ABSTRACT
THE Roman State was formed by the aggregation of pre-existing associations, the gentes. Identical with the Greek https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315005416/318082fc-5f23-4526-8075-2a4bde6a3b1d/content/fig00004_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>, the gens was, in the ninth century before our era, the only social institution of the Italian peoples who were not yet established in cities, and to a great extent it dominated the others within the bounds of the city itself. It preceded the State and contributed towards its foundation. From the beginning it was a complex organism because of the number of human beings which it contained, the diversity of their conditions, the religious, economic and legal ideas in accordance with which it moulded their life. Our information on the subject is rare and scattered, but enough has survived to enable us to reconstruct its essential characteristics. 1
