5. No Doric state, with the exception of Sparta, appears to have given the name of oba to a division of the people. But neither can the name _phratria_, so common in other places, be proved to have been used by any Doric people. On the other hand, phratriæ occur at Athens, in the Asiatic colonies,(321) and in the Chalcidean colony of Neapolis, that is, chiefly in Ionic states; and Neapolis affords a solitary instance of their being distinguished by certain proper names, such as Eumelidæ, Eunostidæ, Cymæans, Aristæans, &c.(322) Pindar however mentions _patræ_ (πάτραι) in the Doric states of Corinth and Ægina; an expression which, according to the precise definition of Dicæarchus, is equivalent to houses or γένη, signifying persons descended from the same ancestor (πατήρ). It was indeed, although not at Athens, in use among the Ionians of Asia Minor and the islands, who appear however to have also employed the terms πάτρα or πατρία for the more extensive word phratria.(323) In Ægina and Corinth it will be safest to consider the patræ as houses, since they are always denoted by patronymic names, going back to fabulous progenitors; and by Pindar himself they are also called “houses.” Since however, as being not only a natural, but also a political division, the patræ may sometimes have comprised _several_ houses, and as there was probably in these states no intermediate division (like the phratria at Athens and the oba at Sparta) between them and the tribes, the ancient commentators have neglected their more restricted and original sense, and have compared and identified them with phratriæ.(324)