Tribe

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Every Roman citizen was a member of a tribe. These were not ethnic groups but social units, communities within the community, and voting-blocks. A Roman was born into his father's tribe. There were thirty-five tribes.

According to tradition there were originally three tribes, created by king Romulus; the tribes were reorganized by king Servius Tullius and greatly increased in number. New tribes were added from time to time until N. Vibulano T. Capitolino cos.‡ (CCCXXXIII a.u.c.) it was decided to fix the number at 35.

The tribes in ancient times were fundamental social units. Each tribes had its own officials, and many important activities were organized on a tribal basis including the census, collection of taxes, and voting in the Comitia Populi Tributa and the Comitia Plebis Tributa. They were so important that a Roman's full name included the name of his tribe along with the name of his father and grandfather.

Four of the tribes (Collina, Esquilina, Palatina, and Suburana) are urban tribes; the rest are rural tribes. In ancient times citizens who owned land outside the city of Rome were enrolled in rural tribes, while those who lived exclusively in the city belonged to urban tribes. The result was that the urban tribes had much less power in the voting assemblies than the rural tribes had. Nowadays the urban tribes contain those citizens who fail to pay their annual taxes.

Usage in names

The tribe is inserted between the nomen and the cognomen, e.g. M. Tullius Cor. Cicero (meaning "Marcus Tullius Cornelia tribu Cicero", or "Marcus Tullius, of the Cornelian tribe, Cicero").

Often the tribe is included together with the filiation, in which case it appears after the filiation and before the cognomen, thus:

M. Tullius M. f. M. n. Cor. Cicero