and were chosen from among the local
_decuriones_. Another evidence of the same conditions is the change which
took place in the position of the local magistracies. In the second
century these offices were still an honor for which candidates voluntarily
presented themselves, although there were unmistakable signs that in some
districts they were coming to be regarded as a burden. In the third
century the magistracies had become an obligation resting upon the local
senatorial order, and to which appointments were made by the _curia_. The
_decurionate_ also had become a burden which all who possessed a definite
census rating must assume. To assure itself of its revenues in view of the
declining prosperity of the communities the imperial government had hit
upon the expedient of making the local decurions responsible for
collecting the taxes, and consequently had been forced to make the
decurionate an obligatory status. The _curia_ and municipal magistracies
had ended by becoming unwilling cogs in the imperial financial
administration.

This loss of municipal independence was accompanied by the conversion of
the voluntary professional colleges into compulsory public service
corporations. From the opening of the principate the government had
depended largely upon private initiative for the performance of many
necessary services in connection with the provisioning of the city of
Rome, a task which became increasingly complicated when the state
undertook the distribution of oil under Septimius Severus, of bread in
place of grain and of cheap wine under Aurelian. Therefore such colleges
as the shipowners (_navicularii_), bakers (_pistores_), pork merchants
(_suarii_), wine merchants (_vinarii_), and oil merchants (_olerarii_)
received official encouragement. Their members individually assumed public
contracts and in course of time came to receive certain privileges because
it was recognized that they were performing services necessary to the
public welfare. Marcus Aurelius, Severus and Caracalla were among the
emperors who thus fostered the professional guilds. Gradually the idea
developed that these services were public duties (_munera_) to which the
several colleges were obligated, and hence Severus Alexander took the
initiative in founding new colleges until all the city trades were thus
organized. The same princeps appointed judicial representatives from each
guild and placed them under the jurisdiction of definite courts. T