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The chief objections to this view are the symmetrical number into which it divides the gentes, and the fact that the Senate is, according to the best tradition, a body of nominees selected by the chief magistrate. But yet there is an element of truth in the theory. The Senate did rise from 100 to 300 in consequence of the incorporation of fresh elements into the community, and therefore in consequence of an increase of the gentes. The kings and early consuls would doubtless, in the exercise of their powers of selection, wish to see each of the patrician clans represented in their council. Hence the addition of new clans would add new members to that body, and hence the inferior place occupied in the Senate by the gentes minores, the younger branch of the Patriciate.

Although the clan itself was inexpansive, the number of the clans, even in the old patrician community, was not. It was possible for new gentes to be added to the community, and even for old gentes to quit it. Tradition speaks of the reception of six clans that had once belonged to the parent state of Alba—the Cloelii, Curiatii, Geganii, Julii, Quinctilii (or Quinctii), and Servilii;[47] and Sabine races as well, such as the Valerii,[48] are also said to have been admitted. The reception of new gentes was effected by the Patricians and, as we should expect, by the assembly which represents the whole patrician body, the comitia curiata, under the presidency of the king. They were coopted by their peers,[49] and it is improbable that the patrician order could have been recruited by the act of the king alone.[50] He might conceivably have chosen Plebeians as members of his advising body, the Senate, as the first consuls are said to have done,[51] although such a selection is extremely improbable; but even this act would not have raised such Plebeians to the Patriciate. The admission of new gentes implies that foreigners, or even a portion of the plebeian body, might be coopted into the Patriciate; in the former case it might be the reception, in the latter the creation, of a gens. This possibility of recruiting the patrician order—whether by the creation or reception of gentes—ceased during the Republic, because the assembly of the Curies came eventually to admit Plebeians, and there was no political assembly composed exclusively of members who fulfilled all the conditions of being gentiles. The only instance of the expulsion of a gens preserved by legend is that of the Tarquinii; and the decree that this whole clan had forfeited its right to be a member of the Roman state is said to have been passed by the Populus.[52]