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COLLEGIUM.
Xvhicli might he any regulations that the members agreed upon, provided they were not contrary to law: this provision, as Gaius conjectures (Dig. 47. tit. 2*2), was derived from a law of Solon, which he quotes. The collegium still subsisted, though all the original members were changed. Collegia of all kinds may be viewed under two aspects, — as having some object of administration either public or not public, which object is often the main purpose for which they exist, or as being capable of holding property and contracting and owing obligations. As having some object of administration, they are viewed as units (magistratus municipales cum unum magistratum administrent, etiam unius hominis vicem sustinent (Dig. 50. tit. 1. s. 25). As having a capacity to hold property, they are purely fictitious or artificial personages, and, consequently, thus conceived, it is not all the members who are supposed to compose this artificial person, but the members are the living persons by whose agency this artificial person does the acts which are necessary for the acquisition and administration of its property. It is only with reference to the purposes of ownership and contracts, that an artificial person has an existence as a person. There are some further remarks under universitas.
A lawfully constituted collegium was legiti-mum. Associations of individuals, which affected to act as collegia, but were forbidden by law, were called illicita.
It does not appear how collegia were formed, except that some were specially established by legal authority. (Liv. v. 50, 52 ; Suet. Caes. 42, Aug. 32 ; Dig. 3. tit. 4. s. 1.) Other collegia were probably formed by voluntary associations of individuals under the provisions of some general legal authority. This supposition would account for the fact of a great number of collegia being formed in the course of time, and many of them being occasionally suppressed as not legitima.
Some of these corporate bodies resembled our companies or guilds-; such were the fabrorum, pis-torum, &c. collegia. (Lampridius, A lex* Severus, 33.) Others were of a religious character ; such as the pontificum, augurum, fratrum arvalium collegia. Others were .bodies concerned about government and administration ; as tribunorum plebis (Liv. xlii. 32), quaestorum, decurionum collegia. The titles of numerous other collegia may be collected from the Roman writers, and from inscriptions.
According to the definition of a collegium, the consuls being only two in number were not a collegium, though each was called collega with respect to the other, and their union in office was called collegium. The Romans never called the individual who, for the time, filled an office of perpetual continuance, a universitas or collegium, for that would have been a contradiction in terms, which it has been reserved, for modern times to introduce, under the name of a corporation sole. But the notion of one person succeeding to all the rights of a predecessor was familiar to the Romans in the case of a single heres, and the same notion must have existed with respect to individuals who :held any office in perpetual succession.
According to Ulpian, a universitas, though reduced to a single member, was still considered a universitas ; for the individual possessed all the rights of the universitas, and used the name by •which it was distinguished. (Dig. 3. tit. 4. s. 7.)
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COLON AT US.
When a new member was taken into a collegium, he was said co-optari, and the old members were said with respect to him, recipere in collegium. The mode of filling up vacancies would vary in different collegia.
Civitates and res publicae (civil communities) and municipia (in the later sense of the term) were viewed, as fictitious persons.
According to Pliny (Ep. v. 7 ; Ulp. Fr. tit. 22. s. 5) res publicae and municipia could not take as heres ; and the reason given is, that they were a corpus incertum, and so could not eernere heredita-tem ; that is, do those acts which a heres himself must do in order to show that he consents to be a heres, for the heres could not in this matter act by a representative. A res publiea, therefore, as being a fictitious person, could not do the necessary act. Municipia, like other fictitious persons, could, however, acquire property in other wa}^, and by means of other persons, whether bond or free (Dig. 41. tit. 2. s. 1. §22): and they could take fideieommissa under the senatusconsultum Apronianum which was passed in the time of Hadrian, and extended to licita collegia in the time of M. Aurelius. (Dig. 34. tit. 5. s. 21.) By another senatusconsultum, the liberti of municipia might make the municipes-their heredes. The gods could not be made heredes, except such deities as possessed this capacity by special senatuscon-sulta or imperial constitutions, such as Jupiter Tarpeius, &c. (Uip. Fr. tit. 22. s. 6.) By a constitution of Leo (Cod. vi. tit. 24. s. 12) civitates obtained the capacity to take property as heredes. As early as the time of Nerva and Hadrian, civitates could take legacies.
Though civitates within the Roman empire could not originally receive gifts by will, yet in dependent states could receive gifts in that way (Tacit. Ann. iv. 43), a case which furnishes no objections to the statement above made by Pliny and Ulpian. In the same way the Roman state accepted! the inheritance of Attalus, king of Per- gamus, a? gift which came to them from a foreigner. The Boman lawyers considered such a gift to be accepted by the jus gentium. (Dig. 3. tit. 4 ; 47. tit. 22 ; Savigny, System, &c. vol. ii. p. 235. &c.) [universitas.] [G. L.]
COLONATUS, COLO’NL The Colon! of the later Imperial period formed a class of agriculturists, whose condition has been the subject of elaborate investigation.
These Coloni were designated by the various names of Coloni, Rustici, Origtnarii, Adscriptitii, Inquilini, Tributarii, Censiti. A person might become a Colonus by birth, with reference to which the term Originarius was used,. When both the parents were Coloni and belonged to the same master, the children were Coloni. If the father was a Colonus and the mother a slave, or conversely, the children followed the condition of the mother. If the father was free and the mother a Colona, the children were Coloni and belonged to the master of the mother. If the father was a Colonus and the mother free, the children before the time of Justinian followed the condition of the father: afterwards Justinian declared such children to be free, but finally he reduced them to the condition of Coloni. If both parents were Coloni and belonged to different masters, it was finally settled that the masters should divide the children, between them, and if there was an odd one, it
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