4. Psalms 50. 7; cf. Psalms 81. 8.
5. Isaiah 1. 3.
6. Hosea 1.9; Romans 9.25.
7. Jeremiah 17.13.
8. Ibid. 8. 9.
9. James 2.20, 26.
10. Ibid. 2.18.
11. Rittershausen suggests that Salvian here alluded to the saying of the jurisconsults: "Not to be, and not to appear, or not to be susceptible of proof, are one and the same thing."
12. James 2.19.
13. The MS reading incontumaciae, the single occurrence of this word, was formerly questioned, but Pauly now accepts it, following Hartel, as equivalent to obsequium.
14. Romans 2.1.
15. That is, the usual slave allowance. The language seems to be borrowed from Cod. Just. XII. 23: De canone frumentario urbis Romae. Cf. Gregoire et Collombet ad. loc.
16. Proverbs 6. 30.
17. Romans 2.1.
18. Even the imperial estates suffered from such encroachments; cf. the decree of Arcadius and Honorius, a.d. 399, providing for restitution of property unjustly seized on the imperial estates, and for a double penalty if restitution was delayed beyond a period of three months, applying also to those who had fled, unless they returned to restore the property stolen. The penalty applied to judges also if they did not give evidence against the exactores and conpulsores who were guilty. It is noteworthy that the decree claimed that but for the imperial clemency a fourfold penalty should have been exacted; one suspects impotence rather than clemency as the reason for the lighter fine (Cod. Theod. X. 1.10). On the general situation, cf. V. 8. infra.
19. Ecclesiasticus 13.19.
20. Compare the description of Arvandus, praetorian prefect of Gaul, given by Sidonius Apollinaris Ep. I. 7.3, "He governed his first prefecture with great distinction, and his second with great destruction." Again, in Ep. V. 13 Sidonius described the "monster" Seronatus, "exhausting the individuals scattered outside the towns by unheard of forms of inflictions, and ensnaring them by the sinuous deceits of his calumnies." The same Seronatus ( Ep. II. 1) "levies taxes as a master, exacts payments like a judge, slanders like a barbarian . . , fills the woods daily with fugitives, the villas with enemies, the altars with accused men, the prisons with clergy." We learn, however, from Ep. VII. 7. 2 that he was at last brought to justice and put to death, though the government hesitated to act against him.
21. So Sidonius, Ep. V. 13, said of Seronatus: "Some are freed by his venality, others by his vanity, none by his mercy."
22. On this whole passage cf. Haemmerle, Studia Salviana, I. 4, pp. 29-33.
23. Since Gaul was overrun by the barbarians earlier than Spain, the latter province suffered heavier taxation at the hands of the imperial prefects, who tried to make up the Gallic deficit in the imperial taxation from this source. Cf. Orosius VII. 41. 7: "There are certain Romans among them who prefer to sustain poverty in freedom among the barbarians than the constant oppression of taxation among the Romans."
24. Africa, being under the praetorian prefect of Italy, as Spain was under that of Gaul, also suffered from the increase of taxation to make up for losses in Italy.
25. See Sidonius Ep. III. 6. 3: "Certainly the provinces are much discussed; a good year depends less on the crops than the officials." Again, in Ep. IV. 24.5, Sidonius illustrated the "integrity of a few" by persuading an official friend to grant a year's immunity from taxes, and cancellation of the interest due, to a more straitened taxpayer, to free him "from the barbarous demands of the collectors yapping around him."
26. This attitude, however, was in defiance of a decree of Constantine of A.D. 319 (Cod. Just. IX. 14.1), which made a master who intentionally killed a slave guilty of homicide, whatever was the method used.
27. Jeremiah 5. 8.
28. The increase of concubinage in the fourth century led to progressive legalization of the institution. Constantino in A.D. 326 forbade it unconditionally (Cod. Just. V. 26) ; Arcadius and Honorius in 405 strictly limited the inheritance of concubines and their children (Ibid. 27. 2) ; Theodosius and Valentinian in 443 (Ibid. 27. 3) provided that natural sons might have full inheritance rights if they entered the curial class, and natural daughters if they married curials. The last decree illustrates also how fiscal necessities led to increasing leniency on the part of the government toward the frailties of the propertied class, especially when direct benefit to the treasury would result.