2. The first tribes were divided by Ro'mulus into thirty _cu'riae,_ and each cu'ria contained ten _gentes_ or associations. The individuals of each gens were not in all cases, and probably not in the majority of instances, connected by birth;[1] the attributes of the members of a _gens_, according to Cicero, were, a common name and participation in private religious rites; descent from free ancestors; the absence of legal disqualification. 3. The members of these associations were united by certain laws, which conferred peculiar privileges, called jura gentium; of these the most remarkable were, the succession to the property of every member who died without kin and intestate, and the obligation imposed on all to assist their indigent fellows under any extraordinary burthen.[2] 4. The head of each gens was regarded as a kind of father, and possessed a paternal authority over the members; the chieftancy was both elective and hereditary;[3] that is, the individual was always selected from some particular family. 5. Besides the members of the gens, there were attached to it a number of dependents called clients, who owed submission to the chief as their patron, and received from him assistance and protection. The clients were generally foreigners who came to settle at Rome, and not possessing municipal rights, were forced to appear in the courts of law, &c. by proxy. In process of time this relation assumed a feudal form, and the clients were bound to the same duties as vassals[4] in the middle ages. 6. The chiefs of the gentes composed the senate, and were called "fathers," (patres.) In the time of Romulus, the senate at first consisted only of one hundred members, who of course represented the Latin tribe Ramne'nses; the number was doubled after the union with the Sabines, and the new members were chosen from the Titienses. The Tuscan tribe of the Lu'ceres remained unrepresented in the senate until the reign of the first Tarquin, when the legislative body received another hundred[5] from that tribe. Tarquin the elder was, according to history, a Tuscan Iticumo, and seems to have owed his elevation principally to the efforts of his compatriots settled at Rome. It is to this event we must refer, in a great degree, the number of Tuscan ceremonies which are to be found in the political institutions of the Romans. 7. The gentes were not only represented in the senate, but met also in a public assembly called "comitia curiata." In these comitia the kings were elected and invested with royal authority. After the complete change of the constitution in later ages, the "comitia curiata"[6] rarely assembled, and their power was limited to religious matters; but during the earlier period of the republic, they claimed and frequently exercised the supreme powers of the state, and were named emphatically, The People.