American historian David Montgomery noted that it was not just slaves who lived hand-to-mouth in Roman Britain. Farmers also struggled to prosper, as a consequence of Imperial tax policy. The assessors took as much as a third of their income in direct and sales taxes, principally in order to defray the costs of maintaining a huge military machine.

Montgomery adds that it was not simply the rate of tax that stunted economic growth in Roman Britain, but more importantly the violence and corruption which surrounded its collection. Indeed, he claimed that the economic stagnation and social dysfunction it fostered laid the Empire open to the barbarian invasions that eventually brought Rome down.

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