trentonian7
Troubadour
As the title suggests, this post regards ancient taxation, but also state owned resources.
My curiosity arose with board games of all places, where repeatedly, while playing as a civilization, I collected resources and commodities from territories and then used these to build and expand my power.
What I'm wondering is, where did ancient governments acquire materials for building projects? Did they control access to certain resources? How frequent were non- monetary resources accepted as tax?
If I, as ruler of Rome or Carthage or Ptolemaic Egypt or Macedon, were to begin construction of a palace or city walls, etc- would I use collected tax to purchase material, would I use stone from state-owned quarries, or might I accept tax in the form of stone?
Also, when rulers accepted non- monetary taxation, what were collected resources used for?
My curiosity arose with board games of all places, where repeatedly, while playing as a civilization, I collected resources and commodities from territories and then used these to build and expand my power.
What I'm wondering is, where did ancient governments acquire materials for building projects? Did they control access to certain resources? How frequent were non- monetary resources accepted as tax?
If I, as ruler of Rome or Carthage or Ptolemaic Egypt or Macedon, were to begin construction of a palace or city walls, etc- would I use collected tax to purchase material, would I use stone from state-owned quarries, or might I accept tax in the form of stone?
Also, when rulers accepted non- monetary taxation, what were collected resources used for?