ABSTRACT
The Phrateres means brothers, but in classical Greek it had ceased to bear its literal meaning. A phratry had at least a semi-official standing though it was in essence a kinship group. One of the most important inscriptions in this regard relates to the regulations of the phratry of the Demotionidae. In the Demotionidae phratry the subgroups are thiasoi. The orgeones then were a religious association devoted to a cult of a particular god or hero. An especially interesting inscription relates to the orgeones of a hero named Egretes. Another form of cult-society was the eranos. In the second century ad a Lycian slave named Xanthus was working in the silver mines of Laurium. Another private religious corporation was the dendrophoroi or tree-bearers, a guild involved in the cult of Cybele, prominent during the Roman imperial period, and found as far away as Tomis in the third century ad.
