How the ancient government used to collect taxes from people in times where there was no national identify card policies to track them?

Question

I’m not sure why this came into my mind or how the tax collection system works in different countries or even if the national identify card policy is a thing in this case but I’m just curious to know.

In: Economics

Answer 1

In Ancient Rome, there were tax farmers. They were given no pay contracts to collect taxes in a region and told to collect an amount, let’s say 1000 bucks. He goes around annually and says I’m collecting Caesar’s taxes based on what he thinks people should pay. If he collects 1500 bucks he gets to keep the 500. It had its pros and cons but most tax farmers were hated but came up with the money. The disciple Matthew was a tax farmer.