The reason for it is easy to be seen: for, since at first the Ramnes and the Tities were ruling alone, difficulties might have arisen from allowing only these two to vote. It might easily have happened that one tribe would be for, and the other against; and this would have led to collisions. But if each Tribe was again divided into Curies, and voted accordingly, it was then perhaps more likely that some one Cury gave the casting vote. Before the admission of the third estate this would necessarily happen. Afterwards we find that the turn of the Curies and the _prærogativa_ were decided by lot, a thing which cannot be presumed to have been done before; for by this means the Luceres might have got the initiative as well as the two others. But here we have an instance of the innumerable stages by which the Roman constitution developed itself; and it is precisely this gradual development which has given such a long duration to Roman freedom. For the true secret of a great statesman, who is quite as seldom found as any other great genius, is indeed the gradual perfection and reform of the several points of an existing constitution, and not the sudden setting up of a finished work. Thus therefore the Curies came into the place of the tribes. During the reign of Tarquinius, the third estate was admitted to the full citizenship: these are the _gentes minores_. The gentes are such an essential element of the constitution, that, as _gentes civium patriciæ_ is the formal expression for _patricii_, thus also _gentes civium majores_ and _minores_ is said. It is stated that the senate had consisted of two hundred, and that Tarquinius had raised it to three hundred by the admission of the _gentes minores_. This can only mean that he gave the third tribe the full citizenship, and received a number of them, which corresponded to that of their _gentes_, into the senate; and this is the usual course of things. In Cologne also, the second and third order were admitted to offices later than the first. It is a great change in the constitution, and one which completes it for the first _populus_. The third estate at the beginning was not quite on the same footing with the rest: their senate was not consulted until the other two had already voted, and in the same way their Curies were certainly only allowed to vote when the others had already given theirs. With regard to the priestly offices, they were only admitted to the college of the Vestals. Where we find _duumviri_, these are but the representatives of the two first tribes: it is in later times only that we find _triumviri_, and when these are patrician, they represent the three tribes. But they are likewise often plebeian, and then based upon the plebeian constitution to be treated of hereafter.