All these five were demes within the city of Athens, and all belonged to different tribes. _Peiræus_ belonged to the Hippothoöntis; _Phalêrum_, to the Æantis; _Xypetê_, to the Kekropis; _Thymætadæ_, to the Hippothoöntis. These four demes, adjoining to each other, formed a sort of quadruple local union, for festivals and other purposes, among themselves; though three of them belonged to different tribes. See the list of the Attic demes, with a careful statement of their localities in so far as ascertained, in Professor Ross, Die Demen von Attika. Halle, 1846. The distribution of the city-demes, and of Peiræus and Phalêrum, among different tribes, appears to me a clear proof of the intention of the original distributors. It shows that they wished from the beginning to make the demes constituting each tribe discontinuous, and that they desired to prevent both the growth of separate tribe-interests and ascendency of one tribe over the rest. It contradicts the belief of those who suppose that the tribe was at first composed of continuous demes, and that the breach of continuity arose from subsequent changes. Of course there were many cases in which adjoining demes belonged to the same tribe; but not one of the ten tribes was made up altogether of adjoining demes. [251] See Boeckh, Corp. Inscriptt. Nos. 85, 128, 213, etc.: compare Demosthen. cont. Theokrin. c. 4. p. 1326 R. The deme now became the primitive constituent element of the commonwealth, both as to persons and as to property. It had its own demarch, its register of enrolled citizens, its collective property, its public meetings and religious ceremonies, its taxes levied and administered by itself. The register of qualified citizens[252] was kept by the demarch, and the inscription of new citizens took place at the assembly of the demots, whose legitimate sons were enrolled on attaining the age of eighteen, and their adopted sons at any time when presented and sworn to by the adopting citizen. The citizenship could only be granted by a public vote of the people, but wealthy non-freemen were enabled sometimes to evade this law and purchase admission upon the register of some poor deme, probably by means of a fictitious adoption. At the meetings of the demots, the register was called over, and it sometimes happened that some names were expunged,—in which case the party thus disfranchised had an appeal to the popular judicature.[253] So great was the local administrative power, however, of these demes, that they are described as the substitute,[254] under the Kleisthenean system, for the naukraries under the Solonian and ante-Solonian. The trittyes and naukraries, though nominally preserved, and the latter (as some affirm) augmented in number from forty-eight to fifty, appear henceforward as of little public importance.