in Architecture, the lowest part of an order of columns, being that part which sustains the column, and serves it as a foot to stand. See COLUMN.

PEDIÆAN, in Grecian antiquity. The city of Athens was anciently divided into three different parts; one on the declivity of a hill; another on the sea-shore; and a third in a plain between the other two. The inhabitants of the middle region were called Πεδιαῖοι, Pediacans, formed from πεδίον, "plain," or "flat;" or as Aristotle will have it, Pediaci: those of the hill, Diacrians; and those of the shore, Paralians.

These quarters usually composed so many different factions. Pisistratus made use of the Pediacans against the Diacrians. In the time of Solon, when a form of government was to be chosen, the Diacrians chose it democratic; the Pediacans demanded an aristocracy; and the Paralians a mixed government.