The History of Freemasonry

by Albert Gallatin Mackey

Chapter 3 - Growth of the Roman Colleges

The Roman Colleges of Artificers - Contents - The first link: Settlement of Roman Colleges

It has been shown in the preceding chapter that Numa, in his sagacious efforts to improve the civilization of the early Romans, and to reconcile the heterogeneous elements of which the population was composed had instituted colleges or guilds of mechanics.

I do not intend to complicate this question by any reference to the theory of Niebuhr and his disciples who have ignored the existence of any true history at that period, but who deem every theory connected with regal Rome as merely mythical and traditionary. I content myself with the fact that when Roman history began to present itself under the authentic form of records, the preexistence of these guilds was fully recognized. It is sufficient for the present purpose to accept the generally received opinion, and while it is not denied that in primitive Rome such guild formations prevailed, we may safely attribute their origin to some early reformer, who may be represented by the name of Numa as well as by any other.

In treating the subject of the rise and progress of these colleges or guilds, I shall pursue the course of Roman history as it has been generally received by scholars. As we advance to later times we shall find ourselves amply fortified by the contemporaneous authority of classical writers, and by numerous monuments and inscriptions. Except the mere question whether they were first established by Numa or by somebody else, in what Niebuhr would call prehistoric Rome-a question of but little or no importance in reference to their connection with the mediaeval guilds-there is no statement concerning them that is not a part of authentic history.

It has therefore been proved that these colleges were guild-like in their organization; that they had all the legal rights of a corporation ; that they elected their own members; that they were governed by certain officers chosen by the votes of the society; that they were supported by monthly contributions; that they had a guild-chest or common fund, which was the property of the corporation; that they had a tutelary deity, in honor of whom they performed religious rites; that they had honorary members not belonging to the Craft, who, as patrons of the colleges, and being selected from the wealthiest and most influential families of the Republic or the Empire, protected their interests ; and finally, that they had, like our modern corporations, laws, regulations, usages, and a jurisdiction which were all sanctioned by the authority of the state.

In tracing the progress of the Colleges of Artificers, through the reigns of the seven kings the long period of the Republic and the rise and fall of the Empire, we need not dwell upon the age of Romulus. Though the narrative of his reign was accepted as authentic by Dionysius and Plutarch, by Livy and Cicero, the incredulity of modern scholars, stimulated by their researches, has led to the very general opinion that the first of the Roman kings was a mythical personage, and that his history was founded, as Niebuhr says, on a heroic lay. Yet even he admits that portions of the nar- rative are to be accepted as matters of fact. Made up as it has been of traditions, which were believed from the earliest periods, the reign and the character of Romulus may be considered as an expoltation of that of the time in which he is supposed to have lived.

From these traditions we learn that he was, as the founder of an empire might well be supposed to be, a warlike king, who was engaged in constant contests with the inhabitants of neighboring and rival cities. Though claimed to have been a legislator of the highest order, who exercised his skill in the organization of a new state, the necessity of defending his territory from aggression and of increasing its limits, gave him but little opportunity or inclination to cultivate the arts of peace.

He is said to have created those religious institutions of the Romans, which were afterward developed into greater maturity by Numa and some of his successors. But he discouraged the cultivation of the arts, and interdicted the citizens from the practice of all mechanical and sedentary trades, which were left to foreigners and slaves, while the free Romans were confined to agricultural labors and warlike pursuits.

His successor, Numa, was, on the contrary, distinguished for his pacific character. During his long reign of forty-three years, the state over which he ruled enjoyed an uninterrupted flow of peace. There were no domestic dissensions and no foreign wars. He was not only a king but a philosopher, and by an anachronism which Niebuhr attempts, but vainly, to explain, he was considered as a disciple of the sage Pythagoras. He established the religious institutes; and pontifical regulations, whose cruder form had been attributed to Romulus; he built several temples, especially that of Janus; he reformed the calendar; instituted public markets and festivals; encouraged the pursuit of agriculture and the mechanic arts; and created the brotherhoods or corporations of the trades and handicrafts- men, which continued to exist through the whole history of the Roman state under the name which he had originally given them of Colleges of Artificers.

Tullus Hostilius was the successor and the contrast of Numa. He was a warlike monarch, and his reign was marked by a series of military successes. He was not Eke his predecessor, of a religious turn of mind, and it was only in moments of trepidation, says Livy, (1) that he made vows to build temples or had recourse to expiatory sacrificial rites. Heineccius (2) thinks it probable that he abolished the craft associations which had been instituted by Numa, because they were calculated to divert the citizens from military pursuits and to deprive him of the services of active soldiers.

Ancus Martius, the fourth king, was the grandson of Numa. He revived the institutions of his grandfather and brought the Romans back from the warlike habits of the previous reign to a cultivation of the arts of peace. With this view he caused the sacred institutes of Numa to be written out by the Pontifex Maximus upon tablets and to be exhibited to the inspection of the public. Under his reign, the colleges must have revived from the oppression they had experienced under his predecessor.

The history of the next king, Tarquinius Priscus, if we are to judge from the legends upon which it is founded, afford no reason for believing that his reign was unfavorable to the craft associations.

(1) "In re trepida," lib., i., 27 (2) "De Collegiis et corporibus opificum." (3) Sir George Cornwall Lewis, "An Inquiry into the Credibility of the Early Roman History," ii., 465

He is said to have been a patron of architecture and of a constructive character. He is said to have adorned the Forum, to have formed the Circus Maximus, to have constructed the Cloaca, or sewers, to have laid the foundations of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, and to have built a stone wall around the city. All these labors would have required the aid of architects and builders, and we suppose that the corporations or colleges of these craftsmen were encouraged by a monarch so well disposed to the cultivation of the arts of construction.

Servius Tullius, the sixth king, has had the reputation of a reformer. He was the first to make a census of the people, and to distribute them into classes.

Florus says that he made the division in curia and colleges and that things were so ordered that all distinctions of property, station, age, occupation, and office must have been well marked. In this reign the colleges and craftsmen took a recognized position among the classes of the community.

Tarquinius Superbus, the last of the race of Roman kings, whose name has been stained by the record of his tyranny, was the enemy of the people. His life was that of a despot. He surrounded himself with a body-guard to protect his person ; he prohibited all assemblies of the peace e4her in the country or in the city, so that no opportunity might be afforded them of consulting on the affairs of the state ; he occupied them in forced labors for the construction of the sewers and the completion of the Circus; he repealed all the popular laws of his predecessor ; abolished the equitable distribution into classes which had been made by the census; and suppressed the colleges and craft sodalic, As the natural and expected result of this oppressive course, the people rose to the assertion of their liberties. Tarquin and his family were perpetually banished, the monarchy ceased to exist, and the republic rose on its ruins.

For a time after the expulsion of the King the Patricians ruled over the Plebeians with a hand not always light. Dissensions sprang up between the oppressors and the oppressed, and the Colleges of Artificers became a subject of suspicion and dislike to the former class, because as these associations were wholly made up out of the latter, they were supposed to be the fomenters of discontent and bodies in which seditious factions would be nourished.

Nevertheless, one of the first acts of the Consular government was to re-establish the mild and beneficent laws of Servius Tullius, and to permit the assemblage of the people, whence resulted the restoration of the colleges.

The severity of a famine which occurred in the Year of the City 276, is attributed by Dionysius of Halicarnassus to the fact that the number of women, children, slaves, and handicraftsmen who were unproductive classes, was three times greater than that of the citizens who were engaged in agricultural pursuits.

Though history, such as it was at that time, is silent on the subject, yet it must be evident that the continual discords for many of the early years of the Republic, between the Patricians and the Plebeians, must have seriously affected the interests of the Colleges of Artificers and secured to them only intermittent periods of spasmodic activity.

But when the people had extorted from the Senate the Tribuneship by which they became a part of the governing power, and the right of holding offices of honor and of entering the priesthood, the colleges of handicraftsmen appear to have been more firmly established. The laws of the Twelve Tables, which were adopted in the Year of the City 302, confirmed their privileges, a decree which Gaius in his Commentary on these laws thinks was suggested by and copied from the decree of Solon in reference to similar associations among the Greeks.

In the Year of the City 687, the Senate had suppressed the colleges, but eight years afterward they were restored by the Tribune Publius Clodius.

From that time the Roman citizens began to pay much attention to the arts and to mechanics. But though the craftsmen were united in the Tribes and had the right of voting, they were not highly respected and were not permitted to serve in the army except on extraordinary occasions, such as domestic seditions. (1)

Yet a great many new colleges were created, some by legal enactment and some by voluntary association. Such, for example, were the colleges of Ship Carpenters, of Smiths, and especially the Collegia Sirucloram, or Colleges of Builders, who were the same as the Fabrii Cementarii, or as it must be literally translated, the Stonemasons.

But these guilds or Colleges of Artificers were not confined to the city of Rome. They spread

(1) "Signonio de ant. jur. civil. Rom."

into the provinces and the municipal cities, or those which had been invested with the right of Roman citizenship.

For a long time these corporations of workmen pursued a quiet and exemplary course, engaged in the lawful pursuit of the various trades and handicrafts.

But the number in time greatly increased; Clodius, the Tribune, in abrogating the decree of the Senate which had suppressed them, unfortunately had extended the privilege to slaves and foreigners of creating new colleges or of uniting with the old ones. Hence many of these sodalities gradually degenerated into factions and political clubs, and thus became dangerous to the state.

In addition to this fault, the classical writers speak in terms of denunciation of the sumptuous feasts in which many of the colleges indulged. They carried this species of dissipation to such an extent, that Varro complains that the extravagant banquets of the colleges had greatly enhanced the price of food at Rome.

These follies were of gradual growth. The colleges continued to exercise their functions during the existence of the Republic, and were found in a flourishing condition at the advent of the Empire.

It is not to be supposed that in a change of government from the simplicity of a democracy to the corruptions of a monarchy, based on a revolution, the faults of political intrigue and extravagant conduct would not increase rather than abate.

Hence we find the emperors generally opposed to the increase of these sodalities, and there are frequent decrees suspending or suppressing them. But it must be remarked that this opposition appears to have been directed rather against the creation of new corporations than to the suppression of the old ones.

To properly appreciate the true condition of the Roman Colleges of Workmen, we must advert to the fact that while there were a certain number of them which had existed from the earliest period, being the continuation of the primitive system which had been established by Numa, and which had, except at intermittent periods of suspicion been tolerated and even patronized by the government, there were many others which had sprung up in later times, and which were formed by the voluntary association of individuals.

These bodies were for the most part the creation of political factions, whose revolutionary designs were sought to be concealed in the exclusiveness of secret consultations, or sometimes of less worthy craftsmen who, not having been admitted into the fellowship of the old college, were willing to set up a rivalry in business.

Hence had arisen a distinction well recognized in the decrees of the Senate, or of the emperors, and constantly referred to in the various codes of Roman law.

This distinction was into lawful and unlawful colleges, or, to use the legal terms, into Collegia licita and Collegian illicita. The voluntary associations, to which allusion has just been made, were of the latter class. They were illicit or illegal colleges, and held a somewhat similar position to the old and lawful colleges that, in modern times, an unincorporated society does in its privileges and franchises to a corporation. The analogy goes so far at least as this, that the illicit colleges, like the unincorporated societies of the present day, had no recognition in law-in other words, possessed no rights which the law recognized. But, in another respect, the analogy fails. The illicita colleges were not only not recognized, but were actually discountenanced by the state, an interference to which our unincorporated associations are not subjected. If the law does not protect them, it does not persecute them. They are allowed, if guilty of no violation of the laws, to continue without let or hindrance.

But this was not the happy lot of the illegal colleges. They were repeatedly denounced and suppressed by the state, which looked upon them always as associations of a dangerous character.

It has been supposed that it was the policy of the Empire to destroy the corporations of craftsmen which had been originally instituted by Numa, and decrees and laws have been quoted to prove the statement. If such had been the case, we should meet with an insurmountable difficulty in tracing back the corporations of builders of the Middle Ages, to the Roman colleges. The total and permanent suppression at any time of these, would naturally destroy the links of that chain of continuity which is absolutely necessary to identify the one with the other in the progress of history.

But we can not find any evidence that the primitive colleges, and especially those of the builders, ever were suppressed. The decrees of the Senate and of the emperors were directed against the new, and not against the old, associations of craftsmen.

Thus Suetonius tells us that Julius Caesar abolished " all colleges except those which had been anciently constituted; " the same author informs us that Augustus " dissolved all colleges except the old and legitimate." (1)

The same reservation is made in all references through the Digest of Justinian, to any decrees or enactments which affected these corporations. It is only Collegia illicita against which the penalties of law are to be enforced. " It is permitted to assemble for religious purposes," says the Digest, " provided that by this the decree of the senate prohibiting illicit colleges is not contravened." Ulpian says that " illicit colleges are forbidden under the same penalties as are adjudged to armed men who take possession of temples or public places."

There was a very wholesome dread, both in the times of the republic and under the emperors, of those illegal associations, voluntarily assembled, too often for the promotion of factions or the encouragement of political opinions which were dangerous to the state.

When the greater part of the city of Nicomedia had been destroyed by fire, Pliny, (2) who was then the governor of Bithynia, applied to Trajan for permission to organize for the purpose of rebuilding a College of Masons (Collegium.Fabrorum), which should not consist of more than one hundred and fifty artisans, and in which he would take care, by the exclusion of every person who was not a Mason, that the purposes of the new college should not be diverted into an improper direction.

There is a good deal of suggestive history in this passage of Pliny's letter to the Emperor.

It indicates, in the first place, that it was not unusual to create new Colleges of Masons (3) for special purpose, which purposes being accomplished, the colleges were dissolved. Pliny would hardly have asked permission to perform an act of such importance, if it had not been sanctioned by previous custom.

But this brings us very near to the similar custom of the Stonemasons in the Middle Ages, who,

(1) "Cunta Collegia praetor antiquitus constituta distraexit" and "Collegia praetor antiqua et legitima dissolvit" are the expressions of the Roman biographer (2) See the 42nd and 43d Epistles for the correspondence on this subject between Pliny and the Emperor Trajan (3) I cannot hestitate to translate the words "Collegium Fabrorum" into the English "College of Masons." The whole tenor of the classical writings and especially the inscriptions show that it was not usual to add to the generic word faber the distinctive one marmoriarius to show that he was a worker in stone or in marble.

we know, were accustomed to create their temporary or especial Lodges of workmen, when any building was to be undertaken. We see in this, if not a proof of the direct continuation of the mediaeval Masons from the Roman colleges (which Mr. Findel is unwilling to admit), at least a very exact imitation in an interesting point, by the former of the customs of the latter.

And in the next place, we learn from this epistle of Pliny that it was not unusual to admit into these colleges of workmen members who were not of the Craft, and that this was often done for an evil purpose

On this fact, indeed, was based the objection of the state to illicit colleges. Voluntary associations were often formed which, assuming the name and pretending to practice the professions of the regular colleges, consisted really, in great part, of non- operatives who met together in secret to concoct political and insurrectionary schemes.

If the illicit colleges had confined themselves to a rivalry in work with the regular bodies, it is not likely that the state would have meddled with the contests between regular and irregular workmen, or, as in after times they were called, Freemasons and Cowans. Government does not at this day, in any country, interfere between constitutional and clandestine Lodges of Masons. It leaves, as it is probable that it would have done in Rome, the settlement of the controversy to the Masonic law.

But it was the admission of these non-operative members into the illicit colleges, who converted them from bodies of honest work. men into political clubs, that made all the evil and awoke the suspicions and the interference of the state.

Trajan consequently declines to permit the creation of a new and temporary college at Nicomedia, and he assigns the reason for his refusal in these words.

He says, in reply to Pliny: "You have suggested the establishment of a College of Masons (Collegia Fabrorum) at Nicomedia, after the example of many other cities. But we should not forget that this province, and especially its cities, have been greatly troubled by this kind of factions. Whatever name we may, give to them for ,any cause, bodies of men, however small in number, who are drawn together by the same design, will become political clubs."

The last two words are in the original hetaria,. This from the Greek, among which people hetaria, or helairiai were associations originally instituted for convivial purposes or for mutual relief, like our benefit societies. They became, in later times, very common in the Greek cities of the Roman Empire, but, as Mr. Kennedy says, " were looked on with suspicion by the emperors as leading to political combinations."'(1)

I think, therefore, that we may safely arrive at the conclusion that the primitive colleges of artisans, who derived their origin from the time of Numa, and to which we may trace the idea of the mediaeval guilds of Masons, were generally undisturbed by the government, whether regal, republican, or imperial, and continued their existence and their activity to a very late period in the history of the empire. The persecutions, suppressions, and dissolutions of colleges of which we read, refer only to those illegal and irregular ones, which, not confining their operations within the legitimate limits of their craft, were voluntary associations made up, for the most part, of non-operative members, who were engaged in factious schemes against the powers of the state.

This point being settled, we may next direct our attention to the condition of these colleges, and especially the Colleges of Masons, or Collegia Fabrorum (for with them only are we concerned), in the empire and in the provinces until the final overthrow of the Roman power

The Romans in the earlier portion of their history, were without any taste or refinement. The people were entirely military in their character, and they cultivated the rude arts of war rather than the polished ones of peace. Architecture, therefore, was in a debased condition. The principles of building extended only to the construction of a shelter from the weather, Their houses were of the rudest form, and, as their name imported, were merely coverings from the sun and rain. " These sheds of theirs," says Spence, " were more like the caves of wild beasts than the habitations of men ; and rather flung together, as chance led them, than formed into regular streets and openings. Their walls were half mud; and their roofs pieces of boards stuck together." (2)

(1) Smith, "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities," article Eranoi. (2) Spence, "Polymatis," Dialogue V., p. 36

The builders of the college established by Numa could at that time have been occupied only in the most inglorious part of their profession. They were engaged in works of utility and absolute necessity, and could have had no knowledge of or inclination for ornament. The most bungling carpenter or bricklayer of the present time must have greatly surpassed them in skill.

During that period the colleges furnished no architects to the army. The only workmen that we find there were the smiths and the carpenters; they were soldiers who exercised with but little need of skill the mysteries of these trades, being employed in the renovation of weapons and in needful repairs about the camp. It was not until centuries afterward that workmen were supplied by the colleges and authorized by the state to accompany the legions in their campaigns and in their occupation of conquered provinces. (1)

It was not until about the era of Augustus-that monarch who boasted that he had found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble-that the Romans began to exhibit a fondness for the fine arts, and especially for architecture. Marcellus, the conqueror of Syracuse, had, two centuries before, implanted the seeds of a refined taste in his countrymen, and invited the invectives of the ascetic Cato, by the works of Grecian art which he brought to Rome from the spoliation of the city which he had conquered. To him, therefore, has been attributed the introduction of the arts into Rome.

But it is to Augustus that architecture was indebted for the high position as an art that it assumed among the Romans, and from the period of his reign must we date the rise of the Colleges of Builders, as associations of architects, whose cultivated and encouraged genius produced its influence upon the conquered provinces into which they migrated with the Roman legions.

Pittacus says, in his Lexicon of Roman Antquities, (2) that those workmen who at first confined their labors to the city of Rome, afterward spread over the whole of Italy and then into the various provinces of the empire, furnishing everything that was needed by the army.

The government seems to have taken especial care of these colleges, for besides the officers

(1) Pittacus, "Lexicon Antiquitatum Romanorum," article Fabri (2) "Lexicon Antiquitatum Romanorum," article Collegium.

elected by the members themselves, the state placed over them other officers, whose duty it was to give them a general superintendence. In the provinces this duty was entrusted to the proconsul or government. Thus we have seen that Pliny, as governor of the province of Bithynia, proposed to create a College of Builders, over which he was to exercise a control such as would regulate it in the admission of its members. In the municipal cities this officer was called sometimes a Procurator, and sometimes a Praepositus. In every legion the artisans were under the government of a Prefect, who was styled the Prefectus Fabrum, or Prefect of the Artisans. I am not willing to confound this officer with the Prefect of the Camp, who was, like our modern quartermaster, of a purely military character. There is an inscription copied by Reinesius, in which occur the words Faber et Praef. Fabr. Leg., XX., i.e., Artificer and Prefect of the Artificers. This would seem to imply that the Prefect himself was sometimes, if not always, an artificer and one of the Craft."

Under the officer appointed by the state, as the general superintendent of the artificers of the college, was a subordinate one, appointed also by the state or perhaps by himself, whose duty it was to inspect and to direct the labors of the workmen, and to see that everything was done in an artistic and workmanlike manner. He was, in fact, what in later times the Freemasons called the Magister Operis, or Master of the Work.

When, therefore, we meet in Gaul, in Britain, or in any other province which had been penetrated by the legions, with a monument of the labors of these Roman Masons, which some wellpreserved inscription attests to have been the work of a Collegium Fabrorum, or College of Masons, we may suppose that it was accomplished in the following manner.

In the first place the men the materials, the site, the character of the building, and all other matters relating to the general design, were determined by the Proconsul, Procurator, Commander of the Legion, or whomsoever had been appointed by the state or the empoeror as superintendent of the artificers and the colleges.

The workmen being then assembled, commenced their labors by congregating themselves, or being congregated, into a college, if such a college did not already exist, and they were placed under the immediate, control and direction of a subordinate officer, who was an artificer or an architect, and who regulated their labors, made designs or plans, and corrected the errors of the workmen.

In all this we see a great analogy to the method pursued by the operative Stonemasons of the Middle Ages.

First, there was a prelate, nobleman, or man of wealth and dignity, who had formed the design of building a cathedral, an abbey, or a castle. In the old English Constitutions this great personage is always refered to as " the Lord" and the work or building was called "the Lord's work."

Having congregated in huts or temporary dwellings around the site of the edifice they were about to erect, they formed a Lodge, which was under the control of a Master. And then there was the architect or Master of the Works, who was responsible for the faithful performance of the task.

The convenience of military operations, such as the establishment or removal of camps, and the passage of armies from one place to another, required that the legions should carry with them in their marches architects and competent workmen to accomplish these objects. Bergerius, who wrote a treatise "On the Public and Military Roads of the Roman Empire", (1) estimates, with perhaps some extravagance, that the number of architects and workmen engaged in the Roman states in the repairs of roads, the construction of bridges and other works of a similar kind, exceeded those employed in the building of the Pyramids of Egypt and the Temple of Solomon.

Of these a great number were distributed among the legions; accompanied them in their marches; remained with them wherever they were stationed ; created their colleges and proceeded to the erection of works, sometimes of a temporary and sometimes of a more permanent character.

Dr. Krause says, citing as his authority the Corpus Juris and the inscriptions, that in every legion there were corporations or colleges of workmen who were employed for building and other purposes needed in military operations.

Hence, in tracing the advance of the Roman legions into different colonies, we are also tracing

(1) "De publicis et militaribus Imperii Romani Viis," contained in vol. x. of the "Thesaurus Antiq. Rom." of Graevius.

the advance of the Roman architects and builders who accompanied them. And when the legion stopped in its progress and made any colony its temporary home, they exercised all the influence of a conquering army of civilized soldiers over a country of barbarians. Of all these influences of civilization the one that has been the most patent was that of the architects who substituted for the rude constructions which they found in the countries which had been invaded, the more refined principles of building. The monuments of the edifices erected in Spain, in Gaul, and in Britain have, for the most part, disappeared under the destructive agencies of time; but their memorials remain to us in ruins, in inscriptions, and in the history of the improved condition of architecture, among these barbarous and uncultivated peoples. It was, it is true, developed in subsequent times, and greatly modified by the instructions of Byzantine artists, but the first growth and outspring of the architecture practiced by the mediaeval guilds of Freemasons must be traced to the introduction of the art into the Roman provinces by the Colleges of Builders which accompanied the Roman legions in the stream of conquest which these victorious armies followed.

Having thus presented the details of the history of these Roman Colleges of Builders from their organization by Numa, through the successive eras of regal, of republican, and of imperial Rome; having shown their continued existence and eventually their spread .into the municipal or free cities and into the conquered provinces, impressing everywhere the evidences of an influence on the art of building, it is proper that we should now pause to examine the memorials of their labors in the different provinces and colonies.

It is thus that we shall be enabled to establish the first link in that chain which connects the Freemasonry of the mediaeval and more recent periods of Europe with the building corporations of Rome.

Get More Information on Freemasonry

Chapters in Part 2

Back to Masonic Secrets Revealed

Masonic Secrets recommends the following sites:

Sacred-Magick.Com: The Esoteric Library

Real Magick - The Occult Library