The nation of the Medes belongs to the group of the Arian tribes, which occupied the table-land of Iran. This has been already proved by the statement of Herodotus that in ancient time the Medians were called Areans by all men (p. 14), by the religion of the Medes, and by all the Median words and names that have come down to us.[450] According to Herodotus the nation consisted of six tribes: the Arizanti, Busae, Struchates, Budii, Paraetaceni, and Magi. Whether certain parts of the land belonged to these tribes as their habitation, is not clear from this statement. The Magians we have already found to be a hereditary order of priests (p. 191), and therefore we can hardly assume a separate part of the country as their habitation. The question thus becomes limited to the remaining five tribes. The name of the Paraetaceni occurs in the mountain district, which the later Greeks call Paraetacene. This district separated Media from Persia, and there is therefore nothing remarkable in the fact that the Paraetaceni are counted among the Persians or spoken of as an independent tribe.[451] If the Paraetaceni had a special province, we shall be all the more justified in allotting the same to the Arizanti, the Budii, Struchates, and Busae, as the tribe of the Matieni, which Strabo reckons among the Medes,[452] had a special habitation and territory in the district of Matiene, _i.e._ in the region which after the time of the Seleucids was known as Atropatene; and the tribes of the Persians, who were closely akin to the Medes, were also settled in special regions, or marched through them with their flocks. The name Arizanti (_Arizantu_) might signify the noble families, _i.e._ an eminent tribe, which tribe might nevertheless possess a separate habitation. Among the Persians there was a privileged tribe, to which the royal family belonged, which ruled over all the tribes, and this tribe like the rest had a special territory.