EDICT OF VIBIUS ON EXEMPTION FROM LITURGIES
   
( AD 103-107 )
 
 
( Johnson, Coleman-Norton & Bourne, Ancient Roman Statutes, Austin, 1961, pp. 166-167, n. 207 ).
 
 
      A papyrus, composed of four fragments, presents information concerning immunity from public services in respect to compulsory cultivation of land in Egypt. Of the documents in this dossier, discovered ca. 1910, which contains a letter from a high official, perhaps a prefect or an epistrategus, an extract from an edict of Gaius Vibius Maximus, prefect of Egypt, on compulsory tillage with an appendix of a list of exempted persons, and a record of a hearing, only the second is translated.
      The edict limits the privilege of exemption in the case of wealthy proprietors and harmonizes with the general development of the enforced cultivation of land in the early Empire.
 
 
ENGLISH TRANSLATION.
 
 
      Section from an edict of Gaius Vibius Maximus, prefect of Egypt.
      And of these subjoined categories those persons who own their own land shall perform compulsory public duties provided that they have a taxable estate greater in value than one talent, which has been estimated not from an unofficial declaration, but from their true wealth.
      Priests, nevertheless, shall be obligated only if they cultivate their own land.
      The following are exempted from public duties : priests of the high-ranking temples . . . maintainers of animals for transportation . . . old men, men officially recognized as sick . . . physicians . . . merchants of . . . potters, manufacturers of oil . . . fullers . . . carpenters . . . goldsmiths and whoever pay the occupation tax . . .