If any shipman shall have obtained surreptitiously or in any other way immunity, it is our will that he be not at all admitted to plead any exemption. But also if any one possess a patrimony liable to the duties of a shipman, although he may be of higher dignity, the privileges of honor shall be of no avail to him in this matter, but let him be held to this duty either by the whole or in proportion. For it is not just that when a patrimony liable to this public duty has been excused all should not bear the common burden in proportion to ability.
(c) Codex Theodosianus, XIV, 4, 1; A. D. 334.
Because the guild of swineherds has fallen off to but few, we command that they plead in the presence of the Roman people, for the defence should be made to them for whom the burden was established.… Therefore let them know that the personal property of the swineherds is liable to public burdens and let them choose one of two courses: either let them retain the property which is liable to the functions of swineherd, and let themselves be held to the duty of swineherd, or let them name some suitable person whom they will, who shall satisfy the same requirement. For we suffer no one to be exempt from the obligation of this thing, but whether they [pg 280] have advanced in honors, or by some fraud have escaped, we command that they be brought back and the same thing performed, the Roman people being present and witnessing, and we are to be consulted, that we may take note of those who make use of these shifts; as for further avoidance of public duties, it is by no means to be granted any, but he who shall have been able to escape shall run danger of his safety, the privilege having been taken away from him.
(d) Codex Theodosianus, XII, 1, 11; A. D. 325.
The following laws illustrate the attempts of the curiales to escape their burdens.
Because some have forsaken the curiæ and have fled to the camps of the soldiery, we prescribe that all who shall be found not yet indebted to the chief centurion, are to be dismissed from the soldiery and returned to the same curiæ; those only are to remain among the soldiery who are retained on account of the necessities of the place or the troop.
(e) Codex Theodosianus, XII, 1, 12; A. D. 325.
If any one belongs in a larger or smaller town and desiring to avoid the same, betakes himself to another for the sake of dwelling there, and shall have attempted to make petitions concerning this or shall have relied upon any sort of fraud that he may escape the birth from his own city, let him bear the burden of the decurionate of both cities, of one because it was his choice, of the other because of his birth.