their masters and mistresses of many who were in actual slavery, or who had but just emerged from it. But these instances cannot make us forget the cruel contempt and barbarity of which the slave was still the victim, and which was to be his lot for many generations yet to run. And therefore the improvement in the condition of the slave or of his poor plebeian brother by the theoretical equality in the colleges, may be easily exaggerated. In the humblest of these clubs, the distribution of good fare and money is not according to the needs of the members, but regulated by their social and official rank. We cannot feel confident that in social intercourse the same distinction may not have been coldly observed. In modern times we often see a readiness to accord an equality of material enjoyment, along with a stiff guardianship of social distinctions which are often microscopic to the detached observer. And it would not be surprising to discover that the “master” or the “mother” of the college of Antinous protected their dignity by an icy reserve at its festive meetings. The question has been raised whether the ordinary colleges were in any sense charitable institutions for mutual help. And certainly the inscriptions are singularly wanting in records of bequests made directly for the relief of poverty, for widows and orphans or the sick. The donations or bequests of rich patrons seem to have had chiefly two objects in view, the commemoration of the dead and the provision for social and convivial enjoyment. It is true that, just as in municipal feasts, there is often a distribution of money among the members of colleges. But this appears to be deprived of an eleemosynary character by the fact that by far the largest shares are assigned to those who were presumably the least in need of them. Yet it is to be recollected that we probably have left to us the memorial of only a small proportion of these gifts, and that, if we had a full list of all the benefactions bequeathed to some of the colleges, the total amount received by each member in the year might be very considerable, if judged by the standard of ordinary plebeian incomes. To the ambitious slave any addition, however small, to his growing _peculium_, which might enable him to buy his freedom, would certainly be grateful.