Fiscus was the name of the personal treasury of the emperors of Rome. The word is literally translated as "basket" or "purse" and was used to describe those forms of revenue collected from the provinces (specifically the imperial provinces), which were then granted to the emperor. Its existence pointed to the division of power in the early era of the Empire between the imperial court and the Senate. In subsequent years, as the emperors assumed greater control over the finances of the Roman world, the size of the fiscus was increased. Juvenal satirized the entire treasury by writing that a turbot of great size caught in the Adriatic had to be sent to Rome as part of Domitian's fiscus.
See also
