[268] It is possible that these three tribes would have been to some extent local; but locality was an accident. Membership of them was transmitted by birth.
[269] Dionysius (iv. 22) makes them at a later time members of the curiae.
[270] Dionys. iv. 14; Gell. xv. 27.
[271] Cic. pro Flacco 32, 80 “sintne ista praedia censui censendo, habeant jus civile, sint necne sint mancipi?... in qua tribu denique ista praedia censuisti?” The ager publicus was not included in the tribes, nor were the Capitol and Aventine, because they were not private, but public property (Liv. vi. 20; Dionys. x. 31 and 32).
[272] Liv. i. 43 “Quadrifariam urbe divisa, regionibusque et collibus, qui habitabantur, partes eas tribus appellavit”; Dionys. iv. 14 ὁ Τύλλιος, ἐπείδη τούς ἑπτὰλόφους ἐνὶ τείχει περιέλαβεν, εἰς τέτταρας μοίρας διελὼν τὴν πόλιν ... τετράφυλον ἐποίησε τὴν πόλιν εἶναι, τρίφυλον οὖσαν τέως.. So Festus p. 368 “urbanas tribus appellabant, in quas urbs erat dispertita a Ser. Tullio rege.” Cf. Varro L.L. v. 56. Mommsen (Staatsr. iii. p. 163) now holds that the tribes were “parts of the state-town limited by the pomerium.” Ostia, once thought to belong to Palatina, has been shown to belong to Voturia. But the reason for this may be the subsequent loss of the territorium of the city. See p. 68.
[273] Momms. Staatsr. iii. p. 168. Rome was at this time a great commercial state (cf. treaty with Carthage, 509 B.C.). That such a primitive institution as gentile tenure could have existed at this time is inconceivable.
[274] Dionys. iv. 15 διεῖλε δὲ καὶ τὴν χώραν ἅπασαν, ὡς μὲν Φάβιός φησιν, εἰς μοίρας ἕξ τε καὶ εἴκοσιν, ἃς καὶ αὐτὰς καλεῖ φυλάς. Mommsen (Staatsr. iii. p. 169) seems to lean to the view that those country districts, comprising land not in quiritarian ownership, were pagi.
[275] Sucusana (or Suburana), Palatina, Esquilina, and Collina. See p. 3.
[276] Cf. Momms. Staatsr. iii. p. 125 “The four tribes are probably nothing more than the three Romulian increased through the territorium of the town on the Quirinal”; p. 164 “Servian Rome, probably a double town composed of the old city, Palatine and Esquiline, and the new town of the Colline.”
[277] Districts like Ostia, which must have belonged to the Servian tribes, now formed parts of the new creations (see p. 67).