Original sentence: Its abolition was an enormous relief to the people.The measures of taxation in the reign of Augustus were determined by population census, with fixed quotas for each province
Edited sentence: Its abolition was an enormous relief to the people, and perhaps more than any other factor explains not only the Empire's great prosperity for the next two centuries, but also Augustus's great personal popularity during his lifetime.The more rapacious the tax farmer, the more he could afford to bid on the next area, and the more onerous the people's tax burdens became