to equestrianism, or horseback riding, derived from Latin ' and ', "horse".
Horseback riding (or Riding in British English)
Examples of this are:
* Equestrian sports
*Equestrian order, one of the upper classes i ...
procurator
Procurator (with procuracy or procuratorate referring to the office itself) may refer to:
* Procurator, one engaged in procuration, the action of taking care of, hence management, stewardship, agency
* ''Procurator'' (Ancient Rome), the title of ...
s whose job it was to assess the tax, collect it, and make money available to the armies at the Rhine. Collecting was of greater concern to the procurators of
Lugdunensis
Gallia Lugdunensis (French language, French: ''Gaule Lyonnaise'') was a Roman province, province of the Roman Empire in what is now the modern country of France, part of the Celts, Celtic territory of Gaul formerly known as Gallia Celtica, Celtica ...
than to the other Gallic provinces as
Lugdunum
Lugdunum (also spelled Lugudunum, ; modern Lyon, France) was an important Roman city in Gaul, established on the current site of Lyon. The Roman city was founded in 43 BC by Lucius Munatius Plancus, but continued an existing Gallic settlem ...
(now
Lyon
Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of t ...
, France) was the main trading hub of the region.
The bureaucracy surrounding the ''Quadragesima Galliarum'' grew in size and complexity over the centuries. Although it had outposts scattered across the country, it was headquartered in Lugdunum.
Epigraphy associated with the tax shows the presence of a procurator and staff including: ''tabularii'', a ''
vilicus {{Unreferenced, date=June 2019, bot=noref (GreenC bot)
Vilicus ( el, ἐπίτροπος) was a servant who had the superintendence of the villa rustica, and of all the business of the farm, except the cattle, which were under the care of the magis ...
'', and ''vernae''. The locations of these ''stationes'' have a pattern of being in ports and key mountain routes. There was even a ''Quadragesima'' location in Rome, meaning there might also be a movement of the taxes collected in Gaul to a centralized location in Rome.
[
]
References
Bibliography
*
*
* {{citation, editor-last=Kuuliala, editor-first=Jenni, editor-last2=Rantala, editor-first2=Jussi, title=Travel, Pilgrimage and Social Interaction from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, year=2019, isbn=9780429647703
History of taxation
Taxation in ancient Rome