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 opif
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