the forgotten name, and no hand bring offerings
of flowers. Each collegium held memorial services, and marked the tomb
of its dead with the emblems of its trade: if a baker, with a loaf of
bread; if a builder, with a square, compasses, and the level.

From the first the Colleges of Architects seem to have enjoyed special
privileges and exemptions, owing to the value of their service to the
state, and while we do not find them called Free-masons they were such
in law and fact long before they wore the name. They were permitted to
have their own constitutions and regulations, both secular and
religious. In form, in officers, in emblems a Roman Collegium
resembled very much a modern Masonic Lodge. For one thing, no College
could consist of less than three persons, and so rigid was this rule
that the saying, "three make a college," became a maxim of law. Each
College was presided over by a Magister, or Master, with two
_decuriones_, or wardens, each of whom extended the commands of the
Master to "the brethren of his column." There were a secretary, a
treasurer, and a keeper of archives, and, as the colleges were in part
religious and usually met near some temple, there was a _sacerdos_,
or, as we would say, a priest, or chaplain. The members were of three
orders, not unlike apprentices, fellows, and masters, or colleagues.
What ceremonies of initiation were used we do not know, but that they
were of a religious nature seems certain, as each College adopted a
patron deity from among the many then worshiped. Also, as the
Mysteries of Isis and Mithra ruled the Roman world by turns, the
ancient drama of eternal life was never far away.

Of the emblems of the Collegia, it is enough to say that here again we
find the simple tools of the builder used as teachers of truth for
life and hope in death. Upon a number of sarcophagi, still extant, we
find carved the square, the compasses, the cube, the plummet, the
circle, and always the level. There is, besides, the famous Collegium
uncovered at the excavation of Pompeii in 1878, having been buried
under the ashes and lava of Mount Vesuvius since the year 79 A.D. It
stood near the Tragic Theater, not far from the Temple of Isis, and by
its arrangement, with two columns in front and interlaced triangles on
the walls, was identified as an ancient lodge room. Upon a pedestal in
the room was found a rare bit of art, unique in design and exquisite
in execution, now in the National Museum at