at feasts, in commemoration of the worthy deeds of the noblest of the Romans and although some of the actual stories of the kings may perhaps have come down from this source, yet it does not appear that they were ever written; and thus they were altered from one generation to another, nor can any one tell at what time they attained to their present shape. Traces of a period much later than that of the kings may be discerned in them; and we see no reason to differ from the opinion of Niebuhr,[c] who thinks that as we now have them they are not earlier than the restoration of the city after the invasion of the Gauls. If this be so, there rests a veil not to be removed, not only on the particular history of the early Romans, but on that which we should much more desire to know--and which in the case of the Greeks stands out in such full light--the nature and power of their genius, what they thought, what they hated, and what they loved.[b] FOOTNOTES [10] [Cf. page 51, note 1.] [11] [According to Meyer,[h] Botsford,[i] and others, however, the gens was not primitive, but a growth of the late regal and early republican periods; the city developing from the canton, a group of villages with a common place of refuge on a hill-top.] [12] [Though this view of the status of the social ranks is that of the majority of modern authorities, certain prominent historians like Meyer[h] are returning to the theory of the ancient writers--that the clients and the plebeians were citizens from the beginning, with the right of voting in the curiæ, and that the patricians were simply the nobles.] [13] [Cf. page 104, note.] [14] [According to some writers this was not done till a century later.] [15] [Doubtless in the original organisation the classes were based not upon the money value of property but upon the amount of land possessed by the citizens, the value being later represented by its money equivalent. It is also asserted that the first three classes formed the phalanx of heavy-armed infantry, whereas the last two classes composed the light-armed force. It is asserted further that the centuriate organisation applied only to the army in the field. Towards the end of the regal period, then, the army in active service would consist regularly of eighty-four centuries of infantry and six centuries of cavalry. All scholars agree that the so-called Servian organisation was purely military, and that the comitia centuriata gradually developed from it. The army and the comitia were never strictly identical in composition: cf. Soltau.[j]] [16] [There being in public life no difference between clients and plebeians, such stories as that of the Fabii and their clients may indicate the survival of a primitive military organisation after the phalanx was introduced.] [17] [This valuation, however, originated after the coins had been lightened.]