When the lex of the collegium of ivory and citrus-wood merchants (negotiantium eborariorum et citriariorum) was published in Hadrian's reign, it may have appeared ordinary to onlookers (CIL 6.33885 = ILS 7214; see Figure 1).Footnote 1 Yet the first clause inscribed on the second column of the tablet is now seen as anything but typical—this rule is interpreted as a membership prohibition against persons other than ivory and citrus-wood merchants, an exclusionary effort without parallels in other extant leges collegiorum.Footnote 2 The statute in question appears as follows (CIL 6.33885 = ILS 7214):
It is resolved that if someone other than a merchant of ivory or citrus wood, through the fraud of the overseers (curatores), has been admitted into this collegium, the overseers (curatores) through whom this takes place should be erased from the member list (album) [and] will keep back from the association (ordo);Footnote 4 and [it is resolved] that the overseers (curatores) should first report to the presidents (quinquennales) about the one whom they are about to admit.Footnote 5
Interpreters of the conditional clause in lines 4–6 have raised questions about how typically collegia practised exclusion on the basis of occupation, ethnicity or other identity markers.Footnote 6 The present article steps back to ask whether these lines really indicate such a restrictive membership policy.
A photo of the now-lost broken marble tabletFootnote 3
The fragmentary marble tablet was discovered in 1886 between Piazza San Callisto and Vicolo della Cisterna (southern Trastevere in the bend of the Tiber). Of the two columns of text, only part of the second twenty-two-line column survives, plus a portion of the three-line heading, which ran across the tablet at the top. In this second column, the text mentions at least seven meeting dates, five of which included food, wine and cash distributions.Footnote 7 Two of the meeting dates coincide with Hadrian's biography—his birthday on 24 January (lines 9–11) and the anniversary of his accession on 11 August (lines 16–17).Footnote 8 Reference to curatorial fraud in lines 4–7 is key to interpreting the suspected membership ban (as we shall see below). On all the listed banquet dates, overseers (curatores) made cash distributions, either out of pocket or from the common chest (explicitly from the common chest in lines 18–23). So these officials had access to the group's funds—and they were unelected. These top lines indicate that the four curator positions rotated annually, an arrangement known from other Italian collegia.Footnote 9 The titles of the group's magistrates, quinquennales and curatores, were common in Rome's collegia, including those from Trastevere.Footnote 10
The patron of the group was apparently a certain Julius Aelianus, whose name appears in the heading in larger characters. He is not known from anywhere else, but with the name Aelianus he could be an imperial freedman formerly owned by Hadrian or by a family member.Footnote 11 Of the seven meeting dates mentioned in the surviving parts of the inscription, Aelianus’ (lines 12–14) and his son's (lines 14–15) birthdays are included. On these birthday dinners, members of the collegium assembled for the distribution of cash sportulae (3 denarii), bread, hot food and wine. These lines at the top of the stone allude to the clubhouse of the collegium (tetrastylum, line 1), possibly made available to the association by their patron.Footnote 12 Later in the text, the tetrastylum is cited as the place where members dine.Footnote 13 At the same find spot, what appears to be the group's schola was discovered.Footnote 14 There was a dedication there to ‘holy Silvanus’ ([sanc]to Silu[ano]), an appropriate patron deity for wood merchants.Footnote 15
This article is organized in four main sections. The first section focusses on what was actually banned in the membership rule (lines 4–7). The second section considers scenarios of professional interaction in the Emporium area, just across the Tiber from the schola of our collegium, and how such social connections might foster the transformation of a collegium from an original social basis of luxury-goods merchants to a more diverse membership profile. In the third section, the audience of the membership rule is explored, and specifically how a patron might interpret lines 4–7 of the lex. Finally, an attempt is made to understand the imagined curatorial fraus that is central to the regulation in lines 4–7.
1. THE MEMBERSHIP RULE IN LINES 4–7
An intuitive assumption that runs through previous readings of the membership rule in lines 4–7 is that this association was fixed as a collegium exclusive to ivory and citrus-wood merchants (negotiatores eborarii et citriarii). However, the surviving regulations nowhere restrict membership along professional lines (see the quoted text above).Footnote 16 Instead, lines 6–7 actually suggest openness beyond the professions named in the group's title; we learn here that the curatores must take any membership applications from individuals outside the stated professions to the current quinquennales. A membership restriction would state explicitly that such individuals are denied entry, but the restriction we see instead limits the activity of the curatores. It is the curatores who adlecturi fuerint but must first report to the quinquennales if the prospective member (de eo) they wish to enrol is a non-practitioner. The de eo in line 6 (curatores de eo | [que]m adlecturi fuerint ante ad quinq(uennales) re[fe]rre) refers most naturally to the non-practitioners mentioned in line 4, alius quam negotiator eborarius aut citriarius, since they are at issue. It would appear that curatorial power to enrol members is restricted in this clause—the curatores may be permitted to admit ivory and citrus-wood merchants without further oversight, but non-practitioners must be vetted by the quinquennales. On the whole, these regulations establish the proper vetting procedure for introducing non-practitioners into the collegium, but they do not restrict such individuals from membership.Footnote 17
Since the whole first column of the regulation is missing, the possibility remains that at the end of that column a regulation identified the curatores as having authority to enrol any ivory or citrus-wood merchant (without the review of the quinquennales). Statutes from Greek associations exhibit various entrance policies and occasionally specify different rules for different categories of members, including different entrance fees depending on the family of new members.Footnote 18 Occasionally, the membership as a whole (populus or plebs) had discretion over new members, but in our collegium there is no mention of ordinary members having a vote.Footnote 19 There are other examples of associations whose vetting was exclusively in the hands of several classes of officials no matter who the prospective member was.Footnote 20
It is important to highlight also that the penalty for misbehaviour in these lines aligns with the new interpretation of the rule offered here. The penalty is directed towards curatores who fail to follow procedure, not towards the members whom they enrolled. The new, non-practitioner members, in other words, are not to be expelled—on the whole, the group appears open to non-practitioners. It is tempting to make much out of the syntax of these lines when there are so few parallels to such a rule, but it seems significant to highlight that the drafters opted for a subjunctive instead of an indicative in the protasis. The explanation may be that no curator had previously broken the regulation that is now being formalized, and so the specified penalty had to that date never been ordered.
2. REGULATED COLLEGIVM OPENNESS AND PROFESSIONAL INTERACTIONS IN THE EMPORIUM
Since lines 4–7 provide an avenue for the enrolment of non-practitioners, it is worthwhile to consider how a non-practitioner might come to be included in this collegium of ivory and citrus-wood merchants. Some of the structures that would have fostered inter-professional collegiality among ivory and citrus-wood merchants as well as among other workers were located across the Tiber in the area south of the Via Marmorata in the Aventine, where merchants of ivory and citrus-wood likely worked. Social interactions in the commercial ports, cellae (small storage units) and horrea (warehouses) along the Tiber were probably anything but slow and stagnant. Importers, artisans, retailers and other negotiatores as well as less affluent wholesale distributors would have mingled with the negotiatores of ivory and citrus-wood in such facilities. Livy identifies the area around the Porta Trigemina (exact location in the Aventine unknown) as a site where lignarii (carpenters) worked. An alternative reading of Livy takes this to be a port area where raw wood was imported (35.41.10).Footnote 21 Moreover, at the Horrea Galbiana in the Emporium area, a large quantity of ivory was discovered (675 cubic feet).Footnote 22 So it is within this industrial and commercial area, the Emporium, that negotiatores of ivory and citrus-wood (raw or manufactured) would see their products arrive, be sold, processed and retailed. The Porticus Aemilia would have worked well as an auction site where wholesale products purchased by our negotiatores could be sold.Footnote 23
This busy commercial area helps us to imagine how the collegium might have been transformed over time. Perhaps it started out as a collegium of, say, negotiatores eborarii. The members who first realized that they or the collegium would benefit from expanding membership to include the negotiatores citriarii, merchants who also frequent the Emporium area, would then need to generate consensus, and perhaps compete with the agendas other members had for the collegium. An analogy can be found in the area south of the Via Marmorata in a little-known inscription from across the Tiber attesting to a collegium: a marble plaque (late second/early third century c.e.) that references argentarii (moneylenders) and exceptores (shorthand writers).Footnote 24 The fragmentary initial four lines of the text are followed by the names of three argentarii and at least twenty-one exceptores. The right panel is lost and so more names of exceptores could have been listed there.
[This is] the place that was licensed to the moneylenders and copyists by Servius Calpurnius Verianus and Quintus Iulius [---], curatores of temples and public works and spaces. It was dedicated on 12 March during the consulships of … and … with Publius Calpurnius Ep[---] supervising.
Werner Eck provides a compelling explanation for professional interaction among Rome's moneylenders and stenographers in the context of public auctions: as the argentarii made loans, the exceptores kept records of the transactions for them.Footnote 26 Eck takes this professional collaboration as the reason for the formation of a single association for both professions living around the ager Vaticanus. Yet it is also possible that over time the group changed into what it became in this inscription. Perhaps it originally consisted of only argentarii, and that is why they are listed first despite being so outnumbered by exceptores.
With respect to the association of argentarii and exceptores, additional transformation is evident from another inscription that names the association at a different point in its history as argentarii et exceptores | item(que) negotiantes uini | supernat(is) et Arimin(ensis) (CIL 6.1101 = ILS 519 [251 c.e.])—that is, moneylenders, shorthand writers and merchants of foreign wine (for example from the city of Ariminum in north-eastern Italy on the Adriatic coast). This stone was found at approximately the same spot (St Peter's basilica). Eck explains the place of the negotiantes in the collegium at this point in light of the business partnerships and collaborations that would form among those who worked with imports and in auctions.Footnote 27
This scenario of an occupational association whose membership profile is gradually expanding as a result of professional interactions in the Emporium can plausibly be attributed to the collegium of ivory and citrus-wood merchants as well. What is so interesting about our collegium of ivory and citrus-wood merchants is that their lex claimed such openness was monitored and regulated.
3. AN AUDIENCE OF ONE
The rule in lines 4–7 is described as having been ‘resolved’ (placere) by the collegium as a whole.Footnote 28 However, I doubt that there would have been a naturally occurring consensus about the vetting procedure in those lines. Here I would like to build on something that Jean-Pierre Waltzing recognized. Waltzing suggested, on the basis of the fragmentary three-line heading at the top of the tablet, that all of these regulations may have been ‘imposed’ on the collegium by Julius Aelianus, the patron, as the condition on which he would make available to them their schola and his other services.Footnote 29 In suggesting this, Waltzing could have had an analogy in mind, namely the patron, Silvia Marcellina, of the Roman collegium of Aesculapius and Hygiae, who made her gift of a meeting place and foundation conditional on the requirement that the association agreed to limit membership to its current number, 60 (CIL 6.10234 = ILS 7213, 153 c.e.). The patron's reasons for wanting the membership size to remain at 60 are discernible and will be explored now, but with reference to Julius Aelianus and the similar membership rule in the lex of the collegium of ivory and citrus-wood dealers.
The rule in lines 4–7 of our inscription is best understood as a communicative strategy aimed at Julius Aelianus rather than as a policy designed to regulate a supposed membership rush.Footnote 30 The patron, at any rate, had much at stake in the claims on these lines—namely (1) that there was urgency among locals to join the collegium, (2) including much interest from those outside its original professional core, and (3) the situation was being handled competently by the quinquennales. There may be some structural realities behind the claims. For instance, it is possible that earlier in the association's history, the curatores had key discretionary powers over the enrolment of new members. But as a communicative strategy the claim in the lex that admission of non-professionals into the group's membership ranks was being regulated would be especially desirable to the patron because the prestige of the collegium was at stake. One of the central issues for Julius Aelianus would be sheer numbers and how the association might cope with an expanded membership size. Would the food and wine quantities brought to banquets by the curatores be split passiue (‘evenly’) among a much greater number of members and would they result in smaller portions for each diner?Footnote 31 The standing of the collegium in Trastevere could sink as a consequence. Moreover, the lex states in lines 20–1 that any excess income from member contributions and other sources throughout the year should be distributed to members on the Kalends of some month (unknown owing to damage) as a bonus. If membership numbers ballooned, then the three- and five-denarii sportulae detailed at the six banquets (lines 8–17) would need to be distributed to an expanded membership base. This could incapacitate the officiants from providing the promised annual bonuses to members later in the year in lines 20–1.
The act of transferring authority on some matter from the collegium as a whole (or from the curatores in our case) and resting it in the hands of elevated association officers may be attested in two grave stelae discovered at Verona, recently reinterpreted by Jonathan Scott Perry.Footnote 32 The inscriptions mention a collegium of muleteers (iumentarii) who seemingly assembled near a local gate in the city (the Porta Iouiae),Footnote 33 but the central figures are non-members given permission to use the burial space of the collegium.Footnote 34 Akin to the scenario proposed above, the power among the muleteers to grant permission to non-practitioners for use of the association's infrastructure changed over time. We cannot date the two inscriptions from Verona relative to each other, but, as we will now see, the transformation was either from members to magistrates (the mancipes) or the other way around. One of the inscriptions, discovered in 1986, explicitly mentions that permission to use the burial ground came from the collegium as a whole (AE 1987, no. 452; Verona, Venetia; second century c.e.):
Quintus Spurius Senecio made this while living for himself and Quintus Spurius Secundus his son, and Spuria Augustina his daughter, from the permission of the collegium of muleteers at the Porta Ioviae.
This same collegium is referenced in another inscription that was discovered in 1968. Though fragmentary—the recipients of the grant of permission are now lost—it is fascinating to see that permission to use the burial site comes from the mancipes rather than from the group as a whole (AE 1985, no. 462; Verona, Venetia; 117–138 c.e.):Footnote 35
Perry suggests that as transport workers members of this collegium may have noticed increasing demand for burial space near the local gate or somewhere along their travel route and, ‘[d]etermined to make a profit, perhaps the iumentarii bought a plot of land and then doled it out, as they saw fit, with exchange of cash or, more interestingly, in the pursuit of further connections with their more elevated neighbors.’Footnote 37 In such a scenario, we would have a collegium with a core membership of iumentarii, though they are interacting with, and providing member benefits to a degree to, non-practitioners. It is the mancipes in this second inscription who are charged with how far that interaction should go.
While the imagined problems identified in the ivory and citrus-wood merchants’ rule were very likely based on structural realities in the collegium (that is, openness to non-practitioners, different vetting procedures based on the identity of the recruit), we should perhaps understand the real audience of this text as the patron himself, since—though we cannot know for sure—it seems questionable whether there would be a rush from non-practitioners to join this collegium. It is also debatable whether the curatores would commit the imagined fraus in such a circumstance (to be discussed in section 4 below). This lex functioned to affirm for the patron the vigilance of the quinquennales in looking after the reputation and the orderliness of the association. Perhaps the quinquennales are jockeying for further favours from their patron. In any case, the document invites the patron to see the collegium as an attractive group which even non-practitioners wanted to join in great numbers. And the lex communicated to Julius Aelianus that they, the quinquennales, were aware of the situation and guarding against any disorder that might result from such popularity.
4. THE FRAUD OF THE CVRATORES
It is curious that curatorial enrolment of a non-practitioner without review by the quinquennales would be characterized as fraus (line 5). To understand the scenario, it is worthwhile to imagine how the event of an individual curator subverting the rule might play out. If a curator decided to enrol a non-practitioner without the approval of the quinquennales, the quinquennales would presumably notice at the next meeting the presence of a new member whom they did not vet. Their assumption might be that the new member was a merchant of ivory or citrus-wood, and so legitimately enrolled by a curator. Representatives of citrarii from Neapolis (Campania) are documented in Rome, and were apparently organized as a guild with possession of a funerary plot (CIL 6.9258 [100–180 c.e.]).Footnote 38 Perhaps the quinquennales would assume that these new members ran in the circle of this guild of Neapolitan citrarii or resided outside of Rome.
Clearly, the fraus (line 5) of the curator who enrolled a non-practitioner may be exposed over time. But the quinquennales would not necessarily be suspicious when seeing a new member whom they did not personally vet. But when the curator was caught, under what circumstances would their breach in protocol be understood as fraus?
Anne Bäumler emphasizes that the motivations of the implied curatores are now lost to us, but she suggests that it may relate to the wish of some curatores to include into the membership people from their broader social networks beyond negotiantes of ivory and citrus-wood.Footnote 39 This is reasonable, but I would like to suggest another possibility, namely that the curator would somehow benefit financially, perhaps by pocketing a bribe. In the statutes of the collegium of worshippers of Diana and Antinoüs in Lanuvium, a similar act of financial fraud is imagined. In a rule from that text, it is imagined that the committee of three members who were to represent the association in the case of a member's death at a location 20 miles or greater from Lanuvium might steal the deceased member's funeraticium and, supposedly, come to the next banquet claiming that they performed their obligation. Such a financial misdeed is called a fraus (CIL 14.2112, col. 1, line 28).
On the point of understanding the fraus in line 5 as financial, it is important to consider as well lines 18–25 of the statutes of the ivory and citrus-wood merchants, for these lines deal with new members, curatores and finances.
Moreover, it is resolved that … denarii should be distributed to all [members] yearly. In addition, four [members] should be made curatores every year from the member list according to the order. Moreover, it is resolved that they [the curatores, presumably] whose year it is, should take possession of all payments (commoda). Every year, on the Kalends of [---], what (commodum/profit?) remains over and above in the chest (arca) of the association (corpus), the curatores should divide into equal portions, or, if they [sc. the curatores] bring in anything late, 1 per cent interest should be handed over by the curatores each month. Moreover, it is resolved that recruits should not preside in the same year and the costs should be paid equally by both [---]. In addition, it is resolved that whoever should be appointed [to office], should bring to the common chest [---] denarii.
In these lines, we see that the drafters of the text exhibited anxiety about the trustworthiness of individuals who had access to the common funds.Footnote 40 The curatores had exclusive access to these funds it would seem from lines 19–20, but they were also closely monitored: on the Kalends of some month (lines 21–3), the curatores were to take the profits from the treasury and make equal cash distributions to all members. The composers of the lex imagine the possibility that the curatores would be unable to make the proper distributions at this time. A punishment of 1 per cent interest is the deterrent (lines 22–3). This can be taken as acknowledgement of the possibility of theft or dishonesty.
One reason why the curatores might be open to a bribe from a non-member wishing to be enrolled, then, would be to replace money they stole from the arca. Anxieties over financial fraud are not always based on imaginings alone. For example, Polycarp, the overseer (ἐπίσκοπος) of an assembly (ἐκκλησία) of Christ-followers in Smyrna, writing to a second-century ἐκκλησία of Christ-followers in Philippi, references a certain Valens, presbyter of the assembly, who pocketed money from the treasury and was later expelled by the group (Pol. Phil. 11.1–4).
Another question relating to this scenario is why would a non-practitioner pay a bribe when all they had to do was apply to join the collegium as a non-practitioner, thereby submitting themselves to the vetting procedure of the quinquennales? The simplest possibility is that the non-practitioner expected that they would fail the review conducted by the group's quinquennales—perhaps the curator even insisted to the prospective member that the current quinquennales were a conservative group disinclined to enrol non-practitioners—or were pressured by the group's patron to not exceed a membership limit. Based on analogies, the basic criteria of the quinquennales would include the prospective member's financial stability, moral character and lineage.Footnote 41 It is also possible that there was a limit to how many non-practitioners the association would enrol in a given year (perhaps this limit was identified on the first column or was left to the discretion of the quinquennales and ultimately Julius Aelianus).
5. CONCLUSION
The lex of the ivory and citrus-wood merchants is an interesting document for the questions it raises about the boundaries of an occupational association's membership, and how unpredictable these groups could be as they transformed under different leadership retinues. The details of the regulations in lines 4–7 indicate that the group was open to non-practitioners but had a more thorough (or at least different) vetting procedure for them—one involving the quinquennales. The quinquennales, eager to win further favours from Julius Aelianus, capitalized on both of the aforementioned details and used the inscription of the regulation as an opportunity to communicate to the patron the high reputation, attractiveness and orderliness of this collegium.
