The wave of prosperity which spread over the Roman provinces during the early Empire gave a further impetus to trade in every branch, and an industrial class which had been long in the making amongst the people of Rome, awoke to its own interests and claimed if not sympathy at least recognition from the aristocratic ruling caste which held all plebs in contempt.
PANTHEON, A FLANK VIEW
Designed as a Hall of the Baths of Agrippa the contemporary of Augustus, but appears to have been at once dedicated as a temple. The Black Confraternity of S. John Beheaded are seen passing the building, their cross bearer preceding them. See pages [30], [56], [67], [86]; [see also pp. [8], [77], [143]].
The only response given however was to prohibit the formation of trade guilds, exception only being made in favour of a few of the most ancient, and those devoted to purposes of religion and burial. They continued nevertheless to multiply under cover of this latter clause until under Marcus Aurelius and Alexander Severus they received final encouragement and recognition. At this time they had increased enormously in number wealth and importance throughout Rome and the provinces. Every group of merchants and all those engaged in handicrafts banded themselves together to form a college or university as they were called in Rome, as much for the social pleasures to be derived from such association as for the mutual support and protection afforded against the impositions and aggressions of outsiders. Charioteers, gladiators, disbanded soldiers, itinerant merchants, seamen, Tiber boatmen, grain weighers at Ostia, palace servants, carters and coachmen founded corporations equally with the bakers and innkeepers, dyers weavers and tanners.
Every young community sought a rich patron willing to give a plot of land or the funds necessary for the building of a club-room, promising in return certain anniversary banquets in his honour, or commemorative reunions to keep his memory green after death. Each corporation placed itself under the protection of a god whose name it adopted, and as its wealth and importance increased, by members' testamentary bequests or by gifts from patrons, the club premises were increased, and shrines and chapels were built in honour of the titular deity. Some of the corporations rose to such a position of importance that senatorial and consular families sprang from them; they supported colleges of doctors sculptors and painters of their own, they contributed to the building of public monuments and made loans to the State, while on special occasions the emperor's retinue was increased by a hundred standards and five hundred lances contributed by the trade colleges of Rome from amongst their own retainers.
Although democratic in constitution, in so far as every member, however humble, could serve as one of its officers, the college was founded on the civic pattern, with president, curators, fiscal officer and all the grades of rank down to its slave members. Thus each unit represented in miniature the Roman commune and contributed to its consolidation. Unlike some of the guilds of the North however which became the nurseries of civic freedom, the Roman Colleges were too ready to subject their individuality to the spirit of civil discipline which was characteristic of Roman organisations and we find them submitting to one Imperial decree after another, losing one after another of their rights until they fell altogether under State patronage and became a mere portion of State machinery, a petrifying slavery being thus imposed upon their members whose liberties they were founded to safeguard.
SILVERSMITHS' ARCH IN THE VELABRUM
This arch stands against the Arch of Janus, and was erected to the Emperor Septimius Severus, his wife Julia Pia, and his sons, by the guilds of silversmiths and cattle merchants. When Caracalla murdered his brother the name of the murdered prince was removed from the inscription. The arch, as the inscription proves, is on the site of the Forum Boarium.