March 07 Essay Entry

[Primus Pilus]

Entry by Skarr

Skarr___Collegia.doc

Skarr___Collegia.pdf

[Mosquito]

Nice and interesting essay Skarr. You are not the only one who would like to know more about collegia's. I have also enjoyed the description of collegium in the books of Coleen McCullough "Masters of Rome".

Do you know any ancient sources which are saying somthing about it?

[M. Porcius Cato]

On the origin of some collegia, see Plutarch's life of Numa Pompilius (Num. 17). Also, the Bacchanales were discussed in Livy 39.14f.

 

According to the Oxford Classical Dictionary, "In the Ciceronian age the collegia became involved in elections and other political action; many were suppressed in 64 BC and again by Caesar, after a temporary revival by P. Clodius Pulcher." Additionally, Augusts' Lex Iulia ended rights of association and required that all clubs receive Imperial sanction, and Trajan forbade all collegia in Bithynia (Plin. Ep. 10.34). The senate, however, gave blanket approval to burial clubs in an extant senatus consultum.

 

Lintott's (1968) Violence in Republican Rome may be useful.

[Bryaxis Hecatee]

It happens that this year Professor Rapsaet of the ULB has decided to study the collegia in his seminary on ancient society and economy. This allow me to give you some more data on the subject.

 

First it must be noted that we have to distinguish between the early to middle republican, late republican, early empire and late empire collegia. While the first ones are those set up by Numa ( Plut. Numa, 17 ) and concerned a rather limited amount of people those of the late republic were another breed who did look a lot like HBO's ones, especially in the period between 75 and Augustus : the actions of Clodius organized the poors in a real army of thugs who extorted the peoples and were used to make pressure on the riches. These abuses led to ceasarean and augustean legislation on colleges which was much more restrictive.

 

The collegia grew in wealth in the first three centuries of the Empire as shown by their Scholae, meeting places, whose archeology is studied by Beate Bollman in her 2001 book on the scholae of Italy ( in german ).

 

But our main source of information is epigraphy. Only looking trough the CIL one finds many data. They show the various kinds of colleges like the territorial ones ( CIL I,2105 mentions a collegium paganorum Aventiniensis , Vorenus' college ). The legal status of the colleges is given by various texts and one may look at Asconius Contra Piso, Dio XXXVIII,13,2 and Cicero's Pro Sestius 34 as well as to CIL, VI,1872 and 4416. The Digeste also gives infomations in 3,4,1-3.

 

On the membership of the colleges and their access to slave the Digeste 47,22,3,2 is of interest as is the Lex Collegium salutare Dianae et Antinoi from Lanuvium ( CIL XIV,2112 ) which also gives us information on membership fees : 100SS and one good amphora of wine at entry and then 5 as a month.

 

CIL VIII,2557 is probably one of the best conserved collegial internal law with a detailed account of how the money of this military college will be spent while CIL VI,266 is exceptional as a verbal account of a dispute between a college of Rome and the fiscus about some taxes.

 

All this give a vivid description of thoses colleges but they are too many inscriptions for me to cite them all, I just want to give an introduction.

 

For the later periods of the Empire membership in the professional collegia becomes mandatory for all workers. We do note a decline in the building activity of scholae and one may wonder if they did not simply become a administrative division of the workers, proof of their perfect assimilation into the society which had created them in a much different context centuries before...

[M. Porcius Cato]

Very nice post Bryaxis.

[Mosquito]

Aye! Excellent work Bryaxis Hecatee!

[The Augusta]

Agreed - a very informative post. I also found this essay quite fascinating, and I really learned something from it. I have to admit that I had not gone into too much detail about collegia in the past, and was labouring under the total misapprehension that they were always religious. So, thank you Skarr, for producing a vivid snapshot on the social history - and it has certainly kindled my own interest and made me want to learn more.

[Bryaxis Hecatee]

For those who want to learn more about collegia here is some bibliography, not complete but a very good start still since it's the one given to my class by those of my colleagues who had to make a presentation on that particular subject. Note that it is in various languages : English, German, French, Italian :

 

I. Colleges :

 

- Aubert, J.-J. : Workshop managers, in Harris W.V. The inscribed economy : production and distribution in the Roman empire in the light of instrumentum domesticum, 1994 pp. 171-181

 

- Aubert, J.J., La gestion des collegia : aspects juridiques,

[Skarr]

Bryaxis - excellent sources, thank you very much for the information.

 

Augusta - thanks for your comments. I would like to also congratulate you an excellent essay, which deserved to win and was head and shoulders above most others.

[civis]

Interested in Reading this. Cant get the download though, maybe its because I am a new member.

[Primus Pilus]

Interested in Reading this. Cant get the download though, maybe its because I am a new member.

 

What sort of error are you receiving. I'm aware of no restrictions on downloading the files.

[civis]

When I read your reply I clicked on the file again to remind me of what the error said and it downloaded fine. Maybe it was a problem on my end(my internet is shaky sometimes). Thanks anyway. Good article.