Volume Iii Part 8 (2/2)

The Prefect had not without reason feared that the almost extinguished resistance of the Goths would be renewed on hearing of the treason practised on their King.

No exact report had yet reached old Hildebrand at Verona, Totila at Tarvisium, or Teja at Ticinum.

They had only heard that Ravenna had fallen, and that the King was imprisoned.

Vague rumours of treachery accompanied this report, and the friends of the King, in their pain and anger, were persuaded that the fall of the strong fortress and of the brave King had not been effected by honest means.

Instead of discouraging them, this misfortune only increased the strength of their resistance.

They weakened their besiegers by repeated and successful sallies.

And the enemy felt almost constrained to raise the siege, for already signs of an important change of circ.u.mstance crowded upon them from all sides.

This change was, in fact, a rapidly progressing reversion of feeling in the Italian population, at least of the middle cla.s.ses: the merchants and artisans of the towns; the peasants and farmers of the country.

The Italians had everywhere greeted the Byzantines as liberators.

But after a short period their exultation died away.

Whole troops of officials followed Belisarius from Byzantium, sent by Justinian to reap without delay the fruits of the war, and to fill the ever-empty treasury of the East with the riches of Italy.

In the midst of all the suffering caused by the war, these zealous officials began their work.

As soon as Belisarius had occupied a town, his treasurer summoned all free citizens to the Curia or to the Forum; ordered them to divide themselves into six cla.s.ses according to their wealth, and then called upon each cla.s.s to value the property of the cla.s.s above it.

According to this valuation, the imperial officials then laid the highest possible tax upon each cla.s.s.

And, as these officials were almost necessitated, because of the retention and curtailment of their never punctually paid salaries, to think of filling their own pockets as well as the Emperor's treasury, the oppression they put in practice became intolerable.

They were not content with the high rates which the Emperor required to be paid in advance for three years; the special tax laid upon every liberated town of Italy as a ”grat.i.tude tax”--besides the large contributions and requisitions which Belisarius and his generals were obliged to demand for the use of the army--for neither gold nor provisions came from Byzantium--but every official sought to extort special payments, by special means, out of the richer citizens.

They everywhere ordered a revision of the tax-lists, discovered arrears owing since the times of the Gothic Kings, even from the days of Odoacer, and left the citizens the option of paying immense sums for indemnity or of carrying on a ruinous lawsuit with Justinian's fiscus, who scarcely ever lost one.

But if the tax-lists were incomplete or destroyed--which happened often enough in those times of war--the accountants arbitrarily reconstructed them.

In short, all the arts of finance which had ruined the provinces of the Eastern Empire were practised in Italy, after the landing of Belisarius, as far as imperial arms could reach.

Without consideration for the misery of war-time, the tax executors unyoked the oxen of the peasant from the plough, took his tools from the workshop of the artisan, and his wares from the house of the merchant.

In many towns the people rebelled against their oppressors and drove them away; but they only returned in larger numbers with severer measures.

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