pronounced quîr, means a spear, and that there is derived thence curiadh, a warrior. Mommsen is followed by Merivale, General History of Rome, 5th ed. p. 13; and Greenidge, Roman Public Life, p. 33. Pott and Becker, who derived Quirites from curia, explain the latter word as co-viria, the band of warriors. And as the view that "Athenê" comes from "Athenai," not vice versâ, has the stronger claims to acceptance, the more acceptable presumption is that "Curis" and Quirinus evolved from the curia. If Quirites meant spearmen, how could Cæsar be understood to cow mutineers by simply addressing them as Quirites [= citizens]? The curia theory is supported by the facts that "the Roman constitutional tradition … makes the division into curies alone originate with the origin of the city"; that it "appears as an essential part of the Latin municipal system;" and that of all the old divisions it seems to be the only one that "really fulfilled important functions in the primitive constitutional organisation" (Mommsen, B. i, ch. v, pp. 73–75).
These curiæ may be conceived as derived from inner tribal or clan groups formed in the conquering stage, since they are ostensibly united by their collective or curial sacra, the rites for which the grouped gentes—who each have their private sacra—assemble in a special place, under a special priest. They still retain the usage of a common banquet,[17] the earliest form of collective religion known to us.[18] Apart from the members of the curiæ are the conquered plebs,[19] "the many" not enslaved, but payers of tribute; without share in the curiæ or vote in the comitia, or assembly, and without part in the curial or other sacra.
On this head there has been some gratuitous confusion. Schwegler (i, 621 sq.) gives convincing reasons for the view that in early times the plebs were not members of the curiæ. Cp. Ihne, as cited, pp. 110, 127; and Fustel de Coulanges, p. 278 sq. Meyer (ii, 513, 521) asserts, on the contrary, without any specification of periods, that the curiæ included plebeians as well as patricians. The contradiction seems to arise out of inattention to chronology, or a misreading of Mommsen. That historian rightly sets forth in his history (B. ii, ch. i; Eng. trans. ed. 1862, i, 264–65) that the plebs were not admitted into the comitia curiata before the "Servian" period; adding that these bodies were "at the same time" almost totally deprived of their prerogatives. In his Römisches Forschungen, 1864, i, 144 sq., he shows that they were admitted in the "historic period"—when the comitia in question had ceased to have any legal power, and when, as he elsewhere states, the admission "practically gave little more than the capacity for adrogation" (Römisches Staatsrecht, Bd. iii, Abth. i, p. 93). Here again he states that "to equal rights in the curies, especially to the right of vote in the comitia, the plebeians attained only in the later times" (Id. p. 72). Yet Professor Pelham, in asserting (p. 21; cp. p. 46) that "the primitive Roman people of the thirty curiæ included all the freemen of the community, simple as well as gentle," gives the note: "The view here taken on the vexed question of the purely patrician character of the curiæ is that of Mommsen (Röm. Forschungen, vol. i)."
When this error is corrected, the question ceases to be vexed. Schwegler has disposed of the blunder of Dionysius, who ascribes to the plebeians a share in the curiæ from the beginning; and it is not disputed that they were allowed to enter when the comitia curiata had been practically superseded by the comitia centuriata. It is to be noted that the denial of the inclusion of the plebeians in the original curiæ does not apply to the clientes, whose status, though non-patrician, had been different from that of the true plebs. M. Delaunay, who argues that the plebeians were all along admitted to the curiæ, adds the qualification: "Doubtless not the entire mass of the plebeians, but only those who were … attached to the gentes" (Robiou et Delaunay, Les Institutions de l'ancienne Rome, 1884, i, 21). But who were these gentilitia if not the clientes? (cp. loc. cit. p. 26).
The populus at this stage, then, is not "the people" in the modern sense; it is the aggregate of the privileged curiæ, and does not include the plebs,[20] which at this stage is not even part of the army. But a separate quasi-plebeian class, the clientes of the patricians, are in a state of special dependence upon the latter, and in a subordinate fashion share their privileges.
The clientes have very much the air of being primarily the servile or inferior part of the early clan or gens, as distinct from its "gentlemen." Cp. Burton, Hist. of Scotland, viii, 524–25, as to the lower and the higher (duniewassal) orders in the Scottish Highland clans. "In the old life of the pagus and the gens the weaker sought the protection of the stronger by a willing vassalage" (Greenidge, Roman Public Life, p. 6). The clientes are the nominal as distinct from the real "family" of the chief or patronus. M. Delaunay (Les Institutions de l'ancienne Rome, as cited, i, 27) thinks with Mommsen (so also Dupond, pp. 20–21) that they were mainly freedmen, but gives no evidence. As to the meaning and etymology of the word (clientes from cluere or cliere, "to listen" or "obey"), cp. Newman, Regal Rome, p. 49; Ortolan, p. 29; Mommsen, Römisches Staatsrecht, III, i, 1887, p. 63. The theory that the plebeians were all clientes (Ortolan, pp. 25, 27) seems untenable, though Mommsen (Staatsrecht, III, i, 63) pronounces that "all non-patricians were clients"; and Meyer (ii, 521) appears to acquiesce. Only in theory can the mass of the plebs have been clients at any time. Cp. Fustel de Coulanges, pp. 277–78. The clientes, it seems clear, were as such admitted to the comitia, whereas the plebs were not. See the citations of Fustel de Coulanges from Livy, ii, 56–64; also iii, 14 (Dupond, p. 22, doubts the fact). On any view, the clientela rapidly dwindled, passing into the plebs (cp. Dupond, p. 23; Livy, vi, 18). As to its early status see Fustel de Coulanges, p. 273 sq. Ortolan, after representing all plebeians as clients, speaks (p. 31) of plebeians belonging to no gens (so Aulus Gellius, x, 20).
Wealth is not yet a matter of land-owning—the main element of property is cattle;[21] and the bulk of the land is ager occupatorius, a great "common" on which all men's cattle feed. The voteless free plebeian has simply his home and homestead, "toft and croft," the latter being two yokes (= five roods) of land, on which he raises the grain and olives and vegetables that feed his household.[22] This goes to his heir. Here arises another problem. E.W. Robertson (as last cited) decides that the "two yokes" can have been only "the homestead, and could not have included the farm or property attached to it." The heredium, he holds, following Pliny (Hist. Nat., xix, 19), and citing Livy (vi, 36), was only in the hortus, the house and garden, "and not in the arable or pasture land." But surely the arable was on a different footing from the pasture land (ager compascus). Corn was not grown in common, unless it were by the gentes (Mommsen, vol. i, pp. 38, 72, 193). The solution seems to be that given by Greenidge, that as "the heredium consisted only of two jugera (Festus, p. 53), an amount obviously insufficient for the maintenance of a family," "there must have been ager privatus as well, owned by some larger unit, and this unit would naturally have been the gens" (Roman Public Life, p. 15).
Among general historians of Rome Mommsen seems to be the first to note this circumstance, and he gives neither details nor evidence. Schwegler, discussing (i, 619) the theory of Puchta that there was no private property in Rome before the "arrival" of the plebs, admits that among the ancient Germans the land was yearly apportioned among the groups as such, but finds that "Roman tradition tells of nothing of the kind." (So Greenidge, p. 15.) In any case, Mommsen, while insisting that "the fields (sic) of the gentes (Geschlechts-Genossen) in the earliest period lay together" (Staatsrecht, III, i, 24; cp. p. 94), admits that such gentile ownership had at an early stage disappeared (früh verschwundenen). There was then no communal tillage in the historic period. Cincinnatus, in
