Editing Poll tax (section)

==Roman Empire==
{{See also|List of Roman taxes}}
The [[ancient Romans]] imposed a ''tributum capitis'' (poll tax) as one of the principal direct taxes on the peoples of the Roman provinces (''Digest'' 50, tit.15). In the Republican period, poll taxes were principally collected by private [[Tax farming|tax farmers]] (''[[publican]]i''), but from the time of Emperor [[Augustus]], the collections were gradually transferred to magistrates and the senates of provincial cities. The Roman [[census]] was conducted periodically in the provinces to draw up and update the poll tax register.

The Roman poll tax fell principally on Roman subjects in the provinces, but not on Roman citizens. Towns in the provinces who possessed the ''Jus Italicum'' (enjoying the "privileges of Italy") were exempted from the poll tax. The 212 edict of Emperor [[Caracalla]] (which formally conferred Roman citizenship on all residents of Roman provinces) did not, however, exempt them from the poll tax.

The Roman poll tax was deeply resented—[[Tertullian]] bewailed the poll tax as a "badge of slavery"—and it provoked numerous revolts in the provinces.{{Citation needed|date=March 2023}}
Perhaps most famous is the [[First Jewish Revolt|Zealot revolt]] in [[Judaea]] of 66 AD. After the [[destruction of the temple]] in 70 AD, the Emperor [[Vespasian]] imposed an extra poll tax on Jews throughout the empire, the ''[[Fiscus Judaicus|fiscus judaicus]]'', of two [[denarius|denarii]] each.