Chapter 25

The first striking point is that the object of all these associations is to maintain the worship of some _foreign_ deity, i.e. of some deity who was not one of those admitted and guaranteed by the state--the divine inhabitants of the city, as they may be called. For all these the state made provision of priests, temples, sacrifices, &c.; but for all others these necessaries had to be looked after by private individuals associated for the purpose. The state, as we see from the law of Solon quoted above, made no difficulty about the introduction of foreign worships, provided they did not infringe the law and were not morally unwholesome, and regarded these associations as having all the rights of legal corporations. So we find the cult of deities such as Sabazius, Mater Magna (see GREAT MOTHER OF THE GODS) and Attis, Adonis, Isis, Serapis, M[=e]n Tyrannos, carried on in Greek states, and especially in seaports like the Peiraeus, Rhodes, Smyrna, without protest, but almost certainly without moral benefit to the worshippers. The famous passage in Demosthenes (_de Corona_, sect. 259 foll.) shows, however, that the initiation at an early age in the rites of Sabazius did not gain credit for Aeschines in the eyes of the best men. We are not surprised to find that, in accordance with the foreign character of the cults thus maintained, the members of the associations are rarely citizens by birth, but women, freedmen, foreigners and even slaves. Thus in an inscription found by Sir C. Newton at Cnidus, which contains a mutilated list of members of a _thiasos_, one only out of twelve appears to be a Cnidian citizen, four are slaves, seven are probably foreigners. Hence we may conclude that these associations were of importance, whether for good or for evil, in organizing and encouraging the foreign population in the cities of Greece.

The next striking fact is that these associations were organized, as we shall also find them at Rome, in imitation of the constitution of the city itself. Each had its law, its assembly, its magistrates or officers (i.e. secretary, treasurer) as well as priests or priestesses, and its finance. The law regulated the conditions of admission, which involved an entrance fee and an examination ([Greek: dokimasia]) as to character; the contributions, which had to be paid by the month, and the steps to be taken to enforce payment, e.g. exclusion in case of persistent neglect of this duty; the use to be made of the revenues, such as the building or maintenance of temple or club-house, and the cost of crowns or other honours voted by the assembly to its officers. This assembly, in accordance with the law, elected its officers once a year, and these, like those of the state itself, took an oath on entering office, and gave an account of their stewardship at the end of the year. Further details on these points of internal government will be found in Foucart's work (pp. 20 foll.), chiefly derived from inscriptions of the orgeones engaged in the cult of the Mother of the Gods at the Peiraeus. The important question whether these religious associations were in any sense benefit clubs, or relieved the sick and needy, is answered by him emphatically in the negative.

As might naturally be supposed, the religious clubs increased rather than diminished in number and importance in the later periods of Greek history, and a large proportion of the inscriptions relating to them belong to the Macedonian and Roman empires. One of the most interesting, found in 1868, belongs to the 2nd century A.D., viz. that which reveals the worship of M[=e]n Tyrannos at Laurium (Foucart, pp. 119 foll.). This Phrygian deity was introduced into Attica by a Lycian slave, employed by a Roman in working the mines at Laurium. He founded the cult and the _eranos_ which was to maintain it, and seems also to have drawn up the law regulating its ritual and government. This may help us to understand the way in which similar associations of an earlier age were instituted.

_Roman._--At Rome the principle of private association was recognized very early by the state; _sodalitates_ for religious purposes are mentioned in the XII. Tables (Gaius in _Digest_, 47. 22. 4), and _collegia opificum_, or trade gilds, were believed to have been instituted by Numa, which probably means that they were regulated by the _jus divinum_ as being associated with particular worships. It is difficult to distinguish between the two words _collegium_ and _sodalitas_; but _collegium_ is the wider of the two in meaning, and may be used for associations of all kinds, public and private, while _sodalitas_ is more especially a union for the purpose of maintaining a cult. Both words indicate the permanence of the object undertaken by the association, while a _societas_ is a temporary combination without strictly permanent duties. With the _societates publicanorum_ and other contracting bodies of which money-making was the main object, we are not here concerned.

The _collegia opificum_ ascribed to Numa (Plut. _Numa_, 17) include gilds of weavers, fullers, dyers, shoemakers, doctors, teachers, painters, &c., as we learn from Ovid, _Fasti_, iii. 819 foll., where they are described as associated with the cult of Minerva, the deity of handiwork; Plutarch also mentions flute-players, who were connected with the cult of Jupiter on the Capitol, and smiths, goldsmiths, tanners, &c. It would seem that, though these gilds may not have had a religious origin as some have thought, they were from the beginning, like all early institutions, associated with some cult; and in most cases this was the cult of Minerva. In her temple on the Aventine almost all these collegia had at once their religious centre and their business headquarters. When during the Second Punic War a gild of poets was instituted, this too had its meeting-place in the same temple. The object of the gild in each case was no doubt to protect and advance the interests of the trade, but on this point we have no sufficient evidence, and can only follow the analogy of similar institutions in other countries and ages. We lose sight of them almost entirely until the age of Cicero, when they reappear in the form of political clubs (_collegia sodalicia_ or _compitalicia_) chiefly with the object of securing the election of candidates for magistracies by fair or foul means--usually the latter (see esp. Cic. _pro Plancio, passim_). These were suppressed by a _senatusconsultum_ in 64 B.C., revived by Clodius six years later, and finally abolished by Julius Caesar, as dangerous to public order. Probably the old trade gilds had been swamped in the vast and growing population of the city, and these, inferior and degraded both in personnel and objects, had taken their place. But the principle of the trade gild reasserts itself under the Empire, and is found at work in Rome and in every municipal town, attested abundantly by the evidence of inscriptions. Though the right of permitting such associations belonged to the government alone, these trade gilds were recognized by the state as being instituted "_ut necessariam operam publicis utilitatibus exhiberent_" (_Digest_, 50. 6. 6). Every kind of trade and business throughout the Empire seems to have had its _collegium_, as is shown by the inscriptions in the _Corpus_ from any Roman municipal town; and the life and work of the lower orders of the municipales are shadowed forth in these interesting survivals. The primary object was no doubt still to protect the trade; but as time went on they tended to become associations for feasting and enjoyment, and more and more to depend on the munificence of patrons elected with the object of eliciting it. Fuller information about them will be found in G. Boissier, _La Religion romaine d'Auguste aux Antonins_, ii. 286 foll., and S. Dill, _Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius_, pp. 264 foll. How far they formed a basis or example for the gilds of the early middle ages is a difficult question which cannot be answered here (see GILDS); it is, however, probable that they gradually lost their original business character, and became more and more associations for procuring the individual, lost as he was in the vast desert of the empire, some little society and enjoyment in life, and the certainty of funeral rites and a permanent memorial after death.

We may now return to the associations formed for the maintenance of cults, which were usually called _sodalitates_, though the word _collegium_ was also used for them, as in the case of the college of the Arval Brothers (q.v.). Of the ancient Sodales Titii nothing is known until they were revived by Augustus; but it seems probable that when a gens or family charged with the maintenance of a particular cult had died out, its place was supplied by a _sodalitas_ (Marquardt, _Staatsverwaltung_, iii. 134). The introduction of new cults also led to the institution of new associations; thus in 495 B.C. when the worship of Minerva was introduced, a _collegium mercatorum_ was founded to maintain it, which held its feast on the _dies natalis_ (dedication day) of the temple (Liv. ii. 27. 5); and in 387 the _ludi Capitolini_ were placed under the care of a similar association of dwellers on the Capitoline hill. In 204 B.C. when the Mater Magna was introduced from Pessinus (see GREAT MOTHER OF THE GODS) a _sodalitas_ (or _sodalitates_) was instituted which, as Cicero tells us (_de Senect._ 13. 45) used to feast together during the _ludi Megalenses_. All such associations were duly licensed by the state, which at all times was vigilant in forbidding the maintenance of any which it deemed dangerous for religious or political reasons; thus in 186 B.C. the senate, by a decree of which part is preserved (_C.I.L._ i. 43), made all combination for promoting the Bacchic religious rites strictly illegal. But legalized _sodalitates_ are frequent later; the temple of Venus Genetrix, begun by Julius and finished by Augustus, had its _collegium_ (Pliny, _N.H._ ii. 93), and _sodalitates_ were instituted for the cult of the deified emperors Augustus, Claudius, &c.

We thus arrive by a second channel at the _collegia_ of the empire. Both the history of the trade gilds and that of the religious _collegia_ or _sodalitates_ conduct us by a course of natural development to that extraordinary system of private association with which the empire was honeycombed.

As has been already said of the trade gilds, the main objects of association seem to have been to make life more enjoyable and to secure a permanent burial-place; and of these the latter was probably the primary or original one. It was a natural instinct in the classical as in the pre-classical world to wish to rest securely after death, to escape neglect and oblivion. This is not the place to explain the difficulties which the poorer classes in the Roman empire had to face in satisfying this instinct; but since the publication of the _Corpus Inscriptionum_ has made us familiar with the conditions of the life of these classes, there can be no doubt that this was always a leading motive in their passion for association. In the year A.D. 133 under Hadrian this instinct was recognized by law, i.e. by a _senatusconsultum_ which has fortunately come down to us. It was engraved at the head of their own regulations by a _collegium_ instituted for the worship of Diana and Antinous at Lanuvium, and runs thus: _"Qui stipem menstruam conferre volent in funera, in id collegium coëant, neque sub specie ejus collegii nisi semel in mense coëant conferendi causa unde defuncti sepeliantur"_ (_C.I.L._ xiv. 2112). From the _Digest_, 47. 22. 1, the _locus classicus_ on this subject, we learn that this was a general law allowing the founding of funerary associations, provided that the law against illicit _collegia_ were complied with, and it was natural that from that time onwards such _collegia_ should spring up in every direction. The inscription of Lanuvium, together with many others (for which see the works of Boissier and Dill already cited), has given us a clear idea of the constitution of these colleges. Their members were as a rule of the humblest classes of society, and often included slaves; from each was due an entrance fee and a monthly subscription, and a funeral grant was made to the heir of each member at his death in order to bury him in the burying-place of the college, or if they were too poor to construct one of their own, to secure burial in a public _columbarium_. The instinct of the Roman for organization is well illustrated in the government of these colleges. They were organized on exactly the same lines as the municipal towns of the empire; their officers were elected, usually for a year, or in the case of honorary distinctions, for life; as in a municipal town, they were called quinquennales, _curatores_, _praefecti_, &c., and quaestors superintended the finances of the association. Their place of meeting, if they were rich enough to have one, was called _schola_ and answered the purpose of a club-house; the site or the building was often given them by some rich patron, who was pleased to see his name engraved over its doorway. Here we come upon one of those defects in the society of the empire which seem gradually to have sapped the virility of the population--the desire to get others to do for you what you are unwilling or unable to do for yourself. The _patroni_ increased in number, and more and more the colleges acquired the habit of depending on their benefactions, while at the same time it would seem that the primary object of burial became subordinate to the claims of the common weal. It may also be asserted with confidence, as of the Greek clubs, that these _collegia_ rarely or never did the work of our benefit clubs, by assisting sick or infirm members; such objects at any rate do not appear in the inscriptions. The only exceptions seem to be the military _collegia_, which, though strictly forbidden as dangerous to discipline, continued to increase in number in spite of the law. The great legionary camps of the Roman province of Africa (Cagnat, _L'Armée romaine_, 457 foll.) have left us inscriptions which show not only the existence of these clubs, but the way in which their funds were spent; and it appears that they were applied to useful purposes in the life of a member as well as for his burial, e.g. to travelling expenses, or to his support after his discharge (see especially _C.I.L._ viii. 2552 foll.).

As the Roman empire became gradually impoverished and depopulated, and as the difficulty of defending its frontiers increased, these associations must have been slowly extinguished, and the living and the dead citizen alike ceased to be the object of care and contribution. The sudden invasion of Dacia by barbarians in A.D. 166 was followed by the extinction of one _collegium_ which has left a record of the fact, and probably by many others. The master of the college of Jupiter Cernenius, with the two quaestors and seven witnesses, attest the fact that the college has ceased to exist. "The accounts have been wound up, and no balance is left in the chest. For a long time no member has attended on the days fixed for meetings, and no subscriptions have been paid" (Dill, op. cit. p. 285). The record of similar extinctions in the centuries that followed, were they extant, would show us how this interesting form of crystallization, in which the well-drilled people of the empire displayed an unusual spontaneity, gradually melted away and disappeared (see further GILDS and CHARITY AND CHARITIES).

Besides the works already cited may be mentioned Mommsen, _de Collegiis et Sodaliciis_ (1843), which laid the foundation of all subsequent study of the subject; Marquardt, _Staatsverwaltung_, iii. 134 foll.; de Marchi, _Il Culto privato di Roma antica_, ii. 75 foll.; Kornemann, s.v. "Collegium" in Pauly-Wissowa, _Realencyclopädie_. (W. W. F.*)

_Modern Clubs._--The word "club," in its modern sense of an association to promote good-fellowship and social intercourse, is not very old, only becoming common in England at the time of _The Tatler_ and _The Spectator_ (1709-1712). It is doubtful whether its use originated in its meaning of a knot of people, or from the fact that the members "clubbed" together to pay the expenses of their meetings. The oldest English clubs were merely informal periodic gatherings of friends for the purpose of dining or drinking together. Thomas Occleve (temp. Henry IV.) mentions such a club called _La Court de Bone Compaignie_, of which he was a member. John Aubrey (writing in 1659) says: "We now use the word _clubbe_ for a sodality in a tavern." Of these early clubs the most famous was the Bread Street or Friday Street Club, originated by Sir Walter Raleigh, and meeting at the Mermaid Tavern. Shakespeare, Beaumont, Fletcher, Selden and Donne were among the members. Another such club was that which met at the Devil Tavern near Temple Bar; and of this Ben Jonson is supposed to have been the founder.

With the introduction of coffee-drinking in the middle of the 17th century, clubs entered on a more permanent phase. The coffee-houses of the later Stuart period are the real originals of the modern club-house. The clubs of the late 17th and early 18th century type resembled their Tudor forerunners in being oftenest associations solely for conviviality or literary coteries. But many were confessedly political, e.g. The Rota, or Coffee Club (1659), a debating society for the spread of republican ideas, broken up at the Restoration, the Calves Head Club (c. 1693) and the Green Ribbon Club (1675) (q.v.). The characteristics of all these clubs were: (1) no permanent financial bond between the members, each man's liability ending for the time being when he had paid his "score" after the meal; (2) no permanent club-house, though each clique tended to make some special coffee-house or tavern their headquarters. These coffee-house clubs soon became hotbeds of political scandal-mongering and intriguing, and in 1675 Charles II. issued a proclamation which ran, "His Majesty hath thought fit and necessary that coffee houses be (for the future) put down and suppressed," owing to the fact "that in such houses divers false, malitious and scandalous reports are devised and spread abroad to the Defamation of his Majesty's Government and to the Disturbance of Peace and Quiet of the Realm." So unpopular was this proclamation that it was almost instantly found necessary to withdraw it, and by Anne's reign the coffee-house club was a feature of England's social life.

From the 18th-century clubs two types have been evolved. (1) The social and dining clubs, permanent institutions with fixed club-house. The London coffee-house clubs in increasing their members absorbed the whole accommodation of the coffee-house or tavern where they held their meetings, and this became the club-house, often retaining the name of the original keeper, e.g. White's, Brooks's, Arthur's, Boodle's. The modern club, sometimes proprietary, i.e. owned by an individual or private syndicate, but more frequently owned by the members who delegate to a committee the management of its affairs, first reached its highest development in London, where the district of St James's has long been known as "Clubland"; but the institution has spread all over the English-speaking world. (2) Those clubs which have but occasional or periodic meetings and often possess no club-house, but exist primarily for some specific object. Such are the many purely athletic, sports and pastimes clubs, the Jockey Club, the Alpine, chess, yacht and motor clubs. Then there are literary clubs, musical and art clubs, publishing clubs; and the name of "club" has been annexed by a large group of associations which fall between the club proper and mere friendly societies, of a purely periodic and temporary nature, such as slate, goose and Christmas clubs, which are not required to be registered under the Friendly Societies Act.

Thus it is seen that the modern club has little in common with its prototypes in the 18th century. Of those which survive in London the following may be mentioned: White's, originally established in 1698 as White's Chocolate House, became the headquarters of the Tory party, but is to-day no longer political. Brooks's (1764), originally the resort of the Whigs, is no longer strictly associated with Liberalism. Boodle's (1762) had a tradition of being the resort of country gentlemen, and especially of masters of foxhounds. Arthur's (1765), originally an offshoot of White's, has always been purely social. The Cocoa Tree (1746) also survives as a social resort. Social clubs, without club-houses, are represented by the Literary Club ("The Club"), founded in 1764 by Sir Joshua Reynolds and Dr Johnson, and such recent institutions as the Johnson Club, Ye Sette of Odd Volumes (founded by Bernard Quaritch) and many others.

The number of regularly established clubs in London is now upwards of a hundred. Of these the more important, with the dates of their establishment, are: Army and Navy (1837); Athenaeum (1824), founded by Sir Walter Scott and Thomas Moore "for the association of individuals known for their scientific or literary attainments, artists of eminence in any class of the fine arts, and noblemen and gentlemen distinguished as liberal patrons of science, literature or the arts"; Bachelors' (1881); Carlton (1832), the chief Conservative club; City Carlton (1868); Conservative (1840); Constitutional (1883); Devonshire (1875); East India United Service (1849); Garrick (1831), "for the general patronage of the drama, for bringing together the supporters of the drama, and for the formation of a theatrical library with works on costume"; Guards (1813); Junior Athenaeum (1864); Junior Carlton (1864); Marlborough (1869); National Liberal (1882); Oriental (1824); Oxford and Cambridge (1830); Reform (1837), formerly the Liberal headquarters; Savage (1857); St James's (1857), diplomatic; Travellers' (1819), for which a candidate must have "travelled out of the British Islands to a distance of at least 500 m. from London in a direct line"; Turf (1868); Union (1822); United Service (1815); Wellington (1885); Windham (1828). Almost every interest, rank and profession has its club. Thus there is a Press Club, a Fly-Fishers' Club, a Gun Club, an Authors', a Farmers', a Lawyers' (the Eldon) and a Bath Club. Of the purely women's clubs the most important are the Alexandra (1884), the Empress (1897), Lyceum (1904) and Ladies' Army & Navy (1904); while the Albemarle and the Sesame have a leading place among clubs for men and women. Of political clubs having no club-house, the best known are the Cobden (Free Trade, 1866); the Eighty (Liberal, 1880) and the United (Unionist, 1886). There are clubs in all important provincial towns, and at Edinburgh the New Club (1787), and in Dublin the Kildare Street (1790), rival those of London.

The mode of election of members varies. In some clubs the committee alone have the power of choosing new members. In others the election is by ballot of the whole club, one black ball in ten ordinarily excluding. In the Athenaeum, whilst the principle of election by ballot of the whole club obtains, the duty is also cast upon the committee of annually selecting nine members who are to be "of distinguished eminence in science, literature or the arts, or for public services," and the rule makes stringent provision for the conduct of these elections. On the committee of the same club is likewise conferred power to elect without ballot princes of the blood royal, cabinet ministers, bishops, the speaker of the House of Commons, judges, &c.