Freedom of Religion/History/Country sources/Roman Legal and Political Thought

Freedom of Association

What have religious and philosophical traditions contributed to our understanding of this right?

Roman Legal and Political Thought

Though the Roman Republic and Roman Empire did not codify into law what modern scholars would call freedom of association, associational life and philosophy concerning association were still present. The Twelve Tables, a foundational document of the Roman Republic ratified by the Centuriate Assembly in 449 B.C.E., mentions association, but sparsely. Table VIII stated that “No person shall hold nocturnal meetings in the city” (qtd. in “The Twelve Tables”). The law did not expand upon the types of meetings prohibited, but it could possibly be referring to the collegia:

“Collegia—numerous private associations with specialized functions, such as craft or trade guilds, burial societies, and societies dedicated to special religious worship—seem to have carried on their affairs and to have held property corporately in republican times. The emperors, viewing the collegia with some suspicion, enacted from the beginning that no collegium could be founded without state authority and that their rights of manumitting slaves and taking legacies be closely regulated” (Millner and Carozza).

Collegia were generally viewed in relation to corporations and social activity, rather than political activity. Nevertheless, Romans were free to engage in these associations taking into consideration one’s social class, occupation, gender, age, family, and the collegium’s distrust from the state. Guilds, collegia that emerged during the late Roman Republic were specific organizations of artisans and merchants, were specifically mentioned in the Twelve Tables in Table VIII as well: “These guild members shall have the power ... to make for themselves any rule that they may wish provided that they impair no part of the public law” (qtd. in “The Twelve Tables”). With restriction, Romans were able to associate publicly in the Republic. Starting from the reign of Emperor Diocletian in the third century, however, the imperial government attempted to restrict membership of the guilds to higher-class, skilled artisans and financially exploit them for imperial gain, significantly weakening the guilds by the fourth century. Collegia in general, however, survived through the Roman and Byzantine Empires (Encyclopedia Britannica).

Association and social life is mentioned a substantial amount, in the work of Cicero, a prominent philosopher of the late Roman Republic. In Book I of Cicero’s De Officiis (“On Moral Duties”), he noted that “Nature too, by virtue of reason, brings man into relations of mutual intercourse and society with his fellow-men; generates in him a special love for his children; prompts him to promote and attend social gatherings and public assemblies;” (Cicero, Book I Section 4). He additionally wrote of the importance of participating in public affairs in his De Republica (“On the Republic”), writing, conversing, and discovering with others. According to Cicero, people associate for the common good and the prosperity of the whole, and that “association of the citizens in a happy and honourable life ; for that is the original purpose of men's coming together, and it should be accomplished for them in their commonwealth partly by established customs and partly by laws.” (Cicero, Book IV Section 3).

Compared to associational life in the Roman Republic, that of the Roman Empire was much more restricted. In his letters to Emperor Trajan, who ruled from 98 C.E. to 117 C.E., Pliny the Younger, Governor of Bithynia (located in present-day Turkiye), spoke in multiple correspondences about association. In letters 10.33 and 10.34, Pliny asked for permission from the Emperor to create a firefighting organization, to which the Emperor responded refused because of Bithynia’s history of groups becoming political, even if they did not start out as such. As the Roman Republic transitioned to the Roman Empire, collegia became more political and more commonly made up of the lower class (Umbrello). Pliny was required to ask the Emperor first before creating the group because of “The lex IuliIa [a] late republican era law which mandated that the formation of any association or club (collegia) must be granted by either the senate or the emperor” which came about because of the elites’ distrust of lower class associations, especially those in the imperial provinces that were more likely to have political instability (Umbrello). Trajan was additionally weary of religious associations, as shown in Pliny’s letter concerning Christians convening to eat together: “Even this, they affirmed, they had ceased to do after my edict by which, in accordance with your instructions, I had forbidden political associations” (Pliny, Letter 10.96). This is written in one of the most famous letters between Pliny and Trajan, demonstrating “Roman official aversion to freedom of association” (Liggio, 2013, 57). Emperors would commonly provide provincial governments with mandata, “official set[s] of administrative guidelines,” citing Emperor Trajan’s “suspension of potentially disruptive associations or clubs (hetaeriae, 10.96, the well-known letter concerning Christians),” (Fuhrmann, 2011, 147-148).

Political riots were a somewhat frequent form of public association in the Roman Republic and Empire, and were often provoked by economic concerns, taxation, famine, or political problems and corruption (Aldrete, 2013). Aldrete emphasized the importance of keeping in mind the documentation bias; a higher frequency of riots was present in more well-documented periods, and lower frequency for the opposite. He additionally described the nature of these riots:

“Many outbreaks, including some of the most destructive, were organized, instigated and exploited not by the indigent, but rather by Rome’s political and social elites. Furthermore, acts of violent urban collective behaviour often occurred within the constraints of a tacit but nevertheless well-recognized set of informal societal norms” (Aldrete, 2013, 425).

Politically-motivated association was active and organized, and did not only involve the lower class. In addition to political elite organizing riots, “Rome’s collegia, or professional organizations, also offered fertile ground for organizing riots and recruiting participants, and this potential probably accounts for the authorities’ periodic attempts to ban or restrict these organizations” (Aldrete, 2013, 434). The amount of repression the riots received depended upon a variety of factors, including the location of the riot, level of violence, and attitude of the emperor or governor dealing with it. At circuses and theaters, more extreme behaviors were tolerated than in public squares, for example (Aldrete, 2013, 427). In Roman-occupied cities such as Ephesus (located in present-day Turkiye), “an unlawful assembly the City could be charged with ‘stasis,’ that is, with acting seditiously, creating factions in the Empire, rioting…if questioned, the Ephesians could give no legal justification for this particular meeting, and so [could]… be used as leverage to take away Ephesus’ freedoms” (“Riots and Roman Law”, 2016).

References:

Aldrete, Gregory. 2013. “Riots” in The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Rome, ch. 24 425-440. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-ancient-rome/riots/EFF6CDF92E7CABE86B9ADC58BFF642F4

Cicero, Marcus Tullius. “On Moral Duties (De Officiis).” Online Library of Liberty. Translated by Andrew Peabody. Accessed June 21, 2024. https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/cicero-on-moral-duties-de-officiis

Cicero, Marcus Tullius. “On the Republic.” Attalus. Translated by C.W. Keys, 1928. Accessed June 21, 2024. https://www.attalus.org/cicero/republic1a.html

Encyclopedia Britannica. n.d. “Guild.” Accessed June 20, 2024. https://www.britannica.com/topic/guild-trade-association#ref261300

Fuhrmann, Christopher. 2011. “‘Let there be no violence contrary to my wish’: Emperors and Provincial Order” in Policing the Roman Empire: Soldiers, Administration, and Public Order, ch. 6 146-169. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199737840.003.0006

Liggio, Leonardo. 2013. “Historical Sketch of Freedom of Association in the West.” Journal of Private Enterprise 28, no. 2. http://journal.apee.org/index.php?title=Spring_13_4

Millner, Alfred, and Paolo Carozza. n.d. "Roman law." Encyclopedia Britannica, Accessed June 20, 2024. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Roman-law

Pliny. 111-113 A.D. “Pliny, Letters. 10.96-97” Georgetown University Texts. Accessed June, 2024. https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/pliny.html

“Riots and Roman Law.” 2016. Underground Network. Medium. https://medium.com/acts-study-guide/riot-in-ephesus-477616626d58

“The Twelve Tables.” 449 B.C.E. The Avalon Project at Yale Law School. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/ancient/twelve_tables.asp

Umbrello, Steven. 2015. “Collegia, Stability, and the Vox Populi.” World History Encyclopedia. https://www.worldhistory.org/article/816/collegia-stability-and-the-vox-populi/