8.
[203] This regulation is probably of later date than the time of Solon.

To Pisistratus is referred a law for disabled citizens, though its suggestion is ascribed to Solon.

It was, however, a law that evidently grew out of the principles of Solon.
[204] A tribe contained three phratries, or fraternities--a phratry contained three genes or clans--a genos or clan was composed of thirty heads of families.

As the population, both in the aggregate and in these divisions, must have been exposed to constant fluctuations, the aforesaid numbers were most probably what we may describe as a fiction in law, as Boeckh (Pol.Econ.of Athens, vol.i., p.

47, English translation) observes, "in the same manner that the Romans called the captain a centurion, even if he commanded sixty men, so a family might have been called a triakas (i.e., a thirtiad), although it contained fifty or more persons." It has been conjectured indeed by some, that from a class not included in these families, vacancies in the phratries were filled up; but this seems to be a less probable supposition than that which I have stated above.