COLLĒGĬUM

The persons who formed a collegium were called collegae or sodales . The word collegium properly expre ed the notion of several persons being united in any office or for any common purpose; it afterwards came to signify a body of persons, and the union which bound them together. The collegium was the ἑταιρία of the Greeks. The legal notion of a collegium was as follows:—A collegium or corpus, as it was also called, must consist of three persons at least. Persons who legally formed such an a ociation were said corpus habere , which is equivalent to our phrase of being incorporated; and in later times they were said to be corp or at i , and the body was called a corporatio . A ociations of individuals, who were entitled to have a corpus, could hold property in common. Such a body, which was sometimes also called a univ ers it as , was a legal unity. That which was due to the body, was not due to the individuals of it; and that which the body owed, was not the debt of the individuals. The common property of the body was liable to be seized and sold for the debts of the body. It does not appear how collegia were formed, except that some were specially established by legal authority. Other collegia were probably formed by voluntary a ociations of individuals under the provisions of some general legal authority, such as those of the public an i. Some of these corporate bodies resembled our companies or guilds; such were the fabrorum , pistorum , . collegia . Others were of a religious character; such as the pont if i cum , augurum , fratrum arvalium collegia . Others were bodies concerned about government and administration; as tribunorum pleb is , quaestorum , decurionum collegia . According to the definition of a collegium, the consuls being only two in number were not a collegium, though each was called collega with respect to the other, and their union in office was called collegium. When a new member was taken into a collegium, he was said co-optari , and the old members were said with respect to him, recipere in collegium . The mode of filling up vacancies would vary in different collegia. The statement of their rules belongs to the several heads of Augur , Pontifex , .