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70 HISTORY OF GREECE. religious or political, and they yet looked upon the country resi- dence as their real home. How deep-seated this cantonal feeling was among them, we may see by the fact that it survived the temporary exile forced upon them by the Persian invasion, and was resumed when the expulsion of that destroying host enabled them to rebuild their ruined dwellings in Attica. 1 How many of the demes recognized by Kleisthenes had origi- nally separate governments, or in what local aggregates they stood combined, we cannot now make out ; it will be recollected that the city of Athens itself contained several demes, and Pei- KECUS also formed a deme apart. Some of the twelve divisions, which Philochorus ascribes to Kekrops, present probable marks of an ancient substantive existence, Kekropia, or the region surrounding and including the city and acropolis ; the tetrapolis, composed of QEnoe, Trikorythus, Probalinthus, and Marathon ; 9 Eleusis; Aphidnae and Dekeleia, 3 both distinguished by their peculiar mythical connection with Sparta and the Dioskuri. But it is difficult to imagine that Phalerum, which is one of the sepa- rate divisions named by Philochorus, can ever have enjoyed an autonomy apart from Athens. Moreover, we find among some of the demes which Philochorus does not notice, evidences of 1 Thucyd. ii, 15, 16. ovdev uXho % itoKiv T?/V tavrov airofaiTrov /caoroc, respecting the Athenians from the country who were driven in'o Athens at the first invasion during the Peloponnesian war. 2 Etymologicon Magn. v, 'Eiraicpia %"?" ', Strabo, viii, p. 3M ; Stephan. Byz. Y, TerpaTToXif. The TETpu.KUfj.oL comprised the four demes, TLetpaleif, Qa^r/pei?, Sf TTETEU- vf, Qv/ioLTadai (Pollux, iv, 105): whether this is an old division, however, has been doubted (see Ilgen, De Tribubus Atticis, p. 51). The 'EiraKpeuv TpiTrvf is mentioned in an inscription apnd Ross (Die Demen von Attika, p. vi). Compare Boeckh ad Corp. Inscr. No. ? : among other demes, it comprised the deme Plotheia. Mesogsea also (or *ather the Mesogei, ol Meo-oye(ot) appears as a communion for sacrifice and religious purposes, and as containing the deme Bate. See Inscriptiones Att : r;se nupcr repertae duodecim, by Ern. Curtius ; Berlin, 1843; Inscript. i, p. 3. The exact site of the deme Bate in Attica is unknown (Ross, Die Do Tien von Attica, p. 64) ; and respecting the question, what portion of Attica was called Mesogaea, very different conjectures have been started, which. th^ra appears to be no ir.eans of testing. Compare Schomann de Cori'/i.n 343, and Wordsworth, Athens and Attica, p. 229, 2d edit. 3 Dikajarchus. Fragm. p. 109, ed. Fuhv ; Plutarch, Thcscns, c. 33.