ocess.

CHAPTER VI.

GENS AND STATE IN ROME.

The legend of the foundation of Rome sets forth that the first
colonization was undertaken by a number of Latin gentes (one hundred, so
the legend says) united into one tribe. A Sabellian tribe (also said to
consist of one hundred gentes) soon followed, and finally a third tribe
of various elements, but again numbering one hundred gentes, joined
them. The whole tale reveals at the first glance that little more than
the gens was borrowed from reality, and that the gens itself was in
certain cases only an offshoot of an old mother gens still existing at
home. The tribes bear the mark of artificial composition on their
foreheads; still they were made up of kindred elements and after the
model of the old spontaneous, not artificial tribe. At the same time it
is not impossible that a genuine old tribe formed the nucleus of every
one of these three tribes. The connecting link, the phratry, contained
ten gentes and was called curia. Hence there were thirty curiae.

The Roman gens is recognized as an institution identical with the
Grecian gens. The Grecian gens being a continuation of the same social
unit, the primordial form of which we found among the American Indians,
the same holds naturally good of the Roman gens, and we can be more
concise in its treatment.

At least during the most ancient times of the city, the Roman gens had
the following constitution:

1. Mutual right of inheritance for gentiles; the wealth remained in the
gens. Paternal law being already in force in the Roman the same as in
the Grecian gens, the offspring of female lineage were excluded.
According to the law of the twelve tablets, the oldest written law of
Rome known to us, the natural children had the first title to the
estate; in case no natural children existed, the agnati (kin of male
lineage) took their place; and last in line came the gentiles. In all
cases the property remained in the gens. Here we observe the gradual
introduction of new legal provisions, caused by increased wealth and
monogamy, into the gentile practice. The originally equal right of
inheritance of the gentiles was first limited in practice to the agnati,
no doubt at a very remote date, and afterwards to the natural children
and their offspring of male lineage. Of course this appears in the
reverse order on the twelve tablets.

2. Possession of a common burial ground. The patrician gens Claudia, on
immigrating int