In Book 7, Livy provides the following description of the law that later became known as the Lex Manlia. The law takes its name from the consul who proposed it, Ganeus Manlius, who was consul with Gaius Marcius in the year 357-6.
nisi quod legem novo exemplo ad Sutrium in castris tributim de vicesima eorum, qui manu mitterentur, tulit. patres, quia ea lege haud parvum vectigal inopi aerario additum esset, auctores fuerunt; ceterum tribuni plebis non tam lege quam exemplo moti, ne quis postea populum sevocaret, capite sanxerunt; nihil enim non per milites iuratos in consulis verba quamvis perniciosum populo, si id liceret, ferri posse.
Nothing worth mentioning was achieved by the other consul apart from his setting a precedent in having a law proposed in his camp at Sutrium, through a tribal assembly, which levied a five percent tax on manumitted slaves. Since no insignificant revenue accrued to the depleted treasury from this law, the senators ratified it. The plebeian tribunes, however, less concerned about the law than they were about the precedent, made it a capital offence for anyone in future to hold an assembly of the people outside Rome. For, they claimed, when soldiers were sworn to obey a consul, there was nothing that could not be brought into law by them, no matter how detrimental to the people it might be. (7.16.7-8, trans. JC Yardley).
This passage makes clear that Livy is not recording the development of Roman laws on manumission, but is rather selecting an example of how the plebeian tribunes struggled with the consuls over what kind of power each had. However, it is important to keep in mind that Livy is writing his history of Rome with this narrative of a struggle between the orders very much in the forefront of his mind. Livy writes this way about Rome’s past, but there is now doubt among current scholars over whether or not we should trust this grand narrative. Furthermore, this grand narrative can color the how Livy extracts this data from another source that does not share this idea.
Anyway, back to manumission and some questions. What is this five percent of? Today were are accustomed to using to percentages referring to potential changing ratios. That is, your sales tax is a percentage of whatever it is you buy. However, we can’t assume that the Romans are referring to a variable percentage. For them, this tax may simply refer to the percentage of a one price.
My second question: what is innovative about this reform? Livy is focused on two things: how Manlius passed the reform outside the city of Rome rather than within it and how much money it raised for the Romans. Notice that Livy does not indicate whether or not this means that there was no tax on manumission prior. Indeed, it is possible that he did not know because his sources did not explain whether or not this was the first tax on manumission or if it was simply a marked increase over a previous tax on manumission.
nisi quod legem novo exemplo ad Sutrium in castris tributim de vicesima eorum, qui manu mitterentur, tulit. patres, quia ea lege haud parvum vectigal inopi aerario additum esset, auctores fuerunt; ceterum tribuni plebis non tam lege quam exemplo moti, ne quis postea populum sevocaret, capite sanxerunt; nihil enim non per milites iuratos in consulis verba quamvis perniciosum populo, si id liceret, ferri posse.
Nothing worth mentioning was achieved by the other consul apart from his setting a precedent in having a law proposed in his camp at Sutrium, through a tribal assembly, which levied a five percent tax on manumitted slaves. Since no insignificant revenue accrued to the depleted treasury from this law, the senators ratified it. The plebeian tribunes, however, less concerned about the law than they were about the precedent, made it a capital offence for anyone in future to hold an assembly of the people outside Rome. For, they claimed, when soldiers were sworn to obey a consul, there was nothing that could not be brought into law by them, no matter how detrimental to the people it might be. (7.16.7-8, trans. JC Yardley).
This passage makes clear that Livy is not recording the development of Roman laws on manumission, but is rather selecting an example of how the plebeian tribunes struggled with the consuls over what kind of power each had. However, it is important to keep in mind that Livy is writing his history of Rome with this narrative of a struggle between the orders very much in the forefront of his mind. Livy writes this way about Rome’s past, but there is now doubt among current scholars over whether or not we should trust this grand narrative. Furthermore, this grand narrative can color the how Livy extracts this data from another source that does not share this idea.
Anyway, back to manumission and some questions. What is this five percent of? Today were are accustomed to using to percentages referring to potential changing ratios. That is, your sales tax is a percentage of whatever it is you buy. However, we can’t assume that the Romans are referring to a variable percentage. For them, this tax may simply refer to the percentage of a one price.
My second question: what is innovative about this reform? Livy is focused on two things: how Manlius passed the reform outside the city of Rome rather than within it and how much money it raised for the Romans. Notice that Livy does not indicate whether or not this means that there was no tax on manumission prior. Indeed, it is possible that he did not know because his sources did not explain whether or not this was the first tax on manumission or if it was simply a marked increase over a previous tax on manumission.