Life under accustomed conditions, though with restricted liberty, may be supportable or even pleasant, but the Byzantine subject could seldom realize the extent of his obligations or foresee to what exactions he might have to submit. He might review with satisfaction a series of admirable laws which seemed to promise him tranquillity and freedom from oppression, but experience soon taught him that it was against the interest of the authorities to administer them with equity. By an ineradicable tradition, dating from the first centuries of the expansion of the Empire, it was presumed that the control of a province offered a fair field to a placeman for enriching himself.[840] Hence the prevalence of a universal corruption and a guilty collusion between the Rector and all the lesser officials, who afforded him essential aid in his devices for despoiling the provincials.[841] While the fisc never scrupled to aggravate the prescribed imposts by superindictions,[842] its agents were insatiate in their efforts at harvesting for themselves. The tyranny of the first emperors was local and transient, but under the rule of the Byzantine princes the vitals of the whole Empire were persistently sapped. In the _adaeratio_ of the annones a value was set upon the produce far above the market price;[843] taxes paid were redemanded, and receipts in proper form repudiated because the _tabellio_ who had signed them, purposely removed, was not present to acknowledge his signature;[844] unexpected local rates were levied, to which the assent of the Decurions was forced, with the avowed object of executing public works which were never undertaken;[845] sales of property at a vile estimate were pressed on owners who dared not provoke the officials by a refusal;[846] decisions in the law courts were ruled by bribery, and suitors were overawed into not appealing against unjust judgements;[847] forfeitures of estates to the crown were proclaimed under pretence of lapse of ownership or questionable right of inheritance, and their release had to be negotiated for the payment of a sufficient ransom;[848] even special grants from the Imperial treasury for reinstatement of fortifications or other purposes were sometimes embezzled without apprehension of more serious trouble, if detected, than disgorgement.[849] In all these cases the excess extorted was appropriated by the rapacious officials. Such were the hardships inflicted systematically on the small proprietors who, if unable to pay or considered to be recalcitrant, were not seldom subjected to bodily tortures. For hours together they were suspended by the thumbs,[850] or had to undergo the application of finger-crushers or foot-racks,[851] or were beaten on the nape of the neck with cords loaded with lead.[852] Nevertheless, remainders accumulated constantly, and a remission of hopeless arrears for a decade or more was often made the instance of Imperial indulgence. But the old vouchers were habitually secreted and preserved by the collectors so that the ignorant rustics might be harassed persistently for debts which they no longer owed.[853] The existence of such frauds was patent even to the exalted perceptions of the Court; and hence Anastasius, in order to render his abolition of the chrysargyron effective, resorted to an artifice which appealed to the avarice of his financial delegates throughout the country.[854] But an emperor, however well-intentioned, could rarely attempt to lighten the burdens of even the humblest of his subjects. His immediate ministers had sold the chief posts in the provinces[855] and were under a tacit convention to shield their nominees unless in the case of some rash and flagrant delinquent who abandoned all discretion. The public good was ignored in practice; to keep the treasury full was the simple and narrow policy of the Byzantine financier, who never fostered any enlightened measure for making the Empire rich.[856] Zeno essayed to remedy the widespread evil of venality, but his effort was futile; although his constitution was re-enacted more than once and permanently adorned the statute-book.[857] According to this legislator every governor was bound to abide within his province in some public and accessible place for fifty days after the expiration of his term of office. Thus detained within the reach of his late constituents when divested of his authority, it was hoped that they would be emboldened to come forward and call him to account for his misdeeds. The reiteration of the law at no great intervals of time sufficiently proves that it was promulgated only to be disregarded.[858]