council or assembly; for we read not only of special gentile customs, but of gentile statutes and decrees. Instances are on record of wars waged by individual gentes; so they must have had the right to require military service alike from their gentiles and gentilicii.[1] Widows and orphans of deceased clansman were under the guardianship of the gens, or of some particular member of it to whom the trust was specially confided. If a clansman left no heirs, his property passed to his fellow-gentiles. Over the morals of its members the gens exercised supervision and discipline; interfering to prevent prodigality and improvidence, restraining abuses of the domestic authority, and visiting with censure, and probably in grave cases with punishment, any breach of faith or other dishonourable conduct. It is said that there is no evidence of the exercise by it of any proper jurisdiction; but, in the presence of all those other powers that it undoubtedly possessed, it is difficult to suppose that, within its own limits, it was not constantly called upon, through the medium of its chief, to act the part of peacemaker and arbiter. Finally, its members were always entitled to rely upon its assistance, to have maintenance when indigent, to be ransomed from captivity, to be upheld in their just disputes and quarrels, to be avenged when killed or injured.
How all this worked out in detail it is impossible to say. We do not know even whether the chieftainship or presidency of a clan was hereditary or elective, and if the latter, whether for life or for a shorter term. Probably in this, as well as in other matters, there was no uniform practice. But in the gentile system there was undoubtedly an imperiium in imperio that must for two or three centuries have exercised a powerful influence on the private law, and
- ↑ It was the heads of the constituent families of a gens that were properly gentiles; the dependent members of those families and the clients attached to them were only gentilicii.
