Phyle
Phyle is an ancient Greek term for tribe or clan. Members of the same phyle were known as symphyletai meaning 'fellow tribesmen'. During the late 6th century BC, Cleisthenes organized the population of Athens in ten phylai, each consisting of three trittyes, with each trittys comprising a number of demes. Tribes and demes had their own officers and were self-administered. 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.
Attic tribes
First period
The best-attested new system was that created by Cleisthenes for Attica in or just after 508 BC. The landscape was regarded as comprising three zones: urban, coastal and inland. Each zone was split into ten sections called trittyes, to each of which were assigned between one and ten of the 139 existing settlements, villages or town-quarters, which were henceforth called demoi.Three sections, one each from urban, coastal and inland, were then put together to form a tribe. 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 rapidly took on various functions.
They became the brigading units for the army; constituencies for the election of magistrates, especially the ten generals, for the section of members of the Council of 500 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. They had their own corporate life, with officials and sanctuaries, and came to have an official order:
1. Erechtheis
2. Aigeis
3. Pandionis
4. Leontis
5. Acamantis
6. Oineis
7. Kekropis
8. Hippothontis
9. Aiantis
10. Antiochis.
Subsequent periods
After this so called Period I that lasted until 307/306 BC, the system of Phylae had undergone few changes:- in Period II two Macedonian Phylai were created ;
- in Period III an Egyptian Phyle XIII. Ptolemais was created;
- in Period IV the Macedonian Phylae were dissolved and a Tribe XIV. Attalis, was created;
- in Period V a tribe XV. Hadrianis was created.