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The Collegia of Numa: Problems of Method and Political Ideas*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Emilio Gabba
Emilio Gabba
Affiliation:
University of Pavia
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Extract

Chapter Seventeen of Plutarch's Life of Numa is well known to students of early Rome for the statement that it was the second king of Rome who created collegia for the craftsmen of Rome. Nor is Plutarch alone in his belief: two passages of Pliny's Natural History attribute the collegia of the bronze workers and brick makers to Numa (XXXIV, I; XXXV, 159); Pliny indeed seems to refer to an actual list of collegia in which these two figured. On the other hand, neither Cicero in the Republic nor Livy nor Dionysius displays any knowledge of such an initiative by Numa; an entirely different tradition indeed appears in Florus, according to which it was Servius Tullius who distributed the Roman people between collegia, in the general context of his timocratic organization of the census classes (1, 6, 3).

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 74 , November 1984 , pp. 81 - 86
Copyright
Copyright © Emilio Gabba 1984. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 The text is discussed at length in all the standard treatments of the Roman collegia, notably the classic work of Waltzing, J.-P., Étude historique sur les corporations professionelles chez les Romains 1 (1895), 62 ff.Google Scholar, and the well-known study of Robertis, F. M. De, Il fenomeno associativo nel mondo romano (1955, repr. 1981), 21 ff.Google Scholar There is a sensitive synthesis with further bibliography in Ruggini, L. Cracco, ‘Le associazioni professionali nel mondo romano-bizantino’, Artigianato e tecnica nella società dell'Alto Medio Evo Occidentale (Settimane Studio Centra Ital. Studi Alto Medio Evo 18) (1971), 65 ff.Google Scholar But study of the passage has been set on a new footing by Marino, A. Storchi, ‘La tradizione plutarchea sui “collegia opificum” di Numa’, Annali Istituto Ital. St. Storici 3 (1971–1972), 1–53,Google Scholar with ‘Le notizie pliniane sui collegia opificum in età arcaica’, Annali Fac. Lettere Napoli N.s. 4 (1973–1974), 19–36Google Scholar, and ‘Artigiani e rituali religiosi nella Roma arcaica’, Rend. Acc. Arch. Napoli 54 (1979), 333–57Google Scholar. Storchi Marino has elucidated the philosophical pre-occupations which determine the structure described by Plutarch and in particular their Pythagorean antecedents and has attributed the formation of the tradition to Tarentine Pythagorean circles around 300 B.C. Her interpretation is accepted by A. Mele, ‘Il Pitagorismo e le popolazioni anelleniche’, AION (Archeol.) 3 (1981), 91.

2 Pais, E., Storia di Roma I, 1 (1898), 283Google Scholar.

3 I refer to my remarks in Les Origines de la république romaine (Fondation Hardt, Entretiens sur l'Antiquité classique 13) (1967), 154–62.

4 The same themes recur in a much more complex form in Dionysius II, 62, 3–4 and 74, 2–4: E. Gabba, ‘Per la tradizione dell'heredium romuleo’, Rend. Ist. Lomb. 112 (1978), 255–6.

5 Thus creating a single organization for all the technai: this is the meaning of the phrase in Plutarch, as Storchi Marino, loc. cit. (n. 1), 10, has shown.

6 De collegiis et sodaliciis (1843), 27Google Scholar.

7 e.g. Tondo, S., Leges Regiae e paricidas (1973), 201Google Scholar; Peruzzi, E., Origini di Roma 11 (1973), 65Google Scholar.

8 Ath. 8 (1930), 299–328 and 452–87.

9 Nuova Antologia, 6 Agosto 1936, 405–16 = Pasquali, G., Pagine Stravaganti 11 (1968), 5–21;Google Scholar the article by Tamborini is cited in n. 6.

10 ‘Sur les prétendues corporations numaïques: a propos de Plutarque, Numa 17, 3’, Klio 60 (1978), 423–8, reprinted in Les origines de la plèbe romaine. Essai sur la formation du dualisme patricio-plébèien (1978), 266–70. Martin, P. M., L'idée de la royauté à Rome I (1982), 241,Google Scholar lapses into fantasy when he talks of a political exploitation of Numa by the Etruscan kings.

11 Schwegler, A., Röm. Geschichte 1, 2 (1853), 547Google Scholar.

12 E. Gabba, Ath. 39 (1961), 102–3.

13 On the different levels of the tradition on Numa see the splendid article of K. W. Nitzsch, RE v (1848), 724–6.

14 Storchi Marino, loc. cit. (n. 1), 34.

15 ASNP 13 (1982), 776–7 (text), 1033–45 (comment).

16 Elements of this interpretation appear already in U. Coli, Collegia e sodalitates (1913), now in Scritti di diritto romano 1 (1973), 15–18Google Scholar.

17 Will, E., ‘La Grèce arcaïque’ in Second Intern. Congress of Econ. History (Aix-en-Provence, 1962) (1965), 77 ff.Google Scholar

18 See my remarks in Ath. 38 (1960), 200–7.

19 Ascon. in Cornel. 59, 16 ff. Stangl: ‘propterquod postea collegia et S.C. et pluribus legibus sublata praeter pauca et certa quae utilitas civitatis desiderasset, qualia sunt fabrorum lictorumque’ (62 B.C.); Suet., Caes. 42, 4: ‘cuncta collegia praeter antiquitus constituta distraxit’ (46 B.C.); Suet., Aug. 32, 3: ‘collegia praeter antiqua et egitima dissolvit’ (22 B.C.); in general see Accame, S., ‘La legislazione romana intorno ai collegi nel I sec. a.C.’, Bull. Museo Impero Rom. 13 (1942), 13–48Google Scholar.

20 Staseis are seen as factions of the people by Flacelière, , Plutarque, Vies I (1957), 182Google Scholar and n. 2, but the comparison with Dionysius seems to exclude this interpretation.

21 It is remarkable that in the inscription from Nacona the two opposing factions each designate thirty names, choosing them from the other group, as a prelude to reconciliation.

22 Cic., de re pub. 11, 43; cf. with caution Martin, op. cit. (n. 10), 45 ff.