The duties payable at the frontier varied widely in amount. In Sicily, in all the provinces of Illyricum,* perhaps in Africa, the charge was five per cent. all round, in Gaul and in Asia two and a half per cent. In Syria it was levied by tariff (rivdxcov), varying for different wares and products, and reckoned according to a formal statement or invoice (professio, dmoypapy) : the tariff system is known to have existed at the great Euphrates- bridge, Zeugma, and at Palmyra,} and may there- fore be supposed general for the whole of Syria.
vy. THE TELONAI IN THE GOSPELS.—With re- gard to the tax-gatherers, or ‘ publicans,’ reddvaz, mentioned in the Gospels, there are some incor- rect views which have obtained practically uni- versal acceptance in books relating to the NT. (1) The ¢elonai are usually described by modern authorities as if they were identical with, or agents of, the publicani—those great financial corporations which in the Republican period had farmed the revenues of entire provinces : in fact, the current translation, ‘publicans,’ bears wit- ness to the almost universal acceptance of this mistake. (2) The telonai are also described by modern writers generally as being collectors of customs duties, and it is regularly pointed out that Capernaum and Jericho were near the frontier + (Lk 5” 192, Mk 2" etc.) But it is impossible to suppose that mere custom - house officers on the frontiers could be either so numer- ous or the object of such bitter and fanatical hatred as were those telonai. To see the false- ness of the current view, and the true nature of the ¢elonai, it is necessary to recapitulate briefly the history of the recent Roman practice in Palestine, and we accept the views stated by Rostowzew.§ :
In B.c. 57 Gabinius reorganized Judea. He did not (as many authorities have supposed) make it a part of Syria or treat it as a province: this is proved with great probability by Unger.|| Gabinius introduced a partial autonomy, dividing Palestine into five parts, each with a capital city and an
* The character of the Illyrian system during the first century is unknown. From the time of Hadrian onwards the eight provinces Rhetia, Noricum, two of Pannonia, two of Meesia, Dacia, Dalmatia, were organized for this purpose as a single governmental district, though dues were levied at the frontier of each district, as in Africa dues were levied probably at the frontiers of the four districts into which the province was divided (Rostowzew, pp. 393, 402): quattuor publica prov. Africce was the full title of the African customs.
t Fronto, Princ. Hist. 209(Naber); Philostr. Vit. Apoll. Tyan. i, 18: on Palmyra, see the important inser. of A.D. 187, Dessau, Hermes, xix. 486 ff., 526 ff.; Rostowzew, p. 405 (Reckendorf, Z/t. d. d. morgenl. Geselisch. 1888, p. 370 ff., gives both Greek and Aramaic texts). Schiirer, Gesch. d. jiid. Volkes3, i. p. 475, wrongly supposes that Palmyra collected the tax for its own benefit, following Dessau, loc. cit.; Rostowzew shows that it acted on behalf of the fiscus, and was assisted or watched by Imperial officials.
} It is, however, by no means clear that Capernaum was the frontier city on the road, though it was not far from the fron- tier. Jericno was at the frontier between procuratorial Judxa and Herod Antipas’s Perea. Rostowzew (p. 481) makes some not quite accurate geographical statements on this point.
§ ‘Gesch. der Staatspacht,’ u.s.w., p. 475 ff.
|| See his paper on Josephus ty. in Bicenasten Bayer. Akal. 1897, i. 189 ff.; Rostowzew, p. 476.
ROADS AND TRAVEL (IN NT)
ROADS AND TRAVEL (IN NT) 395
aristocratic synhedrion to administer the govern- ment. But a direct tax, stipendiwm, instituted by Pompey in B.c. 63, was paid by each part.* Vor taxation Palestine was treated along with Syria, the collection of the taxes in both being contracted for by one society of publicani. The publicant made their arrangements with the five synhedria, and the five capitals formed so many centres of administration and collection of the stipendium for and by the publicani.
Julius Cesar restored the single government with the capital and centre at Jerusalem (Momm- sen, Provinces, ii. p. 175). With this was united a remodelling of the regulations regarding the stipendium. The tax, at first, had to be paid in Zidon (as the central office of the company of pub- licani, doubtless) ;+ but, after a year or two had elapsed, the control of the publicant was abolished, so far as concerned Palestine, and the ethnarch was made solely responsible for the levying of the tax and the payment of it to the Roman govern- ment.{ The autonomy of Judea was thus restored very completely, except for the payment of a stipendium, but the tax was collected by the ruler of the nation in native fashion. Hence the census of Syria (according to Lk 2'), which began in B.C. 8, was probably conducted by Herod over Palestine according to the Jewish tribal divisions (Ramsay, Was Christ Born in Bethlehenv? ch. viil.).
This financial system lasted till A.D. 6, when Quirinius, in his second governorship of Syria, made Judea a province, and subordinated it to Syria. It is quite obvious that the system of publicant was not then reintroduced. The census which Quirinius made shows that the Roman State retained the tax under its own control; whereas the previous census between 8 and 6 B.C. had evidently been made in Palestine according to native methods, because the taxation was levied by such methods.