In the world of the Roman Empire, some social organizations dating from an earlier period slowly began to lose their significance, while new ones appeared. The fulai in the Greek cities, for instance, were not formally abolished, but being organizations of the citizen community in a period in which that community had lost much of its political significance, they became largely devoid of meaning. Institutions such as the Greek efebeia had already in the Hellenistic period become “clubs” for the youth of the more well-to-do families and retained that elitist character during the empire. The same could be said of the societies of young men in the Latin-speaking cities, the so-called iuventus or collegia iuvenum, in which the sons of the elite could prepare themselves for officer posts in the army, or for a career in local politics. In general, however, during the empire, associations with an apolitical character grew in importance, a development that had already begun in the Hellenistic age. Societies of a more private nature could have various aims. A common term used was collegia, a Latin term, because in Roman law, and especially during the empire, the legal status of such societies, even those in the Greek world, was defined with some accuracy. A collegium could consist of members who shared the same profession, or it could have been founded to worship a specific deity, or its aim could solely be to provide a decent burial for its members. But apart from the stated aims, companionship and conviviality always played a major role, with common meals often the most important activity. In republican Rome, the founding of a collegium had in principle been free; its members could devise their own rules as long as no laws were infringed. Gradually, however, the government intensified its supervision, and the senate assumed the authority to dissolve collegia that it deemed a threat to public order. For the same reason, Julius Caesar and the first emperors ruled that in order to start a collegium, the formal permission of the senate had to be acquired in advance. That permission was as a rule given, certainly for collegia of the tenuiores or “little men,” but one imperial order or senatorial decree was enough to dissolve an “illegal” association. At the same time, during the empire the government increasingly granted
Antiquity: Greeks andRomans in Context, First Edition. Frederick G. Naerebout and HenkW. Singor. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2014 byJohn Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Various collegia a semi-official status and began to employ their members for various public tasks in the cities. The later trend of making certain professions compulsory was linked to that development.
World History
