The clients were generally foreigners who came to settle at Rome, and not possessing municipal rights, were forced to appear in the courts of law, &c.

by proxy.

In process of time this relation assumed a feudal form, and the clients were bound to the same duties as vassals[4] in the middle ages.
6.

The chiefs of the gentes composed the senate, and were called "fathers," (patres.) In the time of Romulus, the senate at first consisted only of one hundred members, who of course represented the Latin tribe Ramne'nses; the number was doubled after the union with the Sabines, and the new members were chosen from the Titienses.

The Tuscan tribe of the Lu'ceres remained unrepresented in the senate until the reign of the first Tarquin, when the legislative body received another hundred[5] from that tribe.