Taxation

It is evident from various records that there was a regular system of taxation, and that in old days even as now the people only paid under protest. There is no evidence of a poll tax even as late as the time of the early Ptolemies. But when at regular intervals several times a year the tax-collector came, each village would be a scene of distre and uproar until each debtor had paid up his due, probably only induced to do so by the stick. In Ptolemaic times there was an elaborate and crushing system of taxation, the injustice arising probably from the fact that the collection of the taxes was farmed out. Ptolemy V. instituted a five per cent. tax on all sales.