If this was the case with the directors of the com- pany, we may imagine how it stood with the underlings. They overcharged whenever the}' had an opportunity (Luke iii, 13). They brought false charges of smug- gling in the hope of extorting hush-money (ibid, xix, 8). They detained and opened letters on mere sus- picion (Terence, Phorm, i, 2, 99 ; Plautus, Trinumm.ni, 3, 64). The injuries poriitorum, rather than the portoria themselves, were in most cases the subject of complaint (Cicero, .4 d Quint, i, 1, 11). It was the basest of all livelihoods (Cicero, De Off. i, 42). They were the wolves and bears of human society (Stobanis, Serm. ii, 34). Uavrtg n\a>vai, TravTtc. upizaytq had become a proverb, even under an earlier regime, and it was truer than ever now (Xenoph. Comic, ap. Dicrearch. Meineke, Frag. Com. iv, 59b"). Of these subordinate officials there appear to have been two classes, both in- cluded by us under the general name publican — the apxiTeXwvai, or " chief of the publicans," of whom we have an instance in ZaccliKus ; and the ordinary publi- cans (rtXiuvai), the lowest class of servants engaged in the collection of the revenue, and of whom Levi, after- wards the apostle Matthew, is an example. The for- mer, the apxirik&vai, appear to have been managers under the publicani proper, or associations of publicans, already spoken of. They were intrusted with the su- pervision of a collecting district, and it was their duty to see that, in that district, the inferior officers were faithful, and that the various taxes were regularly gath- ered in. Their situation was thus one of much greater consequence than that of the ordinary i; publican" of the Gospels. Thev seem to have possessed a much higher VI1I.-C c c
character, and many of them became wealthy men. Zac- chseus is the only example of an ap\iTe\wi>)](; mention- ed in the New Test., and it is the ordinary reXwj/at, neither the farmers of the revenues, nor the superin- tendents whom they employed, but a still lower class of servants, who most interest us. These were not the publicani, but the portitores of the Roman empire, who derived their name from their levying the taxes known as the portoria. 'The portoria included the duties upon imported and exported goods, and upon merchandise passing through the country — one important source of the wealth of Solomon : " Resides that, he. had of the merchantmen, and of the traffic of the spice merchants" (1 Kings x, 15). They included also the tribute or head- money levied from individuals, and the various tolls which appear to have been exigible for the use of roads and bridges. They thus extended over a large number of particulars, and, however honorably and gen- tly the function of the poriitor had been discharged, it would have been impossible for him to avoid that odium which the tax-collector seldom escapes from the tax- payer. But the office, invidious enough in itself, was in the ancient world rendered still more hateful, as we have seen, by the inquisitorial proceedings and the un- scrupulous exactions of those who discharged its duties. The frightful abuses practiced in conquered provinces by the governors who were sent to rule them are well known to all; but the same system of abuse marked the whole army of officials from the highest to the lowest, only that the lowest came in contact with the great mass of the people, and that their petty interferences and severities must have been felt, under one form or another, by almost all. To such an extent, indeed, did these exactions proceed, even in the very neighborhood of Rome, that at one time the Roman government, as the only means of introducing a remedy, abolished all the import and export duties in the ports of Italy (Smith, Diet. Gr. and Pom. A ntiq. s. v. Portitores).
All this was enough to bring the class into ill-favor everywhere. In Judaea and Galilee there were special circumstances of aggravation. The employment brought out all the besetting vices of the Jewish character. The strong feeling of many Jew7s as to the absolute unlaw- fulness of paying tribute at all made matters worse. The Scribes who discussed the question (Matt, xxii, 15) for the most part answered it in the negative. The Galilaeans or Herodians, the disciples of Judas the Gau- lonite, were the most turbulent and rebellious (Acts v, 37). They thought it unlawful to pay tribute, and founded their refusal to do so on their being the people of the Lord, because a true Israelite was not permitted to acknowledge any other sovereign than < lod (Josephus, Ant. xviii, 2). The publicans were hated as the instru- ments by which the subjection of the Jews to the Roman emperor was perpetuated, and the paying of tribute was regarded as a virtual acknowledgment of his sovereign- ty. They were also noted for their imposition, rapine, and extortion, to which they were, perhaps, more espe- cially prompted by having a share in the farm of the tribute, as they were thus tempted to oppress the people with illegal exactions that they might the more speed- ily enrich themselves. Theocritus considered the bear and the lion the most cruel among the beasts of the wil- derness, and among the beasts of the city the publican and the parasite. In addition to their other faults, ac- cordingly, the publicans of the New Test, were regarded as traitors and apostates, defiled by their frequent inter- course with the heathen, willing tools of the oppressor. They were classed with sinners (Matt, ix, 11; xi, 19), witli harlots (xxi, 31, 32), with the heathen (xviii. 17 ). In Galilee they consisted probably of the least reputable members of the fisherman and peasant class. Left to themselves, men of decent lives holding aloof from them, their only friends or companions were found among those who, like themselves, were outcasts from the world's law. Scribes and people alike hated them.