CHAP. V. THE CLIEXTS BECOJfE FREE. 341 preserved anything more than a sort of religious author- ity over the different families that had left it. Its worship had the supremacy over theirs. They were not allowed to forget that they had sprung from this gens ; they con- tinued to bear its name ; on fixed days they assembled around the common fire, to venerate the ancient ances- tor or the protecting divinity. Tiiey continued even to have a religious cliief, and it is probable that the oldest preserved his privilege of the priesthood, which long remained hereditary. With this exception, they were independent. This dismemberment of the gens led to importJint consequences. The antique priestly family, which had formed a group so firmly unitetl, so strongly consti- tuted, so powerful, was forever weakened. This revolu- tion paved the way for other changes, and rendered them easier CHAPTER VI. The Clients become Free. 1. "What Clientship teas at first, and how it was transformed. Here is another revolution, the date of which wo cannot indicate, but which certainly modified the con- stitution of the family and of society itself. The ancient family comprised, under the authority of a single chief, two classes of unequal rank; on the one side were the younger branches — that is to say, indivi<luals naturally free ; on the other, the servants or clients, inferior by birth, but connected with the chief by their participa
