The purpose of this non-secret organization was to formulate mature undergraduate opinions on those matters affecting the vital interests of the Sheffield Scientific School, both internally and in its relations with the rest of the university.

These papers have been collected and preserved by the society's historian and can now be found locked in a large safe that safeguards other treasures of the organization.

In 1935, the society voted to give the university $250 to make a film of Life at Yale to be sent to alumni meetings throughout the country.

After the unification of Yale College and the Sheffield Scientific School, and through the tumultuous era of the 1960s, the Aurelian Honor Society's role in University governance declined.

In 1981, with the help of Dick Shank, then registrar of Yale College and a successor of Loomis Havemeyer, Aurelian was revived after a period of a few years in the late 1970s when all societies and fraternities were in decline.

The name was chosen in honor of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, whose career and philosophy represented those ideas for which the organization wished to strive.

The wreath represents a reward of merit, and the star stands for a single body (originally seven members) radiating light in the seven principal lines of college activity—Scientific, Athletic, Literary, Oratorical, Executive, Scholarship, and Religious.

Editors of publications such as The Yale Herald, varsity athletics captains, and other student leaders are typically well represented among Aurelian's ranks.

A quote from the Yale Daily News of April 29, 1933, read: "The Aurelian Honor Society aims to promote contact and communication between members, to exert an organized force for cooperation with the administration and helpfully to consider problems affecting the University."

The societies invite each other to their major social events each year in their respective spaces, providing opportunities for inter-society interaction.