The rapacious ministers of Constantius had exhausted the wealth of Gaul, by exacting twenty-five pieces of gold for the annual tribute of every head.

The humane policy of his successor reduced the capitation to seven pieces.

[179] A moderate proportion between these opposite extremes of extraordinary oppression and of transient indulgence, may therefore be fixed at sixteen pieces of gold, or about nine pounds sterling, the common standard, perhaps, of the impositions of Gaul.

[180] But this calculation, or rather, indeed, the facts from whence it is deduced, cannot fail of suggesting two difficulties to a thinking mind, who will be at once surprised by the equality, and by the enormity, of the capitation.

An attempt to explain them may perhaps reflect some light on the interesting subject of the finances of the declining empire.
[Footnote 178: Godefroy (Cod.Theod.tom.vi.p.