“The middle classes had been the mainstay of municipal life (…) now they too were weakened by economic decline and fiscal exploitation. Every property owner was subject to rising taxes to support an expanding bureaucracy whose chief function was the collection of taxes. Corruption consumed much of the taxes paid; a thousand laws sought to discourage, detect, or punish the malversation of governmental revenue or property. Many collectors over-taxed the simple, and kept the change; in recompense they might erase the tax burdens of the rich for a consideration.”
—Socrates of Constantinople, Ecclesiastical History, c. 439CE