ABSTRACT
BEFORE the Twelve Tables there existed some professional corporations and a certain number of sodalitates, perhaps religious colleges established to perpetuate the cults of vanished gentes or to provide for those of new gods, 1 but more probably, as a general rule, plebeian associations with a religious or philanthropic object, sometimes pleasure meetings, which had their own heads and assemblies and a disciplinary jurisdiction. 2 The Law of the Twelve Tables confirmed this state of affairs and allowed members of societies (sodales) to adopt whatever rules they pleased, so long as they did not conflict with any public statute. 3 Whether this applied to the trade-bodies as well as the sodalitates is a matter of dispute; some say that the former must have received their regulations from the State, 4 but this is not certain. The Lex Gabinia concerning private assemblies, the Sc. de Bacchanalibus (568 a.u.c.) and some other enactments merely applied the principle of this liberal and purely restrictive legislation. After Catilina, the political factions, electoral associations and suspicious meetings of oriental and orgiastic cults provoked a reaction. A senatusconsultum and perhaps certain statutes proclaimed the dissolution of many collegia, 5 and an attempt was made to establish the rule that there should be no associations, or at least no new ones, without authorization. But in 696 the Lex Clodia de collegiis reestablished the suppressed colleges with absolute freedom. 6 Three years afterwards, however, the Lex Licinia de sodaliciis forbade the electoral comitia trafficking in votes; and in 707 Caesar suppressed all the colleges except the most ancient, i.e. the professional corporations dating back to the regal period. His statute was extended to the provinces. 1
