Dendrophori
Dendrophori a collegium or corporation of carpenters, frequently mentioned in inscriptions in imperial times. They formed originally a religious corporation, carrying the sacred tree in the worship of the Magna Mater (collegium dendrophorum Matris magnae), and were under the Quindecimviri. (See inscriptions quoted by Marquardt, Röm. Staatsverw. iii. pp. 356, 380.) Some modern critics have supposed that there were two collegia of Dendrophori, one religious, and the other of artificers; but it is more probable that they were in later times a college of carpenters under the protection and in the service of the Magna Mater. In an ordinance issued by Constantine in 315 they are mentioned along with the centonarii and fabri (Cod. Theod. 14.8). They were suppressed by Honorius and Theodosius in 415 as a heathen collegium (Cod. Theod. 16.10, 20.2), after which time their name does not appear. (Bossieu, Inscr. de Lyon, p. 412; Marquardt, Privatl. d. Römer p. 698.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.