19.7. The Transformation of the Middle Class
Apart from this complication arising out of peculiarities of religious history, the middle class of the citizens was undergoing a transformation similar to that of the merchants and craftsmen. When the chaotic conditions of the second half of the third century were arrested by the statesmanship and military power of Aurelian and Diocletian, the policy of compulsion was brought to bear with full weight on the well-to-do inhabitants of cities. They were mostly not only houseowners in our sense, but also owners of lands in the vicinity of the towns, although distinctions which it is somewhat difficult for us at the present time to formulate in detail were drawn between them and the possessores or landowners properly so called.
However, the bulk of the well-to-do townsmen was considered as a separate class, the curiales, out of which the actual members of city senates, the decuriones, as well as its executive officials and justices, were selected. Yet the connexion between the curiales group and the actual office-holders was so close, there were so few members of the former who had not to serve in one way or the other, that the enactments of the Codes currently confuse the two distinct terms — curiales and decuriones. This confusion of itself points to the overburdening of the middle class in the towns with service. And we find indeed that its members are compelled to take over without salary the various personal munera, or charges, of local government, to administer the town, to act as petty justices, to take part in deputations, to arrange games, to inspect public buildings, to provide fuel for baths, to superintend postal and transport service (cursus publicus), to collect rates, etc.
The most burdensome of their obligations were connected with the collection of taxes. They were chiefly responsible for assessing the town population, and out of their number were selected the inspectors of public stores (horrea) and the decemprimi, who had to collect the land tax and the tribute in kind (annona). Both heathen and Christian authors testify to the crushing burden of taxation during the fourth and fifth centuries, and the unfortunate curiales, who were made the instruments of collection under the watchful and extortionate supervision of state officials, were not only suffering from the unpopularity of their functions, but had constantly to fall back on their own resources in order to make good deficiencies and arrears. The decemprimi were primarily responsible as collectors, and when they vacated their office they had to nominate their successors and to stand security for their good behavior. Not content with this the provincial authorities commonly made the town, that is, primarily the town senate (curia), liable for deficiencies in the full sum required.
The emperors sometimes intervened to forbid such collective liability (C. Th. xi. 7, 2; C. Just. xi. 59, 16), but on other occasions they enforced it in the most sweeping manner, as for instance when Aurelian, and later on Constantine, decreed that the town senates (ordines) should be made responsible for the taxes of deserted estates, and in case they should be unable to support the burden it should be distributed among the various local districts and estates (C. Just. xi. 59, 1).
In consequence of such oppressive burdens laid on the curiales we witness the curious spectacle of widely spread attempts on the part of the citizens to escape into more privileged professions — into the clergy or the army — and even of their flight into the country, where they were were sometimes glad to work as simple coloni. The Codex Theodosianus and the Codex Justinianus are full of enactments forbidding the curiales to leave the place of their birthh, condemning them to a hereditary subjection to municipal charges (munera) in fact turning their condition into a kind of serfdom. All the sons of a curialis had to follow their father's career, they were deemed curiales from the date of their birth (C. Th. xn. 1, 122). If there was not a sufficient number of persons of this class to uphold all its obligations, owners of estates (possessores), denizens (incolae), well-to-do plebeians, were pressed into it.
The wretched townspeople were suspected of wanting to escape by flight from their onerous condition and had to apply to the governor for special leave of absence when they left the place of their birth for the sake of business or travel. If one of them wanted to change permanently his place of abode he was bound to provide a substitute or to leave a great part of his fortune to the curia. This epoch of imperial legislation does away, for fiscal and administrative purposes, with some of the fundamental principles of Roman law in its better times. A curialis, though a Roman citizen in the exercise of full civil rights, is unable freely to bequeath his fortune to another Roman citizen belonging to a different city: property passing out of the jurisdiction of one curia into that of another is charged with a heavy special payment to the former senate, and in fact remains "obnoxious" to it (C. Th. xii. 1, 107) ; a later constitution enacted that at least one-fourth of the property should remain in the hands of the original curia. If a curialis wanted to sell land or slaves employed in the cultivation of his estate he had to obtain leave from the governor of the province (C. Th. xii. 3, 1). Heiresses were much hampered in the right to marry strangers outside their late father's curia and had in such cases to relinquish one-fourth part of their property.
The climax of this legislation of servitude is reached when the emperors actually condemn people for some crime or misdemeanour to be enrolled as members of a curia: sons of veterans, e.g. who, by chopping off their fingers, had rendered themselves unfit to serve in the army, were stuck into the curia, and the same fate awaited unworthy ecclesiastics.
To obtain a deluxe leatherbound edition of COMMENTARII DE BELLO GALLICO by Julius Caesar, subscribe to Castalia History.
For questions about subscription status and billings: subs@castalialibrary.com
For questions about shipping and missing books: shipping@castaliahouse.com
