Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/66

 50 HISTORY" OF GREECE. who, finding no records, nor anything better than current legends, explained the foretime as well as they could by guesses more or less ingenious, generally attached to the dominant legendary names. They were sometimes able to found their conclusions upon religious usages, periodical ceremonies, or common sacri- fices, still subsisting in their own time; and these were doubtless the best evidences to be found respecting Athenian antiquity, since such practices often continued unaltered throughout all the political changes. It is in this way alone that we arrive at some partial knowledge of the ante-Solonian condition of Attica, though as a whole it still remains dark and unintelligible, even after the many illustrations of modern commentators. Philochorus, writing in the third century before the Christian era, stated that Kekrops had originally distributed Attica into twelve districts, Kekropia, Tetrapolis, Epakria, Dekeleia, Eleu- sis, Aphidnaa, Thorikus, Brauron, Kytherus, Sphettus, Kephisia, Phalerus, and that these twelve were consolidat ed into one political society by Theseus. 1 This partition does not comprise the Megarid, which, according to other statements, is represented as united with Attica, and as having formed part of the distribu- tion made by king Pandion among his four sons, Nisus, .^Egeus, Pallas, and Lykus, a story as old as Sophokles, at least. 2 In other accounts, again, a quadruple division is applied to the tribes, which are stated to have been four in number, beginning from Kekrops, called in his time Kekropis, Autochthon, Aktaea, and Paralia. Under king Kranaus, these tribes, we are told, re- ceived the names of Kranai's, Atthis, Mesogsea, and Diakria, 3 under Erichthonius, those of Dias, Athenais, Poseidonias, Heph- jestias : at last, shortly after Erechtheus, they were denominated after the four sons of Ion (son of Kreusa, daughter of Erech- theus, by Apollo), Geleontes, Hopletes, .ZEgikoreis, Argadeis. The four Attic or Ionic tribes, under these last-mentioned names, Philochorus ap. Strabo, ix, p. 396. See Schumann, Antiq. J. I Gric. t>. v, sect. 2-5. 2 Strabo, ix, p. 392. Philochorus and Andron extended the kingdom of Nisus from the isthmus of Corinth as far as the Pythium (near CEnoe) and Eleusis (Str. ib.) ; but there were many different tales. 3 Pollux, viii, c 9, 109-111.