tect the client, and guard his interests both in peace and
war. The client participated in the household and Gentile sacrifices
and worshipped the gods of the _gens_. [190] At first the people
of Rome consisted of three classes, the patricians, the clients and
the plebeians. In course of time, as the rights and privileges of the
plebeians increased after the appointment of tribunes, their position,
from having originally been much inferior, became superior to that of
the clients, and the latter preferred to throw off the tie uniting them
to their patrons and become merged in the plebeians. In this manner the
intermediate class of clients at length entirely disappeared. [191]
These clients must not be confused with the subsequent class of the
same name, who are found during the later period of the republic
and the empire, and were the voluntary supporters or hangers-on of
rich men. It would appear that these early clients corresponded very
closely to the household servants of the Indian cultivators, from
whom the village menial castes were developed. The Roman client was
sometimes a freed slave, but this would not have made him a member
of the family, even in a subordinate position. Apparently the class
of clients may have to a great extent originated in mixed descent, as
the Indian household and village menials probably did. This view would
account satisfactorily for the client's position as a member of the
family but not a proper one. From the fact that they were considered
one of the three principal divisions of the people it is clear that
the clients must at one time have been numerous and important.

77. The plebeians.

Below the clients came the plebeians, whose position, as M. Fustel
de Coulanges himself points out, corresponded very closely to that
of the Sudras. The plebeians had no religion and no ancestors;
they did not belong to a family or a _gens_. [192] They were a
despised and abject class, who lived like beasts outside the proper
boundary of the city. The touch of the plebeian was impure. [193]
"When tribunes were created a special law was necessary to protect
their life and liberty, and it was promulgated as follows: 'It is
forbidden to strike or kill a tribune, as if he was an ordinary
plebeian.' It would appear then that a patrician had the right to
strike or kill an ordinary plebeian, or at least that he was amenable
to no legal punishment for doing so." [194] Similarly in the ancient
Greek c