COLLEGE, an assemblage of several bodies or societies, or of several persons into one society.
College, among the Romans, was applied indifferently to those employed in the offices of religion, government, the liberal and even mechanical arts and trades; so that anciently the word signified what we now call a corporation or company.
In the Roman empire, there were not only the college of augurs and the college of capitolini, or of those who had the superintendence of the capitoline games; but also colleges of artificers, collegium artificum; college of carpenters, fabricorum or fabrorum tignariorum; of potters, figularum; of founders, arariorum; the college of locksmiths, fabrorum serrariorum; of engineers of the army, tignariorum; of butchers, laniorum; of dendrophori, dendrophorum; of centonaries, centonariorum; of makers of military cassocks, sagariorum; of tent-makers, tabernaculorum; of bakers, pistorum; of musicians, tibicinum, and so forth. Plutarch observes, that it was Numa who first divided the people into colleges, which he did that each consulting the interests of his college, and occupying himself therewith, might thus be prevented from entering into any general conspiracy against the public repose.
Each of these colleges had distinct meeting places or halls, and also a treasury and common chest, a register, a person to represent them upon public occasions, and acts of government. They had the privilege of manumitting slaves, of being legates, and of making by-laws for their own body, provided these did not clash with those of the government.
There are various colleges among the moderns, founded on the model of those of the ancients. Such are the three colleges of the empire, viz.