Any of several tribe s that formed the largest political subgroups in all Dorian and most Ionian Greek city-states.
Phylae were simultaneously kinship groups, corporations with their own officials and priests, and local units for administrative and military purposes. Athens's original four phylae were replaced by 10 under a reorganization (508/507 BC) initiated by Cleisthenes ; Sparta's original three were supplanted by five in the 8th century BC.