A reconstruction of the Monument as it would have looked in the fourth century BCE.

The statues represented the heroes of the ten eponymous tribes (phylai) created by Cleisthenes in 508 BCE.

The tripods on either end presumably reflect the role of the Delphic Oracle of Apollo in the selection of the heroes.

We know the names of the heroes from Pausanias, who also reports that they gave their names to the Athenian tribes in obedience to an oracle; Herodotus, however, does not mention the oracle in his story of the Cleisthenic innovation.

The ten heroes were: Hippothoon, Antiochos, Ajax, Leos, Erechtheus, Aigeus, Oineus, Akamas, Kekrops and Pandion.

Socrates belonged to the tribe Antiochis (see Apology 32b), named after Antiochus, the legendary son of Heracles.