Restructuring the Empire: The Sideros Reorganization, Part 1
Romans in the later years of Helena I/Demetrios II had not been blind to the need to improve the systems under which the Empire operated. The unprecedented power of the Ottomans under Iskandar the Great had been an immense strain with several humiliations for the Empire. Although in its own way, the war against Iskandar had been a very rough and tough training school for the even greater challenge that had been the Great Latin War. The ‘sleeping tourmai’, introduced as a way to enlarge the armies fighting against Iskandar, had been absolutely crucial to the rapid expansion of the Roman armies in the first year of the war. The quartermasters who’d help provision the host that marched to Nineveh learned from the experience and then summoned that expertise to support the even greater hosts at Thessaloniki.
But the war against Iskandar brought no satisfaction and no glory, so the accession of Andreas III had been viewed with great anticipation as a chance for a new start, to remake the world of men into a better place. He bore the name, even the birth day, of the Good Emperor. How could it be otherwise?
There had been ideas and plans, then Eparch Demetrios Sideros a major player in those ideas and plans. In just his few years on the throne of Rhomania, Andreas III saw more of it than any Basileus since the Good Emperor, and that had been part of the plan, to see the Empire as it was, not just how Constantinople saw it, so that the plans would be the right plans. But then he had died and everything had been subsumed in the war and the struggle for survival.
But now the opportunity has finally arrived and Demetrios III Sideros has no intention of wasting any time. The war indeed continues, but the pressure is off, and that is good enough for the Emperor who is now occasionally taking cannabis-laced-kaffos to ease the pain from kidney stones. Fortunately much of the preparatory work has already been done.
The first order of business, which illustrates the new order of things, is some personnel rearrangements. Former Logothete of the Drome Andronikos Sarantenos is arrested at his Pontic villa, charged with treason, given a prompt trial and even prompter decapitation by Long Knife. After all, Demetrios had merely chosen to overlook his actions if he retires; that does not constitute a pardon.
Many in the army are quite pleased by that, particularly Alexios Gabras, currently serving as Kastrophylax of Tyre, who is soon even more pleased. Megas Domestikos Nikolaios Mouzalon retires in April 1635, replaced by Theodoros Laskaris, leaving the post of Domestikos of the East vacant. Gabras is appointed in his place, serves for one day, and then retires with the pension and respect afforded to a Domestikos. His honor has been restored.
Some modern historians have been skeptical of this. He did lose Nineveh after all. But many in the army don’t feel that way. In their minds, he was guilty of Nineveh, but it was for Mashhadshar for which he was punished, and on that he was innocent. Mashhadshar had been Sarantenos’ doing. But regardless of what was deserved, these actions remove a longstanding grievance of the Roman army.
Strategos Thomas Amirales is then appointed as the new Domestikos, with orders to begin preparations for a resumption of his Mesopotamian offensive once the truce expires.
Military preparations require money and in 1635 the Roman government’s debt is an order of magnitude higher than it was at the accession of Demetrios III. The changed nature of the conflict, from survival to opportunism, allows the White Palace to discharge tens of thousands of soldiers, which helps a lot. But the discharges have to be staged since Constantinople is very concerned about ex-soldiers turning brigand. Also many of the soldiers, who were landless laborers beforehand, are being settled on now-vacant land along the Danube or in Macedonia to rebuild those areas. But they need start-up tools, seed, and animals if their farms are to have a chance at productivity. An interest-free loan bank is opened for these soldiers-turned-farmers, but the capital for that is another drain on the exchequer.
Really not helping is an economic slump. With the change of the war’s nature also comes a cratering of the demand for war materials. Work orders decrease, workers are laid off or piece work lessened, and some firms go out of business. The effects are felt everywhere, including in shipping and customs as there are less Black Sea galleons hauling ores and timber from Azov to the foundries of the Aegean. Wages are down while food prices are still high because of the disruptions caused by the setup for the Thessaloniki campaign. Grain riots are frequent throughout the spring and summer. Fortunately there is a bumper crop from Egypt as the Egyptians promptly cultivated the fields captured from the Idwaits in 1634, the effects felt the next year. Between that and imports from the S-H-V (Serbia, Hungary, Vlachia), of which Hungary contributes a surprising amount, the first fruits of the Treaty of Belgrade, help to stabilize food prices by the winter of 1635/36. But the Roman economy is still definitely slumped.
Because of the low wage-high food price situation throughout most of 1635, which is the best way to get the pre-modern equivalent of a nuclear explosion, Demetrios doesn’t do anything in regards to tax reforms that year. He doesn’t want to risk any sparks that may trigger this particular bomb.
The year 1636 is much more promising. While wages and work are still depressed, food prices are lower and stabilized, and with food consuming less of the budget, there has been some pickup in a few industries, including textiles. Thus it is 1636 that sees the beginning of the Sideros Reorganization.
It has been joked by some historians that if Theodoros IV Komnenos had been reanimated at any point between his death and 1630, it would’ve taken him only a page of notes and fifteen minutes to be up to speed with Roman administration. While there had been some changes, most had been inspired by Theodoros IV’s notes and frequently the adjustments were little more than tweaks. The only substantial change was the shift from the theme-tagma system to a standing army paid entirely in cash during the early years of Helena I Drakina.
The year 1636 sees a radical shift from the Laskarid administrative framework that was inherited by the Second Komnenid dynasty. It is by no means discarded, but the years 1636-40 see Roman administration shift from its Late Laskarid structure to its modern form. Now the joke is that Demetrios III, once he understood the concept of computers, would only need fifteen minutes and a page of notes to understand Roman administration in 2019.
The biggest change is to the tax system. As pledged, Demetrios removes his wartime tax scheme with its ‘differential taxation’ in 1636 to promptly replace it with the more developed model he’d recommended to Andreas III. He’d felt that model was too elaborate to be implemented in wartime, with too much risk of interrupting revenue streams, but that is no longer such an issue.
Roman taxpayers are divided into 4 categories, each of which is divided into four tiers based on their level of income. The categories are as follows:
Paroikoi: By the early seventeenth century, the term has expanded to cover all ‘small agricultural workers’. There are wide variations within this category, which includes tenant farmers and freeholders, landless agricultural laborers and prosperous peasant landowners with plow teams (
zeugaratos) and portfolios that may reach into non-agricultural areas. Anna Vasiloktona before the war would be an example of a high-end
zeugarata, approaching if not breaking the upper barrier of this category. This also includes fishermen and the like as they ‘farm’ the sea, mine workers as they ‘farm’ underground, and lumberjacks as they ‘farm’ the forest. Essentially, those who produce a raw material of some kind are here.
Banausoi: These are the people of the marketplace and crafts and this category includes artisans, small-scale shopkeepers and merchants, as well as most schoolteachers and low-level officials. These can vary widely from butchers to goldsmiths. While the division between the Banausoi and the next level is based on income, regarding merchants the general rule of thumb is that merchants selling retail are Banausoi and wholesale merchants are not. Those working in hospitality are here as well, including tavern, inn, and cookhouse keepers, as well as prostitutes. Transport workers, such as sailors or caravan muleteers, are also here. Essentially, those who transport materials, produce a good out of some raw material, or sell raw materials/goods on a small scale, are here.
The criterion for placement amongst the Paroikoi or Banausoi is based on the primary occupation, although the exact tier is purely based on the income. There is certainly some crossover. For example a hypothetical household may be based on a village farm-holding, making it Paroikoi, but it may do some textile work under the putting-out system. That work wouldn’t make them Banausoi but the income derived from it would affect their tier level.
There are a couple of reasons for this division based on occupation. Firstly, it seems a useful tool to support industries as needed by tax adjustments. While the tiers are based on incomes, certain specific trades will be associated with various tiers. An adjustment of Banausoi Tier IV (the highest) will affect gold and silversmiths, but is unlikely to do anything to cobblers, and definitely won’t affect peasant farmers.
It is also because of collection, considering the provisions for tax collectors (see below). The Paroikoi are overwhelmingly concentrated in the countryside, while the Banausoi are concentrated in the towns and cities.
The next two categories are the
Mesoi and
Dynatoi, the middle and upper classes respectively. While also divided into four tiers each, these are on a straightforward income placement. These also vary widely, with doctors, lawyers, university professors, wholesale merchants, major landowners, and prominent officials as examples.
The various tiers within the four categories all pay different rates, with the highest tiers paying a greater percentage than the lower, as those taxpayers are wealthier. There is some variation on this with the Paroikoi and Banausoi as there, unlike with the upper two categories, some of the tiers overlap when the categories are compared side-by-side. The Banausoi pay a slighter higher rate than the Paroikoi of comparable income.
There are a few reasons for that. Firstly, agriculture is still by far the biggest component of the Roman economy and employing the vast majority of the Roman populace. Agricultural production wasn’t promoted much during the Flowering in contrast to manufacturing because in the immediate aftermath of the Time of Trouble, feeding the reduced population of the Empire was not a difficulty.
Times have certainly changed in that regard. In 1550 the populace of the Roman heartland numbered 11.25 million. In 1630 it stood at eighteen million. Sicily’s growth is similar, going from 1.9 to 3.5 million. Egypt’s is far less impressive, going merely from 2.8 to 3.1 million, but the Great Uprising did happen during that period and the latter figure covers a smaller area, the post-Uprising Despotate. It is estimated by some historians that a Egypt that didn’t experience the Great Uprising would be past 5 million at this point.
In 1635, the Imperial heartland’s population stands at about 16.7 million, the decrease due both to war dead and the exclusion of interior Syria, controlled by the Ottomans under the terms of the Demetrian truce. Of that number, 12.3 million reside in the 6 Aegean themes, the Helladic, Macedonian, Thracian, Opsikian, Optimatic, and Thrakesian. The Chaldean has a bit over a million, the truncated Syrian theme about one million, Bulgaria a bit less, and the Anatolikon and Armeniakon between them mustering about 1.25 million.
Feeding the Aegean basin, even with imports of Scythian and Egyptian grain, is becoming more difficult, the war and particularly the preparations for the battle of Thessaloniki exacerbating matters. So there is this spur, spearheaded by the Sweet Waters of Asia complex, to diversify and improve agricultural efficiency. The lower tax rates for the Paroikoi are an inducement for that.
The Tier IV Paroikoi are an excellent exemplar of this. To be a
zeugaratos, one merely needs to a peasant landowner wealthy enough to own a full plow team of oxen (or horse equivalent, the term preexisting the use of horses for plowing). But the wealthier
zeugaratoi, those whose lands and income approach the line between Paroikoi and Mesoi like the pre-war Vasiloktonos family, can be considered a Roman economic equivalent to English yeomanry and they are described as such by English travelers.
Although they don’t have the freeholdings comparable to those of mesoi landowners (who are identified as landed gentry by those English travelers), they still have the capital to invest in improvements and to diversify and improve their holdings, since they already have experience in growing for the market. Aside from cereals, they often produce wine, olive oil, fruit, cheese, butter, and silk for sale at the local trade fair, unlike a poorer family living on the margins of subsistence.
At the same time, they are also generally less difficult about taxpaying than the dynatoi, and often have a more business-like attitude than some of the dynatoi, especially some of the older families. Used to wealth, they spend it lavishly and often frivolously, in a manner often criticized as reminiscent of Latin nobility.
Secondly, while the Roman Empire is a money economy, out in the countryside where the bulk of the populace and Paroikoi live, it is often a mixed economy with both money and barter playing a big role in transactions. Paroikoi in general have a harder time getting the high-value currency that is needed for paying taxes in contrast to the town and city dwelling Banausoi. The lower rate acknowledges that.
Village-dwelling Banausoi can be hurt by this, but the village blacksmith would be a low-tier anyway. Most artisanal work in the smaller villages is done on the side by Paroikoi families anyway, with the goal of personal use rather than selling on the market. Villages that support full-time artisans that would be categorized as Banausoi probably have a market, meaning that the area is more monetized than a smaller village off the beaten track.
Tax collectors for the new system have four levels, corresponding to the Paroikoi, Banausoi, Mesoi, and Dynatoi, with the higher-level collectors considered higher in rank and paid more. This is an anti-corruption effort, as obviously dynatoi would have an easier time bribing a tax collector than a Paroikos. The penalties for corruption also go up as an official advances in level.
This is also an effort to reduce tax fraud. Instead of being responsible for collecting taxes for everyone in a certain area, the Dynatoi-level collector is only focused on the few dynatoi in his region. So he can make sure they’re paying their proper dues since he isn’t examining the various peasant villages; that is the task of his junior Paroikoi-level colleagues. This does lead to the possibility of some tax fraud squeaking through on the Paroikoi level as the collectors there are covering more people. But providing the dynatoi pay their dues, that is no issue for the exchequer.
The Kephalate of Skammandros provides a good example of the system in action. The Kephalate, situated in the upper left corner of Anatolia, is a small but prosperous district of the Opsikian theme. Its biggest town is the port of Abydos, a common stop for vessels entering or exiting the Hellespont. Throughout its territory are several smaller towns and large villages, plus smaller villages in between the bigger settlements. The Kephalate as a whole has about 75000 inhabitants.
The Banausoi and Mesoi level collectors are stationed in Abydos and the smaller towns and large villages with enough of their category’s population to justify their presence. While the Abydos-stationed ones concentrate on the taxpayers in the towns, their counterparts in the smaller settlements may cover a few adjacent towns/villages. The Paroikoi-level collectors meanwhile cover the countryside in their assigned areas.
Oftentimes if there are a few artisans that are categorized as Banausoi but live in an area removed from Banausoi-concentrations, those artisans for tax gathering purposes get assigned to the Paroikoi-level collectors covering the region in question. The dynatoi-level collector also covers the town and countryside, depending on where the dynatoi are located, since they could be industrial magnates, large-scale merchants, or major landowners. Sometimes if a poorer kephalate doesn’t have much in the way of mesoi or dynatoi, the mesoi and dynatoi-level collectors may have a couple of kephalates as their ‘territory’.
The taxes under the tier system that are collected are the income and the head tax, the rates of which vary depending on the category and tier of the taxpayer. Other taxes, such as import/export duties, inheritance taxes, and various consumption taxes such as those on wine, paper, silks, carriages, etc. are unaffected and collected in their regular manner.
The sixteen-tier system is still the basis of the Roman tax system today, although it’s been changed so that the tiers are now all stacked by income, rather than with occupation affecting the categories. The setup for the tax collectors is also the same, with the tiers grouped in four categories which retain the old names, and the collectors focusing only on the tiers in their category.
In the Main Hall of the Office of the Treasury today, there are two large portraits of Emperors, the only representations of Roman Emperors in the building save for a portrait of the current reigning monarch. They are Theodoros IV Komnenos and Demetrios III Sideros.