Society in Gaul during the fourth and fifth centuries may be divided into four classes:[736] (1) the senators, (2) the curiales, (3) the common people, and (4) the slaves. The senators were exempt from municipal offices and from torture, and had a right to be tried in a special court. These privileges were hereditary, though subject to the emperor’s good pleasure, and were counterbalanced by the heavy taxes, especially the senatorial ‘aurum oblaticium’. Distinguished from this political aristocracy were the ‘curiales’ or ‘decuriones’, members of the ‘curia’ or municipal council of their town. Entry into the class was by nomination, and could not be refused by anybody who had the property qualification, and, once procured, it was hereditary. It was a most unpopular honour,[737] because it involved the collection of taxes, for which the ‘decurio’ was financially responsible. In practice it was often a ruinous position, since no effective jurisdiction was open to the collector. In the fourth century there were about one hundred decurions in each town. The plebs comprised petty landowners, tradesmen, and free artisans. Whereas under the republic slaves worked for the family, and trade was domestic, free men now worked for the State, and trade became public. Guilds had sprung up under the republic, but, whereas they were then free, the empire more and more destroyed their liberty. Augustus made them dependent on the will of the prince and the senate, and in our period we find them regarded as rendering compulsory services under the tutelage of the emperor. What is more, the Theodosian Code proves that they had become _hereditary_.[738] Finally, the slaves may be classified as domestic and rural, the latter comprising many different grades, from serfs of the soil to comparatively free labourers.