Philochorus, writing in the third century before the Christian era, stated that Kekrops had originally distributed Attica into twelve districts,—Kekropia, Tetrapolis, Epakria, Dekeleia, Eleusis, Aphidnæ, Thorikus, Braurôn, Kythêrus, Sphêttus, Kêphisia, Phalêrus,—and that these twelve were consolidated into one political society by Theseus.[74] 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 distribution made by king Pandiôn among his four sons, Nisus, Ægeus, Pallas, and Lykus,—a story as old as Sophoklês, at least.[75] 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 Kekrŏpis, Autochthon, Aktæa, and Paralia. Under king Kranaus, these tribes, we are told, received the names of Kranaïs, Atthis, Mesogæa, and Diakria,[76]—under Erichthonius, those of Dias, Athenaïs, Poseidonias, Hephæstias: at last, shortly after Erechtheus, they were denominated after the four sons of Iôn (son of Kreusa, daughter of Erechtheus, by Apollo), Geleontes, Hoplêtes, Ægikoreis, Argadeis. The four Attic or Ionic tribes, under these last-mentioned names, continued to form the classification of the citizens until the revolution of Kleisthenês in 509 B. C. by which the ten tribes were introduced, as we find them down to the period of Macedonian ascendency. It is affirmed, and with some etymological plausibility, that the denominations of these four tribes must originally have had reference to the occupations of those who bore them,—the Hoplêtes being the _warrior-class_, the Ægikoreis _goatherds_, the Argadeis _artisans_, and the Geleontes (Teleontes, or Gedeontes) _cultivators_: and hence some authors have ascribed to the ancient inhabitants of Attica[77] an actual primitive distribution into hereditary professions, or castes, similar to that which prevailed in India and Egypt. If we should even grant that such a division into castes might originally have prevailed, it must have grown obsolete long before the time of Solon: but there seem no sufficient grounds for believing that it ever did prevail. The names of the tribes may have been originally borrowed from certain professions, but it does not necessarily follow that the reality corresponded to this derivation, or that every individual who belonged to any tribe was a member of the profession from whence the name had originally been derived. From the etymology of the names, be it ever so clear, we cannot safely assume the historical reality of a classification according to professions. And this objection (which would be weighty, even if the etymology had been clear) becomes irresistible, when we add that even the etymology is not beyond dispute;[78] that the names themselves are written with a diversity which cannot be reconciled: and that the four professions named by Strabo omit the goatherds and