Il lessico della sottomissione: studi sul termine stipendiarius

Since the publication of the agile but fundamental volume of Francesco Grelle: (Stipendium vel tributum. L'imposizione fondiaria nelle dottrine giuridiche del II e III secolo, Naples 1963), the research on the subject of the distinction of taxes known by the name of stipendium and tributum, as well as of the corresponding adjectives stipendiarius and tributarius, has known renewed vigor. Nevertheless, many questions remained unresolved. More than others, the term stipendiarius has been the subject of partial investigations, often based on preconceptions that have influenced the reading and interpretation of ancient works. This volume aims to offer a complete and detailed analysis of the occurrences of the word through a comparison of all the sources - literary, epigraphic, legal and gromatic - that mention it, reconstructing, as far as possible, the semantic and metonymic evolution of the term from a diachronic point of view. It thus debunks a commonplace: the stipendiarii are not only individuals - or lands - subject to the payment of the stipendium, but are, first of all, the submissive, those who bore in the name the weight of the triumph of the Roman people.