When we come to the list of the Roman kings we are on much firmer, though still slippery ground. According to tradition there were in all eight kings of Rome,[875] and with regard to the five last of them, at all events, we can hardly doubt that they actually sat on the throne, and that the traditional history of their reigns is, in its main outlines, correct.[876] Now it is very remarkable that though the first king of Rome, Romulus, is said to have been descended from the royal house of Alba, in which the kingship is represented as hereditary in the male line, not one of the [Sidenote: On the other hand none of the Roman kings was immediately succeeded by his son, but three were succeeded by their sons-in-law, who were foreigners.] Roman kings was immediately succeeded by his son on the throne. Yet several left sons or grandsons behind them.[877] On the other hand, one of them was descended from a former king through his mother, not through his father,[878] and three of the kings, namely Tatius, the elder Tarquin, and Servius Tullius, were succeeded by their sons-in-law,[879] who were all either foreigners or of foreign descent.[880] This [Sidenote: This suggests that the kingship was transmitted in the female line and was held by foreigners who married the royal princesses.] suggests that the right to the kingship was transmitted in the female line, and was actually exercised by foreigners who married the royal princesses. To put it in technical language, the succession to the kingship at Rome and probably in Latium generally would seem to have been determined by certain rules which have moulded early society in many parts of the world, namely exogamy, _beena_ marriage, and female kinship or mother-kin. Exogamy is the rule which obliges a man to marry a woman of a different clan from his own; _beena_ marriage is the rule that he must leave the home of his birth and live with his wife’s people;[881] and female kinship or mother-kin is the system of tracing relationship and transmitting the family name through women instead of through men.[882] If these principles regulated descent of the kingship among the ancient Latins, the state of things in this respect would be somewhat as follows. The political and religious centre of each community would be the perpetual fire on the king’s hearth tended by Vestal Virgins of the royal clan. The king would be a man of another clan, perhaps of another town or even of another race, who had married a daughter of his predecessor and received the kingdom with her. The children whom he had by her would inherit their mother’s name, not his; the daughters would remain at home; the sons, when they grew up, would go away into the world, marry, and settle in their wives’ country, whether as kings or commoners. Of the daughters who stayed at home, some or all would be dedicated as Vestal Virgins for a longer or shorter time to the service of the fire on the hearth, and one of them