Lex Portorii Provinciae Lyciae.A Preliminary Report on the Customs Inscription from Andriake of Neronian PeriodThe inscription from Andriake Spinner Mount presented in this preliminary report contains a law of Nero, regulating customs matters of the Lycian Federation.There are good reasons for assuming that it is identical with the demosionikos nomos, to which two inscriptions from Kaunos and Myra refer.The importance of this document lies in that it provides detailed information on the organization and collection of customs duties in Lycia.
The reader learns amongst other things that in the case of Lycia Rome left the collection of customs duties competely in the hands of the Koinon and received an annual lump sum of 100,000 denarii.The Koinon in turn granted the right to collect import duty to member cities, who had to make a contribution in return for this privilege.In the reign of Hadrian the contribution of Myra, for example, amounted to 7000 denari, while that of Kaunos was probably 6000 denarii.Stipulations concerning the purchase of saffron indicate that customs duties were raised also within Lycia, which clearly shows that contrary to previously held views there was no customs union within the Federation.
The text from Andriake also mentions a number of municipal and federal officials involved in the collection of customs duties.For example, goods purchased in the interior of Lycia had to be declared with the Paraphylax or with the municipal archons.The task of leasing customs duties rested with the federal archiereus and grammateus.The law is also in harmony with the reform programme of Nero, who wanted to curb the power of the tax-collection companies.
It contains four clauses which are in agreement with the Neronian edict mentioned by Tacitus for the year 58 on the raising of the vectigal tax.All of them were meant to mitigate power abuse by the publicani in the Decor collection of customs duties.