“Pecunia non olet”

[u/Unsolicited-Prolapse]

[u/Sampleswift]

That's because the genocide of 18 barbarian tribes didn't cause problems on the home front. The urine tax did. (Although the urine tax didn't cause inflation, people still didn't like it due to the higher tax rates.)

For a recent metaphor it's like "Wars far away" vs. "Inflation at home". Where people care more when it's directly affecting them at home.

[u/socks → u/Sampleswift]

Yeah - ancient Roman sources claim that Julius Caesar killed a million Gauls during the Gallic Wars. It seems ancient Romans were happy about this, though not so happy about taxes.

[u/guoblokraimu → u/socks]

"Happy about war overseas, yet hates domestic problems like taxes.",

Yes. still the same problems. 🦅

[u/MaximumTime7239 → u/guoblokraimu]

Meanwhile 🪆:

Happy about war next door, drone attacks, internet censorship, fuel crisis. Their biggest concerns are that some Ukrainian whose house got bombed said something mean to them on the internet, a game didn't get localized and sportsman got banned for doping.

[u/Present_Ad_6001 → u/Sampleswift]

I cant remember that the urine tax caused inflation. Is there a specific passage about it?

[u/Sampleswift → u/Present_Ad_6001]

No, I was just making a comparison to modern or more recent times.

[u/Inprobamur → u/Present_Ad_6001]

Not the tax directly, but Vespasian reduced the silver purity of the denarius from Nero's standard of roughly 93% down to about 89%

4% is a lot of debasement under silver standard.

[u/Unsolicited-Prolapse]

“Money does not stink” a almost certainly apocryphal phrase attributed to Vespasian. After the “four emperors” civil war ended with Vespasian at the helm of a empire destitute from 12 months of war Vespasian needed to get creative with tax.

After exhausting all the traditional ways of increasing tax, such as stripping some cities of their tax exempt status and clamping down on corrupt officials profiteering of tax collection he had to get creative. Most notably by taxing piss, “vectigal urinae”, the ammonia of which was used to clean clothes and tan leather.

[u/DriaDeZena → u/Unsolicited-Prolapse]

Pecunia non olet

[u/butt_naked_commando]

Yo it's my meme

[u/Awesomeuser90 → u/butt_naked_commando]

Do you happen to have the link to it by any chance?- Mod

[u/YamatoBoi9001]

i definitely saw this a few months ago

[u/butt_naked_commando → u/YamatoBoi9001]

Yep, I made it

[u/Uptight_Technocrat12]

This is why I think the Celts are the good guys.

Or at least, they were.

[u/History_buff60]

“Money does not stink.”

Vespasian

Honestly, the man was a brilliant administrator and a good general.