Note 334 — Chapter XII · - THE ROMAN CURIA, TRIBE AND POPULUS.

Dionysius has given a definite and circumstantial analysis of the organization ascribed to Romulus, although a portion of it seems to belong to a later period. It is interesting from the parallel he runs between the gentile institutions of the Greeks, with which he was equally familiar, and those of the Romans. In the first place, he remarks, I will speak of the order of his polity which I consider the most sufficient of all political arrangements in peace, and also in time of war. It was as follows: After dividing the whole multitude into three divisions, he appointed the most prominent man as a leader over each of the divisions; in the next place dividing each of the three again into ten, he appointed the bravest men leaders, having equal rank; and he called the greater divisions tribes, and the less curiæ, as they are also still called according to usage. And these names interpreted in the Greek tongue would be the tribus, a third part, a phylê (φυλὴ); the curia, a phratry (φράτρα), and also a band (λόχος); and those men who exercised the leadership of the tribes were both phylarchs (φύλαρχοι) and trittyarchs (τριττύαρχοι), whom the Romans call tribunes; and those who had the command of the curiæ both phratriarchs (φρατρίαρχοι) and lochagoi (λοχαγοὶ), whom they call curiones. And the phratries were also divided into decades, and a leader called in common parlance a decadarch (δεκάδαρχος) had command of each. And when all had been arranged into tribes and phratries, he divided the land into thirty equal shares, and gave one full share to each phratry, selecting a sufficient portion for religious festivals and temples, and leaving a certain piece of ground for common use.—Antiq. of Rome, ii, 7.