Tribes (Latin ''tribus'') were groupings of citizens in

ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 B ...

, originally based on location. Voters were eventually organized by tribes, with each

Roman tribe A ''tribus'', or tribe, was a division of the Roman people, constituting the voting units of a legislative assembly of the Roman Republic.''Harper's Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities'', "Tribus."''Oxford Classical Dictionary'', "T ...

having an equal vote in the

Tribal Assembly The Tribal Assembly (''comitia populi tributa'') was an assembly consisting of all Roman citizens convened by tribes (''tribus''). In the Roman Republic, citizens did not elect legislative representatives. Instead, they voted themselves on legisl ...

Original tribes

Latin ''tribus'' perhaps derives from the Latin word for "three", ''trēs''. The Romans believed that through much of the early regal period of Roman history, there were only three tribes: *Ramnes *Tities *Luceres These names were also preserved in the names of six of the later centuries of Roman

equites The ''equites'' (; literally "horse-" or "cavalrymen", though sometimes referred to as "knights" in English) constituted the second of the property-based classes of ancient Rome, ranking below the senatorial class. A member of the equestrian o ...

Later tribes

Livy Titus Livius (; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( ), was a Ancient Rome, Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled , covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditiona ...

records that in 495 BC the number of tribes was increased to 21, and the number of tribes reached 35 in 242 BC and was not expanded further.

Urban tribes

Attributed by Livy to the sixth Roman king,

Servius Tullius Servius Tullius was the legendary sixth king of Rome, and the second of its Etruscan dynasty. He reigned from 578 to 535 BC. Roman and Greek sources describe his servile origins and later marriage to a daughter of Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, Rome ...

, the ''urban'' tribes were named for districts of the city and were the largest and had the least political power. In the later Republic, poorer people living in the city of Rome itself typically belonged to one of these tribes.About.com: Names of the 35 Tribes of Rome
accessed 2 October 2010, 4:25 am (GMT) Freedmen were also traditionally assigned to one of these tribes. *Collina *Esquilina *Palatina *Suburana

Rural tribes

Landowners and aristocracy traditionally belonged to the 31 smaller ''rural'' tribes. Many rural tribes derive from prominent Roman '' gentes'', or family names, such as Cornelia or Fabia. *Aemilia *Aniensis *Arniensis *Camilia *Claudia *Clustumina *Cornelia *Fabia *Falerna/Falerina *Galeria *Horatia *Lemonia *Maecia *Menenia *Oufentina/Oufetina *Papiria *Poblilia *Pollia *Pomptina/Pontina *Pupinia *Quirina *Romilia *Sabatia/Sabatina *Scaptia *Sergia *Stellatina *Teretina *Tromentina *Velina *Voltinia/Votinia *Voturia

The official order of the tribes

There was an official order of the tribes. Literature and archaeological documentation show that the urban tribes are enumerated according to a counter-clockwise circuit of the city. On that basis,

Lily Ross Taylor Lily Ross Taylor (born August 12, 1886, in Auburn, Alabama - died November 18, 1969, in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania) was an American academic and author, who in 1917 became the first female Fellow of the American Academy in Rome. Biography Born in ...

suggested that the same held for the rural tribes. Archaeological findings of ''tesserae'' led

Michael Crawford Michael Patrick Smith, (born 19 January 1942), known professionally as Michael Crawford, is an English tenor, actor and comedian. Crawford is best known for playing both the hapless Frank Spencer in the sitcom ''Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em'' an ...

to suggest that the tribes were ordered according to the principal roads leading counter-clockwise from Rome (Ostiensis, Appia, Latina, Praenestina, Valeria, Salaria, Flaminia and Clodia).

Notes

Footnotes

References

{{Reflist

External links

*https://web.archive.org/web/20100315164204/http://www.roman-britain.org/roman_tribes.htm
Names of the Roman Tribes
Names of the 35 Major Roman Voting Tribes, By N.S. Gill, About.com Guide * Lists of ancient Indo-European peoples and tribes Ancient Rome-related lists