In this way families or _gentes_ existed before states. States were in fact formed of families grouped into an order of _gentes maiores_ or "ancient noble houses" as they were afterwards called to distinguish them from others added later to the order (for instance at the time of Junius Brutus, to fill the vacancies in the Roman senate after the expulsion of the kings) and called _"gentes minores."_ But these _gentes_ had within themselves an element of differentiation and strife. Families were not composed, as is generally believed owing to the common mistake of giving modern meanings to ancient words, of wives and children alone; but also of slaves, _famuli,_ those who, being less strong and remaining longer in the nomadic state of nature, finally "as sometimes wild animals, driven either by extreme cold or by hunters, to save their life betake themselves to inhabited places" had sought refuge with the stronger, in the fortresses of the fathers. In return for the protection thus granted they tilled the father's land, and were bound and as it were tied to them, and hence called _nexi_; they followed them and served them, and therefore gained the name of _clientes._ The relation of slaves to fathers was the second form of human relation, the first being the natural one of matrimony; it constituted the feudal status, which has wrongly been believed peculiar to a certain definite period of barbarism, the Middle Ages, whereas it existed in all heroic societies, and was the eternal feudal principle whence sprang all the republics of the world. As Tacitus says, speaking of the Germans, the chief oath of these slaves and clients was to guard and defend each his own master and to assign to his master's glory his own deeds of valour (_suum principem defendere et tueri, sua quoque fortia facta gloriae eius adsignare, praecipuum iuramentum erat_); which is one of the severest conditions of the feudal system. Moreover the father's children are rather confused with the slaves than distinguished from them. They are distinguished by their title of _liberi,_ but are identified by their similar position of obedience and lack of separate personality.