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Archaic Rome grew by the gradual integration of ethnically disparate communities into the political life of the city; it successfully united cultures as different as the Latin, Sabine and Etruscan. A few of the institutions developed in this process survived into the Republican period, but their functions were so changed that the ancients themselves were obviously confused about their origins. Palmer here offers his own ingenious explanations. His main conclusion is that the hitherto obscure curiae once represented the distinct ethnic groups incorporated into Rome through conquest, treaty or migration. Political equality among curiae was the rule and each maintained its own religious traditions and looked after its internal affairs while sharing in the governing of the united state. The author discusses the nature of the evidence and the theories of ancient and modern historians, reconstructs in detail the organisation of the archaic state and finally traces the deterioration of the curiae in the late archaic period as they became the bulwark of oppressive oligarchy.