Thus, even during the most brilliant periods, the numerous free persons in the cities became more and more impoverished, and lived by _panem et circenses_, as in Rome. Under this deceitful glitter, the disease slowly undermined the prosperity of the cities, and the first shock revealed the terrible reality. Soon fiscal rapacity seized hold of every thing both in the Italian and Italianized cities. Not only the poorer classes but even the wealthy began to feel it. One after another the cities lost their domains and their treasure, and thus lost the means to sustain their internal administration. With the growing imperial rapacity increased also the danger and the difficulties of public office, as the _decurions_ and other officials were responsible to the imperial treasury for all the taxes and imposts levied upon the city. The rich men, patrons, etc., now used extensively their right of exemption from office, and excused themselves from public service in proportion as the fiscal pressure increased, and as they found it more lucrative to profit from general calamities than to attempt to avert them. Besides, taxes for the central exchequer were to be imposed and levied as well as taxes for the local administration of the cities. All this finally almost entirely crushed the impoverished burghers, and in the second century large numbers of burghers were inscribed in the _curia_. First the poorer shopkeepers, artisans, and small property holders, and then almost all the _viles_, with the exception of the _infames_--that is, those who at any time had undergone any infamous condemnation--became _curiales_. Taxes on lands, houses, and slaves, and also on persons (_per capita_), increased almost daily, and were imposed under various guises and new names. All handicraftsmen, tradesmen, and merchants, had to pay special taxes, and the poorest plebeian had to pay a _capitatio_ or _illatio_. When the cities had thus been reduced to poverty, and were obliged to tax themselves heavily to sustain their existence, the severest of all labor was to be a city official, and every one tried to avoid public honors, as even to be a _curialis_ was considered a heavy calamity. The surplus of the poor free population, no longer supported by the magistrates or _decuriones_, abandoned the cities and became colonists on the imperial domains, on the remaining city domains, or on private lands; and there sank deeper and deeper into the mire of slavery. Soon the _curiales_ began to follow the plebeians, in order to escape from their privileges and dignities. With this, however, an imperial edict interfered, and small proprietors, curiales, etc., were prohibited from selling their property. The eventual acquirer of such property was made _ipso facto_ curial, and responsible for both past and current taxes, and the other exactions and servitudes imposed. The law put various other impediments on the personal liberty of poor but