As the founder had set up ten curiae in each tribe, the whole Roman people, which was then contained within the walls, consisted of thirty curiae, each with its temples, its gods, its officers, its priests and its festivals, which were called compitalia and corresponded to the paganalia , held in later times by the rural tribes.

When Servius made his new division, as the thirty curiae could not be shared equally between his four tribes, and as he was unwilling to interfere with them, they became a further division of the inhabitants of Rome, quite independent of the tribes: but in the case of the rural tribes and their members there was no question of curiae, as the tribes had then become a purely civil institution, and, a new system of levying troops having been introduced, the military divisions of Romulus were superfluous. Thus, although every citizen was enrolled in a tribe, there were very many who were not members of a curia.