Eduard Meyer (_Geschichte des Alterthums_, ii, 511) decides for the view of L. Lange, that the historic appellation of Roman citizens, _Quirites_, derives from _curia_. The ancients had several theories as to the name. One (Festus) was that the Sabine goddess Curis gave her name to the Sabine town Cures (cp. Athenê, Athenai), whence, according to the legend, had come a band under Titus Tatius, who conquered the Capitoline and Quirinal hills, and had for tribe-god Quirinus. Cp. Ihne, _Early Rome_, p. 82. Mommsen (Eng. tr. 1862, i, 57, 78, _notes_) has secured currency for the other tradition, argued for by F.W. Newman (_Regal Rome_, 1852, pp. 55-56), that the root is the Sabine word _curis, quiris_, a spear. For this somewhat unplausible theory there is support in the fact that in the cognate Gaelic _coir_, pronounced quîr, means a spear, and that there is derived thence _curiadh_, a warrior. Mommsen is followed by Merivale, _General History of Rome_, 5th ed. p. 13; and Greenidge, _Roman Public Life_, p. 33. Pott and Becker, who derived _Quirites_ from _curia_, explain the latter word as _co-viria_, the band of warriors. And as the view that "Athenê" comes from "Athenai," not _vice versâ_, has the stronger claims to acceptance, the more acceptable presumption is that "Curis" and Quirinus evolved from the _curia_. If _Quirites_ meant spearmen, how could Cæsar be understood to cow mutineers by simply addressing them as Quirites [= citizens]? The curia theory is supported by the facts that "the Roman constitutional tradition ... makes the division into curies alone originate with the origin of the city"; that it "appears as an essential part of the Latin municipal system;" and that of all the old divisions it seems to be the only one that "really fulfilled important functions in the primitive constitutional organisation" (Mommsen, B. i, ch. v, pp. 73-75). These _curiæ_ may be conceived as derived from inner tribal or clan groups formed in the conquering stage, since they are ostensibly united by their collective or curial _sacra_, the rites for which the grouped _gentes_--who each have their private _sacra_--assemble in a special place, under a special priest. They still retain the usage of a common banquet,[17] the earliest form of collective religion known to us.[18] Apart from the members of the _curiæ_ are the conquered _plebs_,[19] "the many" not enslaved, but payers of tribute; without share in the _curiæ_ or vote in the _comitia_, or assembly, and without part in the curial or other _sacra_.