Phyle

phylai, φυλαί; derived from Greek φύεσθαι, phyesthai lit.

[2] During the late 6th century BC, Cleisthenes organized the population of Athens in ten phylai (tribes), each consisting of three trittyes ("thirtieths"), with each trittys comprising a number of demes.

[3] Some phylai can be classified by their geographic location, such as the Geleontes, the Argadeis, the Hopletes, and the Agikoreis in Ionia, as well as the Hylleans, the Pamphyles, the Dymanes in Doris.

The landscape was regarded as comprising three zones: urban (asty), coastal (paralia) and inland (mesogeia).

The 30 sections therefore yielded ten tribes, each named after a local hero and each with a geographically scattered membership roughly equal in size and hereditary in the male line thenceforward.

They became the brigading units for the army; constituencies for the election of magistrates, especially the ten generals (strategoi), for the section of members of the Council of 500 (boule) and of the 6,000 jurors, and for the selection of boards of administrative officials of every kind: and bases for the selection of competing teams of runners, singers or dancers at various festivals.

[4] After this so called Period I that lasted until 307/306 BC, the system of Phylae had undergone few changes: When the colony of Thurii on the Gulf of Taranto was settled under the support of Pericles and the command of Lampon and Xenocritus the population was organized in ten tribes, following the Athenian organization: there were tribes for the population of 1.