168 THE CITY. BOOK III by little. There were, on the contrary, small groups, which, having been long established, were finally joined together in larger ones. Several families formed the phratry, several phratries the tribe, several tribes the city. Family, phratry, tribe, city, were, moreover, soci- eties exactly similar to each other, which were formed one after the other by a series of federations. We mnst remark, also, that when the different groups became thus associated, none of them lost its individu- ality, or its independence. Although several families were united in a phratry, each one of them remained constituted just as it had been when separate. Nothing was changed in it, neither worship nor priesthood, nor property nor internal justice. Curies afterwards be- came associated, but each retained its worship, its as- semblies, its festivals, its chief. From the tribe men passed to the city; but the tribe was not dissolved oi> that account, and each of them continued to form a body, very much as if the city had not existed. In religion there subsisted a multitude of subordinate worships, above which was established one common to all; in politics, numerous little governments continued to act, while above them a common government was founded. The city was a confederation. Hence it was obliged, at least for several centuries, to respect the religious and civil independence of the tribes, curies, and families, and had not the right, at first, to interfere in the private affairs of each of these little bodies. It had nothing to do in the interior of a family ; it was not the judge of what passed there ; it left to the father the right and duty of judging his wife, his son, and. his client. It is for this reason that private law, which had been fixed at the time when families were isolated, could sub-
