Modern history furnishes us with numerous instances of similar struggles between classes, and of a separation in interests and feelings between inhabitants of the same country, fully as strong as that between the patricians and plebeians at Rome.
2.

The first tribes were divided by Ro'mulus into thirty _cu'riae,_ and each cu'ria contained ten _gentes_ or associations.

The individuals of each gens were not in all cases, and probably not in the majority of instances, connected by birth;[1] the attributes of the members of a _gens_, according to Cicero, were, a common name and participation in private religious rites; descent from free ancestors; the absence of legal disqualification.3.The members of these associations were united by certain laws, which conferred peculiar privileges, called jura gentium; of these the most remarkable were, the succession to the property of every member who died without kin and intestate, and the obligation imposed on all to assist their indigent fellows under any extraordinary burthen.[2] 4.

The head of each gens was regarded as a kind of father, and possessed a paternal authority over the members; the chieftancy was both elective and hereditary;[3] that is, the individual was always selected from some particular family.
5.

Besides the members of the gens, there were attached to it a number of dependents called clients, who owed submission to the chief as their patron, and received from him assistance and protection.