ABSTRACT
All forms of governments, says Morgan, are reducible to two general plans: one, in the order of time, is founded upon persons, and upon relations purely personal, and may be distinguished as society (societas). The second is founded upon territory and upon property, and may be distinguished as a state (civitas) (Morgan, 1985: 14). According to Morgan, ‘the basic social unit was clan (gentes). Several gentes formed phratries for objects chiefly religious. A tribe was formed by three phratries and a nation by four tribes.1 Four Athenian tribes coalesced in Attica into a nation by the intermingling . . . in the same area, by the gradual disappearance of geographical lines between them’ (Morgan, 1985: 135).
