The most comprehensive statement we possess as to the various kinds of clubs which might exist in a single Greek state appears in a law of Solon quoted incidentally in the Digest of Justinian I (47.22), which guaranteed the administrative independence of these associations provided they kept within the bounds of the law. Those mentioned (apart from demes and phratries, which were not clubs as here understood) include associations for religious purposes, for burial, for trade, for privateering, and for the enjoyment of common meals. Of these, the religious clubs had by far the most important. We have a great deal of information about them, chiefly from inscriptions; and we may take them as covering those for burial purposes and for common meals, for no doubt can exist that all such unions had originally a religious object of some kind. But we have to add to Solon's list the political phratries which we meet with in Athenian history, which do not seem to have always had a religious object, whatever their origin may have been. Let us clear the ground by considering these first. Solon Solon (Greek: Σόλων, c. ... Justinian may refer to: Justinian I, a Roman Emperor; Justinian II, a Byzantine Emperor; Justinian, a storeship sent to the convict settlement at New South Wales in 1790. ... The Acropolis in central Athens, one of the most important landmarks in world history. ...

In the period between the end of the Persian Wars in 448 BC and the start of the Peloponnesian War in 431 BC we hear of hetairies within the two political parties, oligarchic and democratic; Themistocles allegedly (Plut. Anistides, 2) belonged to one, Pericles' supporters seem to have been thus organized (Plut. Per. 7 and 13), and Cimon had a hundred hetairoi devoted to him (Plut. Cim. 17). These associations served, like the collegia sodalicia at Rome (see below), for securing certain results at elections and in the law-courts (Thuc. viii. 54), and were not regarded as harmful or illegal. But the bitterness of party struggles in Greece during the Peloponnesian War changed them in many states into political engines dangerous to local constitutions, and especially to democratic institutions; Aristotle mentions (Politics, p. 1310 a) a secret oath taken by the members of oligarchic clubs, containing the promise, "I will be an enemy to the people, and will devise all the harm I can against them." At Athens in 413 BC the conspiracy against the democracy was engineered by means of these clubs, which existed not only there but in the other cities of the Delian League. (Thuc. viii. 48 and 54), and had now become secret conspiracies (crvpwi.zoo-icu) of a wholly unconstitutional kind. On this subject see Grote, Hist. of Greece, v. 360; AHJ Greenidge, Handbook of Greek Constitutional History, 208 foll. The Greco-Persian Wars or Persian Wars were a series of conflicts between the Greek world and the Persian Empire that started about 500 BC and lasted until 448 BC. The term can also refer to the continual warfare of the Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire against the Parthians and... Map of the Greek world at the start of the Peloponnesian War Temple of Apollo at Corinth The Peloponnesian War began in 431 BC between the Athenian Empire (or The Delian League) and the Peloponnesian League which included Sparta and Corinth. ... Themistocles (ca. ... For the Shakespeare play, see Pericles, Prince of Tyre Nudle, British Museum, London Pericles (c. ... Mestrius Plutarch (c. ... This article or section should include material fromKimon Cimon (died 450 BC?) was a major figure of the 470s BC and 460s BC in Athens, and the son of Miltiades. ... The Elections and Parties Series Democracy Liberal democracy History of democracy Referenda Representative democracy Representation Voting Voting systems Elections Elections by country Elections by calender Electoral systems Politics Politics by country Political campaigns Political science Political philosophy Related topics Political parties Parties by country Parties by name Parties by ideology... A court is an official, public forum which a public power establishes by lawful authority to adjudicate disputes, and to dispense civil, labour, administrative and criminal justice under the law. ... Aristotle (sculpture) Aristotle (Greek: Αριστοτέλης Aristotelēs) (384 BC – March 7, 322 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher. ... Centuries: 6th century BC - 5th century BC - 4th century BC Decades: 460s BC 450s BC 440s BC 430s BC 420s BC - 410s BC - 400s BC 390s BC 380s BC 370s BC 360s BC 418 BC 417 BC 416 BC 415 BC 414 BC - 413 BC - 412 BC 411 BC 410... The Delian League was an association of Greek city-states in the 5th century BC. As it was led by Athens, it is sometimes pejoratively referred to as the Athenian Empire. ... George Grote George Grote (November 17, 1794 - June 18, 1871) was an English classical historian. ...

Passing over the clubs for trade or plunder mentioned in Solon's law, of which we have no detailed knowledge, we come to the religious associations. These had several names, especially thiasi, eranoi and orgeones, and it is not possible to distinguish these from each other in historical times, though they may have had different origins. They had the common object of sacrifice to a particular deity; the thiasi and orgeones seem connected more especially with foreign deities whose rites were of an orgiastic character. Paul Foucart has written an excellent treatise on the organization of these societies (Les Associations religieuses chez les Grecs, Paris, 1873), which provides many of the following particulars. For the greater part of them the evidence consists of inscriptions from various parts of Greece, many of which Foucart published for the first time at the end of his book. Fishers of men; Oil on panel by Adriaen van de Venne (1614) Religion—sometimes used interchangeably with faith or belief system—is commonly defined as belief concerning the supernatural, sacred, or divine, and the moral codes, practices, values, and institutions associated with such belief. ... A deity or a god, is a postulated preternatural being, usually, but not always, of significant power, worshipped, thought holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, or respected by human beings. ...

Strikingly, all these associations have the object of maintaining the worship of some foreign deity, i.e. of some deity apart from those admitted and guaranteed by the state, the divine inhabitants of the city, as one might call them. For all these the state made provision of priests, temples, sacrifices, etc.; but for all other deities these necessaries remained in the charge of private individuals associated for the purpose. The state, as we see from the law of Solon quoted above, made no difficulty about the introduction of foreign worships, provided they did not infringe the law and were not morally unwholesome, and regarded these associations as having all the rights of legal corporations. So we find the cult of deities such as Sabazius, Mater Magna (see Great mother of the gods) and Attis, Adonis, Isis, Serapis, Men Tyrannos, carried on in Greek states, and especially in seaports like the Peiraeus, Rhodes, Smyrna, without protest, but almost certainly without moral benefit to the worshippers. The famous passage in Demosthenes (de Corona, sect. 259 foll.) shows, however, that the initiation at an early age in the rites of Sabazius did not gain credit for Aeschines in the eyes of the "best men". Unsurprisingly, in accordance with the foreign character of the cults thus maintained, the members of the associations rarely hold citizenship by birth, but include women, freedmen, foreigners and even slaves. Thus in an inscription found by Sir Charles Thomas Newton at Cnidus, which contains a mutilated list of members of a thiasos, the list includes apparently only one Cnidian citizen out of twelve, four slaves, and probably seven foreigners. Hence we may conclude that these associations predominantly, whether for good or for evil, organized and encouraged the foreign population in the cities of Greece. A state is an organized political community occupying a definite territory, having an organized government, and possessing internal and external sovereignty. ... Roman Catholic priest LCDR Allen R. Kuss (USN) aboard USS Enterprise A priest or priestess is a holy man or woman who takes an officiating role in worship of any religion, with the distinguishing characteristic of offering sacrifices. ... The Greeks began to build monumental temples in the first half of the eighth century BC. The temples of Hera at Samos and of Poseidon at Isthmia were among the first erected. ... Sacrifice (from a Middle English verb meaning to make sacred, from Old French, from Latin sacrificium : sacer, sacred; sacred + facere, to make) is commonly known as the practice of offering food, or the lives of animals or people to the gods, as an act of propitiation or worship. ... A corporation is a legal entity (distinct from a natural person) that often has similar rights in law to those of a Civil law systems may refer to corporations as moral persons; they may also go by the name AS (anonymous society) or something similar, depending on language (see below). ... Sabazios is the nomadic horseman sky and father god of the Phrygians. ... In Roman mythology, Magna Mater deorum Idaea (great Idaean mother of the gods) was the name for the originally Phrygian goddess Cybele, as well as Rhea. ... Attis, a life-death-rebirth deity, was both the son and the lover of Cybele, her eunuch attendant and driver of her lion-driven chariot; he was driven mad by her and castrated himself. ... A 19th-century reproduction of a Greek bronze of Adonis found at Pompeii A Syrian dying-and-reborn annual vegetation god imported into Greek mythology but always retaining aspects of his Semitic Near Eastern origins, Adonis was one of the most complex cult figures in classical times. ... // Isis in Egypt Early Isis Isis (Greek corruption; the Egyptian is Aset) was originally a goddess from Nubia, and was adopted into Egyptian belief very early. ... This page refers to the god Serapis. ... Piraeus, or Peiraeus (Modern Greek: Πειραιά(ς) Pireá(s), Ancient Greek / Katharevousa: Πειραιεύς Pireéfs) is a city in the prefecture of Attica, Greece, located south of Athens. ... Main entrance to the medieval city of Rhodes Rhodes, Greek Ροδος (Rhodos), is the largest of the Dodecanese islands, and easternmost of the major islands of Greece in the Aegean Sea. ... Shows the Location of the Province Ä°zmir Izmir from space, June 1996 Izmir (Turkish spelling Ä°zmir, contraction of its original Greek name Smyrna, Σμυρνη), the second-largest port (after Ä°stanbul) and the third most populous city (2,409,000 in 2000) of Turkey is located on the Aegean Sea near the... Demosthenes Demosthenes (384 BC – 322 BC) is generally considered the greatest of the Attic orators, and thus the greatest of all Ancient Greek orators. ... Aeschines (389 - 314 BC), Greek statesman and one of the ten Attic orators, was born at Athens. ... The word slaves has several meanings and usages: People who are owned by others, and live to serve them without pay. ... Sir Charles Thomas Newton (September 16, 1816 - November 28, British archaeologist. ... Knidos or Cnidus (modern-day Tekir in Turkey) is an ancient Greek city in Asia Minor, once part of the country of Caria. ...

Notably, as we shall also find at Rome, these associations took on an organizational form in imitation of the constitution of the city itself. Each had its law, its assembly, its magistrates or officers (i.e. secretary, treasurer) as well as priests or priestesses, and its finance. The law regulated the conditions of admission, which involved an entrance fee and an examination as to character; the contributions, payable by the month, and the steps to be taken to enforce payment, e.g. exclusion in case of persistent neglect of this duty; the use to be made of the revenues, such as the building or maintenance of temple or club-house, and the cost of crowns or other honours voted by the assembly to its officers. This assembly, in accordance with the law, elected its officers once a year, and these, like those of the state itself, took an oath on entering office, and gave an account of their stewardship at the end of the year. For further details on these points of internal government see Foucart's work (pp. 20 foll.), chiefly derived from inscriptions of the orgeones engaged in the cult of the Mother of the Gods at the Peiraeus. The important question whether these religious associations functioned in any sense as benefit clubs, or relieved the sick and needy, Foucart answers emphatically in the negative. Piraeus, or Peiraeus (Modern Greek: Πειραιά(ς) Pireá(s), Ancient Greek / Katharevousa: Πειραιεύς Pireéfs) is a city in the prefecture of Attica, Greece, located south of Athens. ...

As one might expect, the religious clubs increased rather than diminished in number and importance in the later periods of Greek history, and a large proportion of the inscriptions relating to them belong to the Macedonian and Roman empires. One of the most interesting, found in 1868, belongs to the 2nd century A.D. and reveals the worship of Men Tyrannos at Laurium (Foucart, pp. 119 foll.). This Phrygian deity was introduced into Attica by a Lycian slave, employed by a Roman in working the mines at Laurium. He founded the cult and the eranos which was to maintain it, and seems also to have drawn up the law regulating its ritual and government. This may help us to understand the way in which similar associations of an earlier age organised themselves. The Roman Empire is the term conventionally used to describe the Ancient Roman polity in the centuries following its reorganization under the leadership of Octavian (better known as Caesar Augustus). ... 1868 was a leap year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... (1st century - 2nd century - 3rd century - other centuries) Events Roman Empire governed by the Five Good Emperors (96–180) – Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius. ... Laurium or Laurion (Λαύριον, Thoricum before early 1000s BC, Ergastiri throughout the medieval times and the mid to late 1000s, Ergastiri is Greek for Workplace) is a town in southeastern part of Attica, Greece and is one of the southernmost and the seat of the municipality of Laverotiki, famous in... In antiquity, Phrygia was a kingdom in the west central part of the Anatolian highlands, part of modern Turkey, from ca. ...