On the Fiscus of Justinian: To the Position of the Question

In the historiography of the Early Byzantium, the concept of “an Emperor’s fiscus” mismatches with the late ancient original. The fiscus was not a synonym for the state treasury, but it was simultaneously the funds for public purposes and private and personal resources. Emperors supported this ambiguous legal nature of fiscus, implying some specific targets of their policy. The balance varying between them between public and non-public constituents in the fiscus is called fiscal policy in its own sense. Emperor Justinian I carried out the same policy apropos the fiscus. As with some of his predecessors, he sustained the originally formed dual nature of the fiscus, consistently striving for the separation of private from public. Justinian admitted a little identification of the public function of fiscus and the state (public) treasure, but only on the level of abstract concepts. Thereby, the Emperor did demonstrate the separation of his personal and private property from the state. At the same time, the emperor’s personal property, as well as the fiscus as a whole, was a part of the nationwide resources from the point of view of Justinian I. Thus, the fiscal policy of Justinian was a continuation of the fiscal policy of Zenon and Anastasius I, but it also had a few features. They were expressed, in particular, in the use of an unusual term for Roman legislation, the “fiscus”, in a Greek way.