Samantha D’Alessandro
Professor Wilson and Professor Hogan
HR104 Enduring Questions
December 13, 2018
Axial Age Economies
During the Axial Age, the rise or fall of some of the most powerful empires were seen. The empires of Persia, Rome, Egypt and China during the Axial Age demonstrate the importance and usage of coinage and taxation and prove how these factors were effective in the growth and success of the economies of these societies.
Without the use and evidence of coinage in the Roman Empire, there would be no measurement of how powerful the empire truly was. The use of coinage in the Roman Empire first began around 300 b.c.e. When coins were being produced in Rome, “Two factors were at work at once in the mint: the influence of a high authority, which determined the types, and the demands of mass-production, which factored the repeated employment of the most simple ones” . The success of the economy was seen by the effective production of coinage by the higher authorities. The late fourth century in the Roman Empire was characterized by an increase in the volume of coinage produced by the principal mints, an extension of the geographical use of coinage and a growth in smaller denominations . Throughout the time period of the empire, the population of coins varied greatly. In the fifth century bronze coinage began to be introduced because the area had few natural sources of silver. Later, as the empire progressed, silver coinage seemed to have stopped being produced before bronze coinage . In Rome, bronze coins remained important longer than they did in other empires, and they were often forged and hoarded for wealth. Bronze coins were often allowed to be both produced and circulated locally.
Physically, over time, the purity of the amount of silver in the silver coins decreased. The altering of the amount of precious metal in coinage can be seen often, for example one emperor reduced the gold content of his coins so “both [the new and the old] coins had the same monetary value in the Empire, but in real terms the older aurei contained up to 9 per cent more gold.” At one point, traders used bullion instead of coinage because it was easier to measure the value. The physical differences in coins showed growth of the economy as they realized what was most effective.
The idea of stimulating the growth of the economy by increasing the production of coinage can be seen by the fact that “The total value of the coinage system (gold plus silver) had, by these estimates, grown twelve times since the middle of the last century b.c.e. But prices had perhaps only doubled.” This tells us that the Roman economy was able to grow tremendously, but somehow managed to avoid the problem of excess inflation. Impressively, for such a large area under the control of only one ruler, “‘The whole Roman Empire was integrated into a single monetary economy’”. However, even with taxation and ample evidence of coinage, “Roman society, even if it used coinage to express (if not always pay) the greater part of its debt and credits, remained a society that was very incompletely monetized: first, because the economy of the empire remains a subsistence economy, where the bulk of the labor force was agricultural” . This can be directly tied to the fact taxation was seen often being paid in kind and by providing one’s self rather than in currency.
Some people paid taxes using coinage and others who did not have enough money chose to provide themselves for the armies instead. Although there were no official records for taxation, historians have been able to draw conclusions about the variance of taxation, figuring that “Some provinces pay land-tax in kind, others in money” . More taxes were paid in kind than in money, but the government had the ability to turn products into cash in a market, so there was a fairly high liquidity. Specifically, “The degree to which direct taxes were levied in money under the principate is very uncertain” . We do find that even if the Roman Empire did not tax heavily, they did tax very widely, because “the taxes that Rome collected from international trade surpassed the revenues of entire subject countries.” The wealth of Rome was returned to citizens through hard work like a cycle as, “Whatever was imported into Rome from the provinces as money taxes and money rents, provincial towns had to earn back (taking one year with another) by the manufacture and sale of goods.” Once peoples’ land was conquered by the Roman military, the citizens of these places were required to paid taxes and often participated in the Roman armies. For the longest time, taxpayers were limited to defeated subjects. One defeated city, Carthage, paid “routine taxation, only some of which went to pay and feed occupying troops. The substantial rest was remitted to Rome.” Rome had more money than necessary, and did not particularly need to tax. Also, throughout the whole time as an empire, Rome never had a uniform tax system. Sometimes, communities were exempt from taxes as a type of reward. The empire did eventually tax their own citizens, and taxes in the empire were seen as relatively low even though, “tax revenues had risen at least one hundredfold in three centuries.” Although the taxes were seen as comparatively low, “the tax burden was probably not evenly distributed,” and definitely had a more substantial effect to income for a peasant than an aristocrat. The effects of taxation were emphasized by the fact that the benefits of taxes were something that peasants would rarely see. In return for the taxes they paid, people were only provided with minimal justice, roads and defense. Without taxes, the wealth of the empire would have probably decreased minimally, so this variable alone would not have been enough to seriously alter the functionality of the Roman Empire. Taxation allowed the empire to grow because they had more funding, which in turn led to their success.
At first, conquered people would have to pay indemnities, but these ended up being converted into taxation over time. It has been discovered that only a small amount of ordinary people had to pay the central government tax. Commercial taxes were mainly the taxes that brought in a lot of income and helped significantly fund the Roman empire. The most common type of taxation in the Roman Empire was a property tax, but there were many other types as well, which are known to include trade, sales, inheritance and import taxes as well as customs dues and tolls. The amount of the tax varied greatly depending on what the tax was for. The taxes also varied by location, as “some provinces had a more elaborate structure under which tax was proportionate to area, not to the size of the crop but was levied at different rates on different grades and types of land.”
The Persian empire, also referred to as the Achaemenid Empire, had a lasting effect on coinage. The physical timing seen on coinage helped us to identify the state of the empire at any given time, because images on the coins often portrayed current events. The growth of the economy can be seen through the changing imagery on the coins as different rulers came into position. Persian coinage currently assists with our understanding and timing of developments in the empire when it was evolving. Coins were not only used as an economic force, but also as symbols. Sometimes coins were minted not for payment or reward, but just for show. At the beginning of the Persian empire, the coinage was derived from the already existing system from the Lydians, which is the first place it was believed to have minted coinage. Later, “Darius’s introduction of a Persian imperial coinage in Asia Minor was a path-breaking financial reorganization and an important contribution to the further consolidation of the Achaemenid Empire in the west” . Coinage was something that united Empires because it was comparable from many different places. In Athens, a place with huge influence, the collection and use of money were even changed because of interactions with Persians.
The most common depiction on Persian coinage was the kneeling-running king, and “Due to its impressive imagery and its constant value, became a distinctive medium of exchange and an effective propaganda tool of the Achaemenid Empire” . It became part of Persian identity and demonstrated the immense power and success of the Empire. The depictions on coins were often of the current king and changed as soon as the king died. Based on physical coins, it was determined that there were most likely two mints in operation during the time of the kneeling-running king. The Persian silver and gold coins were always very important because of the universal value of these metals, but the empire seemed to focus and revolve more around the importance of this image rather than the importance of the value of the coinage itself. Because of this, in the Persian economy there was no weight or measurement standard for coinage.
It is believed that, “The Great Kings may well have agreed to the minting of any coins that would return to them in the form of tribute.” All kings just wanted a great amount of wealth, and “The great king had immense stores of precious metals at any point in time” . Taxes were issued to show the success of the ruler through wealth, and in turn this wealth continued to grow in a cycle. There were many common sources of taxation in Persia, and “The king in fact received a great deal of other income that can be classed under two rubrics: regular taxes and special contributions” . The other places a king’s revenue came from included taxation “‘derived from merchandise; fourthly the revenue from the cultivation of the soil and from market-dues; fifthly, that which comes from cattle, which is called tax on animal produce or tithe; and sixthly, that which is derived from men, which is called the poll-tax or tax on artisans.’” Out of these sources, we seem to find that there are five common types of taxes. There were also royal taxes and tariffs, which were less common. The effect of the taxes on the lower class can be seen in complaints of citizens having to borrow money on their fields and vineyards, or even having to sell their children into slavery. Different taxes were also collected from different types of citizens, and the Persian kings learned to differentiate the amount of taxation between the coastal people and the inland people.
In Ancient Egypt, trade was one of the most important aspects of the economy and the culture. Egyptians could produce many lavish items that other surrounding areas in the near east could not such as ointment and eye paint, jewelry, fine stones, ivory, ebony, linen, but they needed simple items such as timber, olive oil, and other necessary oils, which lead to necessary trading. The position of Egypt on the nile made it an ideal center for trade, as it was easier and more efficient to travel over water, and therefore it was also an ideal place to live as there was a demand for skilled workers such as sailors and shipbuilders with thriving markets. Egyptian coinage was greatly influenced by Greeks because of how many of them travelled to Egypt to mooch off of it’s positive aspects, and try to take the economic success for themselves and make the culture of the area very Greek. One hoard of coins found called the Asyut hoard contains coins from Greece, Italy, Asia Minor, and Persia as well as other countries which emphasizes Egypt as an important and successful place of trade . The trading between different economies using coinage allowed all of the participating societies to grow. The metals commonly used in coins were silver and bronze, but copper and gold were also seen. Other than trading, Egyptians were able to make money off of interest from loans due to having more money to do so, which was like a cycle of wealth. However, the laws for interest rates on loans favored Egyptian citizens rather than the Greeks who came into the area. The Great King of Egypt was seen as “a model economist, in the sense of a careful administrator of a great estate, and they assimilate the Empire to this model in a manner that is both simplistive and suggestive.”
Taxation in Egypt, like the other empires examined, was also paid both in coinage and in kind. There was a frequent census to ensure efficient and successful collection of taxes, which allowed them to extract the maximum amount of wealth from taxation. There was also physical evidence of taxation on tax-rolls, however “evidence for taxation in this period is so slight, it is impossible to determine precisely how far the treasury was benefited.” The most common taxes were a land tax, a grain tax, but there was also a tax on animals, trading, capitation, a poll tax and a wine and beer tax, a sales tax, a building tax and a rent tax as well as a few others. However there were often remissions, such as that of the tax on private grain-land because of “impossibility or difficulty of cultivation caused by the vagaries of the inundation of the Nile, but there is no evidence as to the amount or the specific conditions of such remission.” Egyptian animal taxes were to be “regarded as licence-taxes or fees rather than property-taxes.” There was also much less information on taxes being paid in kind than taxes being paid in monetary value. Most of the land taxes paid in money were from land that contained gardens and vineyards. Taxation on “beach-land at Caranis was levied at intervals of five years, and payment of the tax might be made in a lump sum or in two or four instalments.” There is a “theory is an income-tax on rent rather than a property-tax on houses for which there is as yet no satisfactory evidence.” A problem with paying taxes in copper rather than silver coinage would be that, “tax-farmers were allowed to accept and to turn over payments in copper drachmae without having also to pay the difference of the exchange,” but this further allowed for growth of the economy. Other than remissions, the tax rates remained virtually unaltered for a very extended period of time.
Uniquely, evidence of tax evasion in research has only come up in the Ancient Egyptian Empire. For those who really did not want to pay taxes, they could go to desperate measures and leave their home and property, which is very extreme but commonly worked. However, since tax collectors still needed to meet their quota, this led to them collecting more money from the people who were available.
The round coin first appeared in China in the fourth century b.c.e. It was seen as a jade disk that contained inscriptions known as banliang coins. Chinese initially manufactured and created coins from cast bronze. Gold bullions served as a means of payment, store of wealth, and unit of account. Coinage led to a form of a two tiered economy of privileged recipients and owners of reliable gold coins versus disadvantaged users of unreliable base metal denomination. There was also division when coinage was first being produced, because initially private coin manufacturers had political tension, which caused regions to break into fragments. China often counterfeited bronze coins, which showed their low intrinsic value, yet their critical ability to sustain their monetary economy, and this also affected the face value versus metal value that was often looked at in coinage. Gold and silver were scarcer in Ancient China than in the Mediterranean, which is why bronze coinage remained mostly stable, and gold use was more socially limited.
Cowry shells, spades, tortoise shells, pearls, teeth, horns, wheat and other textile sources were used as an element of monetary value in pre-imperial times. It is unclear if the use of cowry shell was used for trade or just served as prestige item that could be a gift or play a role in mortuary or funeral settings. Spade tools of various lengths containing specific inscriptions represented a particular monetary value and weight standard from this time period. Growth of the Chinese economy can be seen as they changed from spade tools to round coins. The only object that was so important that it was still used as monetary value after the minting of coinage was silk, as “Rural Chinese homesteads could pay their land and property taxes by producing silk floss or fabric bundles for state officials.” Silk was used not only to pay taxes in kind, but also as coinage. The immense value and effect of silk can also be seen when studying the success of the Chinese Empire via the Silk Road.
The purposes of taxation in China were in place for distinct reasons, and can be seen in specific examples, such as how “All Chinese soldiers were supplied by the state with military equipment produced in government workshops and rations obtained as tax revenue.” Taxation in China was taken very seriously, as there were tombs found with citizens’ crimes listed on them where “The crimes included debts to the government incurred by households when state taxes were not paid.” Taxation was necessary for the growth of the economy, which is why it was taken so seriously. They were usually successful in collecting pay, for people feared the punishment for the crime. Things that were taxed in China included travel, poll, land, trade (local and international), and domestic animals as well as many more common things. In China, unlike in certain other empires, there are physical tax records that were found and have been analyzed. Local rulers had the power to collect taxes, rather than only the king. In China, more taxes were paid in cash than in kind compared to other empires. Similar to other empires, different people had to pay different amounts of certain taxes, for example merchants had to pay a higher poll tax.
There were many parallels between the monetary systems of these large and powerful empires that even parallel with ours today. They all had standardized currency systems. There were often weight standards on coins. The two most common currencies in the majority of economies were silver and gold, however bronze coins were still important, and were often forged and hoarded for wealth. Coined gold was relied on as an anchor, while bronze, silver, copper and other metals were abandoned to debasement and devaluations. Gold coins were the most common to all societies and carried the most value. Evidently, when alternating between currencies, the most valuable coins after gold were silver, then bronze, and then other metals according to the value of the metal itself; the value is unrelated to the significance given to the coinage by the governments who minted the coins. These characteristics have been seen all the way into modern times, and in our daily lives. Currently some pennies, worth 1¢, are made of so much copper that the melt-down value is much greater than 1¢. Prior to coinage, barter was used in all empires, but it was not as efficient because it was difficult to compare values of different objects. We know the usage of coinage in these economies was efficient and successful since we are still seeing parallels from them in current times. The production of coinage was also used as a way to grow the economies of the Empires. It is true that coinage “was a relatively late development in the long history of monetary activity” because barter was previously used for a long period of time, but the effect coinage had when finally put into play was immense. The role of coinage was also a great stimulant for trade and for the success of markets. Across the militaries of these empires, the soldiers were paid in coinage, but also food and clothing. In face, almost every job began to use coinage as payment, as coinage expanded and became a core part of every economy.
When analyzing the usage of coinage we can say that not all coinage is money, but all money is coinage. Coinage was much more than money; it was also art. Coins at some point were being made for symbolic rather than practical or economic reasons. Coins represented the current kings and events in an empire, and had text and imagery that showed the success and power of the leader of whichever empire they came from. They allow us to interpret the rulers that were the most powerful, advanced or respected based on if they had coins minted, or however the coins were created. The pictures on coins convey important events that have occured for an empire or can give us a glimpse into their lifestyle. Coinage was beneficial because it facilitated the ability to compare different items, bring different societies together, and show state power and hierarchy. It emerged as a way of repaying debts that could be used between different societies.
Physically, when discovering coins in current times, historians will often put a modern coin in where they have already dug up land so future archaeologists know that this land has already been disturbed, and they do not misinterpret information. At archaeological sites, coins are sometimes found in hoards, such as the previously described Asyut hoard. This happens because people try to keep track of valuable things are often would keep them together, so naturally, they are found together. Less valuable coins were less often found in hoards. When coins were found grouped with other coins that are not from the same empire, this is proof of trading between markets. Coins found near historical sites are generally used for dating historical sites, but this tactic may not be that accurate based on how disturbed the land has been. Knowledge of coins discovered along with “architectural, art-historical, epigraphic, numismatic and religious context” are used to help date objects that are located around the coins. Other than being used for dating objects, there are many historical instances of coins having a great impact on our knowledge of history that is not financial. We can see an empire’s economic stability, which developing coins can be a boast of. The cycle of wealth can be seen in coinage because a kingdom needs to have a certain amount of wealth to be able to mint their own coins, and having their own coinage just allows them to become wealthier.
When analyzing taxation in these empires, taxes were often paid both in kind or in coinage and sometimes as a combination of both. When taxation was not given in coinage, this was more difficult for the kings even though the product was fairly liquid and they were able to sell it and convert it into coinage, because before it was physical coinage, they had to make estimates on the monetary worth. Sometimes taxes were received as physical labor rather than an object. Taxes were always much heavier for those of the lower class than for those of the upper classes because they were often the same amount, so they have much more of an effect to those who have less wealth. Often, different amounts or forms taxes were collected from different of citizens, such as those who had been conquered into the empire versus those who were part of the empire since the beginning. There were also different kinds of taxes including land tax, sales tax, citizenship tax, travel tax and many others.
Taxation emerged as a way for a king or government to collect more revenue and display their power over the citizens. Taxes were used to provide basic services to all citizens, as well as other services that were often only seen by those of the upper class. Taxation has never been popular with citizens, so when looking for public approval, kings would often lower or abolish taxes. Tax exemptions could also be given out as pay or as a reward instead of something with monetary value. Kings could lease out their own land in exchange for services and also charged a tax for this land. Generally, a census was periodically conducted to allow the rulers to see how much in taxes they should be collecting.
Both coinage and taxation allowed the economies of these empires, and therefore the empires themselves, to thrive. They led to growth, and made the acquisition of wealth easier and set price standards. Effects and characteristics of taxation and coinage can still be seen in modern economies.
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