© GEORGE FINLAY
HISTORY OF
First Edition February 1906
Unortunately, it is almost as difficult to ascertain the precise legislative and executive acts by which Leo reformed the military, financial, and legal administration, as it is to obtain an impartial account of his ecclesiastical measures.
The military establishment of the empire had gradually lost its national character, from the impossibility of recruiting the army from among Roman citizens. In vain the soldier's son was fettered to his father's profession, as the artisan was bound to his corporation, and the proprietor to his estate. Yet the superiority of the Roman armies seems to have suffered little from the loss of national spirit, as long as strict discipline was maintained in their ranks. For many centuries the majority of the imperial forces consisted of conscripts drawn from the lowest ranks of society, from the rude mountaineers of almost independent provinces, or from foreigners hired as mercenaries; yet the armies of all invaders, from the Goths to the Saracens, were repeatedly defeated in pitched battles. The state maxims which separated the servants of the emperor from the people, survived in the Eastern provinces after the loss of the Western, and served as the basis of the military policy of the Byzantine empeire, when reformed by Leo. The conditions of soldier and citizen were deemed incompatible. The law prevented the citizen from assuming the position of a soldier, and watched with jealousy any attempt of the soldier to acquire the rights and feelings of a citizen. An impassible barrier was placed between the proprietor of the soil, who was the tax-payer and the defender of the state, who was an agent of the imperial power. It is true that, after the loss of the Western provinces, the Roman armies were recruited from the native subjects of the empire to a much greater degree than formerly; and that, after the time of Heraclius, it became impossible to enforce the fiscal arrangements to which the separation of the citizen from the soldier owed its origin, at least with the previous strictness. Still the old imperial maxims were cherished in the reign of Leo, and the numerous colonies of Sclavonians, and other foreigners, established in the empire, owed their foundation to the supposed necessity of seeking for recruits as little as possible from among the native population of agriculturists. These colonies were governed by peculiar regulations, and their most important service was supplying a number of troops for the imperial army. Isauria and other mountainous districts, where it was difficult to collect any revenue by a land-tax, also supplied a fixed military contingent.
Whatever modifications Leo made in the military system, and however great
were the reforms he effected in the organisation of the army and the discipline
of the troops, the mass of the population continued in the Byzantine empire
to be excluded from the use of arms, as they had been in the Roman times;
and this circumstance was the cause of that unwarlike disposition, which is
made a standing reproach from the days of the Goths to those of the Crusaders.
The state of society engendered by this policy opened the Western Empire to
the northern nations, and the empire of Charlemagne to the
The finances are soon felt to be the basis of government in all civilised states. Augustus experienced the truth of this as much as Louis XIV. The progress of society and the accumulation of wealth have a tendency to sink governments into the position of brokers of human intelligence, wealth, and labour; and the finances form the symbol indicating the quantity of these which the central authority can command. The reforms, therefore, which it was in the power of Leo III. to effect in the financial administration, must have proceeded from the force of circumstances rather than from the mind of the emperor. To this cause we must attribute the durability of the fabric he constructed. He confined himself to arranging prudently the materials accumulated to his mind. But no sovereign, and indeed no central executive authority, can form a correct estimate of the taxable capacity of the people. Want of knowledge increases the insatiable covetousness suggested by their position; and the wisest statesman is as likely to impose ruinous burdens on the people, if vested with despotic power, as the most rapacious tyrant. The people alone can find ways of levying on themselves an amount of taxation exceeding any burdens that the boldest despot could hope to impose; for the people can perceive what taxes will have the least effect in arresting the increase of the national wealth.
Leo, who felt the importance of the financial administration as deeply as
Augustus, reserved to himself the immediate superintendence of the treasury;
and this special control over the finances was retained by his successors,
so that, during the whole duration of the Byzantine empire, the emperors may
be regarded as their own ministers of finance. The grand Logothetes,
who was the official minister, was in reality nothing more than the emperor's
private secretary for the department. Leo unquestionably improved the central
administration, while the invasions of the Saracens and Bulgarians made him
extremely cautious in imposing heavy fiscal burdens on the distant cities
and provinces of his dominions. But his reforms were certainly intended to
circumscribe the authority of municipal and provincial institutions. The free
cities and municipalities which had once been entrusted with the duty of apportioning
their quota of the land-tax, and collecting the public burdens of their district,
were now deprived of this authority. All fiscal business was transferred to
the imperial officers. Each province had its own collectors of the revenue,
its own officials charged to complete the registers of the public burdens,
and to verify all statistical details. The traditions of imperial
The financial acts of Leo's reign, though they show that he increased the
direct amount of taxation levied from his subjects, prove, nevertheless, by
the general improvement which took place in the condition of the people, that
his reformed system of financial administration really lightened the weight
of the public burdens. Still, there can be no doubt that the stringency of
the measures adopted in Greece and Italy, for rendering the census more productive,
was one of the causes of the rebellions in those countries, for which his
Iconoclastic decrees served as a more honourable war-cry. In
An earthquake that ruined the walls of Constantinople, and many cities in
Thrace and Bithynia, induced Leo to adopt measures for supplying the treasury
with a special fund for restoring them, and keeping their fortifications constantly
in a state to resist the Bulgarians and Sacarcens.
The municipal revenues which had once served for this purpose had been encroached
upon by
The care of the fortifications was undoubtedly a duty to which the central government required to give its direct attention; and to meet the extraordinary expenditure caused by the calamitous earthquake of 740, an addition of one-twelfth was made to the census. This tax was called the dikeraton, because the payment appears to have been generally made in the silver coins called keratia, two of which were equal to a miliaresion, the coin which represented one-twelfth of the nomisma, or gold Byzant. Thus a calamity which diminished the public resources increased the public urdens. In such a contingency it seems that a paternal government and a wise despot ought to have felt the necessity of diminishing the pomp of the court, of curtailing the expenses of ecclesiastical pageants, and of reforming the extravagance of the popular amusements of the hippodrome, before imposing new burdens on the suffering population of the empire. Courtiers, saints, and charioteers out to have been shorn of their splendour, before the groans of the provinces were increased. Yet Leo was neither a luxurious nor an avaricious prince; but, as has been said already, no despotic monarch can wisely measure the burden of taxation.