Roman lease payment

This scene depicts payments of the rent or the tithe, which the rural tenant farmers had to pay to the inhabitants of Treveri. The tenants liable to pay taxes can be identified by their hooded jackets, which were customary for the time. Their sorrowful gestures distinguish them clearly from the beardless Roman civil servants. The tax collectors are counting the money which is immediately checked for authenticity. In the middle of the relief you can see a civil servant returning a coin to an almost bald man; seemingly because it doesn’t meet the Roman’s demand.

The fragment counts among the many relief stones from the 2nd to 4th century AD - originally designed as Roman tombstones - which were installed in the basement of the castle at Neumagen-Drohn and rediscovered during excavations in the late 19th century.