By 270 a.d. Aurelian had made unionism compulsory for life so as to prevent the able men from withdrawing, to better themselves by free work individually. He also gave a wine dole, and gave bread in place of corn, to save the wastrel the trouble of baking. In the fourth century every member, and all his sons, and all his property, belonged inalienably to the trades union. By 369 a.d. all property however acquired belonged to the union.
Yet still men would leave all they had to get out of the hateful bondage, and so the unpopular trades—such as the moneyers in 380 a.d. and the bakers in 408—were recruited by requiring that everyone who married the daughter of a unionist must join his father-in-law's business. And thus "the Empire was an immense gaol where all worked not according to taste but by force," as Waltzing remarks in his great work Corporations Professionnelles, where the foregoing facts are stated.
There was but one end possible to this accumulation of move upon move, on the false basis of compulsory trade unionism, and work under cost for the proletariat. The whole system was so destructive of character and of wealth that it ruined the empire. Slavery was by no means the destruction of Rome, it flourished in the centuries when the Government was strongest, and diminished in advance of the social decay. Vice was by no means the destruction of Rome, it was worst when Rome was most powerful and was lessened in the decline. The one movement which grew steadily as Rome declined, and which was intimately connected with every stage of that decline, was the compulsion of labour and the maintenance of the wastrel as a burden on society. It was that which pulled down the greatest political organism, by the crushing of initiative and character, and by the steady drain on all forms of wealth. The free Goth was the welcome deliverer from social bondage. This growth of trade unionism has been followed here as a whole, without stopping to note other effects of the same type of mind, which are also very instructive to us. We now turn back to look at some earlier developments.
The Empire had a long age of internal peace, from the accession of Vespasian to the rise of Severus, comprising four or five generations. Men had forgotten in Italy and the provinces what war meant, as the only troubles had been frontier fighting. They ceased to value the strength of unity, and the importance of keeping the empire bound together. The sayings attributed to Gallienus in the middle of the third century cannot be looked on as merely wild vagaries, contrary to all the public opinion around him. Had no one else advocated the subdivision of the empire, he would never have continued to jest about not needing the produce of Gaul or of Syria. Such phrases must have been familiar among a little-Italy party, of whom Gallienus was the agent and mouthpiece. And such a situation will help to explain his conduct regarding the captivity of Valerian his father in Persia. A glance at old Valerian shows him to have been a rigid gentleman of the old school, like Galba or Nerva. And, when he was captured, the little-Italy party who had hold of Gallienus were relieved rather than otherwise. Had George III been captured by the French, probably George IV and Charles James Fox would not have been very anxious for his return.
The policy of the party seems to have been to encourage each province to start a separate government under its local ruler, in touch with the Roman Government, but with recognised independence. Britain was separated, and was only reunited to the empire at later times for short periods; Postumus, Victorinus, Tetricus, Carausius, Allectus, Constantius, Magnentius, Magnus Maximus, Jovinus, all ruled without any check from Italy. Syria was separated with such good will that the coinage for Zenobia was struck at the Imperial mint in Alexandria. In all, nineteen independent rulers are enumerated in this reign; and no attempt was made to reunite the provinces. There were gains in such a course; the heavy charge on Italy of keeping a great army was lessened; the risks of civil war seemed to be reduced, when each province was not tempted to set up its own ruler for the whole empire; and local feelings and variations could have free scope. It might be thought that three centuries of rule had fitted the provinces to hold their own in the world, and to be ruled independently. The result of the experiment in devolution, or home rule all round, was a time of such anarchy, misery and loss, as had not been known since a unified civilisation had existed in those lands.
After the immediate catastrophes had been somewhat rectified by succeeding emperors, Aurelian took up the great task of reuniting the whole empire. He carried this out victoriously; Tetricus from Gaul and Zenobia from Syria adorned his triumph. But Rome was bitter at such a policy. A furious rebellion broke out, nominally called the revolt of the mint; that it was a great social movement was seen by Gibbon, though he confesses that it is mysterious how three senators, most of the senatorial families, and multitudes of minor people were involved in it. The fighting was so severe that five thousand of Aurelian's trained army were killed. That the mint workmen took part in it is certain: but probably the mint was adopted as headquarters of the movement owing to its strength. All this shows that, so far from the great victories making Aurelian popular in Rome, they were most bitterly opposed. The only ground for this must be that a very strong party clung to the little-Italy policy, and hated Aurelian in consequence. This movement gives good ground for interpreting the policy of Gallienus in the way we have done above, as being a great party policy and not merely an imperial freak.
Within less than a generation later came the vast socialist decree of Diocletian, regulating all prices and wages throughout the empire. A maximum value was fixed for every kind of food—grain, wine, oil, meat, fish, vegetables and fruit. Hence such food would never be produced where the natural conditions prevented a profit within this maximum price; nor would it be transported beyond the distance within which the maximum yielded a profit. Whole districts must have been cut off from different kinds of supply by such legislation. Meanwhile the wages of labourers, of artizans, and of professions were all equally regulated, so that the best men could never have their superior ability rewarded. The prices of skins and leather, of all clothing, and of jewellery were likewise defined.
The consequence must have been that the losses in bad years of supply, owing to weather and other circumstances, must have fallen wholly on the producer, who might be ruined by the whole brunt of the loss, instead of being partly compensated by a rise in prices which taxed the whole body of users. No wonder that after such a law the whole empire plunged ever deeper into poverty and confusion. The coinage depreciated even more rapidly than before; and the economic distress of such a fixed system with a falling currency must have been overwhelming. Such were the results of one of the great socialistic attempts to remedy the course of events by artificial legislation.
We thus see how by the establishment of unionism, the feeding of paupers, the devolution of the empire, and the legislation on prices and wages, the socialistic policy brought to naught the greatest social organism that had yet appeared in the world.