Apparently the class of clients may have to a great extent originated in mixed descent, as the Indian household and village menials probably did.

This view would account satisfactorily for the client's position as a member of the family but not a proper one.

From the fact that they were considered one of the three principal divisions of the people it is clear that the clients must at one time have been numerous and important.
77.

The plebeians.
Below the clients came the plebeians, whose position, as M.Fustel de Coulanges himself points out, corresponded very closely to that of the Sudras.

The plebeians had no religion and no ancestors; they did not belong to a family or a _gens_.