339-360 CE (Superpowers)

''Receiving a stable financial situation from his father, the young Gnaeus Aurelius Agricola only needed to avoid major follies and he could be remembered as a good emperor. However, there were high expectations for the adopted Greek. Public knowledge of his publications on natural philosophy and stoicism led senators to infer he was of a similar mind to Marcus Aurelius. They were right not only in terms of Agricola's ideals but also his similar horror imperii over taking the curulean throne.''

Tax reform (339-350)
Receiving his titles of office on May 14th, Caesar Agricola began his reign by doing nothing whatsoever. A brief celebration had marked the event itself but this was followed by the dismissal of everyone who had followed the new emperor into his palace. By the following morning, the Senate received a message from the emperor ordering them to continue paying the military and buying services for maintenance and administrative purposes but to otherwise not spend any of the public funds. Failure to comply would be met with whatever was meant in the letter's vague reference to something unpleasant.

Observant magistrates would notice that meagre funds were being spent by the emperor on collecting detailed information from the provinces but no one directly interacted with Agricola for the next seven months, except his servants who brought his daily meals and cleaned his palace. Rumors spread that the horror imperii (fear of being emperor) had made the poor man snap and refuse to uphold his duties to govern. This possibility seemed even more likely when sessions of the Senate were occasionally begun only moments before receiving a message not to convene for that week.

Senators breathed a sigh of relief when each one received a letter before the new year asking them to attend an assembly where the emperor would express his intentions for the following year. The promise of Agricola's emergence from his seclusion brought many senators back from their villas, with nearly the entire Senate gathered in the Curia on the first day of the new year. The emperor's speech would change many opinions among the senators.

Agricola began with a brief comment on how he needed to see how the empire behaved without intervention before going into his plans to reform the finances of the imperial government. As his first action, Agricola removed the proportional head tax put in place by Heracleitus to procure money from the Equites and Plebs but merely lightened the head tax on the Patricians. Tariffs on foreign mercantile goods became heavier to lessen the fall in revenues from abolishing internal duties on shipping goods across the Mediterranean Sea. Over the course of one day, the emperor had reduced the revenue of the state by 33%.

When these changes were made clear, Agricola announced that there would no longer be separate treasuries for the Senate and for the imperial family. Instead, there would be one account, the Fiscus under the control of the emperor, which would be shared with the Senate by legal agreement (allowing an emperor to refuse access of the Senate to the public account). This gave an emperor tighter control over government expenditure and would allow Agricola himself to maintain a balance of spending around  95 % of revenue throughout his tenure as emperor. With these pronouncements, he dismissed the senators for the day.

Business continued as usual for the Senate over the next month. During one of the first assemblies of February, the Senate was met once again with their emperor. He gave a brief speech outlining his view of the flaws in the present tax farming practices of the government and how they reflected an age when the provinces were mere military subjects of Rome. Now, he said, they were civil subjects and while this did not imply any legal privileges, they should clearly see that their taxes went to a government, not to businessmen seeking to profit by loaning money to Rome for the privilege to take money from the populace. When the Senate responded positively to his words, Agricola described his overhaul of how the empire collects taxes.

First, he told the Senate that they would elect a Quaestor for each of 44 of the provinces, excepting the imperial properties of Egypt and Armenia. These magistrates would be tasked with employing the required number of people for collecting their province's direct taxes. As before, some people would pay in denarii whereas farmers would pay in grain, olive oil or whatever foodstuff could be distributed in Rome. Census data would be used to inform the decisions of a quaestor.

On this account, the Census was to be expanded to encompass the whole empire in detail. Agricola wanted a census that would provide a list of every person living within the Roman Empire and associate factors relevant to wealth with each of these people - whether a civis (citizen) or peregrinus (foreigner). Among these factors would be annual income, location, property value, profession, savings, social class, and family ties.

From the first type of data, people could be classified in income brackets, putting residents into tax groups according to their declared income. Of course, most people did not receive a monetary wage so the census was designed to accommodate different types of income. For example, in surveying a farmer, the censitoris (census-taker) would ask how much land he would devote each year to growing certain crops. These amounts would get recorded then an estimate for how much of different crops that farmer could afford to pay in taxes to Rome would be calculated by accountants for the local quaestor.

Property taxes would be determined by appraisal of the value of the property based on size and location. The data itself would be taken by the censitoris while accountants would determine the associated tax based on that data and the current tax rate. Peregrini and Patricians paid both a poll tax and an income tax whereas Equites and Plebs were exempt from the head tax. Any citizen or non-citizen who owned property paid a tax on whatever he owned. Property taxes used to pertain to the economic output of an owned plot of land but since this was now covered by the income tax, the purpose of the property tax was a means of taxing high value property and controlling the migration of people (for example, the Senate could publicize that a certain city would have no property taxes for the next decade as a way of motivating immigration). In the future, this would be heavily used to encourage colonization of newly acquired territories.

Collection for all direct monetary taxes throughout the empire started on September 1, usually lasting under a week. People were told after completing the census how they would pay their taxes. For the most part, people paying monetary taxes in a city were told to take their money to a specific bank, for collection by publicani (employees of the Senate rather than businessmen who won a contract) toward the end of the month. Anyone whose payment of taxes was not recorded at the specified location, would expect to be contacted by someone from the government who would attempt to resolve the discrepancy (either the banker neglected to record the payment or the taxpayer didn't pay his taxes) - unless the unrecorded taxes were overlooked. People living far away from banks received a visit from a publicanus who would either collect monetary taxes for a small region or collect whatever good was being payed as in-kind taxes, for immediate transport back to Rome.

Merchants or soldiers who would be away from home during tax collection could make other arrangements through the census or by arrangement at a censitorium (census office) found in most cities and port towns. Meticulous records of the locations of all citizens and taxable non-citizens were kept by the Senate. In the more wild provinces, arrangements were made with chieftains or village leaders to pay some amount of poll tax (tributum) on their people's behalf to the empire.

Indirect taxes that were collected by the government included inheritance taxes on wealth passed onto people who were not part of the immediate family of the deceased. Other indirect taxes were the portoria (customs duties) on imports and exports, including trade between provinces. Inter-provincial tariffs were abolished by Agricola but they remained a recognized sort of tax and would be implemented by future emperors, profitable as such tolls were in a pre-industrial economy. There were also indirect taxes on freeing slaves (manumission tax) and selling certain goods on an open market. Specific taxes were often levied on specific goods, sometimes with the intention of decreasing long-term demand for that good. Such indirect taxes were fixed at a specific percentage of the market value for the taxed items.

An advantage of the new tax system was the predictability of taxes for the taxpayers. After a census, a resident of the empire was guaranteed a locking of his tax bracket and property taxes until the next census. Private spending became easier to plan around the annual payment of taxes and, using the national banking system, saving money was less risky for people who knew exactly how much the government would demand. More importantly, the new system protected taxpayers and the government from collectors who would hustle people for more money or pocket some of their collection. Neither crime was feasible under the meticulous bookkeeping of the senatorial accountants working for the quaestores.

Indeed, the benefits of Agricolan taxation can be summarized as the transition from tax farming to formal tax collection. Now collectors were paid a fixed wage for the period during which they were collecting taxes then were laid off till the next tax season. Entrepreneurial merchants became discouraged from becoming publicani anymore, encouraging them to invest their money in more productive economic endeavors. The office of tax collector became one for the less ambitious of the middle-class.

Once these sweeping modifications to the empire's tax structure were completed by 340 CE, state revenue from taxes grew by a fifth and the distribution of wealth was ever so slightly more equitable from the transition to more progressive taxation. Across the empire, taxes were sufficiently low that discontent from the wealthy was barely an issue and the grumbling of the rest from the greater efficiency of collection was offset by the lowering of taxes in the previous year.

As for the new census, a large number of new censitores were employed to work at the censitoria being built across the empire. Each one would visit hundreds of homes every day, collectively covering the entire population over a period of 4-6 years at which point the cycle would begin anew. Within a few decades, the regular visits of censitores became a well-established facet of popular culture, becoming the subject of plays, novels, and jokes. Everyone also knew that the military would intervene if they refused compliance with the census, providing material for a host of awkward scenarios in comedies.

Civil engineering
With taxes being collected to his satisfaction, Agricola sought to improve other aspects of his empire. One weakness that he saw in the present system was the imbalance of wealth, motivating some of his earlier tax reform. However, he saw imbalances not only between strata of society but also across geographic boundaries. Rome flourished from the wealth of its empire but it lost by draining too much from the periphery, like a brain greedily drawing blood from its extremities to its own detriment. Since there was more than enough wealth to throw around, Agricola went about building strong commercial centers in the provinces.

Three committees were formed in 341 to plan subsidies promoting the growth of three major cities:

First on the list was Corellia, capital of Caledonia (Scotland). With a population of 170,000 citizens, Corellia was the second largest settlement of Britannia, after Londinium. Sitting within two layers of circular city walls, this city was an impressive sight for travelers viewing it from afar. From inside, however, Corellia did not match up with other urbes (cities). It had only one small amphitheater, unorganized marketplaces, and an aqueduct service that only met the necessities of its residents. As one of the only major settlements in its immediate area, Corellia had more capacity for growth than most cities, able to support local farms for export rather than draw food supplies away from other regions (despite the relative inarability of Scottish land).

An initial focus for the Decemviri Corellianus was expanding the viae and aquae feeding into the city. By 347, the roads were of an acceptable quality and access to fresh water had doubled. A third layer of walls was built 2 km from the outermost city wall and the foundations for a 418 m long circus were laid between them. Constructed from stone, this Circus Caledonis was the grandest of its kind outside the city of Rome, bringing national prestige to a relatively isolated province. People throughout the empire began to talk about the "magnificent circus of Caledonia", as one historian wrote.

Services befitting the size of Corellia were lavished upon the city. A park was excavated to open space for an expansion of the city hospital, a bakery was converted into a bank, and people were relocated from their houses around the old forum to increase its area by almost two and a half times the original size. In the middle of the forum, residents could now walk up stairs onto a terrace whose edges were lined with gardens and whose center featured a prominent fountain. The floor of this terrace was raised 4.7 m above the surrounding forum, allowing residents to look down to the markets from through the trees of its small gardens. Romans seeking a place to sell their wares were encouraged by the government to set up shop in this Forum Sullae.

Next, New Byzantium was being renovated under direction of the Decemviri Constantinus. Agricola gave explicit directions to focus on the commercial growth of the new city. Still, with no property taxes, colonization subsidies, and rumors of free plumbing direct to every home, New Byzantium easily went from 34,000 citizens to 118,000 citizens in only twelve years. The city was booming and bustling like no other.

One of the major projects in the city was to construct the national treasury building for the empire. Situated on the west side of the Augustaeum, the gigantic Aerarium had a capacity for fifty times the government revenue for the year in which it was started - around 25 billion denarii. There were separate storage rooms for raw gold and silver allowing the reserves in Rome to be transported for permanent and secure storage in the new city. By the time the Aerarium was completed in 355, the city had officially been renamed Constantinopolis, in honor of its founder.

Enough aqueducts for a population three times that of Constantinople in 350 were already built under Constantine but there were not enough roads for its size. Highways spacious enough for four carriages were built, connecting Constantinople to two of the main highways - one to Athens and another to Aquileia. Arrangements were made for Pera, fertile land across the Keras (Golden Horn), to be available for Patricians to build suburban villas where they would be free from the congestion of a city but close enough to send slaves to the markets and view the cityscape from their porches. This area would have winding roads far enough from the villas, which would be comfortably spaced to leave room for extensive public and private gardens. Some people complained that reaching the city was difficult from there, requiring their slaves to travel by ferry across the Golden Horn. The emperor sent messengers assuring them that he would remedy this situation. Sure enough, in 353, a bridge across the Keras was finished, extending from a point between the third and fourth hills of Constantinople. Agricola's Bridge (Pontum Agricolium) crossed a 403 m gap, with a central arch spanning a record 62 m across up to a height of 71 m at its keystone. This would allow ships to go farther into the planned harbours of the Golden Horn despite the presence of the bridge.



An extension to the forum was implemented, in 349, by adding another plaza accessible from the back of the Basilica Valeria. This addition was smaller than the Augustaeum but had a high concentration of other basilicae for free use by merchants and the main slave market in the city. Auctions for goods, services, and slaves could be led by an auctioneer shouting from the porch at the top of an imperial staircase at the southern end of the extension - directly opposite the Basilica Valeria. The upper landing or porch for this staircase was a popular spot for merchants to relax, whenever there were no ongoing auctions in the forum. Looking out from one of its railings gave one a perfect view of the stunning Basilica Valeria, with the new Arch of Constantine able to be seen standing behind it near the center of the Augustaeum.

By the end of the century, the population of Constantinople had risen to about 320,000 citizens with their 18,000 slaves. A small number of peregrini would visit the city for commerce but they were not permitted to own land, forcing them into rentable apartments (insulae) that are generally regarded as slum housing. Overall, Constantinople had risen to the foremost settlement in Greece, surpassing Athens and Corinthia in size and influence. Only Alexandria, Antioch, and Rome rivalled its grandeur.

Indeed, the Egyptian city of Alexandria was the subject of the third and final civil committee - the Decemviri Alexandrinus. As the locus of the grain supply to Rome, Alexandria had maintained its former supremacy that it had under Ptolemaic kings. Millions of modi of food annually passed through its ports and thousands of wealthy merchants called it their home. This city more than any other was vital to the survival of Rome.

Located on an isthmus between Lake Mareotis and the Mediterranean Sea, Alexandria had one of the largest harbors in the world, situated in the waters separating the Isle of Pharos from the rest of the city. The legendary Lighthouse of Pharos had fallen lately into disrepair, prompting the committee to renovate it and expand it to a height of 151 m. When construction finished in July of 357, Pharos Lighthouse had become the tallest structure in the world, surpassing the Great Pyramids. Its island could still be reached along a causeway called the Heptastadion which also served as an aqueduct bringing water to the fort and Temple of Isis Phariae on the southern shore of Pharos.

Workers were sent into the harbor waters to excavate the sea floor, deepening the harbor and removing dangerous sections so that ships could more easily maneuver in port. Little islands in the harbor were also flattened into the sea bed. With the extra room, docks were expanded so that dozens of more ships could simultaneously enter port. A plaza extending into the harbor was built around the Timonium, the theater on the water, so that residents could relax by the shore while listening to music and plays emanating out from the theater.

Near the navalia (docks), the Institution of the Muses (Musaeum) was once the foremost center of scholarship in the West, cementing the intellectual influence of the Ptolemaic Kingdom. Under the Roman Empire, the Musaeum had long since declined due to purges toward the end of Ptolemaic rule. Agricola sought to reestablish this library as an academic crossroads. Scholars throughout Italy and Greece were invited with generous incentives to relocate to Alexandria. About sixty specific mathematicians, poets, and philosophers were brought into the city.

Buildings on the east side of the Museaum were demolished to create space for an enclosed gardens or cloister (claustrum) where artists and poets could work in peace and quiet. This was a massive enclosure, surrounded by an 84 m long colonnade with dozens of 7.6 m tall marble Corinthian columns. Scholars traveling back to Greece brought news of the beauty of this private space, encouraging more academics to visit or work in the Musaeum. Improvements to the Musaeum generally aimed at providing a more welcoming and inspiring atmosphere for artists, poets, and philosophers. All works from the Serapeum, a religious institute for scholarship and a subset of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (Library of Alexandria), were forcibly relocated to the Musaeum as a means of further magnifying the prestige of that institution.

Surveyors working for the committee, along the harbor, noticed that some of the land along the eastern shoreline was subsiding into the harbor. The subsidence was only evident as cracks in the road and awkward sloping of some buildings but it posed a possible future risk for houses and the old Antirrhodus Palace out on the harbor. Careful digging permitted the installment of brick supports underneath sections of the palace as well as some houses in the region. Over a period of about a dozen years, the road was excavated to place a new road upon firmer foundations with their own drainage to prevent nearby subsidence.

After the founding of the Ecclesia Christiana through a national council held in the Didascalium Alexandriae, the school took off as the most celebrated theological school in the empire. A handful of Augures, who were the ultimate Christian authority on interpreting the Biblia, had permanently relocated to the Didascalium, guiding its direction and teaching students. Orthodox doctrine was unflinchingly enforced here, with final decisions from the augurs themselves.

Numerius Volusius Victor was a student at the Didascalium, taught under the augur Quintus Junius starting around 367 CE. After several years of study, Victor traveled to Syria where he learned Hebrew under the guidance of a converted Jew and spent time with local Jewish Christians. Parts of the Hebrew Gospel were translated by Victor during this time. On his way to Rome, he was ordained by Bishop Epiphanius of Cyprus, after a brief stay in Salamis. What he found in Rome shocked his fragile sensibilities. Immediately, Victor spoke out against the hedonistic lifestyles of wealthy Romans. His condemnation of the wives of several prominent Roman senators led to some adopting his ascetic practices and other vocally retaliating against him. When Eusebia, daughter of Consul Vorenus, died five months after following Victor's instructions on an ascetic lifestyle, Rome became polarized against Victor, forcing him to return to Antioch. Several women and a few male friends accompanied Victor, acting as their spiritual adviser. He brought them to Hierosolyma (Jerusalem), many resolving to spend the rest of their days there.

When his followers had learned enough, Victor sailed west to Alexandria, himself seeking to learn from other ascetics.

By the end of the century, Alexandria had reached a population of 780,000 while the citizens of Corellia number almost 270,000. These three cities had become firmer pillars of the empire, strengthening its commerce and housing its many citizens.

Demographic shifts
There were several reversals of traditional Roman demographic characteristics during the 4th century CE. Urbanization outside of Italy ramped up as citizens immigrated to other provinces and infrastructure within major cities steadily improved. The public postal service permitted reliable communication between merchants and nobles situated throughout the empire, allowing for longer distance agreements for trade to form, with some merchants disseminating general proposals for trade in a primitive form of advertising. Interested merchants in the targeted cities could respond with a deal, opening direct trade. One other major shift of this century was the explosion of Christianity within a formerly polytheistic population.

Rome's first demographic shift was the explosion of the Christian faith among its formerly polytheistic citizens. Before the Edict of Brundisium declared the state religion the religio Christiana, the Roman elite was getting involved in exercises of philosophy, not an unexpected development in a peaceful country. The ideologies which garnered the most followers were the teachings of Plotinus, that earned the name Neoplatonism, and the distinctly Roman beliefs of Stoicism.

The monistic metaphysics of these schools of thoughts was unfavorable to people's adherence to polytheistic religions though not incompatible. It merely seemed less coherent with them and required more effort to confirm the peculiar anthropomorphic form of the Roman, Egyptian and Syrian gods. On the other hand, the Christian God was technically non-human in form and of an idealistic spiritual nature. Not only did Neoplatonism strongly influence the theology of early Christians but early Christianity greatly affected Neoplatonists.

The sharing of ideas among senators and their correspondence with patricians around the empire combined with growing doubts in anthropomorphic deities and emerging desires for a monistic, rational world. As these social developments coincided with and strengthened one another, a place was carved for Christianity in the patrician order of Roman society. Over 90% of the upper classes adhered to a Christian faith by 335.

A similar shift took place in the plebeian order. By contrast with the rich patricians, the impoverished plebs were drawn to Christianity due to its endorsement of helping the poor, claims that the poor will receive paradise and the possibility of an afterlife itself that rewards those who suffered. Proselytizing in major cities brought these ideas to farmers visiting for the markets and constantly exposed these doctrines to the urban poor. Therefore, a wave of Christian believers has swept out from the cities ever since the 1st century. The enormous population of poor followers of the Christian cult was what originally brought it to the attention of patricians near the end of the 3rd century. Historians consider them the foundation of Christianity's social fortitude.

A second demographic shift felt in the empire was the gradual stagnancy of its population.

The root of slowing population growth was identical to one factor in the rise of Christianity - urbanization. Cities, crossroads for commercial activity and philosophical ideas, were also centers for the spread of diseases like smallpox, malaria and bubonic plague. Outbreaks were uncommon and tended to be merely local; not posing a threat to the empire at large in all but a few cases; but had a constant effect on population growth. Were natural factors the only thing that mattered, urban populations would have plummeted through the 3rd and 4th centuries. Their size, therefore, was necessarily bolstered by a rural exodus - one that had cities accepting the excess children of farmers so that the countryside's population did not shrink either.

Roman citizens, who had free access to galenariae, were not negatively affected by the density of illnesses in cities. As a result, the proportion of Italians and Greeks to all other populations in the Imperium Romanum got larger and larger from the 3rd to 9th centuries - buttressed by civil marriage laws and child subsidies.

By the 10th century, nearly 45% of the population was of a mixed Roman descent and 4% of pure Hellenic heritage. As other cultures like the Syrians, Numidians and Egyptians were granted citizenship by Rome, the increases in their populations started to match that of the Graeco-Roman peoples.

Later rule (351-360)
Over half of the Roman Empire was governed as imperial provinces, with legatus Augusti administering the territory in the Caesar's name. The other third or so were proconsular provinces, controlled by a proconsul elected by the Senate. It was advantageous to place imperial provinces along the empire's borders as they could be equipped with greater numbers of legions, ancient emperors setting a precedent of not trusting senatorial magistrates with control of large armies. A province would remain imperial until the likelihood of rebellion was insignificant enough to relocate its legions to less stable provinces.

No provinces had been converted into proconsular ones since Lycia et Pamphylia in 227 CE but many imperial ones had long since been relieved of their legions. Past emperors, it seems, were simply reluctant to relinquish control to the Senate. Agricola, however, wasn't one of these rulers.

Enjoying the stability of the new tax system but wishing to have more thoroughly proven individuals placed at the helms of many of the provinces - as the Senate was statistically more likely to appoint reliable magistrates than future emperors - Agricola began handing over imperial provinces to the administration of the Senate.

First to be dropped was Lugdunensis in March 350, followed shortly by Alpes Poeninae three months later. His satisfaction with their proconsular governors prompted Agricola to give the Senate control of Dalmatia (354), Galatia (354), Belgica (356), Thrace (357), Moesia Superior (358) and Pannonia Superior (359).

With the number of citizens outside Italy, there was high demand for organized courts of law to settle disputes. In Rome, criminal and civil cases were presided over by a Praetor who appointed iudices (judges) to deliberate over court precedings and make final decisions. The logical means of providing other provinces with official Roman courts was for the Senate to appoint praetores wherever demand was highest. It would be a praetor's job to organize the jurists of his given city and monitor their prowess in court, revoking the seal of the Senate from those who lacked merit as judges in the praetor's eyes.

Acting praetores were appointed in cities starting from the 352 CE execution of the lex juridica generalis Romana, operating in over a hundred of them by 379. Under Agricola, the cities Constantinople, Athens, Milan, Lugdunum, Corellia, Londinium, Antioch and Alexandria received a praetor as their judicial magistrate. Funding of private and public courts was not shifted to the government by assigning a senatorial official to administer legal proceedings but its disparate sources of financial support were kept for now. What is most commendable about what Agricola did was he set a precedent for future emperors, an implication that Roman law would grow to encompass a universal audience through uniform enforcement across the empire. They had almost no choice but to continue expanding the jurisdiction of a centralized Roman law.

Along the limites, two of the accepted Germanic nations - the Iazyges and Roxolani - had become intolerable to the Senate. Settling within Dacia long before it came under the Romans, these peoples were kept along the border after a final round of being subjugated during the Marcomannic Wars of Marcus Aurelius. At the time of Constantine, they numbered 890,000 and 554,000 respectively. A sense of entitlement to living under Roman rule developed to the point that demands were sent to relieve the poll tax on them in 331, 335, 342 and 345, often in unison with one another as added pressure on the Senate.

Their requests, steadily turning into demands, continued to get ignored in Rome. Therefore, the Iazyges and Roxolani rebelled together on opposite sides of the province of Dacia, trapping it in a colossal pincer. Legionaries were accustomed to forcing Germans into line but it was a long time since a combined force was at the empire's borders, causing the legions to bungle initial engagements from 350 to 351.

Regaining their senses, the three Dacian legions were fortunately reinforced by the Norican legions under Sextus Heliodorus Oneras, Rome's most distinguished commander in these peaceful times. When a counterattack could be mounted in late-351, the Germans could no longer dominate their foe on the battlefield. The Iazygean front was the first to collapse in February 352. Local tribes were forced to march for hundreds of miles in freezing conditions, killing tens of thousands, until they crossed the Tisia river.

The Germanic armies in shambles, Rome was able to mop up the remaining troops at its leisure before expelling the Roxolani past the Porata river in a similar manner as the Iazyges.

Heliodorus, with strict orders from Caesar, had strengthened Rome's borders across natural boundaries, those rivers mentioned earlier chosen as barriers. Constructing temporary palisades to restrict passive re-entry into an expanded Dacia and Moesia Inferior, the legions were ordered to assist in building a new Vallum Alutanum along the rivers for defending the new limes. Although workers arrived immediately after the army conquered the land, the 973 km wall was not completed until 360, a month before Agricola's death.

When Agricola fell to malaria on March 19, 360, the empire had strong borders again. With the expulsion of the Iazyges and Roxolani, the last 'barbaric' nations were gone from the empire. The limites were officially closed for immigrants and judiciously guarded by soldiers behind stone walls. What few gaps remained were blocked by dense networks of castra (forts) and minor entrenchements of earthworks and wood.

In economic terms, Rome had stable growth, a strong currency and fair but efficient taxes. Government revenue was predictable for the Senate and unoppressive for the people but still a bountiful source of wealth; wealth that could be spent on more legions, walls, villas, roads, and all manner of public works. There was, it seemed at the time, no way for Rome to go the route of other empires. It was too large and too firmly entrenched in its own territory. Even a fracturing of the state could not dull the spirit of Roman civilization.

Statistics for the Roman Empire of 360 AD
Almost two centuries since the Point of Divergence, Rome has become a substantially different place. Secure from external threats and internally stable, its current size is more impressive than the numbers suggest.

Population: 88 million (24.8% of humans)

Area: 7,113,000 km²

GDP: 9.5 billion denarii (~$237 billion US)

Treasury: 160 million denarii (~$4.0 billion US)

Government revenue: 501 million denarii (~$12.52 billion US)

Military spending: 308 million denarii (61.5% of revenue or 3.2% of GDP)

Size of the Legions: 156,000 legionaries (30 legions), 215,108 auxiliaries and 10,000 praetorian guards

Legislature: 600 senators

State religion: 69% of citizens and 51% of free residents