(i.) It has been held that the clans were the unit of voting in the original popular assembly at Rome, the _comitia curiata_.[40] But the passage on which this conclusion is based only implies that, originally, membership of this _comitia_ depended on possession of a _gens_; eventually, at a time when the _curia_ included Plebeians, on possession of a _familia_, and therefore presumably of a _stirps_ or _genus_. (ii.) A distinction is presented by ancient authorities between the _gentes majores_ and _minores_—a distinction within the patrician _gentes_ that survived into the Republic. Of the _gentes minores_ we know but one name, that of the patrician Papirii;[41] a list of some of the _gentes majores_ has been reconstructed with some plausibility from those clans which furnished _principes senatus_; they are the Aemilii, Claudii, Cornelii, Fabii, Manlii, and Valerii.[42] Tradition is inclined to represent this distinction as having originated politically,[43] but it is a tradition working on the impossible hypothesis that the Patriciate derived its origin from membership of the Senate. This political distinction doubtless existed within the Senate; but it was probably derived merely from the respective antiquity, and therefore dignity, of the _gentes_ from which its members were drawn. And this association with the Senate leads us naturally to the third question connected with the political character of the _gentes_, i.e. their relation to the primitive council of the state. The theory of an ultimate connexion between the two originates with the correspondence of the number of the _gentes_ and of the Senate. Both are given by tradition as 300. The Roman community is said to have originated with the amalgamation of three domains (_tribus_) into one.[44] The rise of the Senate from 100, its original number as constituted by Romulus, to 300 as its final number, is accounted for by the gradual amalgamation of these three tribes with their 100 _gentes_ each.[45] A parallel to the original centumviral constitution of the Senate is found in the _centumviri_ of the Italian towns, and is supposed to be derived from the same invariable division of a _tribus_ into 100 _gentes_.[46] The chief objections to this view are the symmetrical number into which it divides the _gentes_, and the fact that the Senate is, according to the best tradition, a body of nominees selected by the chief magistrate. But yet there is an element of truth in the theory. The Senate did rise from 100 to 300 in consequence of the incorporation of fresh elements into the community, and therefore in consequence of an increase of the _gentes_. The kings and early consuls would doubtless, in the exercise of their powers of selection, wish to see each of the patrician clans represented in their council. Hence the addition of new clans would add new members to that body, and hence the inferior place occupied in the Senate by the _gentes minores_, the younger branch of the Patriciate.