Among the Grecian tribes, where the phratric organization was nearly as constant as the gens, it became a very conspicuous institution. Each of the four tribes of the Athenians was organized in three phratries, each composed of thirty gentes, making a total of twelve phratries and three hundred and sixty gentes. Such precise numerical uniformity in the composition of each phratry and tribe could not have resulted from the subdivision of gentes through natural processes. It must have been produced, as Mr. Grote suggests, by legislative procurement in the interests of a symmetrical organization. All the gentes of a tribe, as a rule, were of common descent and bore a common tribal name, consequently it would not require severe constraint to unite the specified number in each phratry, and to form the specified number of phratries in each tribe. But the phratric organization had a natural foundation in the immediate kinship of certain gentes as subdivisions of an original gens, which undoubtedly was the basis on which the Grecian phratry was originally formed. The incorporation of alien gentes, and transfers by consent or constraint, would explain the numerical adjustment of the gentes and phratries in the Athenian tribes.
The Roman _curia_ was the analogue of the Grecian phratry. It is constantly mentioned by Dionysius as a phratry.[70] There were ten gentes in each _curia_, and ten _curiae_ in each of the three Roman tribes, making thirty _curiae_ and three hundred gentes of the Romans. The functions of the Roman _curia_ are much better known than those of the Grecian phratry, and were higher in degree because the _curia_ entered directly into the functions of government. The assembly of the gentes (_comitia curiata_) voted by _curiae_, each having one collective vote. This assembly was the sovereign power of the Roman People down to the time of Servius Tullius.
Among the functions of the Grecian phratry was the observance of special religious rites, the condonation or revenge of the murder of a phrator, and the purification of a murderer after he had escaped the penalty of his crime preparatory to his restoration to society.[71] At a later period among the Athenians--for the phratry at Athens survived the institution of political society under Cleisthenes--it looked after the registration of citizens, thus becoming the guardian of descents and of the evidence of citizenship. The wife upon her marriage was enrolled in the phratry of her husband, and the children of the marriage were enrolled in the gens and phratry of their father. It was also the duty of this organization to prosecute the murderer of a phrator in the courts of justice. These are among its known objects and functions in the earlier and later periods. Were all the particulars fully ascertained, the phratry would probably manifest itself in connection with the common tables, the public games, the funerals of distinguished men, the earliest army organization, and the proceedings of councils, as well as in the observance of religious rites and in the guardianship of social privileges.