Note 311 — Chapter III · THE THIRTY-FIVE TRIBES

Livy ii. 21. 7 (495): “Romae tribus una et xxx factae.” This statement is not that thirty-one tribes were instituted in that year, but that the number thirty-one was reached, “factae” being copulative. If “una et xxx” is not a copyist’s error, it probably depends on the Fabian view that there were originally thirty tribes. At all events it is inconsistent with the later statement (vi. 5. 8) that the number twenty-five was not reached till 387. The epitomator of Livy accordingly corrected the number to twenty-one, which most editors now write in the text itself. That there were twenty-one tribes in 491, when Coriolanus was tried, is assumed too by Dion. Hal. vii. 64. 6: Μιᾶς γὰρ καὶ εἴκοσι τότε φυλῶν οὐσῶν, οἶς ἡ ψῆφος ἀνεδόθη, τὰς ἀπολυούσας φυλὰς ἔσχεν ὁ Μάρκιος ἐννέα· ὤστ’ εἰ δύο προσῆλθον αὐτῷ φυλαί, διὰ τὴν ἰσοψηφίαν ἀπελέλυτ’ ἄν, ὥσπερ ὁ νόμος ἠξίου (“There being at the time twenty-one tribes, to whom the vote was given, Marcius received the votes of nine tribes for acquittal; so that, had two more tribes been favorable, he would have been acquitted by an equality of votes, as the law required”). This is not a mistake, as many assume, but an understatement; cf. Müller, J. J., in Philol. xxxiv (1876). 110 f. Meyer’s explanation (Hermes, xxx. 10, n. 2), which makes διὰ τὴν ἰσοψηφλίαν signify “owing to the equal value of the votes,” is improbable and unnecessary.