lawful to charge for seven hundred or eight hundred different articles comprising food, clothing, shoes, and labor of all kinds. The penalty for selling an article at a higher price than that specified in the law was death. The attempt to enforce the law led to riot and disorder and its ultimate repeal. It will be noticed that in his edict Diocletian tried to fix wages, not minimum, but maximum wages. The later empire was much concerned with the labor-question. It believed that the prosperity of the people required a proper diversification of industry, that each community should have a sufficient number of carpenters, weavers, and farmers, for instance. This end could be attained most easily by making an occupation hereditary in a family. When this point had been reached the caste system was fixed on Roman society. This final result may be seen in the _Theodosian Code_ of the fifth century, but we cannot follow all the steps by which it was reached. Apparently the state accomplished its purpose by means of the trade-guilds. Hundreds of inscriptions testify to the existence of these organizations in various parts of the Empire. Just as the central government made the _curia_, or local senate, responsible for the taxes of the municipality which it represented, so it held the guilds of carpenters or of weavers responsible for the services which they were qualified to render to the community. This obligation was first laid on the guilds of the skippers and bakers. If they allowed their trades to languish, Rome, Alexandria, and Constantinople would starve. Their occupations were the “basic industries” of antiquity. The man who was a baker or a seaman was therefore obliged to continue as a baker or seaman his life long, and his children were obliged to follow his footsteps. Gradually other trades were swept into the government’s net, until freedom in industry and commerce had disappeared.