in _Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay_, v (1899-1901). 74-91; Vinogradoff, P., _Growth of the Manor_ (New York, 1905); Waitz, Th., _Anthropologie der Naturvölker_, ii. (Leipzig, 1860) 126-67; iii. (1862) 119-28; v. (1870) 112 ff. CHAPTER III THE THIRTY-FIVE TRIBES That among the Romans the conception of property first attached to movable objects is attested by the words “pecunia” and “mancipatio.”[262] There was probably a period during which the citizens cultivated the lots of arable land assigned them by the state without regarding these holdings as property either public or private. In view of the well-established fact that the gens was a relatively late institution, we should for this remote period exclude the idea of gentile tenure.[263] The land was distributed among the families according to tribes and curiae; and when the idea of ownership extended to the soil, it took the form of family ownership of the ager privatus and state ownership of the public domain.[264] The condition of tenure anterior to the conception of property in land left little trace of itself in the language and institutions and absolutely none in tradition. The sources declare that family ownership existed in Rome from her foundation as well as in her earliest colonies—a view confirmed by the comparative study of language.[265] Each family, they assume, held two iugera—the heredium[266]—or we may more correctly say, at least two iugera.[267] This small lot has generally been explained[268] as the private landed property of the individual, in contrast with the public land and with the common land of the gens, and thus it is taken as evidence of a condition prior to the extension of private ownership to the arable fields. Should we grant this to be the true explanation, we might still assume that public and gentile tenure had developed into private ownership of arable land long before Servius, or that Servius himself converted the fields into private holdings. For the second alternative we could find apparent support in the sources, which have much to say of the distribution of land among the citizens by Servius.[269] For the continued absence of private ownership after the Servian reforms not even the shadow of an authority can be found.