This volume and the two projected to follow it have their origins in a Greek reading seminar at the University of Toronto begun in the 1990s and after a short hiatus, recommenced in 2003. Many of the texts selected for translation were epigraphical and related to associations, guilds and clubs from Attica, Asia and Egypt. The focus on associations cultic, professional, immigrant, domestic, and neighborhood was a function of the conviction that in order to understand the associative practices of the early Christ groups in Asia, Macedonia, and Attica, it was critical to understand the structures, activities, leadership, finances, and recruitment strategies of the many associations that had existed at least since the fourth century BCE and which continued to play an important part in social life well into the high Empire.