The basic pre-Roman Celtic setup had a very definate class system: the rulers were all one family and had all the wealth, power, and luxury, while the peasants were poor and kept poor by swinging taxes. The classes were static: the rulers remained rulers, while the peasants remained peasants.
When the Romans came along, they defeated and deposed the chief by military or diplomatic means, got his surrender, and then promptly offered him his old job back! This was on condition that the chief kept the peace and paid his taxes to the Romans. In return, the Romans agreed to send forces into the chief's lands, when invited, to help put down any uprisings, defeat bandits, etc.
The result was that the clan remained ruled by the same people as before, so the peasants couldn't object to any new rulers; and the chief kept the Romans sweet because he knew that the Romans could depose him again any time they wanted to.
This seems applicable to the Sartarite situation. The clans are basically ruled by an elite (although notionally anyone can become a chieftan, I'm sure that there is only a small group of candidates, all of whom are related to the current chief), and the current chief can keep the peace with the threat that any trouble will cause the Lunars to install their own military governors, who are not Orlanthi and will therefore make a complete mess of everything.
Powered by hypermail