The class of curials comprehended all the inhabitants of the towns, whether natives thereof, _municipes_, or settlers therein, _incolæ_, who possessed a landed property of more than twenty-five acres, _jugera_, and did not belong to any privileged class. Members of the curial class became so either by origin, or by appointment. {195} Every child of a curial was a curial also, and liable to all the charges attached to that quality. Every inhabitant who, by trade or otherwise, acquired a landed property of more than twenty-five acres, might be summoned to enter the _curia_, and could not refuse to do so. No curial could, by a voluntary act, pass into another condition. They were interdicted from dwelling in the country, entering the army, or engaging in employments which would have liberated them from municipal functions, until they had passed through every curial gradation, from that of a simple member of a _curia_ to the highest civic magistracies. Then alone they might become military men, public functionaries, and senators. The children born to them before their elevation remained curials. They were not allowed to enter the clergy except by granting the enjoyment of their property to any one who agreed to be a curial in their place, or by making a present of their possessions to the _curia_ itself. As the curials were incessantly striving to escape from their bondage, a multitude of laws were passed directing the prosecution of those who had escaped from their original condition, and succeeded in effecting their entrance furtively into the army, the clergy, public offices, or the Senate; and ordaining their restoration to the _curia_ from which they had fled. Functions And Charges Of The Curials. The following were the functions and charges of the curials thus confined, voluntarily or perforce, in the _curia_. 1. The administration of the affairs of the _municipium_, with its expenditure and revenues, either by deliberating thereon in the _curia_, or by discharging the magisterial offices of the town. In this double position, the curials were responsible not only for their individual management, but also for the necessities of the town, for which they were bound to provide out of their own resources, in case the municipal revenues were insufficient. 2. The collection of the public taxes, also under the responsibility of their private property in case of defaulters. Lands which were subject to the land-tax and had been abandoned by their possessors, were allotted to the _curia_, which was bound to pay the tax thereon until it had found some one willing to take them off its hands. If it could find no one, the tax on the abandoned land was divided amongst the other estates. {196} 3. No curial could sell the property from which he derived his qualification, without the permission of the governor of the province.