n 510 B.C. How much real history there is behind these legends is unknown, but it is probable that Rome was once ruled by kings who had nearly absolute authority, combining in their persons the power which the Roman Republic later distributed among a number of magistracies.
After the overthrow of the kings, the ultimate source of authority in Rome was the populus Romanus,5 the Roman people meeting in their assemblies, the ancient religion-based comitia curiata and the later military-based comitia centuriata. But under the kings and in the earliest centuries of the Republic there was judgement, but no true legislation and certainly no legal system. The law was in this early period purely oral and traditional, and entirely in the hands of the heads of the old and wealthy families which were the original populus, and who were later called the patricians.
As primitive Rome grew, it attracted new settlers, who were not related to the old families, and who originally were entirely outside the protection of the traditional law. These came to be called the
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