“Sodalician Associations&quot;? Digests 47.22.1 pr. and Imperial Government

Andreas Bendlin

My aim in this essay is to elucidate the meaning of the phrase collegia sodalicia, which occurs only in Digests 47.22.1 pr. (= Marcian F 73a Lenel), the introductory section of the Digests’ title De collegiis et corporibus (47.22). In the first part of this essay, I outline some salient features of Marcian F 73a and briefly contextualize Marcian’s Institutes, the work of late Severan date from which Justinian’s compilers excerpted Digests 47.22.1 pr.-1.2. In the second part, I demonstrate that the purported “sodalician associations” of Digests 47.22.1 pr. never existed. That phrase originated from a textual misunderstanding, which one can trace already in the Digests, if not before. I propose that Marcian wrote collegia sodaliciaue, “collegia or sodalicia”. I then segue to some of the implications my reinterpretation of Marcian F 73a holds for the study of associations in the Roman world.

BIBLIOTHECA EPHEMERIDUM THEOLOGICARUM LOVANIENSIUM CCLxxxV SCRIBAL PRACTICES AND SOCIAL STRUCTURES AMONG jESUS ADHERENTS ESSAyS IN HONOUR Of jOHN S. KLOPPENBORG edited by william e. arnal – richard s. ascough robert a. derrenbacker, jr. – philip a. harland peeters leuVen – paris – bristol, ct 2016 TABLE Of CONTENTS Tabula GraTulaToria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi PublicaTions by John s. KloPPenborG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii William e. arnal – Richard S. ascouGh – Robert A. DerrenbacKer, Jr. – Philip a. harlanD “A Share in All Good Things”: An Introduction to a festschrift in Honour of john S. Kloppenborg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 SECTION I SCRIBALISM Karen l. KinG “What Is an Author?”: Ancient Author-function in the Apocryphon of John and the Apocalypse of john. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Giovanni b. bazzana “you Will Write Two Booklets and Send One to Clement and One to Grapte”: formal features, Circulation, and Social function of Ancient Apocalyptic Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Agnes choi Between Literacy and Illiteracy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Robert a. DerrenbacKer, Jr. Ancient Literacy, Ancient Literary Dependence, Ancient Media, and the Triple Tradition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Alan KirK The Scribe as Tradent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 Sarah e. rollens Why We Have failed to Theorize Scribes in Antiquity . . . . . . . 117 Zeba crooK Scribal Remembering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 Paul FosTer Scribes and Scribalism in Matthew’s Gospel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 VIII TABLE Of CONTENTS Daniel a. smiTh What Difference Does Difference Make? Assessing Q’s Place in Christian Origins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 Leif e. VaaGe How I Stopped Being a Q-Scholar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 Christopher TucKeTT james and Q . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233 Stephen J. PaTTerson Motion and Rest: The Platonic Origins of a Mysterious Concept 251 William e. arnal How the Gospel of Thomas Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261 Duncan reiD Gospel Openings and the Synoptic Problem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281 joseph VerheyDen Clumsy Constructions? A Note on Parataxis, with an Eye on Mark and the Alexander Romance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309 Richard Demaris Reconfiguring Rites in the fourth Gospel: A Case of Ritual Inversion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333 Dennis c. DulinG The Scribe “Discipled” for the Kingdom of the Heavens and the Θησαυρός of the Head of the Household (Matthew 13,52) 351 David b. PeaboDy john S. Kloppenborg – Scholar, Mentor, Author, Esteemed Colleague . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377 Erin K. Vearncombe On Headaches, Gospel Codices, and the Interpretation of “Literate Media” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387 SECTION II PAPyROLOGy, EPIGRAPHy, AND ASSOCIATIONS Peter arzT-Grabner Different Wages for Workers in a Vineyard: PKöln x 413 and Matthew 20,1-16 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407 TABLE Of CONTENTS Ix Alex Damm Piety in the Theatre at Ephesos and Acts 19 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419 Andreas benDlin “Sodalician Associations”? Digests 47.22.1 pr. and Imperial Government . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435 Philip a. harlanD fund-raising and Group Values in the Associations . . . . . . . . . 465 Dennis e. smiTh Revisiting Associations and Christ Groups. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 483 Richard lasT The Myth of free Membership in Pauline Christ Groups . . . . . 495 Markus Öhler Meeting at Home: Greco-Roman Associations and Pauline Communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 517 Richard s. ascouGh Reimagining the Size of Pauline Christ Groups in Light of Association Meeting Places . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 547 Alicia J. baTTen (Dis)Orderly Dress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567 ABBREVIATIONS AND INDExES abbreViaTions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 587 inDex oF ancienT WriTinGs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1. Hebrew Bible and Early jewish Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. New Testament and Early Christian Writings . . . . . . . . . . . . 3. Classical Greek and Roman Writers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4. Inscriptions and Papyri . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 591 591 594 604 609 inDex oF moDern auThors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 617 lisT oF conTribuTors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 629 “SODALICIAN ASSOCIATIONS”? DIGESTS 47.22.1 PR. AND IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT My aim in this essay is to elucidate the meaning of the phrase collegia sodalicia, which occurs only in Digests 47.22.1 pr. (= Marcian f 73a lenel), the introductory section of the Digests’ title De collegiis et corporibus (47.22). In the first part of this essay, I outline some salient features of Marcian f 73a and briefly contextualise Marcian’s Institutes, the work of late Severan date from which justinian’s compilers excerpted Digests 47.22.1 pr.-1.2. In the second part, I demonstrate that the purported “sodalician associations” of Digests 47.22.1 pr. never existed. That phrase originated from a textual misunderstanding, which one can trace already in the Digests, if not before. I propose that Marcian wrote collegia sodaliciaue, “collegia or sodalicia”. I then segue to some of the implications my reinterpretation of Marcian f 73a holds for the study of associations in the Roman world1. i. inTroDucTion The modern investigation of associations in the Roman world, an endeavour Theodor Mommsen’s dissertation De collegiis et sodaliciis Romanorum (1843) helped to initiate, nowadays avails itself of epigraphic, papyrological and archaeological data beyond what Mommsen could have imagined. These data enable scholars today to address, in more depth than was possible to Mommsen’s generation, the economic, financial, funerary, ritual, commensal and sociable dimensions of associative life. By contrast, the modern appreciation of imperial control over associations in the Roman world between the first and third centuries ce by and large draws upon the same data that were available to scholars in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Notable additions of more recent date, such as the discussion of illicit behaviour by associations in the Domitianic municipal code from Irni, have not fundamentally changed 1. I thank Mareile Haase for her helpful suggestions on an earlier draft. Philip Harland kindly read and corrected my text. All translations from Greek and Latin are my own. An early, much shorter version was presented at the 143rd Annual Meeting of the American Philological Association in Philadelphia in january 2012. 436 A. BENDLIN that picture. This relatively thin data set offers only fragmentary access to the political and legal realities of associative life. Scholars therefore have traditionally gravitated towards the Roman imperial juristic opinions, the majority of them epitomised in the Digests. They prominently comprise four passages the compilers included in Digests 47.22: a text they culled from a commentary on the Law of the XII Tables by the Antonine jurist Gaius (IV Ad legem XII tabularum f 435, 47.22.4); an excerpt from the Severan jurist Ulpian’s On the Proconsul’s Duty (VI De officio proconsulis f 2177, 47.22.2); and several lines they extracted from two works that were written by one of Ulpian’s pupils – Marcian’s On the Public Courts (II Iudiciorum publicorum f 202, 47.22.3 pr.-3.2) and his Institutes (III Institutionum f 73, 47.22.1 pr.-1.2)2. These passages have profitably guided interpretations of the epigraphic and papyrological data ever since Mommsen’s edition of the Digests (1870) and the reconstitution of the writings of the classical jurists in Otto Lenel’s Palingenesia iuris civilis (1889) provided scholars with the tools to place those texts in their historical contexts3. More recently, however, it has been suggested that these juristic writings fail to offer the key to comprehending the reach of the imperial state’s policing of associations because their legal perspective distorts the realities of Roman governance, which a growing number of scholars characterise as minimalist and reactive. Consequently, some scholars surmise that the state’s attitude towards the “associative phenomenon” in the Roman world was more “relaxed”4 – that is, considerably less interventionist and restrictive – than the imperial jurists imply. My response to this objection would be that the different data at our disposal – the “documentary” epigraphic, papyrological or archaeological material and the “normative” juristic texts – do not exist in separation from one another. Quite the contrary: these two data sets inhabit identical domains of local practice and normative discourse and therefore must be studied in aggregate because they constitute closely interrelated, if functionally autonomous, manifestations of social practice. They should also 2. fragment numbers refer to O. lenel (ed.), Palingenesia iuris civilis, Leipzig, Tauchnitz, 1889. On the compilers’ working principle, see pp. 439, 444-445 below. 3. Cf. H.H. JaKobs, Mommsen als Zivilist, in H. alTmePPen (ed.), Festschrift für Rolf Knütel zum 70. Geburtstag, Heidelberg, Müller, 2009, 451-492, pp. 452-456; D. JohnsTon, Lenel’s Palingenesia Juris Civilis: Four Questions and an Answer, in Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis 65 (1997) 57-70, pp. 57-58. 4. L. De liGT, Governmental Attitudes towards Markets and Collegia, in E. lo cascio (ed.), Mercati permanenti e mercati periodici nel mondo romano, Bari, Edipuglia, 2000, 237-252, pp. 250-252; iD., D. 47,22,1,pr.-1 and the Formation of Semi-Public Collegia, in Latomus 60 (2001) 345-358, p. 358; n. 90 below. 437 “SODALICIAN ASSOCIATIONS”? be studied together because both data sets mediate, and provide meaning to, the historical agents’ behaviour in the social field. Although the ideal type of reactive governance and its logical opposite, governmental interventionism, can cite evidentiary support, neither sufficiently addresses this fact of social life. In this dialectical perspective, imperial intervention in the life of associations may have been historically contingent, but the ideology of Roman interventionism was not, and its impact was real. My aim in this essay is considerably more circumscribed, although my conclusions engage the issues raised in the previous paragraph and invite further questions about the nature of Roman imperial government in the second and third centuries. ii. conTexTualisinG Digests 47.22.1 pr. Digests 47.22.1 pr.-1.2 consists of several lines of text justinian’s compilers excerpted from Book III of Marcian’s Institutiones. The following Latin text of Digests 47.22.1 pr. (here referred to as Marcian f 73a for convenience) reproduces that of Mommsen’s edition5: Mandatis principalibus praecipitur praesidibus prouinciarum ne patiantur esse collegia sodalicia, neue milites collegia in castris habeant. Sed permittitur tenuioribus stipem menstruam conferre, dum tamen semel in mense coeant, ne sub praetextu huius modi illicitum collegium coeat. Quod non tantum in urbe sed et in Italia et in prouinciis locum habere diuus quoque Seuerus rescripsit. Through imperial instructions it is enjoined upon those who preside over provinces not to tolerate the existence of collegia sodalicia; nor shall the military in their camps maintain collegia. However, permission is granted to people of more modest means to contribute a monthly fee, provided that they gather only once a month, lest an illicit collegium gather under the pretext of such kind6. Divus Severus too wrote in a rescript that this [rule] has its place not only in the city [of Rome] but also in Italy and in the provinces. 5. T. mommsen (ed.), Digesta seu Pandectae Iustiniani Augusti, Berlin, Weidmann, 1870, Vol. 2, pp. 792-793. Reprinted in iD. – P. KrueGer (eds.), Corpus Iuris Civilis. Vol. 1: Institutiones, Digesta, Berlin, Weidmann, 1882; in P. bonFanTe et al. (eds.), Digesta Iustiniani Augusti, Milan, formis Societatis Editrices Librariae, Vol. 2, 1931; and in A. WaTson (ed.), The Digest of Justinian, Philadelphia, PA, University of Pennsylvania Press, Vol. 4, 1985. The recent edition by O. behrenDs et al. (eds.), Corpus Iuris Civilis II: Digesten, Heidelberg, Müller, 1995ff., has yet to reach Book xLVII. 6. The medieval Vulgate tradition introduces the variant coeant (“lest they gather as an illicit collegium”), which is rightly rejected by G.C. Gebauer – G.a. sPanGenberG (eds.), Corpus Juris Civilis. Vol. 1: Institutiones, Digesta, Göttingen, Dieterich, 1776, p. 1030 n. 5. 438 A. BENDLIN Three main arguments can be identified. first, the emperors’ “instructions” (mandata, Greek ἐντολαί) – issued to provincial governors and other officials since Tiberius or Claudius, if not since Augustus7 – oblige all office-holders (praesides, Greek ἡγεμόνες) in the provinces8 not to tolerate – in other words, to prohibit, if necessary – certain associations. These the text identifies as “collegia sodalicia”. The next clause furnishes the corollary prohibition of collegia in the military realm. Third, the tenuiores, “people of more modest means”, may hold organised meetings once every month in order to make regular contributions to a common fund. for this purpose alone they must not gather more often; otherwise their gatherings count as illicit9. It is only this third clause that Septimius Severus, responding to an inquiry about the geographical scope of existing practice, confirmed to apply across the Empire10; the first two clauses pertain exclusively to the governor’s mandate on provincial soil. This is one salient reason Marcian’s tenuiores must be unrelated to the military addressed in the second clause11. As this brief analysis shows, the relation between the three clauses is anything but straightforward. The first regulation requires the governor to prohibit “sodalician associations” in his province, whereas the second regulation calls for the interdiction of collegia in military camps. The third regulation, by contrast, grants to some individuals the privilege of 7. G.P. burTon, The Issuing of Mandata to Proconsuls and a New Inscription from Cos, in ZPE 21 (1976) 63-68; V. maroTTa, Mandata principum, Turin, Giappichelli, 1991, pp. 69-96; E. meyer-zWiFFelhoFFer, Politikōs archein: Zum Regierungsstil der senatorischen Statthalter in den kaiserzeitlichen griechischen Provinzen (Historia Einzelschriften, 165), Stuttgart, Steiner, 2002, pp. 278-286, 338-342; A. bérenGer, Le métier de gouverneur dans l’empire romain de César à Dioclétien (De l’archéologie à l’histoire, 62), Paris, De Boccard, 2014, pp. 82-101; A. Dalla rosa, Cura et tutela: Le origini del potere imperiale sulle province proconsolari (Historia Einzelschriften, 227), Stuttgart, Steiner, 2014, pp. 146-168, 293-295. Of course, the practice originated with the issuing of mandata senatus to Republican office-holders in the provinces. 8. G. raDKe, Praeses, in RE Suppl. VIII (1956) 598-614; D. manToVani, Il “bonus praeses” secondo Ulpiano: Studi su contenuto e forma del “De officio proconsulis” di Ulpiano, in Bullettino dell’Istituto di Diritto Romano 96-97 (1993-94) 203-267, pp. 217235; D. Faoro, Praefectus, procurator, praeses: genesi delle cariche presidiali equestri dell’alto impero romano (Studi udinesi sul mondo antico, 8), florence, Mondadori, 2011, pp. 165-183. 9. A. benDlin, Associations, Funerals, Sociality, and Roman Law: The Collegium of Diana and Antinous in Lanuvium (CIL 14.2112) Reconsidered, in M. Öhler (ed.), Aposteldekret und antikes Vereinswesen: Gemeinschaft und ihre Ordnung (WUNT, 280), Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2011, 207-296, p. 240. 10. M.C. cohn, Zum römischen Vereinsrecht: Abhandlungen aus der Rechtsgeschichte, Berlin, Weidmann, 1873, pp. 105-107. 11. Ibid., pp. 108-109, followed by many since, identified the tenuiores, erroneously, as the more indigent members of the military. Contra: T. schiess, Die römischen Collegia funeraticia nach den Inschriften, München, Ackermann, 1888, pp. 4-5. “SODALICIAN ASSOCIATIONS”? 439 licit association, although it simultaneously places restrictions on their modus operandi. The editorial linking word sed, which introduces this third regulation, betrays the entire passage’s composite character12: in Digests 47.22.1 pr.-1.2 the words sed (22.1 pr. and 22.1.1) and autem (22.1.2) link four passages the compilers extracted from the Third Book of Marcian’s Institutes. This highlights the justinianic committee’s working principle of excerpting and juxtaposing thematically correlated yet functionally diverse regulations. This hybridity extends to the passage’s source text, the Third Book of Marcian’s Institutes, composed between 218/9 and 235 ce. The Institutes – like Marcian’s De iudiciis publicis and the writings by Ulpian and Gaius the compilers excerpted for Digests 47.22 – were likely composed in the East for the benefit of a provincial audience. Marcian’s interest in the legal authority of imperial mandata may reflect this provincial focus: he quotes the emperors’ “instructions” seven times, more often than any other jurist except Ulpian13. The Third Book, analogous to the model of Institutes established by the jurist Gaius (Institutiones 1.8, 2.1), dealt with res, “things”, and pertained, broadly speaking, to the law of property. yet if the majority of fragments (f 67-100) suggest that res were at the centre of Book Three, Marcian f 73 comprises prohibitions belonging in the realm of criminal law. This oddity of composition pertains also to the remainder of the work: Marcian’s supposed “handbook” differs from the established model of Institutes in its selective choice of topics and the privileged treatment of criminal law: Marcian’s Institutiones focused on leges and iudicia publica in at least five of their sixteen books (x-xIV, f 143-181) and covered points of criminal law to a disproportionately larger degree than other Institutes or justinian’s Pandects. While Marcian has been criticised by legal scholars for failing to provide in his “handbook” a balanced survey of civil law14, the possible reason for his focus on criminal law has gone largely uncommented. 12. On the insertion of such linking words by the compilers, see T. honoré, Justinian’s Digest: Character and Compilation, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010, pp. 83-91. 13. M.I. FinKelsTein, Mandata principum, in Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis 13 (1932) 150-169, pp. 166-167; L. De GioVanni, Giuristi severiani: Elio Marciano, Naples, D’Auria, 1989, pp. 11-76; D. liebs, Älius Marcian: Ein Mittler des römischen Rechts in die hellenistische Welt, in Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte: Romanistische Abteilung 128 (2011) 39-82, pp. 51-57. 14. f. schulz (Geschichte der römischen Rechtswissenschaft, Weimar, Böhlau, 1961, pp. 208-209) concluded that the Institutes were assembled posthumously from disparate works. for a more positive reassessment see W. KunKel, Herkunft und soziale Stellung 440 A. BENDLIN justinian’s Digests may provide a first answer. Their Index titulorum (p. xix* mommsen) lists the title of Digests 47.22 in the expanded form De collegiis illicitis et corporibus (“On illicit collegia and corpora”) which foregrounds the compilers’ aim to provide an epitome of regulations that interdict illicit associations. justinian’s own Constitutio Tanta/ Δέδωκεν places Books xLVII and xLVIII firmly in the seventh and final part of his Pandects, which discusses criminal jurisdiction15. It is only in justinian’s Pandects that “illicit” associative activity receives its own titulus. With this rubrication, foreign to earlier Roman law, the compilers “criminalise” the associative phenomenon, which is consistent with the emphasis in the later books of justinian’s Digests on the imperial authorities’ complete control over all areas of criminal jurisdiction. One can therefore understand why the compilers would have felt an intellectual affinity with those Antonine and Severan jurists who exhibited such an interest in criminal law and in the Roman office-holder’s discretionary right to exercise it in his province, and who explicated the legal dimension of the imperial state’s decision not to tolerate “illicit” associations. Their writings merely reflect the wider legal developments of the second and early third centuries, during which the imperial state was seizing responsibility with regard to all matters of criminal law. franz Wieacker aptly noted the “dem Dominat vorarbeitende Thematik” of Ulpian’s De officio proconsulis16. Mutatis mutandis the same applies to Marcian’s Institutes, which elaborates the state’s prerogative to execute the criminal law, and thus partakes in the reification of that prerogative. In the second and third centuries, the jurists’ provincial audiences would have desired cognizance of criminal law, just as they acknowledged the jurisdictional authority of Roman proconsuls or legates, the μείζονες δικασταί (PEuphr 3, line 12) of provincial jurisdiction. With his focus on criminal law, Marcian merely stated a matter of fact his audiences could not have failed to notice themselves. This focus may have developed during the time Marcian spent in Rome, possibly as an assistant to Ulpian when the latter served as Caracalla’s der römischen Juristen (forschungen zum Römischen Recht, 4), Graz, Böhlau, 21967, pp. 258-259 n. 548; De GioVanni, Giuristi (n. 13); liebs, Älius Marcian (n. 13), pp. 46-51. 15. Constitutio Tanta/Δέδωκεν 2-8, esp. 8; Constitutio Omnem 2-5, esp. 5; B.H. sTolTe, The Partes of the Digest in the Codex Florentinus, in Subseciva Groningana 1 (1984) 69-91, pp. 73-77. 16. f. WieacKer, Textstufen klassischer Juristen (Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, Phil.-Hist. Klasse, III. folge, 45), Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1960, p. 425. Cf. A. noGraDy, Römisches Strafrecht nach Ulpian: Buch 7 bis 9 De officio proconsulis (freiburger Rechtsgeschichtliche Abhandlungen, Nf, 52), Berlin, Duncker & Humblot, 2006, pp. 161-163. “SODALICIAN ASSOCIATIONS”? 441 secretary A libellis17. That would explain Marcian’s familiarity with the contents of imperial constitutions, a disproportionately large number of which he cites18. As for the emperor’s “instructions”, which obligated the provincial governor to interdict illicit associations, the so-called Liber mandatorum Roman governors received upon assumption of their office established guidelines for provincial legal and administrative practice, including the criminal jurisdiction of governors. The caput mandatorum Antoninus Pius published around 135 ce, during his proconsulship in the province of Asia, the instructions Pliny received from the emperor Trajan and the principalia mandata of Marcian f 73a illustrate this procedure19. Although imperial rescripts and mandata are often viewed as media of communication by a reactive Roman government, their effect as proactive instruments of imperial governance no doubt transcended any situational origin some of them may have had20. They contributed to a frame of legal and political norms within which both Roman office-holders and provincials operated. With regard to the policing of the behaviour of associations by the state, Gaius, commenting on the governor’s provincial edict for the benefit of an Eastern provincial audience (III Ad edictum provinciale f 87, 3.4.1 pr.), lists Roman statutory law, senatus consulta and imperial constitutions as the media of state control. Marcian highlights the instrumental role the emperor’s mandata and rescripts played in the policing of associative life. The title of Gaius’s work merely implies what Marcian spells out: that Rome’s governors executed these sources of coercive law in the provinces. Ulpian too links the proconsul’s maius imperium, second only to that of the princeps, to his jurisdictional authority in the province21. 17. D. liebs (Juristen als Sekretäre des römischen Kaisers, in ZRG 100 [1983] 485509, pp. 497-498; Älius Marcian [n. 13], pp. 44-45) considers and rejects the possibility that Marcian himself served as A libellis under Caracalla. 18. T. honoré, Ulpian, Oxford, Clarendon, 1982, pp. 235-237; liebs, Älius Marcian (n. 13), pp. 44-46, 74-81. J.-P. coriaT (Le prince législateur: La technique législative des Sévères et les méthodes de création du droit impérial à la fin du principat [Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome, 294], Rome, École française, 1997, pp. 635663) discusses the imperial constitutions in the Severan jurists more generally. 19. Caput mandatorum: Marcian, II Iudiciorum Publicorum f 204, 48.3.6.1; Pliny, Ep. 10.22; 30; 56; 96; 110–111. “Liber mandatorum”: Lucian, Pro lapsu 13: ἐν τῷ τῶν ἐντολῶν βιβλίῳ ὃ ἀεὶ παρὰ βασιλέως λαμβάνετε; maroTTa, Mandata (n. 7), pp. 71-122; noGraDy, Strafrecht (n. 16), pp. 24-32. 20. S. schmiDT-hoFner, Reagieren und Gestalten: Der Regierungsstil des spätrömischen Kaisers am Beispiel der Gesetzgebung Valentinians I. (Vestigia, 58), München, Beck, 2008, pp. 339-340. See also coriaT, Prince législateur (n. 18), pp. 74-77. 21. Ulpian, XXXIX Ad edictum f 1086, 1.16.8, 1.18.4; Ulpian, II De officio proconsulis f 2148, 1.16.7.2, 1.16.7.9 pr. See P. Garnsey, The Criminal Jurisdiction of Governors, in JRS 58 (1968) 51-59; maroTTa, Mandata (n. 7), pp. 97-122; D. liebs, Das ius gladii 442 A. BENDLIN The surveillance of associative behaviour formed part of the governor’s broader mandate to maintain order in his province (Ulpian, VII De officio proconsulis f 2181, 1.18.13 pr.). If the rubrication of illicit activity by associations as an autonomous topic of criminal justice was the work of the justinianic compilers, the opposition between licit and illicit associations informed the writings of the classical jurists as early as the second century ce, if not before. This opposition between licit and illicit structures the argument of Marcian f 73 and those passages by Ulpian and Marcian the compilers selected for inclusion in Digests 47.22. It underlies the juristic discourse of the second and third centuries more generally, and it is reflected in the contemporary epigraphic evidence22. The dichotomy between state-authorized and unauthorized associative gathering was a consistent classificatory principle behind the surveillance of associations. Marcian f 73a, therefore, imagines the governor’s mandate in terms of the interdiction not of all civilian and military associations but only of those he considered to be illicit. Incidentally, military collegia and scholae surface most prominently in the Severan period23. Attempting to resolve the lack of correspondence between Marcian and the epigraphic data, scholars have suggested that Marcian was thinking only of associations of common soldiers24. It is true that the ancient data predominantly document the existence of collegia and scholae of ranked members in Roman legions and auxiliaries25. The most natural reading der römischen Provinzgouverneure in der Kaiserzeit, in ZPE 43 (1981) 217-223; H. horsTKoTTe, Die Strafrechtspflege in den Provinzen der römischen Kaiserzeit zwischen hegemonialer Ordnungsmacht und lokaler Autonomie, in W. ecK (ed.), Lokale Autonomie und römische Ordnungsmacht in den kaiserzeitlichen Provinzen vom 1. bis 3. Jahrhundert (Schriften des Historischen Kollegs, Kolloquien, 42), München, Oldenbourg, 1999, 303-318; bérenGer, Métier (n. 7), pp. 171-235. 22. Cf. Ulpian, De officio praefecti urbi f 2079, 1.12.1.14; Gaius, III Ad edictum provinciale f 87, 3.4.1 pr.-1.1; Paulus, XII Ad Plautium f 1186, 34.5.20; Ulpian, V Ad Sabinum f 2462, 40.3.1; Callistratus, I De cognitionibus f 8, 50.6.6.12-13. Epigraphic instances: CIL xIII 1921 and 1974; benDlin, Associations (n. 9), pp. 237-238. 23. Severan-period by-laws from Lambaesis document their financial organisation: CIL VIII 2552 (= 18070); 2553 (= AE 1906 9); 2556 (= 18049); 2557; AE 1898 108–109; 1902 10; S. Perea yébenes, Viaticum militare, in A. aKerraz et al. (eds.), L’Africa romana XVI, Rome, Carocci, 2006, 741-753, pp. 745-753; c. schmiDT heiDenreich, Schola et collegium: La dénomination des collèges militaires dans l’épigraphie, in Classica et Christiana 3 (2008) 231-245, pp. 236-238, 243-244. 24. J.-P. WalTzinG, Étude historique sur les corporations professionnelles chez les Romains depuis les origines jusqu’à la chute de l’empire d’occident, Louvain, Peeters, 1895-1900, Vol. 4, pp. 135-136; c. schmiDT heiDenreich, Le glaive et l’autel: Camps et piété militaires sous le Haut-Empire romain, Rennes, Presses universitaires, 2013, p. 91 (with further bibliography). 25. S. Perea yébenes (Collegia militaria: asociaciones militares en el Impero Romano, Madrid, Signifer, 1999, pp. 62-72, 562-566) suggests that military collegia were 443 “SODALICIAN ASSOCIATIONS”? of Marcian f 73a is not, however, that there existed a ban applying to the rank of simple soldiers (miles) only. Rather, the governor could interdict any associative gathering in military camps, irrespective of rank, if he deemed it illicit. By analogy, my analysis of Digests 47.22.1 pr. will demonstrate that Marcian, when he elaborated the provincial governor’s discretionary right to interdict illicit associative behaviour in the civilian realm26, was not thinking of “sodalician associations” but had in mind illicit associations of any kind. iii. Digests 47.22.1 pr. anD JurisTs oF The sixTh cenTury Mommsen’s text reproduces that of the Digests’ most important manuscript, the Littera florentina (F). That codex already contains textual corrections by its scribes and correctors: although the two groups emended F from different exemplars27, no disagreement surfaces about the text of Digests 47.22.1 pr. Nor does the medieval Vulgate tradition (which is a potentially valuable independent witness elsewhere) proffer a textual alternative to the florentina’s reading. F was probably produced in a bilingual (yet primarily Greek-speaking) scriptorium, located in Constantinople by the majority of scholars. The manuscript is usually dated not long after the promulgation of the Digests by justinian in Constantinople in December 533 (although some continue to deny the florentina such an early date)28. If it is debatable whether F was a straight, “authentic” copy of justinian’s Pandects29, one can infer from ancillary evidence that collegia sodalicia could be read in the first usually associations of ranked charges, not of common soldiers. WalTzinG, Étude (n. 24), Vol. 4, pp. 135-136 anticipates this insight. 26. Cf. l. cracco ruGGini, Nuclei immigrati e forze indigene in tre grandi centri commerciali dell’impero, in j.H. D’arms – E.C. KoPFF (eds.), The Seaborne Commerce of Ancient Rome (Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, 36), Rome, American Academy, 1980, 55-76, pp. 65-66; maroTTa, Mandata (n. 7), p. 156. 27. W. Kaiser, Schreiber und Korrektoren des Codex Florentinus, in Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte: Romanistische Abteilung 118 (2001) 133-219. 28. sTolTe, Partes (n. 15), pp. 77-88; W. Kaiser, Zur Herkunft des Codex Florentinus: Zugleich zur Florentiner Digestenhandschrift als Erkenntnisquelle für die Redaktion der Digesten, in A. schmiDT-recla (ed.), Sachsen im Spiegel des Rechts: Ius commune propiumque, Cologne, Böhlau, 2001, 39-57; D. balDi, Il Codex Florentinus del Digesto e il Fondo Pandette della Biblioteca Laurenziana (con un’appendice dei documenti inediti), in Segno e Testo 8 (2010) 99-186. 29. Doubts: B.H. sTolTe, Some Thoughts on the Early Digest Text, in Subseciva Groningana 6 (1999) 103-119, pp. 106-109. Contra Kaiser, Herkunft (n. 28). 444 A. BENDLIN edition(s) issued in Constantinople in 533. This is because the Greek compilation from the Digests in sixty books known as the Basilica, which Leon VI commissioned in the late ninth century, and which drew upon an anonymous sixth-century Greek epitome of the Pandects30, provides an abbreviated and simplified rendering of Digests 47.22.1 pr.31: Οἱ ἄρχοντες κωλυέτωσαν ἐν πόλεσι καὶ κώμαις ἰδιώτας ἢ στρατιώτας ἐν τοῖς κάστροις αὐτῶν ἔχειν ἑταιρικὰ συστήματα. Τοῖς δὲ μετρίοις ἐφεῖται συνεισφορὰν ἅπαξ μόνον ποιεῖν τοῦ μηνός. The governors shall prevent civilians in cities and villages or soldiers in their camps from having ἑταιρικὰ συστήματα. The poor32, however, are permitted to make a joint contribution only once per month. The Basilica’s translation ἑταιρικὰ συστήματα proffers confirmation independently of F that collegia sodalicia stood in justinian’s Digests in the mid-sixth century, the date of the Anonymus’s Greek epitome. With the help of the medieval annotators of the Basilica, who added an alternative translation in the margins of the original Greek text, one is able to identify uncertainty about the meaning of Digests 47.22.1 pr. on the part of at least one of justinian’s compilers of the Digests. This fact seems to have escaped modern scholarship. for these medieval scholia ultimately derive from material that includes translations prepared by the sixth-century antecessores of the law schools in Berytus and Constantinople. for the later books of the Digests (including Digests 47.22) the Basilica scholia turned to the Greek translation the antecessor Dorotheus prepared for teaching purposes in Berytus, only a few years after justinian’s Code had been promulgated in Constantinople. Dorotheus was one of the compilers of the Pandects and in addition served on the committee that composed justinian’s Institutes33. To identify Dorotheus’s role in the sixth-century reception of Marcian f 73a, I subscribe to the hypothesis (now widely accepted) that the massive task of compiling the Digests was divided among three committees, which were respectively instructed to read and digest the so-called 30. f. branDsma, Dorotheus and His Digest Translation, Groningen, forsten, 1996, p. 2. 31. Basilica 60.32.1, cited after h.J. schelTema – D. holWerDa – n. Van Der Wal (eds.), Basilicorum libri LX: Volume A VIII, Groningen, Wolters – Noordhoff, 1988, p. 2937,4-7. Date: A. schmincK, “Frömmigkeit ziehre das Werk”: Zur Datierung der 60 Bücher Leons VI., in Subseciva Groningana 3 (1989) 79-114. 32. f. PreisiGKe – e. KiesslinG, Wörterbuch der Griechischen Papyrusunkunden, s.v. μέτριος, 2.; LSJ s.v. μ., III.1; PGL s.v. μ., 1b. for the meaning “poor”, or rather “of more modest means than the average population”, which is found since the second century. 33. Constitutio Tanta/Δέδωκεν 9; Constitutio Deo auctore 3; Constitutio Imperatoriam 3; P. collineT, Histoire de l’école de droit de Beyrouth, Paris, Sirey, 1925, pp. 186188, 303; branDsma, Dorotheus (n. 30), pp. 3-12. “SODALICIAN ASSOCIATIONS”? 445 “Sabinian”, “edictal” and “Papinian” masses. There follows from this another probable assumption: Dorotheus, as one of the subsequent coeditors of justinian’s Institutes, was assigned to the committee that sifted through the material commonly known as the “Sabinian mass”, which included the Institutes of previous jurists, including Marcian’s34. Moreover, since the Basilica scholia explicitly ascribe several passages to Dorotheus, it is probable that a significant number of anonymous fragments, particularly those covering the later books of the Pandects, also derive directly from his translation35. In other words, the Basilica scholia provide a valuable link to one of the compilers of the Digests. Dorotheus’s translation offers an accurate rendering of his Latin source text of Digests 47.22.1 pr. and is more complete than the Anonymus’s Basilica text. With the classroom in Berytus in mind, Dorotheus in two places even added explicatory words (which do not appear in the Latin text of F but are unlikely to derive from Dorotheus’s Latin exemplar)36: Αἱ βασιλικαὶ ἐντολαὶ τοῖς ἄρχουσι τῶν ἐπαρχιῶν προστάττουσι μὴ ἀνέχεσϑαι εἶναι συνέδρια ἑταιρείας τινός, μηδὲ τοῖς στρατιώταις ἐν τοῖς κάστροις συγχωρεῖν ποιεῖσϑαι συνέδρια. ᾽Αλλ᾽ εἰ καὶ ταῦτα γενικῶς νενομοϑέτηται, ἐπιτέτραπται τοῖς πενεστέροις συνεισφορὰν ποιεῖσϑαι μικροῦ τινὸς ἐράνου καὶ εἰσάπαξ τοῦ μηνὸς τούτου ἕνεκεν συνιέναι, ἵνα μὴ δοκῶσι τούτῳ τῷ προκαλύμματι LICίτιον (i.e. illiciton) συνέδριον ποιεῖσϑαι. Καὶ οὐ μόνον ἐν ῾Ρώμῃ ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐν Ἰταλίᾳ καὶ ἐν ταῖς ἐπαρχίαις χώραν ἔχειν τὴν περὶ τούτου νομοϑεσίαν. The royal (i.e., imperial) instructions enjoin those who govern the provinces not to tolerate the existence of collegia (with the attribute) of some hetaireia, nor to allow the soldiers in the camps to establish collegia. However, although these things are as a general principle ordained by law, permission is granted to poorer people to make a contribution consisting in some small loan and gather once a month for this purpose, lest they appear to establish an illicit collegium under this pretext. And the legislation concerning this matter has its place not only in Rome but also in Italy and in the provinces. 34. F. WieacKer, Zur Technik der Kompilatoren: Prämissen und Hypothesen, in Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte: Romanistische Abteilung 89 (1972) 293-323, pp. 303-304; P.j. FurlonG, Justinian and Mathematics: An Analysis of the Digest’s Compilation Plan, in Australian Journal of Legal History 9 (2005) 85-118; honoré, Justinian’s Digest (n. 12), pp. 18-27. 35. branDsma, Dorotheus (n. 30), pp. 46-50. 36. Scholion Bas. 60.32.1.1, after h.J. schelTema – D. holWerDa – n. Van Der Wal (eds.), Basilicorum libri LX. Volume B IX: Scholia in Librum LX, 17-69, Groningen, Wolters – Noordhoff, 1985, p. 3619,4-10. for Dorotheus’s habit of adding explicatory phrases and his paraphrasing of some passages, see branDsma, Dorotheus (n. 30), pp. 4647, 126-129, 283-287. 446 A. BENDLIN The scholia text preserves Latin terminology, which the original translator chose. The prominence of Latin loan words in late antique Greek legal writing – a case of linguistic superstratum borrowing – is well attested, of course37. The term illiciton/-ita – that is, Latin illicitum, “illicit”, spelled with Greek inflection by the original translator (it is the later Basilica scholiasts who mistransliterate the word as LICίτιον) – is used consistently in the scholia pertaining to Digests 47.2238, regardless of whether the translation chooses συνέδριον or κολλέγιον to render Latin collegium39. This detail provides further confirmation that the scholia text ultimately stems from one older translation and is the work of one translator, Dorotheus. It also suggests that the Basilica scholia provide a fairly accurate reproduction of Dorotheus’s work, some modifications and transpositions by the compilers of the Basilica scholia notwithstanding40. One can only speculate why Dorotheus translated collegia sodalicia as “collegia (with the attribute) of some hetaireia”. Perhaps he let himself be guided by Gaius IV Ad legem XII tabularum f 435 (47.22.4), which reads: “Sodales sunt qui eiusdem collegii sunt, quam Graeci ἑταιρείαν uocant” (“Sodales are those who are of the same collegium, which the Greeks call ‘hetaireia’”). This is the text that the slightly abbreviated translation in Scholion Bas. 60.32.3.1 (p. 3620,12), again deriving from Dorotheus, renders as ταῦτα δὲ τὰ συνέδρια (that is, collegia) καλοῦσιν Ἕλληνες ἑταιρείας. The Anonymus’s Basilica translation, just as equivocally, renders the Digests’ title De collegiis et corporibus as Περὶ ἑταιρικῶν συστημάτων καὶ σωματείων, which in effect equates collegia and ἑταιρικὰ συστήματα (that is, collegia sodalicia) and reflects the interpretative decision 37. E. DicKey, Latin Influence on the Greek of Documentary Papyri: An Analysis of Its Chronological Distribution, in ZPE 145 (2003) 249-257, pp. 255-257; B. rocheTTe, Language Policies in the Roman Republic and Empire, in j. clacKson (ed.), A Companion to the Latin Language, Chichester – Malden, Wiley-Blackwell, 2011, 549-563, pp. 556-560. Dorotheus’s use of Latin technical terms: branDsma, Dorotheus (n. 30), passim. 38. Scholion Bas. 60.32.1.1 (p. 3619,8); 60.32.1.5 (p. 3619,20); 60.32.2.2 (p. 3619,27; p. 3620,1). 39. Latin collegium translated as Greek συνέδριον: Scholion Bas. 60.32.1.1 (p. 3619,4-11) (~ Digests 47.22.1 pr.) and 60.32.3.1-2 (p. 36020,10-22) (~ 47.22.3.2 + 47.22.4). Transliterated as κολλέγιον: Scholion Bas. 60.32.1.3 (~ 47.22.1.2), 1.5 (~ 47.22.1.1), 2.2 (~ 47.22.2–47.22.3.1) (= p. 3619,14-3620,6) – where Dorotheus, varying his vocabulary, possibly wrote collegion (branDsma, Dorotheus [n. 30], pp. 286287). 40. The scholion, for instance, mistakenly moves Septimius Severus’s rescript, which belongs to the regulations collated in Digests 47.22.1 pr., to the regulation introduced in 47.22.1.1. Or did the scholiasts work with different versions of Dorotheus’s translation, a possibility suggested by branDsma, Dorotheus (n. 30), p. 288? “SODALICIAN ASSOCIATIONS”? 447 on the part of its anonymous translator to understand the collegium sodalicium descriptively: as a σύστημα, or collegium, of ἑταῖροι. This is why the Anonymus’s translation – although he glosses the Latin original in order to clarify the text by adding the phrase ἐν πόλεσι καὶ κώμαις ἰδιώτας (“civilians in cities and villages”) – can nonetheless conflate the collegia sodalicia of civilians and the military collegia he found in his Latin text of the Digests, rendering both as ἑταιρικὰ συστήματα. Dorotheus’s translation suggests five things. first, he too read collegia sodalicia in his Latin text of the Digests. Second, Dorotheus interpreted the Latin word sodalicia as an adjective and took adjectival sodalicius as an equivalent to Greek ἑταιρικός, the adjectival form of nominal ἑταιρεία. Third, he was hesitant about the Latin phrase’s exact meaning, since he did not provide a straight Greek translation, the kind of which the Basilica’s Anonymus attempted. Dorotheus decided to paraphrase the Latin text in order to clarify its content, which was his wont elsewhere as well, and chose the genitivus qualitatis ἑταιρείας τινός, “(with the attribute) of some hetaireia” instead of the adjective ἑταιρικός. fourth, his reading of Gaius caused Dorotheus to interpret the phrase collegia sodalicia as a collocation of synonyms, perhaps because he regarded it as tautologous, and hence add τινός, “of some”. Last but not least, he (like his contemporary, the Anonymus) understood collegium sodalicium descriptively, as a συνέδριον (or collegium) in which the members of “some” ἑταιρεία (or sodalicium) met. iV. The Collegia soDaliCia in moDern scholarshiP The nature of these “sodalician associations” has continued to puzzle scholars. Gregor Haloander in his 1529 edition may have been alone among humanist (and later) editors in deleting the word collegia, possibly because he judged it a gloss, and printing only sodalicia. yet the Lyon edition of 1560, although it preserved the transmitted reading, still thought it necessary to offer a commentary: quoting Gaius’s definition of sodales, the editors referred to the same exegetical juxtaposition that had enlightened Dorotheus and the Anonymus in the sixth century41. 41. G. haloanDer (ed.), Digestorum seu Pandectarum libri quinquaginta, Nürnberg, Petreius, 1529, Vol. 3, p. 2173: the omission is clearly due to Haloander’s decision to delete the word (Gebauer – sPanGenberG, Corpus Juris Civilis [n. 6], p. 1030 n. 2), rather than to his adoption of some valuable Vulgate tradition. Lyon edition: Digestum novum pandectarum juris civilis tomus tertius, Lyon, De La Porte, 1560, p. 1267. 448 A. BENDLIN Modern discussions of the collegium sodalicium usually betoken how scholars typologise the associative phenomenon. Mommsen proposed that we view the collegia sodalicia as political, revolutionary or subversive associations42. Consequently many think of the collegia sodalicia as clubs involved in electoral bribery and political violence. These interpreters often do so with reference to the collegia, decuriae, sodalicia or sodalitates of Late Republican Rome, some of which were implicated in electoral malpractice and hence became the targets of several senatorial prohibitions43. These included a Senatus Consultum of 56 bce decreeing “ut sodalitates decuriatique discederent” and a resultant Lex Licinia of 55 “De sodaliciis”; the sources treat sodalitas and sodalicium as synonyms44. Although scholars since the nineteenth century have taken these passages to constitute pertinent parallels, the ancient data never refer to these Roman associations as collegia sodalicia. No cogent link between these Late Republican local events and the imperial legislation preserved in Digests 47.22.1 pr., which responded to a different historical situation, has ever been established. A potentially more promising historical parallel is provided by the violent factions in the province of Pontus-Bithynia whose manipulation by the political elites in the context of local electoral malpractice the orator Dio Chrysostom deplores. It is these factions, among other associations (ἑταιρίαι), that Pliny (implementing the emperor’s mandata) by edict prohibits from gathering in cities under Roman jurisdiction45. These data appear to proffer a plausible historical context for Marcian. The Latin 42. T. mommsen, De collegiis et sodaliciis Romanorum, Kiel, Schwers, 1843, pp. 32 n. 1, 87 n. 1. Cf. S. sommer, Rom und die Vereinigungen im südwestlichen Kleinasien (133 v.Chr.-284 n.Chr.) (Pietas, 1), Hennef, Clauss, 2006, pp. 58-59; P.f. VenTicinque, Common Causes: Guilds, Craftsmen, and Merchants in the Economy and Society of Roman and Late Roman Egypt, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 2009, p. 166. 43. E.g. cohn, Vereinsrecht (n. 10), pp. 103-109; WalTzinG, Étude (n. 24), Vol. 1, pp. 134, 142; m.i. henDerson, De Commentariolo Petitionis, in JRS 40 (1950), 8-21, p. 12; f.M. ausbüTTel, Untersuchungen zu den Vereinen im Westen des Römischen Reiches (frankfurter althistorische Studien, 11), Kallmünz, Lassleben, 1982, pp. 24, 91-92, 96; R. menTxaKa, El derecho de asociación en Roma a la luz del cap. 74 de la “La Irnitana”, in Bullettino dell’Istituto di Diritto Romano 37-38 (1995/96) 199-218, pp. 210-211. 44. Cicero, Ad Q. fr. 2.3.5 (sodalitates); Planc. 36 (de sodaliciis); j. linDersKi, Roman Questions: Selected Papers (Heidelberger althistorische Beiträge und epigraphische Studien, 20), Stuttgart, Steiner, 1995, pp. 204-216; H. mouriTsen, Plebs and Politics in the Late Roman Republic, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp. 149-151. See n. 63 below. 45. for factional καϑ᾽ ἑταιρίας πολιτεύεσϑαι in these cities see Dio, Orationes 34.1621, 39, 40.8-15, 43.6-11, 45.7-10, 50.3; Pliny, Ep. 10.33-34, passim; T. beKKer-nielsen, Urban Life and Local Politics in Roman Bithynia: The Small World of Dion Chrysostomos (Black Sea Studies, 7), Aarhus, Aarhus University Press, 2008, pp. 173-175. Associations in Pontus-Bithynia: GRA II 97-102. “SODALICIAN ASSOCIATIONS”? 449 material, however, usually establishes a clear distinction between sodalitates or sodalicia and their membership on the one hand and collegia on the other. This differentiation is apparent already in the Lex repetundarum of the late second century bce, but it occurs in several later texts as well46. Gaius glosses Latin collegium – meaning any collegium and not just collegia of a potentially subversive political nature – with the Greek term ἑταιρία. Neither Latin nor Greek writers ever talk of collegia sodalicia or ἑταιρικὰ συστήματα or employ similar terms. Reflecting on the text of the Basilica, Mommsen briefly entertained the alternative idea that these collegia sodalicia represented private associations47. The Anonymus’s Basilica translation and Dorotheus already anticipate crucial elements of this interpretation. Both propound a social distinction between the wider population below the elite (Basilica: ἐν πόλεσι καὶ κώμαις ἰδιώτας) and a segment of society of even more modest resources (Basilica: τοῖς δὲ μετρίοις; Dorotheus: τοῖς πενεστέροις) – which could be called “the poor” for want of a better term. Of course, it is impossible to ascertain which criteria of poverty, if any, the sixth-century jurists applied; whether they had the truly destitute in mind; or to what extent, if at all, contemporary ecclesiastical discourses about wealth, poverty and welfare coloured their interpretation of Digests 47.22.1 pr. However that may be, both the Anonymus and Dorotheus assume that there existed a blanket ban on associations of ἰδιῶται, but that an exception was made for people who were economically even less advantaged than the average civilian population. Among modern scholars, this line of argument found its most determined advocate in f.M. De Robertis. On the basis of his reading of Marcian, and before the ideological background of an all-embracing corporativism in fascist Italy48, De Robertis conjectured three hypotheses: the poor formed a sub-group among private collegia (sodalicia); such private associations would normally be prevented from meeting; and, a senatorial decree De collegiis (tenuioribus) of probably the mid-first century ce (the date of this purported SC remains hotly disputed) gave the poor blanket permission to gather, if they met the conditions spelled out by Marcian49. 46. CIL I2 583 = RS 1, lines 10, 20, 25, echoed in Cicero, Brut. 166. Cf. Cicero, Sest. 55; Red. Sen. 33. 47. mommsen, De collegiis (n. 42), p. 87 n. 1. 48. J.s. Perry sketches the ideological background and De Robertis’s response to it (The Roman Collegia: The Modern Evolution of an Ancient Concept [Mnemosyne Supplements, 277], Leiden, Brill, 2006, pp. 93-101). 49. f.M. De roberTis, Storia delle corporazioni e del regime associativo nel mondo romano, Bari, Adriatica, 1971, Vol. 2, pp. 41-50. See also L. schnorr Von carolsFelD, Geschichte der juristischen Person. Band 1: Universitas, corpus, collegium im klassischen 450 A. BENDLIN I propose that we reject this position50. No conclusive evidence supports the claim that there existed civic acknowledgement of the right of “private” collegia to gather freely: the Senatus consultum allegedly passed De collegiis (tenuiorum) is a brainchild of modern scholarship. Incidentally, Marcian (II Iudiciorum Publicorum f 202, 47.22.3.1) expresses the exact opposite of what De Robertis’s interpretation amounts to: gatherings by associations of any kind may be dissolved by virtue of their illicitness, unless their gathering has obtained authorisation from the Roman Senate or the emperor. Nor was there a distinguishable segment in society (“people of more modest means”), who were entitled to receive this purported privilege. Marcian’s tenuiores are not identical with the “poor” envisioned by the Anonymus, Dorotheus or De Robertis. On the contrary, an unbiased reading of the relevant juristic texts suggests that we identify Marcian’s tenuiores with what the ancient sources in related contexts label the humiliores, “people of lower standing”51. Tenuiores and humiliores are terms designating the entirety of the population below the Empire’s exceedingly small socio-political elite (the honestiores). A third line of interpretation considers the collegium sodalicium, in light of modern views about sodalicia, as a religious group closely associated with a particular deity52. This position may partly stem from a typological confusion between sodalicia and sodalitates, which is quite different from the debonair terminological confusion ancient texts are guilty of: drawing on the evidence of Roman priestly colleges, such as the sodales Titii or sodales Augustales, scholars have routinely identified an ideal type of sodalitas whose most salient feature was its function in religious ritual. If that view is based on Mommsen’s typology of sodalitates sacrae53, the römischen Recht, München, Beck, 1933, p. 264; S. ranDazzo, Senatus consultum quo illicita collegia arcentur (D. 47,22,1,1), in Bullettino dell’Istituto di Diritto Romano 94-95 (1991-1992) 49-88; ranDazzo, I collegia tenuiorum fra libertà di associazione e controllo senatorio, in Studia et documenta historiae et iuris 64 (1998) 229-244. De liGT, SemiPublic Collegia (n. 4), pp. 355-358 modifies De Robertis’s views only slightly. 50. A. benDlin, “Eine Zusammenkunft um der religio willen ist erlaubt ...”? Zu den politischen und rechtlichen Konstruktionen von (religiöser) Vergemeinschaftung in der römischen Kaiserzeit, in h.G. KiPPenberG – G.F. schuPPerT (eds.), Die verrechtlichte Religion: Der Öffentlichkeitsstatus von Religionsgemeinschaften, Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2005, 65-107, pp. 89-98; benDlin, Associations (n. 9), pp. 231-244. 51. Callistratus, VI De cognitionibus f 43, 48.19.28.2; Callistratus, I De cognitionibus f 8, 50.6.6.12-13. 52. E.g. j.E. sTambauGh – D.l. balch, The New Testament in Its Social Environment, Philadelphia, PA, Westminster, 1986, pp. 124-126; O.-y. KWon, Discovering the Characteristics of Collegia: Collegia Sodalicia and Collegia Tenuiorum in 1 Corinthians 8, 10 and 15, in Horizons in Biblical Theology 32 (2010) 166-182. 53. mommsen, De collegiis (n. 42), pp. 1-27. Criticism: r. Fiori, Sodales: “Gefolgschaften” e diritto di associazione in Roma arcaica (VIII-V sec. a.C.), in Societas – ius: Munuscula di allievi a Feliciano Serrao, Naples, jovene, 1999, 101-158, pp. 101-105. “SODALICIAN ASSOCIATIONS”? 451 doxographical dependence is rarely reflected upon. It is true that some ancient writers identify archaic Roman sodalitates with specific ritual functions, while others employ the terms sodalitas and ἑταιρία by way of synecdoche to refer to Roman religious functionaries. However, groups such as the fratres Arvales, fetiales, Luperci or Salii were not regularly labeled sodales or sodalitates54. Those who identify the collegium sodalicium as a primarily religious group may be misled also by the equivocality of the ancient data. To be sure, many sodalicia or (groups of) sodales who entertain a close relationship with a tutelary deity are epigraphically attested, but the application of narrow taxonomies does little justice to the variable functionality of ancient associative life. first, a religious component – just like commensal and other social elements – can be found among almost all ancient associations, which highlights the imprecision of modern taxonomies55. Occupational groups of tradesmen and craftsmen, cultores, the members of collegia, as well as the soldiers associated in scholae, all express their devotion to deities through their choice of names, calendars and rituals. Second, sodalicia of tradesmen and craftsmen exist, for whom no primarily religious function can legitimately be claimed. Third, those who view the collegium sodalicium as a religious group base their interpretation on a preconceived opinion about the sodalicium, confusing two entities that should be kept separate. There exists among scholars the opposite view – namely that nonreligious associations must be meant by Marcian’s collegia sodalicia because “religious associations”, unlike others, had the right to convene56. This view stems from a misinterpretation of Marcian, who intimates that associative gathering religionis causa was permitted under certain circumstances (III Institutionum f 73b, 47.22.1.1). This statement, however, does not translate into a general recognition of the right of “religious” associations to meet freely, since he adds that gatherings religionis causa too 54. Contrast Augustus, Res Gestae 4.7. Religious function: Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.16.32, perhaps paraphrasing Sempronius Tuditanus, Ann. f 2 PeTer. Synecdoche: e.g., Cicero, Cael. 26; Cassius Dio 44.6, 45.30. 55. Cf. J.S. KloPPenborG, Collegia and Thiasoi: Issues in Function, Taxonomy and Membership, in iD. – s.G. Wilson (eds.), Voluntary Associations in the Graeco-Roman World, London, Routledge, 1996, 16-30, pp. 18-23; O. Van niJF, The Civic World of Professional Associations in the Roman East (Dutch Monographs on Ancient History and Archaeology, 17), Amsterdam, Gieben, 1997, pp. 10-11; I. arnaouToGlou, Craftsmen Associations in Roman Lydia: A Tale of Two Cities?, in Ancient Society 41 (2011) 257290, pp. 258-260; benDlin, Associations (n. 9), pp. 216-223. 56. E.g. De roberTis, Storia (n. 49), Vol. 2, pp. 51-63; a.J.b. sirKs, Die Vereine in der kaiserzeitlichen Gesetzgebung, in a. GuTsFelD – D.-a. Koch (eds.), Vereine, Synagogen und Gemeinden im kaiserzeitlichen Kleinasien (Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum, 25), Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2006, 21-40, pp. 22, 25-26. 452 A. BENDLIN required civic permission or were otherwise deemed illicit57. That contradicts the claim that he acknowledges, at least implicitly, some kind of religious freedom. Trajan and Pliny (Ep. 10.33-34) agree on the necessity to provide a name (nomen) and a rationale (causa) before an association was permitted to assemble. Did associations respond to the need to justify their gatherings by displaying devotion to a deity of their choice? Such a strategy would have provided a name. At the very least, it accorded well with the high estimation in which religious practice and belief were held. To be sure, an association’s gatherings could be authorised by a senatorial decree with explicit reference to that group’s religious activities. for instance, when an association of Augustales at Liternum received the privilege of licit gathering Ex S(enatus) C(onsulto), their investment in the so-called imperial cult was deemed an adequate causa: “qui in cultu (sic) domus diuinae contul(erunt)”58. That privilege was no doubt conditional, however, upon the elevated socio-economic status the Augustales would have enjoyed in their home community and upon their local political interconnectedness. The privilege must be related furthermore to their ideological proximity to the current imperial regime, since the association’s proclaimed aim was the worship of the imperial family. Other associations likewise received privileges from the imperial administration because of their investment in the imperial cult59. In other words, when religious practices (religio) were adduced as a reason for a group’s right to gather, an underlying social, political or juridical variable strengthened the religious argument. Such was the case, to take a different example, with the judaean diaspora groups whose privileges various Roman officials confirmed during the triumviral and early imperial periods, holding that any restrictions imposed on the gatherings of these communities for ritual purposes would contravene their law and ancestral custom60. 57. Cf. benDlin, Zusammenkunft (n. 50), pp. 77-82. 58. AE 2001 854 = Suppl. It. n.s. 25 (2010), pp. 50-55 no. 17 (late second century), lines 1-3. The Augustales’ album AE 2001 853 = Suppl. It. n.s. 25 (2010), pp. 47-50 no. 16, predating the above inscription by about a generation, omits any reference to a senatus consultum. 59. E.g. CIL xIV 4570 (205 ce), in which a place is assigned to an association of cultores of the Lares and of the imagines dominorum nostrorum so that they can celebrate the festive days pertaining to the imperial house. Cf. CIL VI 455 = AE 1995 91 (168 ce) for the privileges accorded to another collegium Larum invested in the so-called imperial cult, with A. Kolb, Vereine “kleiner Leute” und die kaiserliche Verwaltung, in ZPE 107 (1995) 201-212, pp. 205-211. 60. Roman confirmation of the right to assemble ἱερῶν ἕνεκα καὶ ἁγίων: josephus, Ant. 14.227 (cf. 14.235 for the right to have σύνοδον ἰδίαν). Release from military service of judeans with Roman citizenship δεισιδαιμονίας ἕνεκα: Ant. 14.228, 231, 234, 236, “SODALICIAN ASSOCIATIONS”? 453 Ritual activity by itself, however, did not provide a salient causa and failed to result in the privileged treatment of associations61, which remained as liable to imperial constraint as any other group. The imperial jurists’ suspicion of possible ulterior motivations on the part of people who gathered illicitly “under the pretext” of ritual (Ulpian IV Opinionum f 2329, 47.11.2) finds an analogue in the Roman prefect’s prohibition, dated between 32 and 36 ce, of Alexandrian associations that used “the pretext of sacrifice” for feasting (Philo In Flaccum 4). The Roman office-holder in the first half of the first century and the Severan-period jurist both ignore the messy taxonomies that characterise ancient associative life, which combined ritual, commensal and sociable elements. Must we conclude from this survey of opinions that, as one scholar surmised, “collegia sodalicia in Marcian means no more than collegia standing by itself” and that, as another believes, “all kinds of associations could be called sodalicia, or collegia sodalicia”62? Quite the contrary: I claim that associations of such a name never existed. V. There Were no Collegia soDaliCia To substantiate this claim, I proceed in three steps, starting with absence of evidence. The juxtaposition of adjectival sodalicius and nominal collegium in Marcian is a hapax legomenon in Latin literature63. This alone 240. That latter phrase provides a formal equivalent to Marcian’s religionis causa, but its argumentative context is very different. Emphasis on judaean ancestral law and custom: Ant. 14.227-264; 16.163-166, etc. See M. Pucci ben-ze’ēV, Jewish Rights in the Roman World: the Greek and Roman Documents Quoted by Josephus Flavius (TSAj, 74), Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 1998, pp. 153, 178; M. schuol, Augustus und die Juden: Rechtsstellung und Interessenpolitik der kleinasiatischen Diaspora (Studien zur Alten Geschichte, 6), frankfurt, Verlag Antike, 2007, pp. 75-103. 61. Evidence of imperial privileges granted to associations merely because they astutely worshiped the gods or diligently performed rituals is scarce: C.R. GalVao-sobrinho, Claiming Places: Sacred Dedications and Public Space, in J. boDel – m. KaJaVa (eds.), Dediche sacre nel mondo greco-romano: Diffusione, funzioni, tipologie (Acta Instituti Romani finlandiae, 35), Rome, Institutum Romanum finlandiae, 2009, 127-160, pp. 158160. 62. P.W. DuFF, Personality in Roman Private Law, Oxford, Clarendon, 1938, pp. 111112; j. liu, Local Government and Collegia: A New Appraisal of the Evidence, in J.-J. auberT – z. Várhelyi (eds.), A Tall Order: Writing the Social History of the Ancient World (Beiträge zur Altertumskunde, 216), München, Saur, 2005, 279-310, p. 287. 63. Adjectival sodalicius, “being of or belonging to a sodalis, sodalitas or sodalicium”, occurs rarely: e.g. Ovid, Tristia 4.10.46; Ammianus Marcellinus, 15.9.7-8. The nominal neuter sodalicium is used since the 50s bce as an equivalent to the older word sodalitas (p. 448 above): e.g. Catullus, 100.4; Cicero, Planc. 36. The terminological equivalence emerges during the 60s and 50s bce: henDerson, De commentariolo (n. 43), p. 12. 454 A. BENDLIN cannot prove the phrase’s inauthenticity (Marcian’s teacher, Ulpian, employs neologisms64), but one-off words and phrases usually signify particular, sometimes idiosyncratic stylistic or syntactical choices on an author’s part. When a phrase represents a term that is in common use, we expect to discover more examples. Some have suggested that the term collegium sodalicium was restricted to juristic discourse65, but it is more often assumed that epigraphy provides parallels, thereby corroborating Marcian. yet, when we examine the pertinent epigraphic record and eliminate the false examples Mommsen proffered in 184366, only two possible candidates remain67. The first is a funerary altar from Volsinii erected by members of an association for their deceased fellow-member, a certain Silvinus. The inscription on the altar reads: D(is) M(anibus) | Silvini | col sod | fecit68. Mommsen in 1843 proposed col(legium) sod(alicium), but that is neither the sole possible nor the most likely expansion. We may instead read col(legium) sod(alium), “the collegium of sodales”; or col(legae) sod(alicium), “for their colleague the sodalicium”; or col(legium) sod(ali), “the collegium for their (fellow-)sodalis”69. Epigraphy proffers evidence of the juxtaposition of collega, collegium, sodalicium and sodalis, the different terms referring to the members of one and the same association70. Contrast Auctor ad Herennium 4.51. 64 (early first century bce), where sodalicium = “meal of a sodalitas”: M. leumann, Die Adjectiva of -icius, in Glotta 9 (1918) 129-168, p. 137. 64. honoré, Ulpian (n. 18), p. 42. 65. cohn, Vereinsrecht (n. 10), p. 104. 66. mommsen, De collegiis (n. 42), p. 32 n. 1, relying on j.C. Von orelli’s Inscriptionum Latinarum Selectarum Collectio (1828), not only listed orelli 4947 (now CIL VI 10231, discussed below) but also referred to two irrelevant cases that mention only sodalicia: orelli 2402 (now CIL II2 14.6 = RICIS 603/0301); orelli 2404 (now CIL xI 1159). This confusion of the terms sodalicium and collegium sodalicium persists among scholars until today. 67. W. liebenam, Zur Geschichte und Organisation des römischen Vereinswesens: Drei Untersuchungen, Leipzig, Teubner, 1890, p. 167; WalTzinG, Étude (n. 24), Vol. 1, p. 134 n. 5; Vol. 4, p. 241; ausbüTTel, Untersuchungen (n. 43), p. 24 n. 57. 68. CIL xI 2722 = EDR 127677. That the dative D(is) M(anibus) is followed by the name of the deceased in the genitive suggests approximately a second-century date. Photograph: P. Tamburini (ed.), Un museo e il suo territorio: Il Museo territoriale del lago di Bolsena, Vol. 2, Bolsena, Città di Bolsena, 2001, p. 152 no. 8. 69. juxtaposition of the genitive (here: Siluini) and the dative (here: sodali) in funerary inscriptions: e.g. CIL III 265; VI 5350; VI 18001; VI 18845; VI 33084; AE 1998 518. 70. E.g. CIL Ix 460 for sodales in a collegium of aquarii; CIL xI 7294: D M | Bebio Fest[i]u[o] | col(legae) sodal[es] | c[oll(egi) c]en[t(onariorum)] | fec(erunt); AE 1979 141 for the double-description as sodales Herculei and as collegium; AE 2012 397 for the members of a collegium of Minerva addressed as sodales; CIL III 633, the cultores of a collegium of Silvanus; CIL VI 307, socii cultores of the Lares and of the images of the Augusti; CIL Ix 2654 and 2679, two other collegia in which we find cultores; CIL xI 1159, a sodalicium of Hercules one of whose members calls himself a cultor; CIL xIV 2112, a “SODALICIAN ASSOCIATIONS”? 455 These terms can be used indiscriminately in the epigraphic record in order to establish relationships within one association through the use of differentiated vocabulary, or in order to refer to functionally similar associations71. That may be one reason why Gaius defined sodales as members in the same collegium. The second example, an inscription from along the Via Appia outside the city of Rome, documents the donation of a parcel of land to an association of the god Silvanus. The shared owners of the estate on which this land is located, having sold an adjacent place for burial to the association, subsequently donate the locus by way of the juridical procedure of mancipium and the symbolic payment of only one nummus (lines 9-12), on the condition that the association use it exclusively to satisfy its ritual and commensal needs72. The relevant passage (7-8) defines this land as the locus in quo aedificata est schola sub por(ticu)| consacrata Silvano et collegio eius sodalic( )| ..., “in which the schola has been constructed inside the porticus consecrated73 to Silvanus and collegio eius sodalic( )”. The inscription’s engraver avoided abbreviations, except in lines 7 and 8 where he was apparently running out of space at the end of the line. This has bedevilled comprehension of the meaning of sodalic( ) in line 8. Mommsen in 1843 took the abbreviation to designate the dative singular of the adjective sodalicius: “… and to his (the god’s) collegium sodalicium”. The inscription itself, however, twice identifies the association’s members as belonging to “(this) collegium” (10, 15) and once refers to collegium whose members also appear as cultores of Diana and Antinous; ausbüTTel, Untersuchungen (n. 43), p. 19; benDlin, Associations (n. 9), pp. 217-218. schmiDT heiDenreich, Schola (n. 23), pp. 237-238 discusses CIL VIII 2601, a military schola whose members are addressed as collegae. 71. E.g. liebenam, Geschichte (n. 67), pp. 166-167; WalTzinG, Étude (n. 24), Vol. 1, pp. 339-341; Vol. 4, pp. 236-242; ausbüTTel, Untersuchungen (n. 43), p. 19. Consider CIL Ix 5450 = AE 1999 599 with A. crisToFori, Non arma virumque: Le occupazioni nell’epigrafia del Piceno (Tarsie, 2), Bologna, Scarabeo, 2004, pp. 346-360, esp. 348-349: a freedman who held the offices of magister and quaestor in a collegium of fabri and in a sodalicium of fullones. 72. CIL VI 10231 = EDR 130027 (late first/early second century). L. sPera, Il paesaggio suburbano di Roma dall’antichità al medioevo: Il comprensorio tra le vie Latina e Ardeatina dalle Mura Aureliane al III miglio, Rome, L’Erma di Bretschneider, 1999, pp. 138-139 no. UT 212; I. Della GioVamPaola, La vigna Cassini tra il II e il III miglio della via Appia: Gli scavi settecenteschi, in Mélanges de l’École française de Rome. Antiquité 120 (2008) 475-505, pp. 482-483, 493-496 for the archaeological context. 73. One would have expected dedicata, “dedicated”. The technical term consecratio appears in non-civic inscriptions of the second century instead of dedicatio, however: S. mrozeK, Sur la dedicatio, la consecratio et les dédicants dans les inscriptions du Haut-Empire romain, in Epigraphica 66 (2004) 119-133, pp. 125-128. This confusion of terminology may not yet indicate a conceptual shift towards the verb consecrare, which occurred in late antique non-civic dedications. 456 A. BENDLIN the association as the “collegium [Si]luani” (16-17) but never imagines a “collegium sodalicium”. Since the legal context is one of passing ownership of land from donor to association, one should expect terminological precision from the college’s members. Besides, associations devoted to Silvanus sometimes called themselves sodalicia or sodales, but collegia and cultores of the god are attested more frequently74. Gerold Walser identified sodalic( ) as a nominative plural of nominal sodalicius, “a member of a sodalitas or sodalicium”, and as the subject governed by the verb in the inscription’s next line75: … et collegio eius. Sodalic(ii)| (…) acceperunt …, “… and to his (the god’s) collegium. The members of the sodalicium … received (or, accepted) …”. Walser’s reading, however, must be rejected too. The text, which admittedly exhibits a less than impeccable syntactical structure, nevertheless provides feasible alternative subjects for the governing verb: the immunes, the curator(es) and the pleps uniuersa “of this collegium”, who accept ownership of the locus (9-10). An alternative subject (“the members of the sodalicium”) only obscures this argumentative context. If one wished to identify a form of nominal sodalicius, would it not be preferable to understand, with Cecilia Ricci, sodalic(iorum) and translate: “to his (the god’s) collegium (consisting) of the members of the fellowship”? Ricci’s solution, the genitive plural, however, cannot be accepted either, because no epigraphic or other evidence for nominal sodalicius appears to exist76. A somewhat more feasible expansion would be sodalic(iarii) or sodali(ciariorum), the nominative and genitive plurals respectively of nominal sodaliciarius, “member of a sodalicium”. With only two extant epigraphical attestations (only one of them from the second century), however, that word is ill attested77. Moreover, the nominative sodalic(iarii) still 74. E.g. CIL VI 630 and 647, as was already pointed out by H. Dessau on ils 7313. Evidence: P.f. Dorcey, The Cult of Silvanus: A Study in Roman Folk Religion (Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition, 20), Leiden, Brill, 1992, pp. 84-90. 75. G. Walser, Römische Inschriftenkunde, Stuttgart, Steiner, 21993, pp. 118-120 no. 47. 76. C. ricci, Sepulchrum donare, emere, possidere, concedere, similia et (omnibus) meis: donne e proprietà sepolcrale a Roma. Parte II, in A. buonoPane – F. cenerini (eds.), Donna e vita cittadina nella documentazione epigrafica (Epigrafia e antichità, 23), faenza, Lega, 2005, 93-103, pp. 98-102, esp. 99 n. 80. Of course, one must exclude anomalous cases such as AE 1919 75 or AE 1950 193, where the engravers spelled sodalicius to denote the nominal neuter sodalicium. 77. Nominal sodaliciarius is derived from adjectival sodalicius, according to j.N. aDams, Social Variation and the Latin Language, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2013, p. 555. first example: CIL VI 9275, a second-century funerary inscription, addresses the dedicator’s deceased wife as sodaliciaria, the term perhaps designating her as his “(marital) companion”. But A. Gunnella (ed.), Le antichità di Palazzo Medici Riccardi. Vol. I: Le iscrizioni del cortile (Cultura e memoria, 9), florence, Olschki, 1998, pp. 61-64 no. 13 compares CIL VI 14697 (where the dedicator addresses his deceased wife as sodalis) to “SODALICIAN ASSOCIATIONS”? 457 presupposes the need for a subject in line 8, to be governed by the verb in line 9, which the context rather precludes; and it is questionable whether sodalic( ) can be expected to abbreviate sodalic(iariorum) when the word sodaliciarius occurs so rarely. The editors of CIL VI.2 (1882), p. 1355 preferred to read the genitive singular “sodalic(i)” of the substantivised neuter sodalicium, on balance the most preferable expansion: “consecrated to Silvanus and the collegium of this fellowship”. We may even speculate whether the engraver understood the genitive singular eius sodalic(i) to substitute for a genitive plural eorum sodalium, “of these fellows”. Either way, the Roman inscription is most likely to provide another example, like the funerary inscription from Volsinii above, of the employment of two interchangeable terms of reference – here, collegium and sodalicium – to describe an association’s membership. Technically being a collegium devoted to the god Silvanus, its members could also perceive one another as sodales, “fellows”, within a sodalicium, “fellowship”. That interpretation would still stand if one decided to read, with Mommsen, collegio eius sodalic(io). Should the phrase collegia sodalicia surface in the epigraphic record, it would need to be understood descriptively: “his (the god’s) collegium of sodales”. That meaning would be easily comprehensible to the sixth-century Anonymus of the Basilica translation and to Dorotheus, but it fails to tally with any of the modern attempts to categorise the nature of these “sodalician associations”. Any comparability is therefore flawed. for if the imperial mandata targeted collegia of a particular “sodalician” type, why should any association choose such a tainted and disadvantageous name? Put differently, however we wish to read the epigraphic examples, they prove the variability of nomenclature in the epigraphic record, but they cannot supply any unequivocal comparative evidence to elucidate Marcian. Consequently they fail to provide a context for Digests 47.22.1 pr. I proceed to the second step in my argument and present contrarian evidence. Chapter 74 (Tab. VIII B, line 48-VIIII A, line 2a) of the Domitianic municipal statute from Irni also juxtaposes the two lexemes collegi- and sodalici-, thus offering material for pertinent comparison. I propose that, rather than agreeing with Digests 47.22.1 pr., as is sometimes conjectured, suggest (less plausibly) that the husband and wife of CIL VI 9275 were sodales in an association. Second example: CIL VI 10185 (cf. x 358*.4), a gladiator’s epitaph from the fourth century where the word refers to the deceased’s membership in a gladiatorial troupe. Possible Christian context: K.M. coleman, Valuing Others in the Gladiatorial Barracks, in r.m. rosen – i. sluiTer (eds.), Valuing Others in Classical Antiquity (Mnemosyne Supplements, 323), Leiden, Brill, 2010, 419-446, pp. 435-438. 458 A. BENDLIN the Lex Irnitana contradicts the wording of the Digests. I constitute the beginning of Chapter 74 as follows78: R(ubrica) De coetu sodalicio collegio. | Ne quis in eo municipio coetum facito neue sodalicium conle|giumue eius rei causa{m} habeto neue ̀u⸢t⸣´ habeatur coniurato | neue facito quo quid earum rerum fiat … | … Rubric: Concerning coetus, sodalicium, collegium. That no one in this municipium shall cause a gathering (coetus), or have a sodalicium or collegium for this purpose [i.e., for the purpose of causing a coetus], or take an oath [i.e., connive] that it be established [i.e., for this purpose], or do anything through which any of these things may happen … I note that Chapter 74 explicitly distinguishes between collegia and sodalicia, which only confirms the differentiation of the two terms we have seen to exist elsewhere in the epigraphic and literary record. The Lex Irnitana does not target specifically electoral, political, private or religious associations. Its scope is broader, while the nature of the associations in question is left vague. Regardless of whether their name is collegium or sodalicium, municipal statutory law threatens to interdict any association the very moment it causes coetus. That word and its cognates, although they can refer to any licit or illicit gathering, are routinely employed by our sources to describe the activities of associations79. If the late first-century municipal code from Irni criminalises local associations in Irni only insofar as their purpose is the organisation of coetus, or when individuals connive to establish any such association for that purpose80, the legislator nevertheless foregrounds the role of associations in gatherings and associates the act of coniuratio with the activities of collegia and sodalicia. The same conceptual link between illicit gathering and the behaviour of associations reoccurs in Marcian f 73a in the first half of the third century. However, the juxtaposition of the Lex Irnitana, with its distinction between collegia and sodalicia, and Digests 47.22.1 pr. also highlights the oddity of the collocation collegia sodalicia in the latter. 78. CILA II.4 1201. f. lamberTi, Tabulae Irnitanae: municipalita e ius Romanorum, Naples, jovene, 1993, p. 336 and CILA correctly read and also print ui in line 50 (the engraver added the word above the line), but correction of the word to u⸢t⸣ seems required. Also in line 50, a. D’ors – x. D’ors, Lex Irnitana: Texto bilingüe (Cuadernos Compostelanos de Derecho Romano, 1), Santiago de Compostela, Universidade, 1988 propose coniurat<i>o, which does nothing to improve the text. 79. Cf. Pliny, Ep. 10.96.7; Tertullian, Apol. 38.1-3; 39.20; A. berGer, C. C. C.: A Contribution to the Latin Terminology concerning Collegia, in Epigraphica 9 (1947 [1949]) 44-55, pp. 46, 50-51; benDlin, Associations (n. 9), pp. 237-240. 80. J. Gonzalez – m. craWForD, The Lex Irnitana: A New Copy of the Flavian Municipal Law, in JRS 76 (1986) 147-243, pp. 223-224; lamberTi, Tabulae Irnitanae (n. 78), p. 337 n. 120. “SODALICIAN ASSOCIATIONS”? 459 Vi. “Collegia or soDaliCia” I proceed to the third and final step in my argument. I hold that scholarship since at least the sixth century has been misled by a corrupt text. Marcian never wrote “collegia sodalicia” but referred to a clause in the imperial mandata that targeted, like the Lex Irnitana, any kind of “illicit” association, whether its name was sodalicium or collegium. In other words, we should expect Marcian to have written “collegia and/or sodalicia”. The passage’s corruption becomes readily explicable through analysis of its immediate context. The transmitted text reads: “ne patiantur esse collegia sodalicia neue milites collegia in castris habeant”. I hold that connective <ue>, “or”, dropped out immediately after “sodalicia” and before “neue milites” in a straightforward case of haplography. Textual corruption of this kind need not surprise in a corpus notorious for its problematic transmission81. The received text of Digests 47.22.1 pr., in other words, preserves a corrupt version of Marcian’s Institutes, and the original text would be restored as follows: Mandatis principalibus praecipitur praesidibus prouinciarum ne patiantur esse collegia sodalicia<ue>… Through imperial instructions it is enjoined upon those who preside over provinces not to tolerate the existence of collegia or sodalicia… Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld in passing hinted at such a solution when he interpreted the phrase collegia sodalicia as asyndetic, surmising it to be “eine bloße Aneinanderreihung”82. However, his solution fails to respect the stylistic preferences of the classical and post-classical jurists, Marcian included, who – barring only a few established juridical terms and definitions or sequences of words that employ asyndeton in imitation 81. Cf. Mommsen’s own emendation of Digests 3.4.1.1: “corpus collegii societatis<ue> siue cuiusque alterius eorum nomine”. Mommsen as textual critic of the Digests: JaKobs, Mommsen (n. 3), pp. 456-488. Earlier discussions: C. Fuchs, Kritische Studien zum Pandektentexte, Leipzig, Teubner, 1867, pp. 87-92; f. schulz, Einführung in das Studium der Digesten, Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 1916, pp. 17-62. 82. schnorr Von carolsFelD, Geschichte (n. 49), p. 239 n. 1. He may have influenced sirKs, Vereine (n. 56), p. 22; maroTTa, Mandata (n. 7), p. 156. Both scholars speak of “collegia and sodalicia”; their respective paraphrases of Marcian are not presented with any supporting argument, however. P.W. DuFF (Personality [n. 62], pp. 111-112) and A. GroTen (Corpus und Universitas: Römisches Körperschafts- und Gesellschaftsrecht zwischen griechischer Philosophie und römischer Politik [lus Romanum, 3], Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2015, pp. 177, 267-269) accept Schnorr von Carolsfeld’s reasoning. As is shown below, their suggestion that the Basilica’s later translation merely misunderstood Marcian’s asyndetic formulation, which would have been unobjectionable in its original context, does not convince. 460 A. BENDLIN of the language of Roman statutes – eschew asyndetic expressions83, consonant with the stylistic choices of Latin prose authors during these periods more generally. Nor do the language and diction of the imperial Libri mandatorum, which Marcian f 73a may directly reflect, differ from this style84. Both the emperor’s mandata and Marcian’s Institutes avoid the asyndetic word order of Roman statutes, which the rubric of the Lex Irnitana’s Chapter 74 exemplifies. The language of the (post-)classical jurists in particular displays a strong preference for the use of non-clitic conjunctions: affirmative copulative atque and et (“and”), disjunctive aut, neque, siue and uel (“either … or”). However, the juristic literature can also employ the respective enclitics -que (“and”) and -ue (weak “or”) to connect words of interrelated or overlapping morphological and lexicographic value. Marcian, in representation of this style, frequently uses the non-clitic copulatives aut, siue and uel85. yet on occasion he employs the enclitic -ue to juxtapose terms that are synonymous, lexicographically similar or functionally homologous, sometimes in adaptation of the language and style of a Roman statute86. The addition of either a non-clitic or an enclitic remedies the anomaly of Digests 47.22.1 pr., but the insertion of enclitic -ue to link the two functionally correspondent nouns collegium and sodalicium provides the least interventionist emendation. It is difficult to determine with any certainty when textual corruption of Marcian’s Institutes occurred. Was it introduced when justinian’s Pandects were compiled? It is more likely that the compilers relied on a prejustinianic edition of Marcian’s Institutes that already contained the omission of -ue, and that this corruption of the text was a result of the Institutes having been copied and edited by earlier jurists. I have shown that the textual error existed already in the text of the Digests, whence it found its way into the sixth-century Greek translations undertaken by the Anonymus, 83. Marcian, XIV Institutionum f 165, 168, 172, 178–179 (48.6.5 pr., 48.8.1, 48.9.1, 48.13.4-5) contain rare examples of asyndetic sequences of nouns, which the texts employ only in imitation of the vocabulary of the laws they discuss. for the classical jurists’ general avoidance of asyndeta, see W. Kalb, Das Juristenlatein: Versuch einer Charakteristik auf Grundlage der Digesten, Nürnberg, Ballhorn, 1888, pp. 37-41, esp. 39-40. 84. for the mandata’s conventional prose style, see the examples cited by Ulpian, XLV Ad edictum f 1178, 29.1.1 pr.; VIII De officio proconsulis f 2217, 47.11.6. 85. for the frequent use of non-clitics by the jurists, see Kalb, Juristenlatein (n. 83), p. 3. honoré (Ulpian [n. 18], pp. 49, 72, 75, 80-81, 91, 129, 136-137) demonstrates that his teacher, Ulpian, influenced Marcian stylistically. W. Kalb (Roms Juristen, nach ihrer Sprache dargestellt, Leipzig, Teubner, 1890, p. 138) anticipated this insight. 86. Enclitic -que and -ue in Marcian’s Institutes: f 26: pignus hypothecaue; 36: pignori hypothecaeue nomine; 39; 138; 140; 141; 163; 164; 165: turbae seditionisue faciendae; 169; 171; 172: filium filiamue; 173; 175; 179; 194; 202. “SODALICIAN ASSOCIATIONS”? 461 a valuable first-generation recipient of justinian’s Pandects, and by Dorotheus, one of the Digests’ compilers and one of the commission’s readers of Marcian’s Institutes. F, which represents in all probability another first-generation witness of the actual text of the Digests, and the Vulgate tradition, which is a later alternative representative of their Latin textual transmission, offer the same corrupt reading. The date of the Digests thus provides a terminus ante quem for the corruption of Marcian f 73a and the date of composition of Marcian’s Institutes its terminus post quem. It is hard to be more precise, as the pre-justinianic reception of Marcian is nearly impossible to reconstruct and in fact might have been rather slight: prior to the handbook’s heavy exploitation by the compilers of justinian’s Pandects and Institutes, only the pseudo-Pauline Sententiae and Hermogenian (c. 300 ce) can be shown to have used Marcian’s Institutes at somewhat greater length87. However that may be, Marcian f 73a states that the Roman officeholder in his province, rather than merely targeting collegia sodalicia of a specific type, was expected to not tolerate any kind of illicit association. My reading is logically coherent with the subsequent clause of Marcian f 73a, which addresses the prohibition of collegia in the military realm. The absence of the word sodalicia in that context is pertinent: the collegium, alongside the schola, was the privileged form of organisation of associative life within the Roman army88, whereas the sodalicium was not. Similarly, collegia, sodalicia and their equivalents occur in significant numbers in the civilian realm, but collegia sodalicia never do. Vii. ePiloGue: some FurTher consiDeraTions That the emperors’ mandata should have prompted provincial governors to prohibit all “illicit” associations sits uncomfortably with the view that the provincial governor, although he may have exerted nominal control over associations, intervened forcefully only when associative activity disturbed the public order. That concern, some surmise, rather than the policing of provincial associations, is addressed by Marcian89. 87. According to WieacKer, Textstufen (n. 16), pp. 202-205, two independent recensions of Marcian’s Institutes were available to justinian’s jurists: one was excerpted for the Digests, and another, superior exemplar was used for justinian’s Institutes. Reception of Marcian’s Institutes: WieacKer, Textstufen, pp. 199, 205; liebs, Älius Marcian (n. 13), pp. 67-69. 88. schmiDT heiDenreich, Schola (n. 23). 89. VenTicinque, Common Causes (n. 42), pp. 169-170. 462 A. BENDLIN Scholars who subscribe to this view rightly point out that there is a demonstrable dearth of evidence concerning a continuous and systematic policy of infringement upon associative affairs by the imperial state – even in data-rich territories such as Italy, Asia or Egypt, where one should expect evidence of such a policy. Any sanctions the historical record permits to identify usually prove to be intermittent, and are instigated by local elites, Roman office-holders or emperors who respond to concrete situations of unrest and trouble with the aim of restoring discipline. Associations become targets intermittently only when they threaten the sociopolitical status quo90. Marcian, however, who holds that the gatherings of associations not authorised by a senatorial decree or an imperial act of benefaction must be disbanded (II Iudiciorum Publicorum f 202, 47.22.3 pr.-3.1), would have struggled to understand such a concept of reactive Roman governance. So would have Pliny, whom the imperial mandata furnished with the mandate to dissolve in his province associations in cities under Roman jurisdiction and not tolerate the establishment of new ones (Ep. 10.33-34, 92-93). Trajan, Pliny and Marcian took it for granted that the scrutinizing of organised gatherings of men – who, “whatever nomen we give to them, for whatever causa”, before long would turn into incommodious hetaeriae (Trajan apud Pliny Ep. 10.34) – belonged among the competencies of Roman office-holders in the provinces. The view that the imperial state would have concerned itself primarily with the securing of order, although formally correct and largely uncontroversial, elides this nexus between unauthorised coetus and Rome’s view of associations as prime instigators of illicit gatherings. Our samples suggest that Roman imperial attitudes towards associations were consistent in that regard. That said, the modern dichotomous portrayal of Roman imperial governance might altogether misapprehend the nature of Roman control of associations. When it is held by some that the juristic texts are indicative of a fundamentally restrictive governmental attitude, whereas others maintain that the reality of governance during the first three centuries ce exhibited a minimalist approach toward the disciplining of associative life, both positions are conditioned by how we, as scholars, accentuate the character of 90. E.g. I.N. arnaouToGlou, Roman Law and Collegia in Asia Minor, in Revue Internationale des Droits de l’Antiquité 49 (2002) 27-44; iD., Collegia in the Province of Egypt in the First Century aD, in Ancient Society 35 (2005) 197-216; sommer, Vereinigungen (n. 42), pp. 59-70; P.a. harlanD, Associations, Synagogues, and Congregations: Claiming a Place in Ancient Mediterranean Society, Kitchener, ON, Philip A. Harland, 22013, pp. 141-156, 170; n. 4 above. Others have suggested that there existed stricter control in Rome and the West, while laxer rules applied in the Eastern provinces: j. liu, Pompeii and Collegia: A New Appraisal of the Evidence, in Ancient History Bulletin 22 (2008) 53-69, pp. 54-56. “SODALICIAN ASSOCIATIONS”? 463 Rome’s rule in the provinces, from resolutely proactive to merely reactive and passive. It should give pause that both sides of this debate describe demonstrably salient aspects and necessary conditions of imperial governance, different manifestations of the practice and ideology of imperial rule91. Neither side, however, succeeds in proffering a sufficiently inclusive explanatory model, and neither facilitates a fuller understanding of Marcian f 73a. As has been recognised92, a total ban of associations was not the aim of provincial governors such as Pliny. This was not, however, due to “relaxed” Roman gubernatorial attitudes, but because Rome could use existing statutory legislation, senatorial decrees, imperial mandata and constitutions to intervene forcefully whenever the emperor, the Senate or Roman office-holders in their provinces saw fit to interdict the gatherings of those associations they deemed illicit. It is this range of discretion in imperial decision-making – rather than questions about the degree of reactive governance or the reach of Roman interventionism – the historian must explain. Any application of Rome’s discretionary power was informed by the opposition between licit and illicit associations. Hence the theme’s pervasiveness in the imperial juristic literature, which reaffirms the imperial state’s arrogated right of dominance in a system of vertical power relations, where only gatherings authorised by “those above” could claim legitimacy. This powerful ideological script created legal, political and social difference, and provisioned emperors, the Senate and provincial governors with a convenient tool, applicable ad libitum, to affirm or condemn, privilege or prosecute associative gatherings. Marcian f 73a operates within this historical scenario of case law: premising the convenience the above ideological script proffered, he asserts the potentiality of intervention whenever local circumstances necessitated the dissolution of associations that had been established illicitly, at least in the eyes of the governing elite. The Libri mandatorum to which Digests 47.22.1 pr. refers tellingly reoccur in Marcian f 202 (II Iudiciorum Publicorum, 47.22.3 pr.-3.1) as the very tools with which Roman officials in the provinces could exercise their discretionary right to dissolve associations whenever they deemed them illicit. In this social field Marcian f 73a protests the Roman governor’s right to dissolve all associations. Andreas benDlin 91. C. anDo, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire (Classics and Contemporary Thought, 6), Berkeley, CA, University of California Press, 2000, pp. 23-28. 92. arnaouToGlou, Roman Law (n. 90), pp. 37-42.

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“Sodalician Associations"? Digests 47.22.1 pr. and Imperial Government

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