Ancient people also complained about exorbitant taxes

Today's Zaman ^ | 11 Aug 2009 | TZ

[BGHater]

Inscriptions revealing complaints about high taxes from 1,700 years ago have been found during the excavation of the ancient city of Rhodiapolis in Antalya's Kumluca district.

The excavation was started by Professor Nevzat Çevik, head of the archaeology department in Akdeniz University's faculty of science and literature, and led this year by Assistant Professor İsa Kızgut. Kızgut told the Anatolia news agency that they made interesting discoveries concerning the social life of the people of Rhodiapolis. Noting that one of the most interesting discoveries was an inscription, Kızgut said: “In addition to many historical artifacts, we uncovered some relics concerning the social life of the people during the excavation of the ancient city of Rhodiapolis. The most interesting among these relics was a tablet written by a messenger describing that the public was complaining of high taxes, that he was sent to the emperor to request a discount and that he was promised that taxes would be lowered. We have an inscription written on a stone and erected as a stele in the agora. When we consider that people wanted sales tax and income tax rates to be lowered, we can infer that toward the A.D. third century the people of Rhodiapolis could not pay their taxes.”

Noting that the people of Rhodiapolis wanted Roman Emperor Septimius Severus to lower taxes, Kızgut said: “The emperor gave the green light and promised the messenger that taxes would be lowered. Upon his return to Rhodiapolis, the messenger informed the leader with great joy, and in honor of the messenger, an inscribed stele was erected in the agora.”

Kızgut said his excavation team had found a tablet written stating that the public was complaining of high taxes.

[Nikas777]

It is interesting that this appears to be one of the many Greek cities in Anatolia. So a Muslim is willing to look at non-Islamic society? The Turks like to refer to such cities as "Roman" because it obscures the Greek origins.

[eleni121]

They also use Ionians this and Ionians that—forgetting to add Greek at the end.

They are really contemptuous in their collective pathological amnesia.

[Nikas777]

The Turks have a pathological fear that if they admit the origins of the things around them they will then be forced to give those areas up. Remember, Turkey is at the tail end of a very long decline.