This new assembly of centuriae assumed all the political rights of the former assembly of curiae, a few nominal privileges excepted. The curiae and the gentes composing them now were degraded to mere private and religious congregations, analogous to their Attic prototypes, and as such they vegetated on for a long time. But the assembly of curiae soon became obsolete. In order to drive also the three old tribes out of existence, a system of four local tribes was introduced. Every tribe was assigned to one quarter of the city and received certain political rights.
Thus the old social order of blood kinship was destroyed also in Rome even before the abolition of the so-called royalty. A new constitution, founded on territorial division and difference of wealth took its place and virtually created the state. The public power of coërcion consisted here of citizens liable to military duty, to be used against the slaves and the so-called proletarians who were excluded from military service and general armament.
After the expulsion of the last rex, Tarquinius Superbus, who had really usurped royal power, the new constitution was further improved by the institution of two military leaders (consuls) with equal powers, analogous to the custom of the Iroquois. The whole history of the Roman republic moves inside of this constitution: the struggles between patricians and plebs for admission to office and participation in the allotment of state lands, the merging of the patrician nobility in the new class of large property and money owners; the gradual absorption by the latter of all the land of the small holders who had been ruined by military service; the cultivation of these enormous new tracts by slaves; the resulting depopulation of Italy which not only opened the doors to the imperial tyrants, but also to their successors, the German barbarians.