- Tribute was the Annual Payment to Rome from the Roman Provinces.
- Tribute is from the Latin ‘Tributum’ meaning ‘Wealth’. Tributum was the Tax on the Provinces of the Roman Empire.
The Roman Empire (27BCE-476 CE)
- The Receipt of Tribute was the Annual Payment from the Roman Provinces or Roman Client Kingdom, which was paid either in Money (Gold or Silver), Goods (Grain) or Services (Regiments for the Roman Army).
- A Roman Client Kingdom or Vassal State would also pay Tribute to Rome to show submission. This might be in the form of sending an Army or a Fleet or in sending Grain, instead of monetary payments.
- Some Tribes, such as the Batavi were exempt from paying ‘Tributum’. Instead, they provided one Ala and eight Cohorts of Auxilia to the Roman Army. They also provided the Emperor’s personal bodyguard, the Germani Corpore Custodes.
The Eastern Roman Empire (c.300 CE onwards)
In a reversal of fortune, the Eastern Roman Empire was frequently obliged to pay Tribute to prevent invasions by the Persian Empire or the Germanic Tribes..
- The Emperor Marcian (450-457 CE) had to pay Tribute to the Huns to prevent them invading Italy.
- During the First War against the Sassanid Empire (527-532 CE), Belisarius was defeated at the Battle of Callinicum in 531 CE and Justinian I made a Peace Treaty with Khosrau I on 532 CE, where he was obliged to pay the Persians Tribute of 11,000 pounds (5,000 kgs) of gold.
- After the Second War against the Sassanid Empire (540-562 CE), the Fifty Years Peace was signed in 562 CE whereby the Roman Empire paid the Persians Tribute of c.500 pounds (227 kgs) of gold per annum.
- In 582 CE, Tiberius II Constantine agreed to give Sirmium to the Avars and pay them Tribute.
- By 618 CE, the Persians had captured Jerusalem, the Levant and Egypt. Heraclius contemplated moving the capital from Constantinople to Carthage in North Africa, as they were no longer receiving Grain from Egypt, and was forced to buy off the Persians with Tribute.