Citizens and foreigners whose excellence made them suitable used to be honoured [sc. in classical
Athens] with bronze statues; and one subset of these gave their names[s] to the tribes. They say that this is how it was first decided to expound the tribes: having no idea what name[s] to give the tribes, [they decided] to do this from the most famous ones; each individual made his own list of a hundred names[1] and lots were drawn. At any rate by the statues of these Eponyms they used to introduce the laws, before they were ratified, so that those who wished to do so could encounter them and raise objections.
*)epw/numoi: oi( kat' a)reth\n diapre/pontes a)stoi\ kai\ ce/noi xalkai=s ei)ko/sin e)timw=nto: u(f' w(=n e)ni/wn kai\ tai=s fulai=s e)ti/qei o)no/- mata. fasi\ d' e)kei=qen prw=ton do/cai ta\s fula\s e)chgh/sasqai: a)porou/ntwn ga\r au)tw=n o)/noma tai=s fulai=s qe/sqai, a)po\ tw=n e)ndocota/twn tou=to poih=sai kai\ e(/kaston e(kato\n o)no/mata i)di/a| graya/menon klhrw=sai. para\ gou=n ta\s ei)ko/nas tw=n *)epwnu/mwn tou/twn ei)shgou=nto tou\s no/mous, pri\n h)\ gene/sqai kuri/ous: i(/n' e)ntugxa/nontes au)toi=s oi( boulo/menoi kathgoroi=en.
Same or similar entries in
Photius and other lexica; see further below, n.1
See also
epsilon 2842. The present entry with its rather odd beginning concerns the first of the two kinds of Eponym mentioned there. (The mention here of "foreigners" is perhaps an allusion to Aias (Ajax), eponym of what became tribe IX Aiantis, who as a Salaminian could be regarded as an intruder amongst native Athenian heroes; cf.
Herodotus 5.66.)
[1] C. Theodoridis in his
Photius edition (vol.II p.LXVII) points out that 'a hundred' (
e(kato/n) does not appear in Ph's version; he is agnostic as to whether the Suda is right to give it. In my [DW's] opinion, the Suda's
e(kato\n is either an unwitting quasi-repetition of the word immediately before it,
e(/kaston ('each'), or a conscious but wrong-headed attempt to supplement
Photius' version by supplying the figure that (according to ?
Aristotle,
Athenaion Politeia 21.6) was the size of this preliminary list
as a whole.
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