CLUBS. Although the club as an institution was known to the Greeks and Romans, to the former as lietaireia, to the latter as sodalitas, and was, indeed, recognized in nearly all the states of the ancient civilized world, its organization and aims differed , essentially from those of modern times. Such centres were, indeed, associations rather than clubs, as we understand the term, and may be more appropriately likened to the trade guilds of later days, their chief purpose being religious observances, trade organization, and even privateering, as is proved by certain references to them in one of the laws of Solon; while those associated with the pleasures of the table seem to have approximated to the modern table d'hote, where a number of people gathered together for meals in common, probably as much from economical purposes as for anything else. The religious clubs of the Greeks were the most important, and were in effect the parents of all such collo cations of men, but had little in common with the club of modern times, although certain contemporary political organizations of the kind do appear to have had more or less affinity to the recognized objects of many later clubs instituted for similar purposes.
Grote (Hist. of Greece) and others show, however, that even when connected with politics the clubs of the Greeks were funda mentally unlike the modern conception of the political club ; for even if legal and harmless at first they degenerated, owing to party struggles, into actively hostile associations.
The religious clubs of the Greeks were combinations of men drawn together for some specific object, such as the worship of some particular deity of an esoteric character ; i.e., one not recog nized by the State ; and thus ,approximating to the various sects of our own established religion rather than to clubs as we under stand the term. Such cults as those of Isis and Serapis, Attis and the rest, were carried on by associations specially organized for their support—support to which the State had no objection so long as they did not infringe the laws or were not subversive of its moral well-being. That the organization of such sects should be on not very different lines from those of modern clubs, possessing as they did equivalents to our committee, chairman, secretary, etc., is only what obtains in any body of men meeting together for such purposes ; but otherwise these Greek clubs had nothing in common with the modern club, as M. Foucourt's account of the subject (Les Associations Religieuses chez les Grecs, 1873), is sufficient to show.
With the Romans, too, what are described as clubs in those days should more properly be entitled trade guilds, in which the basic idea was the furtherance of the special commercial activity in which the members were interested. The political clubs of Cicero's time had a closer analogy to ours, but even then their activities were of such a very different character that we find them suppressed by Julius Caesar as being dangerous to public order. The Romans had, too, like the Greeks, their religious sects (sodalitates), but they bring us no nearer to our conception of a club ; and one of the few of these whose objects can be said to have survived in our day is the Burial Club associated with the poorer classes who were much preoccupied with a decent sepulture. As a matter of fact it is probable that the true clubs of ancient Rome were to be found in the baths, where, without committees or secretary or club-houses of their own, the wealthy and impor tant congregated for ease and conversation, as men and women do in existing clubs throughout the world.
Justus Lipsius does, however, mention a Roman club which had an obviously nearer affinity, at least in its rules and regulations, to those of our own day; and which was similar to the symposia, referred to by Cicero in his De Senectute, which he says he enjoyed less for their gastronomical attractions than for the op portunities they afforded him of talking, which incidentally shows that he was probably the first of the redoubtable army of club bores.
When the word "club" first began to take on its present signifi cation is an open question; for, although Carlyle (Frederick the Great) indicates that it had its equivalent in the geliibe of the chivalric orders in Germany, on the other hand the German klubbe is directly borrowed from our own _word. In the 17th century club is found used, in the connection it now connotes, by Aubrey and Pepys, the former remarking that "we now use the word clubbe for a sodality in a taverne," and the latter speaking of a tavern in Pall Mall as the place whither he and his friends resorted "for clubbing." It was, however, in the 18th century that the club, more or less on the lines familiar to us, first rose into general prominence and favour, although it had certain forerunners which possessed characteristics common to it in its later development. The earliest of these was Le Court de Bone Compagnie, which flourished in the reign of Henry IV., of which the poet Hoccleve, who was a member, has left some poetical data. It was obviously in the nature of what we should now call a dining club, as were certain famous successors in the time of Elizabeth, notably the Friday Street or Bread Street Club, traditionally supposed to have been founded by Sir Walter Raleigh, but now chiefly remembered from the name of its meeting-place, the Mermaid Tavern. A contem porary club was the Apollo, whose members foregathered at The Devil Tavern by Temple Bar, where Ben Jonson, who drew up its rules, dominated the meetings as Dryden was to do at Will's a century later.
With the introduction of coffee-houses, about the middle of the I 7th century, clubs found more or less permanent headquarters, and their great development at the beginning of the following century may be directly ascribed to this circumstance, although one of a specialized character, The Royal Navy Club, inaugurated in 1674, was the parent of those service clubs which only came into existence during the early years of the 19th century.
Of the few other clubs of Stuart times whose names have sur vived, The Rota, which Pepys calls the Coffee Club, no doubt because it met at Miles' Coffee House, in Westminster, founded by James Harrington in 1659, is the best known. Its principles were republican, whereas those of another somewhat later club, The Sealed Knot (r688), were distinctly royalist. The Civil Club (1669) may be regarded as the direct forerunner of the City of London Club which did not come into existence till 1832. At the Wednesday Club, which met in Friday street, William Paterson directed the conferences which went by its name and ultimately resulted in the establishment of the Bank of England. Such as sociations as these had no actual home of their own, nor was there any financial obligation on the part of the members beyond the payment of their "scot"; a room being freely allocated for their use by the landlord of a coffee-house, who found generally an adequate return in the food and wine consumed by the members, and where the members were notable men, in the attraction to his premises of the general public through their means.