ch influenced Hadrian to grant the same
favors to those associations of skippers which supplied Rome with food. In
the light of our present-day discussion it is interesting also to find
that Marcus Aurelius granted them the right to manumit slaves and receive
legacies--that is, he made them juridical persons. But if these
associations were to be fostered by law, in proportion as they promoted
the public welfare, it also followed logically that the state could put a
restraining hand upon them when their development failed to serve public
interests in the highest degree. Following this logical sequence, the
Emperor Claudius, in his efforts to promote a more wholesome home life, or
for some other reason not known to us, forbade the eating-houses or the
delicatessen shops to sell cooked meats or warm water. Antoninus Pius, in
his paternal care for the unions, prescribed an age test and a physical
test for those who wished to become members. Later, under the law a man
was allowed to join one guild only. Such a legal provision as this was a
natural concomitant of the concession of privileges to the unions. If the
members of these organizations were to receive special favors from the
state, the state must see to it that the rolls were not padded. It must,
in fact, have the right of final supervision of the list of members. So
long as industry flourished, and so long as the population increased, or
at least remained stationary, this oversight by the government brought no
appreciable ill results. But when financial conditions grew steadily
worse, when large tracts of land passed out of cultivation and the
population rapidly dwindled, the numbers in the trades-unions began to
decline. The public services, constantly growing heavier, which the state
required of the guilds in return for their privileges made the loss of
members still greater. This movement threatened the industrial interests
of the Empire and must be checked at all hazards. Consequently, taking
another logical step in the way of government regulation in the interests
of the public, the state forbade men to withdraw from the unions, and made
membership in a union hereditary. Henceforth the carpenter must always
remain a carpenter, the weaver a weaver, and the sons and grandsons of the
carpenter and the weaver must take up the occupation of their fathers, and
a man is bound forever to his trade as the serf is to the soil.

A Roman Politician

(Gaius Scribonius