The Eponymous Heroes

Just as all governmental activity and policy stemmed from the individual Athenian citizen, so there was a center in the Agora from which the lines of power went out to all men in all fields of activity. This was the Monument of the Eponymous Heroes, a long base, surrounded by a fence, on which stood statues of the heroes from whom the 10 tribes took their names (8).

8. Model of the Monument of the Eponymous Heroes. Notices concerning members of a given tribe would be posted below the statue of the appropriate tribal hero.

Here, by the hero of his tribe, each man, holding his citizenship through tribe and deme, was in closest contact with the privileges and duties involved in his citizenship. The base served as the official notice board of the Athenian people, on which appeared drafts of new laws, notices of lawsuits, and mobilization orders. From the Eponymous Heroes the citizen army went out to protect, and sometimes to spread, the Athenian way of life.