Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/23

Rh he had to be represented and defended by his patron. He accompanied his patron to the popular assembly and took part in the religious ceremonies, but was probably not allowed to vote.

The Slaves and Foreign Residents.—In later times the slaves were emancipated in large numbers ; thus they became regularly citizens, and exercised a vast influence on social, economic, and political conditions. While they were slaves, however, they remained as destitute of legal rights as the soil they trod on. They were animals that happened to have the faculty of speech; pieces of property incapable of having civil rights or duties.

The foreign residents were refugees, or laborers, or the former inhabitants of Latin towns that had been conquered by Rome, but had not been incorporated with the state.

Organization of the Curies.—The body of citizens was divided into thirty curies, which may be compared to the wards of a city. The members of a curia (curiales) formed to some extent a corporation. Each curia had its own hearth and sanctuary and a hall (curia) where the members met for a kind of family worship (sacra curionia) or for feasting. Its affairs were in charge of a director (curio), assisted by a priest (flamen curiolis) and an attendant (lictor curiatius). Originally all the curies had their respective halls in one building, or aggregate of buildings (curiae), in charge of a general director (curio maximus), who during the royal period may have been the king himself. They had a common worship and a common guardian divinity (Juno Curis). The worship of the curies was public, not private like that of the clans, and formed a part of the state religion.

In historic times the curies had an almost exclusively religious character, and the directors were priests. But it