who, mounting up from generation to generation,
were able to set forth the successive steps of their descent from
a common progenitor; the clan (-gens-) on the other hand comprehended
also those who were merely able to lay claim to such descent from
a common ancestor, but could no longer point out fully the intermediate
links so as to establish the degree of their relationship. This
is very clearly expressed in the Roman names: when they speak
of "Quintus, son of Quintus, grandson of Quintus and so on,
the Quintian," the family reaches as far as the ascendants are
designated individually, and where the family terminates the clan
is introduced supplementary, indicating derivation from the common
ancestor who has bequeathed to all his descendants the name of the
"children of Quintus."

Dependents of the Household

To these strictly closed unities--the family or household united
under the control of a living master, and the clan which originated
out of the breaking-up of such households--there further belonged
the dependents or "listeners" (-clientes-, from -cluere-). This
term denoted not the guests, that is, the members of other similar
circles who were temporarily sojourning in another household than
their own, and as little the slaves, who were looked upon in law
as the property of the household and not as members of it, but
those individuals who, while they were not free burgesses of any
commonwealth, yet lived within one in a condition of protected
freedom. These included refugees who had found a reception with a
foreign protector, and those slaves in respect of whom their master
had for the time being waived the exercise of his rights, and so
conferred on them practical freedom. This relation had not the
distinctive character of a strict relation -de jure-, like that of
a man to his guest: the client remained a man non-free, in whose
case good faith and use and wont alleviated the condition of
non-freedom. Hence the "listeners" of the household (-clientes-)
together with the slaves strictly so called formed the "body
of servants" (-familia-) dependent on the will of the "burgess"
(-patronus-, like -patricius-). Hence according to original right
the burgess was entitled partially or wholly to resume the property
of the client, to reduce him on emergency once more to the state
of slavery, to inflict even capital punishment on him; and it was
simply in virtue of a distinction -de facto-, that these patri