The institutions which Romulus actually founded, were of a very republican character, if the accounts of subsequent writers are to be believed. He established, it is true, a gradation of ranks, but the most important offices, civil and military, were filled, it is said, by election on the part of the people. In the first place, the whole population was divided into three portions, which were called _tribes_, which word was formed from the Latin word _tres_, meaning three. These tribes chose each three presiding officers, selecting for the purpose the oldest and most distinguished of their number. It is probable, in fact, that Romulus himself really made the selection, and that the action of the people was confined to some sort of expression of assent and concurrence, for it is difficult to imagine how any other kind of election than this could be possible among so rude and ignorant a multitude. The tribes were then subdivided each into thirty _counts_ or _counties_, and each of these likewise elected its head. Thus there was a large body of magistrates or chieftains appointed, ninety-nine in number, namely, nine heads of tribes and ninety heads of counties. Romulus himself added one to the number, of his own independent selection, which made the hundredth. The men thus chosen, constituted what was called the senate. They formed the great legislative council of the nation. They and the families descending from them became, in subsequent times, an aristocratic and privileged class, called the Patricians. The remaining portion of the population were called Plebeians. The Plebeians comprised, of course, the industrial and useful classes, and were in rank and station inferior to the Patricians. They were, however, not all upon a level with each other, for they were divided into two great classes, called _patrons_ and _clients_. The patrons were the employers, the proprietors, the men of influence and capital. The clients were the employed, the dependent, the poor. The clients were to perform services of various kinds for the patrons, and the patrons were to reward, to protect, and to defend the clients. All these arrangements Romulus is said to have ordained by his enactments, and thus introduced as elements in the social constitution of the state. It is more probable, however, that instead of being thus expressly established, by the authority of Romulus as a lawgiver, they gradually grew up of themselves, perhaps with some fostering attention and care on his part, and possibly under some positive regulation of law. For such important and complicated relations as these are not of a nature to be easily called into existence and action, in an extended and unorganized community, by the mere fiat of a military chieftain.