[80] The dates are 747, 748, 750, 751 and 752. The amount is $20,000,000. It was in 741 (Dio, LIV, 25) that Augustus determined upon a gift in money as a substitute for the assignments of land customary up to that time. Why such payments began only in 747 is a matter of conjecture; also why they ceased after 752. Probably because the years 742-746 were occupied with the German and Pannonian wars of Tiberius and Drusus, and either there were no discharges, or else no money to spare from the expenses of war. Again in 753 troubles began in the East. [81] Only two of these occasions can be traced. Dio, LIII, 2, mentions one. He says that in 726, when it was determined to exhibit games in honor of Actium, Augustus replenished the empty treasury for that purpose. And there is a coin of c. 738 with the inscription: _Senatus populusque Romanus imperatori Cæsari quod viæ munitæ sunt ex ea pecunia quam is ad ærarium detulit._ Eckhel VI, 105. Up to 726 the treasury was in charge of the quæstors. Thence to 731 two exprætors, after that year two prætors presided over it, up to the time of Claudius. Cf. Tac. _Ann._ XIII, 29; Dio, LIII, 2 and 32; Suet. _Aug._ 36. The sum mentioned here is $7,500,000. In the Greek τρίς has evidently been omitted before χειλίας. [82] This was in 759. In 741 (Dio, LIV, 25) Augustus had fixed the term of service at twelve years for the prætorians and sixteen for the legionaries. The gift to the former upon discharge was also larger. In 758 the terms of service were lengthened to sixteen and twenty years. Cf. Dio, LV, 23. In LV, 25, Dio writes of this year 759: “Augustus contributed, in his own name and in that of Tiberius, money for that treasury which is called the military.” The sum so given was $8,500,000. Tributary states and kings also assisted. But income could not keep pace with expenses. The old tax of a twentieth on bequests, except when the heir was a very near relative, or very poor, was revived, much to the discontent of the Roman people. Cf. Dio, LV, 25. Other taxes were devised, such as that of one _per cent_ on sales. Cf. Tac. _Ann._ I, 78. On sales of slaves two _per cent_ was exacted. Cf. Dio, LV, 31.