Book of the Magistrates of the Athenians

so called), the number reached 12. These 12 parts divided in three lasted until the time of Alcmaeon for 660 years or a little more or less. This man, by the response of the oracle of Apollo, called them ten Tribes from the princes who reigned before him of greater fame: it was called Cecropia from Cecrops, Erechthea from Erechtheus, Aegea, Pandiona, Acamantis, Leontis, Aeneis, Hippothoontis, Antiochis, Aiantis, to which voices were added Antigonia and Demetria to finish the name of twelve, which only (like the first four) divided into three parts made the number of 36 Tribes, which the Romans imitated one less. Whence it is seen that they did not so much dare the example of the laws, but the divisions of the Attic people. These things are of great importance in the things of the Republic. Those 12 took the name and were called Eponyms. I do not know if Herodotus in the Erato book of Herodotus [speaks of] the twelve Gods of the Athenians, because the same author, having placed some of their names there, said in the Euterpe book of Herodotus that in Egypt there were worshipped at first 12 Gods, which later were brought to Attica, and had had in Pisa a common altar among all, which was called the Altar of the 12 Gods, and that the Kings were called Gods, who had reigned with equity. This makes me believe Aristotle in the first of the Politics, beyond the faith that the Histories, both Greek and barbarian, give me, whence it is manifest that at one and the same time it can stand that they were called both Gods and Kings, and there having been 24: 12 in Egypt and 12 Kings in Athens. Pausanias, where he reasons of the Eponyms, says that Herodotus can speak well, nevertheless there was a diversity from him of their names. And furthermore, of the 12, to those he adds Attalus, Ptolemy, and