Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/39

 POLITICAL CLUBS AT ATHENS. 17 Having taken other necessary measures towards the same pur- pose, Peisander left Athens with his colleagues to enter upon hig nobility of Rome, and of much influence for political objects as well as judicial success : " coitioncs (compare Cicero pro Cluentio. c. 54, s. 148) honorum adipisccndorum causi fuctac, factioncs, sodalitatcs." The incident described in Livy (ix. 26) is remarkable. The senate, suspecting the char- acter and proceedings of these clubs, appointed the dictator Momius (in 312 B.C.) as commissioner with full power to investigate and deal with them. But such was the power of the clubs, in a case where they had a common interest and acted in cooperation (as was equally the fact under Peisander at Athens), that they completely frustrated the inquiry, and went on as before. " Ncc diutius, ut Jit, quam dum recens erat, qucestlo per dara nomina rcorum viyuit : inde labi coepit ad viliora capita, donee coitionibus Jac- lionibusque, adversus quas comparata crat, opprcssa est." (Livy. ix, 26.) Com- pare Dio. Cass. xxxvii, 57, about the iraipiKa. of the Triumvirs at Rome. Quintus Cicero (de Petition. Consulat. c. 5) says to his brother, the orator: " Quod si satis grati homines essent, haec omnia (t. e. all the subsidia neces- sary for success in his coming election ) tibi parata essc debebant, sicut pa- rata esse confido. Nam hoc bicnnio quatuor sodalitates civium ad ambi- tionem gratiosissimorum tibi obligasti. . . .Horum in causis ad te defer- nndis quidnam eorum sodales tibi receperint et confirmarint, scio ; nam in terfui." See Th. Mommsen, De Collegiis et Sodaliciis Romanorum, Kiel, 1843, ch. iii, sects. 5, 6, 7 ; also the Dissertation of Wunder, inserted in the Onomas- ticon Tullianum of Orelli and Baiter, in the last volume of their edi- tion of Cicero, pp. 200-210, ad Ind. Legum ; Lex Licinia de Sodalitiis. As an example of these clubs or conspiracies for mutual support in ft>- vufioaiai txl diKais (not including apxaif, so far as we can make out), we may cite the association called oi 'EiKodelf, made known to us by an Inscrip- tion recently discovered in Attica, and published first in Dr. Wordsworth's Athens and Attica, p. 223 ; next in Ross, Die Demen von Attica, Preface, p. v. These Eluadelf arc an association, the members of which are bound to each other by a common oath, as well as by a curse which the mythical hero of the association, Eikadeus, is supposed to have imprecated (EVUVTLOV T?) upa f)v Eixadeve kxrjpdaaTo) ; they possess common property, and it was held contrary to the oath for any of the members to enter into a pecuniary process against the KOIVOV : compare analogous obligations among the Ro- man Sodales, Mommsen, p. 4. Some members had violated their obliga- tion upon this pc- : .U : Polyxenus had attacked them at law for false witness : and the general l>vly of Che Eikadeis pass a vote of thanks to him for so do- ing, and choose three of their members to assist him in the cause before the dikastcry (omvef mvayaviovvTat ru iTreaitrjfjfiEvv roif fiuprvac) : compare the {ratpiat. alluded to in Demosthenes (cont. Thcokrin. c. 11, p. 1335) na assisting TheokrineV before the dikastcry, and intimidating the witnesses. VOL. VIII. 2oc.