Most ancient writers represent the three tribes as primarily local,[38] and the members as landowners from the founding of the city.[39] Although their view may be a mere inference from the character of the so-called Servian tribes, the continuity of name from the earlier to the later institution points to some degree of similarity between them. It can be easily understood, too, how in time the personal feature might have so overcome the local as to make the old tribes appear to be based on birth in contrast with the territorial aspect of the new.[40] It was probably on the institution of the later tribes that the earlier were dissolved. They left their names to the three double centuries of patrician knights.[41] Their number appears also as a factor in the number of curiae, of senators, and of members of the great sacerdotal colleges. Other survivals may be found in the name “tribunus,” in the tribuni militum, the tribuni celerum,[42] the ludus Troiae,[43] and less certainly in the Sodales Titii.[44] III. _The Curiae_ The curia as well as the tribe was a common Italian institution. We know that it belonged to the Etruscans,[45] the Latins,[46] and several other peoples of Italy.[47] There were ten curiae to the tribe, making thirty in all.[48] The association was composed, not of gentes as many have imagined, but of families.[49] For the performance of its social and religious functions it had a house of assembly, also called curia,[50] in which the members—curiales—gathered for religious festivals. The place of meeting was a part of an edifice belonging to the collective curiae. In historical time there were two such buildings—the Curiae Veteres[51] on the northeast slope of the Palatine near the Arch of Constantine, containing seven curial meeting-places, and the Novae Curiae[52] near the Compitum Fabricium, containing the others. Their deities were Juno[53] and Tellus;[54] and their chief festivals were the Fornacalia and the Fordicidia.[55] As the worship was public, the expense was paid by the state.[56] At the head of the curia stood the curio—who in historical time was merely a priest[57]—assisted in his religious functions by his wife and children,[58] by a lictor[59] and a flamen.[60] The fact that the curio had these officials proves that he was originally a magistrate.[61] One of the curiones the people elected curio maximus to exercise general supervision over the worship and festivals of the association.[62]