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There were no class-privileges: the fact that the Tities took precedence of the Ramnes, and both ranked before the Luceres, did not affect their equality in all legal rights.
At the taking of the vote in the senate the senators taken from the old clans were asked before those of the "lesser." It thus appears that the synoikismos , by which the Palatine community incorporated that of the Quirinal, marked an intermediate stage between the earliest synoikismos by which the Tities, Ramnes, and Luceres became blended, and all those that took place afterwards.
Respecting the origin of the Luceres nothing can be affirmed, except that there is no difficulty in the way of our assigning them, like the Ramnians, to the Latin stock.
If we have rightly assumed that the contrast between the Palatine old and the Quirinal new burgesses was identical with the contrast between the first and second Tities, Ramnes, and Luceres, it was thus the -gentes-of the Quirinal city that formed the "second" or the "lesser." The distinction, however, was certainly more an honorary than a legal precedence.
As the Ramnes, Tities, and Luceres appear to have been communities originally independent, they must have had their settlements originally apart; but they certainly did not dwell in separate circumvallations on the Seven Hills, and all fictions to this effect in ancient or modern times must be consigned by the intelligent inquirer to the same fate with the charming tale of Tarpeia and the battle of the Palatine.
The chief officers of the legion were the Tribunes; and originally there was one in each legion from the three tribes, the Ramnes, Luceres, and Tities. In the time of Polybius the number in each legion was six.
In the earliest division of the burgesses of Rome a trace has been preserved of the fact that that body arose out of the amalgamation of three cantons once probably independent, the Ramnians, Tities, and Luceres, into a single commonwealth in other words, out of such a synoikismos as that from which Athens arose in Attica.
Such an outpost would be useful to guard Latium against the Etrurians across the river. Of the three townships, or clans, which united to form Rome, the Ramnes, the Tities, and the Luceres, the first and third were Latin. The second, which was Sabine, blended with the Roman element, as the language proves.
The city thus being doubled in number, an hundred of the Sabines were elected senators, and the legions were increased to six thousand foot and six hundred horse; then they divided the people into three tribes: the first, from Romulus, named Ramnenses; the second, from Tatius, Tatienses; the third, Luceres, from the "lucus," or grove, where the Asylum stood, whither many fled for sanctuary, and were received into the city.
Long, in all probability, before an urban settlement arose on the Tiber, these Ramnians, Tities, and Luceres, at first separate, afterwards united, had their stronghold on the Roman hills, and tilled their fields from the surrounding villages. Character of Its Site From these settlements the later Rome arose.
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