ABSTRACT
Taxes under the later Roman Empire were a subject of passionate debate, no less so than at other times or in other cultural contexts. As in many modern discussions, the topic of fiscal justice was widely problematized by fourth-and fifth-century writers and legislators. The focus of the late Roman debate on fiscal justice however seems quite peculiar to the modern observer. There was no notion, for example, that the poor should pay proportionally less taxes than the rich or that there should be some form of fiscal recognition of services rendered to the economy, the community, or the state.
