27. 1829.
[4445,1]
Niebuhr, ib. sezione
intitolata Τhe Patrician Houses and the Curies, p.
268. Each house
*
(ciascuno dei γένη gentes nei quali era anticamente distribuito il popolo ateniese) bore a peculiar name resembling a patronymic in form; as
the Codrids, the Eumolpids, the Butads: which produces an appearance,
but a fallacious one, of a family affinity
*
(perchè quelle gentes, come ap. i Romani, erano una mera
divisione politica; ciascuna gens o casa era composta di più famiglie senz'alcun
riguardo ad affinità scambievole). Τhese names may have
been transferred from the most distinguished among the associated
families to the rest: it is more probable that they were adopted from
the name of a hero, who was their eponymus.
Such a house was that of the Homerids in Chios;
whose descent from the poet was only an inference drawn from their name,
whereas others pronounced that they were no way related {to} him (not. 747. Harpocration v. ῾Ομηρίδαι. It may be
warrantably assumed that a hero named Homer was revered by the Ionians at the time when
Chios received its laws. See the Rhenish
Museum (Museo Renano) I. 257.) In Greek history what appears to be a
family, may probably often have been a house of this kind; and this
system of subdivision is not to be confined to the Ionian tribes
alone.
*
(27. 1829.)
