Thanks for thanking me
Submitted by Jimf3 on January 06 2001 23:36:17
In reply to Thanks, Jim! submitted by Ford Prefect on January 06 2001 22:00:41
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I hesitated posting that because it's only tangentially on topic. But I'm fascinated by late Republican and early Imperial Roman history and still read a lot about it. Augustus never issued a decree that all the world be taxed but it's easy to see how provincial subjects would think he did. Oops, I'm going to ramble again. Augustus probably thought that he, like his nephew, Julius, was working to preserve the Republican structure. He took on "first citizen" status in order to prevent anarchy and collapse of empire. He almost certainly never thought of himself as an "emporer" in the way that we understand the term. He left taxation and provincial administration to the tradional republican infrastructure. The Roman Senate determined how much tax that Judea owed and the Senate relied on the publicans to deliver the money or the goods in place of money. A hundred years later after the demise of the Julio Claudians, the perception of Imperial control might have actually been the reality. But Mary and Joseph were almost certainly counted as a result of an interniceine dispute - not an imperial decree. Jim |
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