There is no other example known of Flag-bearers forming a sort of brotherhood united in the service of the god anil marching in his progress through the city; but the interpretation seems quite natural.

The true explanation of Semeiaphoroi probably lies between that which I have suggested and that which Hogarth printed “a class of professional wonder-workers like the dervishes in modern Moslem countries.” They were a guild or brotherhood united in the worship of a god or a goddess as all unions and festivals were. The dervishes are not an integral part of Mohammedanism. They are a survival of ancient custom grafted on to Islam. The Mevlevi Sheikhs drink wine openly which no true Moslem does. We have been offered by them champagne of which I drank very sparingly and which my wife politely declined and the Chief the Tchelebi Effendi finished the bottle. They retain other pre-Mohammedan customs and some of these are pre-Christian also.

They met under the religious form at Hierapolis of the worship of Apollo north-west of Pisidian Antioch in the so-called Tekmoreian country in the worship of Artemis of the Limnai. They made voluntary contributions towards a common fund in order to make vessels and works of architecture and sculpture for their common religion. They lingered to the end of paganism on the great estates of the Roman Emperors for the reigning Emperor took the place of their god and was worshipped as their Lord; this connexion cemented the alliance of the Empire and the old religion against the Christian faith. The peasants were literally the pagani. They constituted a sort of trade-guilds according to their kind of work.

Down to 1880–1890 it was literally true that the porters came from one remote district to make money in Smyrna or Constantinople the confectioners from another and so on. The older members of the guild passed on their knowledge and their trading connexion to their friends and relations. There were doubtless pass-words and secret formulae among them though as to this I have of course no certain information. The head of the guild in each case directed the operations of all and laid down the law. No one could work against his will and authorisation. If one wanted horses to hire the chief of the guild found them and named the price. Such was the case when I first knew modern Turkey; but great changes have occurred during fifty years.

Mr. Buckler's important paper on Trade Unions in the Roman time³ has an intimate bearing on this subject. The Emperor and his representative governing any province could not permit society to suffer from any extra-imperial union or any disturbance caused to trade or the economy of the land or the cities. Such unions were older than the cities and lasted longer and were not regarded with any favour in the city system. The Greek or Hellenistic cities were organised according to the rights of the individual and regarded trade unions and fraternities generally with suspicion and even hostility. So the Roman Catholic Church opposes Freemasonry as a union outside of itself. The Roman Emperors as we know from Trajan's letter to Pliny⁴ would not even permit a guild of firemen to be formed lest it should develop into a political danger to the State and the one lawful unity of the Empire. Where however the original Anatolian system prevailed the Phratrai flourished; and they have been transmitted through the Seljuk Turks to the Ottoman Turks (Osmanli) in the form described.

Ibn Batuta an Arab from Tangier mentions this institution of brotherhoods in the Anatolian towns of which he speaks. He saw the “Brothers” (phratrai) at Antalia Burdur⁵ Ladhik Kunia; and he implies that they existed generally in the Seljuk towns; the date is about A.D. 1333. He calls those towns Turkoman using that word less correctly than Anna Comnena two centuries earlier or any experienced traveller at the present day. As he says “no people are more courteous to strangers more readily supply them with food and other necessaries or are more opposed to oppressors than they are. At Adalia (Antalia) the brotherhood was a society of 200 silk merchants. At Burdur they invited him to a feast in a garden outside the town.”

It is an interesting feature of Ibn Batuta's account that the young men are the active and energetic.⁶ The person who is termed “The Brother” is one about whom persons of the same occupation or even foreign youths who happen to be destitute collect and whom they constitute their president. He builds a cell⁷ and in this he puts a horse a saddle and whatever implements may be wanting. He then attends daily upon his companions and assists them with whatever they may happen to want. In the evening they come to him and bring all they have got which is sold to purchase food fruit etc. for the use of the cell. If a stranger should happen to arrive in their territory [i.e. the land belonging to the village or town] they get him among them and with this provision they entertain him. If however no traveller arrives then they assemble to eat up their provisions. They are therefore called “the youths” and their president “the Brother.”

This account corresponds with the somewhat broken-down form of hospitality that exists in Turkey in modern times hearty simple but given by the whole village or by the wealthiest man in the village. There is a guest-house where every stranger is welcomed. The elders of the village gather there every night and sit and converse. It was formerly the privilege and honour of every man who aspired at distinction to have his own guest-house. Our men as we entered a village before 1890 used to inquire whose was the best house and we rode there and made ourselves at home for the evening. Even a very surly and proud Moslem could not deny us anything. Hospitality was his duty and the duty of the village.

The chief duty of the Bektash dervishes after their power was weakened by the massacre of the Janissaries in 1826 was to entertain lavishly for the Janissaries were all Bektash. Hadji Bektash was the first chief and patron saint of the Janissaries and (as I have been told though 1 can quote no written authority) their leader at the capture of Mudania about 1328. The principal seats of the dervishes in Asia Minor are Hadji Bektash in the bend of the Halys between Kir-Sheher (Mokissos?) and the crossing of the river that leads direct to Kaisari Seidi-Ghazi (Nakoleia) bearing the name of a sort of mythical personage widely known in Anatolia and Sejah-ed-Din between Seidi-Ghazi and Eski-Sheher. Sejah-ed-Din was maintained in princely style as late as 1908 when sixty strangers sat down to supper and four more of us were entertained apart; two ladies in the oda of the sheikh and my son and I in the selamlik.

Some stress must be laid on this matter as it bears upon many old references to hospitality; and especially upon various Christian inscriptions of the fourth and even the third century. “The friend of all ”was a phrase taken up by the Christians but was of pagan origin: it is like St. Paul's expression “Gaius mine host and of the whole church.” In a Lycaonian epitaph which we dug in scraps out of a Turkish grave⁸ a presbyter is praised as the helper of widows orphans strangers and poor. Another presbyter at Nova Isaura is styled the helper of needy widows. The most remarkable example however is found in an epitaph which I saw complete and clear in 1905 and Calder and Cox saw in a broken condition in 1924. They have published it with divergent reading.

Solon was the stranger hospitably received by the village in the immemorial style. He died there and was buried by Koulas and a simple inscription erected over his grave “Koulas to Solon the guest: a memorial.”⁹ The host buried the guest.

The following monument (Fig. 3) throws some light on Figs. 1 and 2.

In copying it I had bad luck. I was taken by a stranger into the court of a house at Kabalar at sunset. I should have made friends with (i.e. bought leave of) the family but I was too eager to make use of the short time of light and omitted the preliminary bargaining. In fact I at first thought that the stranger who had introduced me was the owner; and I rewarded him which annoyed the rightful owner and his family.

It is unfortunate that this relief is so much defaced and the stone broken. It would be instructive to know what divine attendant at the left-hand top balanced Hermes (with caduceus and purse) on the right. The goddess Cybele with her attendant lions sits on a throne in the round central pediment; she stretches her hands to fondle the lions and rests her feet on a high foot-stool. The inscription probably should be restored as follows: it was irregularly engraved between defaced small reliefs under the rounded pediment:

The Phratra [of the Saloudeis and of the M]elokometai dedicated (the monument?). The chiefs of the Melokometai [honoured] Apollonides son of Magas [and] Sarbalaeites (resident) at Salouda son of Nikomachus the son of Aristides: the work being under the charge of Apollonides the son of Apollonides the [priest?] and … men of Salouda.

Then follows a list of the Phratra: beginning with “men of Salouda” twice repeated:

This monument is like the two preceding; but it is so much ruder and more broken that I have given an attempt at a translation (which I cannot guarantee) in order to show how difficult it is. There is only one Roman name the typical Gaius. It is perhaps the earliest of all: and is so rude and badly arranged that the task of decipherment would have been very hard even if it had been better preserved. Probably it would have been more instructive if it had been better preserved.

The obscure and much-disputed problems relating to various classifications of population in the states of Greece especially Athens at different stages of their development will be noted in part in Chapter XVII. It must however be kept in mind always.

In a general way it is known that birth and family formed the original foundation of the state; but in the Roman period of the Aegean world there was little difficulty in passing into a new state without abandoning one's original citizenship. Roman citizens like St. Paul seem to have been accepted as citizens in any city of the East where they resided: “The people (demos) and the Romans who enjoy the citizenship along with them” is a phrase of law and administration.¹¹ The same person is in that age described as citizen of two or half-a-dozen states; and probably if such a man cared to do so he could exercise his right of citizenship in each of his states if he happened to be present or to be permanently resident there. Finally all free men were made Romans.

Such citizenship ceases to have any real value. It is too vague and undefined to be worth having except as a compliment. Like the term “Founder” (κτίστης) it was given indiscriminately to any person who had been a benefactor of the State or made any foundation (however trifling) in the State. Successful athletes were often made citizens of many cities through which their career led.

Even the term Demos naturally meaning the whole body of citizens in a state especially as assembled in council and voting on decrees and acting in common is very far from definable in the same way in different cities. The expression “it seemed good to the demos to do so and so”¹² is so common and apparently so simple that it can be translated by the tiro and yet it cannot be clearly defined by the most learned for its meaning varies according to the state and the age. In many cities this expression means the entire free state assembled in council¹³ but in Attica a very small country there are said by different authorities to have been 100 or 174 demoi and the names of 182 are known.

That the term Phratra was an old Anatolian institution is apparent from the accompanying illustrations. Their situation even is instructive. I had traversed the country several times without hearing about the village near which they lie. By accident on my last journey across that region we heard of them. We had stopped to rest and cat some lunch when a wayfarer came along and sat down with us. The usual questions were exchanged; and this man advised us to go to Kodja-Geuzlar where there were some wonderful stones; but “don't stay there for the night” he added. As his directions for the way involved turning back a distance of three hours and the day was well advanced and our camp had gone on and was to be waiting for us four hours farther on it seemed best for my wife to go on with two of our men and for me to turn back and copy the stones if there proved to be any¹⁴ and hurry back to camp late.

My Turk and I found the village easily: it was situated a little way down the steep side of Maeander gorge; but there was nothing worth looking at in it. My Turk whispered that the village was Kizil-bash (red-head) a name applied indiscriminately to all sorts of Moslem heretics as well as to the Persian followers of All the Shiya sect. These people had taken up their abode in a secluded position where they might readily escape observation. The members of the Sunni sect despise and abhor them and avoid all intercourse with them. In this case intercourse was necessary and my man found after some inquiries that there were two large carved stones farther down the side of the gorge. These we could reach after a rather steep descent. They were big stelae about 8 feet high well cut of some volcanic material (I do not possess scientific knowledge enough to distinguish with certainty) lying sideways on the mountain side and both covered with writing and figures. The task of copying them was evidently going to be long and difficult and I regretted the absence of my wife to help in the drawing and in the measuring of them. There was barely room to stand beside them in order to get a complete view. In their situation they could not be photographed: moreover my wife was the photographer of the party and carried the apparatus. It was however not difficult to make a drawing of the general character for almost all the twenty-four human figures (members of the Phratra) were exactly of the same simple type and the representations at the top in the pediment and at the bottom were of easy familiar character which could readily be drawn as appears from the two Figures 1 and 2. By the time I had finished the sun was setting and it was impossible to reach camp in the dark over a rough and broken country. When we had scrambled up the mountain side to the village darkness had already set in; and the problem was how to spend the night. The hatred between these village sectaries and the Sunni population of Turkey was so intense as to make the situation awkward. The sectaries shunned all intercourse with their neighbours; they Were situated on no road or path; and they had no village guest-house such as is almost universal in the country. My Turk was very unwilling to spend the night in the village; but there was no other resource. He inquired about hospitality and a guest-house whereupon some people led us to what seemed like a dog-kennel beside a heap of garbage on the outside of the village. We came back and on the way found a decent-looking house with an open veranda accessible by a wooden stairway or ladder and looking on the street not (as usual) on a courtyard behind a gateway (see Chapter IX.). I went up the ladder sat down and announced my determination to spend the night there leaving it to the Turk to bargain for the hospitality which he did successfully at a moderate sum. The residents in the house departed; and promised to send some food which they did with perfect good faith. By the light of a candle I studied my copy of this unexpected and wonderful find until it was so familiar that I could almost reproduce it from memory. Very early next morning we departed glad to get away safely without any dissension.

The date of the two inscribed stelae is difficult to determine with any exactness. One which I call Fig. 1 is evidently the older; the other Fig. 2 is perhaps about a generation later. A considerable number of the same names and persons occur in both lists but the chiefs are different so that they can hardly be separated by less than twenty to thirty years. The Phratra was evidently limited to twenty-four members. The two monuments belong to the Roman period for the names Gaius and Justus occur; but the former is the commonest and simplest Roman name and the latter is evidently the translation of an Anatolian personal name; still it is a Latin rendering which shows that the Roman age had begun. That however in Asia near Hierapolis and Laodicea and Colossae does not necessarily imply a very late date for Asia became a Roman province in 133 B.C. and Roman milestones of the first governor are found much farther east.

Phratria is the usual form in Greek Phratra is the form employed by Homer and in all the Asian documents (some of which we shall quote in the sequel). That both words have practically the same meaning and that both are derived from the old word corresponding to the Latin frater a brother is beyond doubt. The members of a Phratra (Phratores) are connected as being like brothers¹⁵ not from having one father as a family was built up according to the genealogical system.

The Phratores are associated in a common religion or by some common bond of unity and not by heredity. Our word “brotherhood” has a similar wide sense: the members of a brotherhood are often held together by some bond political (like communists or socialists) religious (like the friars in a monastery) or otherwise but without any blood relationship: persons of different race and country may call themselves “brothers” in virtue of some theory or belief more or less vague; and such “brothers” if left to mutual agreement purely voluntary and not held together by a common opposition to any externally imposed bond which all agree in disliking will often turn to mutual hatred within their own brotherhood.

A striking saying is that of Nestor in Iliad ix. 63–4: he that provokes war within the demos i.e. the general unity of different states in some common cause (such as the war against Troy) is excluded from any brotherhood unprotected by the divine laws of any state an outlaw from the family hearth.¹⁶ Here three different kinds of unity are specified the Phratra the State and the Family: the last being the simplest and most natural the second being the widest and wholly free from any semblance of blood-unity the first being intermediate and maintaining some pretence of hereditary relationship.

Moreover the reliefs at the top and bottom are distinctly Roman and Greek. Hermes is of the Roman type. The goddess of Good Fortune with her rudder and cornucopiae is characteristic of Roman and Greek Imperial coins. The date therefore is not likely to be earlier than Augustus perhaps later. The artist who carved the two stelae was certainly brought from Laodicea or Hierapolis: he was no village workman. The ideas which he was called on to represent were done by him in the style of the cities on the great highway from the Roman capital of Asia to the East. He was familiar with and used to Graeco-Roman art.

An important criterion is that no name of an emperor occurs. There is no Julius no Claudius and no Flavius. Knowledge of Roman things and names was only beginning to penetrate to this remote village; but its remote situation perhaps made the penetration slow. For the same reason at the present day Turkish customs have been slow in reaching the village. The people belong to one of those obscure sects which are believed to retain many pre-Mohammedan and even pre-Christian customs. They are simply pagans with a veneer of Islam on the surface shunning all intercourse and all community of feeling with the Turks who are a kindly jovial hospitable race. Many tales are told true or false about these sectaries villages of whom are or were found here and there over the country; though Abd-ul-Hamid's aim and policy was to extirpate them and to make the country uniformly Sunni. He certainly was not successful but he did a good deal in the way of forcible conversion; but forcible conversion always leaves the character of the man or people unchanged or even makes him more confirmed in his old ways and thoughts (hidden though they may be under tyrannical law).

The two stelae belong to the same Brotherhood and are of exactly similar style though one Fig. 1 is older and rather ruder than the other. Each has a low pediment in the centre of which stands a tall figure of Zeus of the Laodicean type resting his left hand on a long sceptre while on his outstretched right hand sits an eagle. At the left side of each pediment is a four-horse car in which is the sun-god with radiated head. The wheels have four spokes and the car is turned towards Zeus. At the right hand of the pediment is a cart drawn by two oxen also turned towards the centre. The figures in the two cars are much defaced as is the eagle which Zeus holds forth in his right hand. Hermes with caduceus and purse stands between the ox-cart and Zeus. On the other side of Zeus stands the figure of Good Fortune of the usual Roman type holding the rudder and the cornucopiae.

It is beyond doubt that the Brotherhood which is pictured on these two stelae through two generations was an agricultural association. The ox-cart is a farm vehicle and the four-horse car carrying the sun-god is starting on his course through heaven. The day is beginning: it is a day of joyous rustic gaiety. The Brotherhood is intended rather to cultivate vegetables than to grow wheat. In such a situation the villagers could not have wheat-fields; and the chief Brother in Fig. 2 the head of the Phratra has the surname “melon-grower” Kolokynthianos.¹⁷

The Brotherhood belongs to the village Thiounta and this volcanic stone of which the two stelae are made was used at Hierapolis to construct some at least of the large graves which stand on the roads leading out of the city: inscriptions name the stone as Thiountene¹⁸ though Boeckh has altered this in the Corpus Inscrip. Graec. vol. ii. No. 3915 to Dokimene.¹⁹ He had not been there and did not therefore know that the stone is not of Dokimene marble carried 200 miles over mountain and glen but of Thiountene volcanic stone brought down the Maeander gorge by a rough road but always downhill.

The names of the Brotherhood are printed over their portraits which are all of exactly the same type except that some are bearded and some are youths. The drawing is inaccurate in this respect; but time failed us to indicate the distinction. There are two chiefs or headmen in each case and the number of the Brotherhood was limited to twenty-four who are arranged in two rows.

Zeus was evidently the god in whose worship the Brethren assembled. On one side he is the sun-god on the other he is perhaps Gordius the driver of the first cart: in the centre he is Graeco-Roman. Beside him are the deities that represent one the selling of merchandise and the other good luck. The Brotherhood prospered. There are signs of greater wealth in the second than in the first list.²⁰ The Brotherhood stands between heaven and earth (see Chapter XV.).

The scene on earth in the lowest zone is very charming. In the middle of it stands a woman weaving at a loom supported on a basis. Circe on a vase uses much the same kind of loom. The drawing does not represent well the shuttle which she holds for her work: she is evidently beginning her work at dawn and her shuttle looks like a ball of wool. In Fig. 1 she looks to the right and this gives the appearance that she holds the shuttle in her left hand. This awkwardness (like some others) is avoided in Fig. 2 where she looks to the left. Behind her is a man in a long robe playing the double flute and in front of her are two herds of seven cows in each case moving away from her: she represents the household and the hour is early morning when the cows are going out to pasture. In Fig. 2 they are represented with humps on the neck (zebu).

In Hesychius it is stated that “kerku” means the double flute and one of the Brotherhood is surnamed Kerkus. Many of the Brothers bear a double name and one of the names is very often Anatolian.

It would be easy to draw up a series of genealogies one probably extending over three generations. The Brotherhood evidently had not wholly lost the family character and the chieftainship is certainly hereditary. The genealogies are indicated in my Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia Part I. p. 144; but might be much increased in number.²¹

On the steep descent where Kodja-Geuzlar is situated there is no opportunity for wheat-growing nor even for the use of ox-wagons nor for the pasturing of herds; but there is good level ground at the foot of the descent on both banks of the Maeander and here oxen and ox-carts would be used and herds of cattle could be pastured and perhaps even a little wheat could be cultivated. There is no reason to think that Thiounta occupied exactly the site of the wretched poor modern village which is so placed as to avoid the notice of the hostile outer world both Christian under the Byzantine and Moslem under the Turkish rule. Thiounta was situated in a better position and was evidently a highly prosperous village.

Perhaps the strongest proof of relationship and blood in the two lists is the pair Apollonis²² son of Mikketas in Fig. 1 (Mikka often as Anatolian female name) and Zeuxios son of Apollonios grandson of Mikketas in Fig. 2. Euxenion son of Zôsimos in Fig. 2 was probably” father of Menander in the same list: Auxiniôn in Fig. 1 is a different name probably Anatolian or selected as of good omen. Athenagoras son of Diodoros Gorgion in Fig. 2 is son of Diodoros Gorgion²³ in Fig. 1. The chiefs in Fig. 2 are father and son.

The presence of both father and son in the same list several times not merely proves what a strong family tie existed in the Brotherhood but also exhibits the reason why some figures are bearded others are youthful (a detail which is not indicated in the drawings as explained already).

Only one artisan is mentioned in the lists Menander son of Apheianos a maker of lepta (perhaps delicate pottery or more probably fine thin garments).²⁴ There is a general predominance of names either (1) derived from the gods of the Brotherhood Diogenianus Diodoros Diogenes Theodoros Theophilos Dionysis Dionysios for the jolly tone of the scenes implies that Dionysos was recognised as a god of the Brotherhood Apollonios from the sun-god as Apollo and Hikesios a title of Apollo as the god of purification viz. the sun-god who keeps that country still clean and healthy: Hikesios is represented on coins of Ephesus; (2) names of good omen Eutyches Krusion (for Chrysion) Auxinion Euxenion Justus Didymos Glykon Zosimos Kyron; (3) names connected with husbandry as Zeuxis and Zeuxios (driver of a pair of oxen) Kolokynthianos Apenion (?) Korydon²⁵ Pityras (who superintends the husks on the threshing-floor); (4) names connected with history and poetry Athenagoras Alexander Menander Theocritus Hellênios (?) Kyrôn (?); (5) names found in Greek mythology or connected with mythological personages Iollas Gorgion Kasmos (from Kadmos)²⁶ Aigeon (for Aigaion perhaps ultimately connected with the rules of goat-culture prescribed as religious ritual).

One official occurs in Fig. 2 Kasmos paraphylax; this office was as old as the Pergamenian kingdom and was kept up by the Romans; the paraphylax was a sort of chief constable.

The Gorgon and Gorgon's village (Gorgorôme equivalent to Gorgorûme: see Chapter VIII.) are indubitably of Anatolian origin: the head with open mouth and protruding tongue is the author of prophecy in the Hittite inscriptions according to Forrer and Sayce: i.e. Gorgo is the Earth-mother as the teacher of her children. The prophecies are often given in lull in the inscriptions but are always expressed in that undeciphered language which is called by Forrer proto-Hittite. Names that need further careful study are Kyrtos (unless it is the Homeric adjective) Euaros Lapisas Lechitas Psapharos Kennêniôn Masôn Mongos. These seem to be Anatolian names. Euaros is probably a half-grecised Anatolian name: compare Zeus Eurudamenos and Ourudamenos on the Tekmoreian imperial estates and at Apollonia.

Perhaps the most extraordinary feature in the lists is that Hermes or a derivative is never used as a personal name although the conjunction of Zeus and Hermes is so striking a feature in both pediments and in Fig. 4. Probably he was known at Thiounta under a native name and they did not use the Greek name; and he is to be sought for among the unexplained names or possibly he was identified with Dionysos both gods being in mythology represented as sons of the supreme god Zeus.

The goddess of Good Fortune is evidently referred to in several personal names e.g. Auxiniôn.²⁷

In Fig. 1 Zeuxis son of Diodoros has the tide priest (appas):²⁸ “appas” was used in Anatolia as a priestly title. The title “appas of Dionysos” occurring in the union of mystae at Magnesia seems almost conclusive. The personal name Hiereus (not used as a title) is found often in the lists of cultivators on the Killanian imperial estates. Now “appas” became a personal name in Anatolia and probably Hiereus is a translation of the Asian word just as Longus and Dolichos Justus Macer etc. are translations of Anatolian names in the languages used later. The only objection that could be made to this use of “appas” here is that there is no “appas” in Fig. 2 but this is not a very strong objection. Zeuxis therefore in Fig. 1 was the priest of the Brotherhood. He is the only person on this occasion who contributes money and it is merely the price of a place for the stele which could not have been much in this situation. Chairylos in Fig. 2 is a better spelling than Cherylos in Fig. 1.

Note.—The strange name Lechitas may perhaps explain the even stranger name Amphilochos one of the two prophets of Claros who guided the Old-Ionian emigration along the south coast. Amphilochos is grecised but is not a real Greek name. His oracle at his tomb in Cilicia was consulted. Mopsos and Amphilochos the two dogs of Clarian Apollo had Anatolian names.