Note 18 — Chapter LXII · TWENTY-FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR. — OLIGARCHY OF FOUR HUNDRED AT ATHENS.
Reading edition
About these ξυνωμοσίαι ἐπὶ δίκαις καὶ ἀρχαῖς, political and judicial associations, see above, in this History, vol. iv, ch. xxxvii, pp. 399, 400; vol. vi, ch. li. pp. 290, 291: see also Hermann Büttner, Geschichte der politischen Hetærieen zu Athen. pp. 75, 79, Leipsic, 1840.
There seem to have been similar political clubs or associations at Carthage, exercising much influence, and holding perpetual banquets as a means of largess to the poor, Aristotel. Polit. ii, 8, 2; Livy, xxxiii, 46; xxxiv, 61; compare Kluge, ad Aristotel. De Polit. Carthag. pp. 46-127, Wratisl. 1824.
The like political associations were both of long duration among the nobility of Rome, and of much influence for political objects as well as judicial success: “coitiones (compare Cicero pro Cluentio, c. 54, s. 148) honorum adipiscendorum causâ factæ, factiones, sodalitates.” The incident described in Livy (ix. 26) is remarkable. The senate, suspecting the character and proceedings of these clubs, appointed the dictator Mænius (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 coöperation (as was equally the fact under Peisander at Athens), that they completely frustrated the inquiry, and went on as before. “Nec diutius, ut fit, quam dum recens erat, quæstio per clara nomina reorum viguit: inde labi cœpit ad viliora capita, donec coitionibus factionibusque, adversus quas comparata erat, oppressa est.” (Livy. ix, 26.) Compare Dio. Cass. xxxvii, 57, about the ἑταιρικὰ of the Triumvirs at Rome. Quintus Cicero (de Petition. Consulat. c. 5) says to his brother, the orator: “Quod si satis grati homines essent, hæc omnia (i.e. all the subsidia necessary for success in his coming election) tibi parata esse debebant, sicut parata esse confido. Nam hoc biennio quatuor sodalitates civium ad ambitionem gratiosissimorum tibi obligasti.... Horum in causis ad te deferundis quidnam eorum sodales tibi receperint et confirmarint, scio; nam interfui.”
See Th. Mommsen, De Collegiis et Sodaliciis Romanorum, Kiel, 1843, ch. iii, sects. 5, 6, 7; also the Dissertation of Wunder, inserted in the Onomasticon Tullianum of Orelli and Baiter, in the last volume of their edition of Cicero, pp. 200-210, ad Ind. Legum; Lex Licinia de Sodalitiis.
As an example of these clubs or conspiracies for mutual support in ξυνωμοσίαι ἐπὶ δίκαις (not including ἀρχαῖς, so far as we can make out), we may cite the association called οἱ Εἰκαδεῖς, made known to us by an Inscription 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 Εἰκαδεῖς are 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 (ἐνάντιον τῇ ἄρᾳ ἣν Εἰκαδεὺς ἐπηράσατο); 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 κοινόν: compare analogous obligations among the Roman Sodales, Mommsen, p. 4. Some members had violated their obligation upon this point: Polyxenus had attacked them at law for false witness: and the general body of the Eikadeis pass a vote of thanks to him for so doing, and choose three of their members to assist him in the cause before the dikastery (οἳτινες συναγωνιοῦνται τῷ ἐπεσκημμένῳ τοῖς μάρτυσι): compare the ἑταιρίαι alluded to in Demosthenês (cont. Theokrin. c. 11, p. 1335) as assisting Theokrinês before the dikastery, and intimidating the witnesses.
The Guilds in the European cities during the Middle Ages, usually sworn to by every member, and called conjurationes Amicitiæ, bear in many respects a resemblance to these ξυνωμοσίαι; though the judicial proceedings in the mediæval cities, being so much less popular than at Athens, narrowed their range of interference in this direction: their political importance, however, was quite equal. (See Wilda, Das Gilden Wesen des Mittelalters, Abschn. ii, p. 167, etc.)
“Omnes autem ad Amicitiam pertinentes villæ per fidem et sacramentum firmaverunt, quod unus subveniat alteri tanquam fratri suo in utili et honesto,” (ib. p. 148.)