icum_ 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