phratry

In ancient Greece, a phratry (, derived from ) was a group containing citizens in some city-states. Their existence is known in most Ionian cities and in Athens and it is thought that they existed elsewhere as well. Almost nothing is known about the functions and responsibilities of phratries outside Attica (the area around Athens). Within Athens, they played a prominent role in social and religious life, particularly in the major festival called the Apatouria. They played an important role in determining eligibility for Athenian citizenship and all citizens (with very few exceptions) and only citizens were enrolled in phratries. Particularly in anthropology, the term is also applied to similar descent groups of multiple clans in other societies.

==History== ===Origins and etymology=== The origins of the phratry in ancient Greece are unknown. It is possible that they are Ionian in origin and that their presence in Athens stems from a known migration from Ionia in the late Mycenaean period. This was the origin explanation favored by many of the classical Athenians, including Aristotle. Some scholars also favor this explanation because phratries are known to have been present in most (but not all) of the Ionian city-states, as was the major phratry festival, the Apatouria. However, almost nothing is known about the functions or prominence of the Apatouria and the phratries in Ionian city-states. It is therefore possible that they functioned differently from the Athenian phratries and perhaps even emerged separately. The linguistic origins of the word "phratry" are quite old and date back to the Indo-European period, thus giving rise to a second origin theory for phratries: that they date back to early antiquity and originated not in Ionia but elsewhere in Greece. The term "phratry" itself is quite similar to a number of words for "brother" in languages derived from Indo-European which makes it more plausible that institutions named phratries emerged independently in Attica (where Athens is) and Ionia. The existence of the Apatouria in both Ionia and Athens complicates the second theory of origin somewhat, but at present scholars are highly uncertain about how phratries actually emerged. ===Archaic period=== What little we do know about phratries from before the 5th century BCE is drawn primarily from Homer and from Draco's law of homicide, which probably dates to about 620 BCE. Homer mentions phratries numerous times in his works, although never in any detail. However, their casual mention heavily implies that they were well-established by Homer's time. Draco's law of homicide, from Athens, details who can pardon a murderer. First, the immediate family of the murderer's victim has the right to pardon the murderer. If there is no immediate family, the power then passes to the extended family. If the victim also has no extended family, then the power to pardon the murderer passes to members of the victim's phratry. Since there is no further instruction on what happens if the victim was not in a phratry, scholars have generally interpreted this as meaning that, as early as the 7th century BCE, all Athenian citizens were members of a phratry. Draco's law of homicide also states that the ten most aristocratic of the phratry members would be the ones to make the decision, implying that, at this early stage in Athenian history, the phratries were dominated by the aristocratic class. This would reflect the aristocratic dominance of the broader city-state at this time.