BOOK OF THE MAGISTRATES OF

ATHENS BY GUILLAUME PO-

STEL FROM BARENTON.

On the division of the People. Chap. I.

A decorative woodcut initial 'G' featuring floral and foliate motifs within a square border, serving as a drop cap for the opening word 'GL'Athenieſi'.

The Athenians, who delighted in being called Indigenous—that is, born there and not descended from another people, nor having come from another place to make their beginning high and divine—were distinguished by three names, just as many writers have left us memory. The first of their names was Eupatridae Epatride nobles, and these in Athens were as the Patricians were in Rome. The second were the Geomori Geomori rustics/landholders, so called because they once obtained a part of the Attic fields in order to work. The third were the Demiurgi Dimiurgi artificers, who practiced mechanical arts and trade in the city. Beside this word Demiurgi, which signifies artificer, it also meant what the Romans called a Publican, that is, a tax collector. Those who were greatest among the others in honor and age were called Demogerontes Demogeronti senators, who received a supreme authority from the populace. The first name, Indigenous, was not given to the land or to the place of the people or to the city, but only to those whose ancestors and the first of whom, by common consent of all, had lived only in Athens, and who affirmed having had no beginning from elsewhere. For the sake of pride and pomp, they were called the People of the Soil.