this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2025
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Tariff negotiation (infosec.pub)
submitted 5 months ago by PugJesus@piefed.social to c/roughromanmemes@piefed.social
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[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

So how did they verify you had actually paid it? Some kind of seal, maybe? There had to be a way to avoid "I'll pay in Gesoriacum/it was paid for in Londinium".

[–] PugJesus@piefed.social 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Merchant's ledgers were examined for consistency, and were admissible as evidence in the legal system. Markers on cargo, known as tituli picti, also sometimes indicated that a given official had examined and taxed the cargo at the appropriate port.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Titulus pictus on Wikipedia.

Do we know what the minimum size of cargo was that was taxed this way? Personal effects are exempted now as well, and merchants with small, high-value items can and do use that creatively. If you need to send a million dollar watch to an auction house, you actually just send an intern wearing it. Or maybe it was by type of good, like spices are always considered a commercial shipment.

[–] PugJesus@piefed.social 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Not entirely sure, honestly. There was probably a bit of personal judgement exercised by local officials - which could lend itself to corruption, no doubt.

High-value cargo like spices and silk from the east was taxed under the tetarte, which was typically gathered by Legionary garrisons. One imagines that legalistic arguments about personal effects would not pass muster with bored and frustrated soldiery on the frontier!

Although, conversely, they're probably cheaper to bribe than city officials.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Tetarte would only be crossing the frontier though, right? And was it only in the east? Like, what about amber?

[–] PugJesus@piefed.social 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The Tetarte was only levied in the east crossing the frontier, yes.

As for amber, not sure. There were a lot of independent and weirdly detailed treaties with the Germanic tribes, so the obligation to funnel amber for easy taxation might have passed through one of them. I have to confess that I know very little about the amber trade in the Roman Empire.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

weirdly detailed treaties with the Germanic tribes

Is there an example of that I can read about?

[–] PugJesus@piefed.social 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

From Cassius Dio:

Others, like the Quadi, asked for peace, which was granted them, both in the hope that they might be detached from the Marcomanni, and also because they gave him [i.e. Marcus Aurelius] many horses and cattle and promised to surrender all the deserters and the captives, besides,-thirteen thousand at first, and later all the others as well. The right to attend the markets, however, was not granted to them, for fear that the Iazyges and the Marcomanni, whom they had sworn not to receive nor to allow to pass through their country, should mingle with them, and passing themselves off for Quadi, should reconnoitre the Roman positions and purchase provisions.

When the Marcomanni sent envoys to him, Marcus, in view of the fact that they had fulfilled all the conditions imposed upon them, albeit grudgingly and reluctantly, restored to them one-half of the neutral zone along their frontier, so that they might now settle to within a distance of five miles from the Ister; and he established the places and the days for their trading together (for these had not been previously fixed) and exchanged hostages with them. Marcus Aurelius released them from many of the restrictions that had been imposed upon them-in fact, from all save those affecting their assembling and trading together and the requirements that they should not use boats of their own and should keep away from the islands in the Ister.

In addition to the conditions that his father had imposed upon them he [Commodus] also demanded that they restore to him the deserters and the captives that they had taken in the meantime, and that they furnish annually a stipulated amount of grain-a demand from which he subsequently released them. Moreover, he obtained some arms from them and soldiers as well, thirteen thousand from the Quadi and a smaller number from the Marcomanni; and in return for these he relieved them of the requirement of an annual levy.

However, he further commanded that they should not assemble often nor in many parts of the country, but only once each month and in one place, and in the presence of a Roman centurion; and, furthermore, that they should not make war upon the Iazyges, the Buri, or the Vandili. On these terms, then, he made peace and abandoned all the outposts in their country beyond the strip along the frontier that had been neutralized

https://studyres.com/doc/15903001/relations-between-rome-and-the-german--kings--on-the-middle