Invasive Tax Enforcement

After the Roman victory over the First Jewish Revolt and the destruction of the Second Temple, a new punitive tax was levied on the Jews. Vespasian decreed that the annual half shekel (didrachmon) that Jews throughout the empire paid to the Temple annually, the equivalent of two Roman denarii, would go to a new fund, the fiscus iudaicus (Jewish tax). The money collected would support the rebuilding of the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol in Rome, and those Jews who failed to pay the tax would be prosecuted. In this passage, Suetonius recalls attending a hearing in which an elderly man accused of failing to pay the tax was subject to physical examination to determine whether he was Jewish. The Jewish tax is also mentioned by the Jewish historian Josephus and the Greek historian Dio Cassius.