>
> >As Cato once complained
> >"All men rule over women, we Romans rule over all men, our wives
> >rule over us". And he spoke before Livia, Aggripina, Messalina,
> >etc.
>
> Well the discussion is about legal rights rather than social practice,
You might also be curious about the social practice of a culture where the basic unit of value ("cumal") comes from the word for a female slave.
cf. http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/~a8700035/celtlaw.html
>
> and the legal position of women was far worse under Roman than Brehon
> law.
I wouldn't even agree with this statement. Women were legally incompetent persons in Celtic law, and concubinage was permitted (unlike in Roman Law)
http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/~a8700035/celtlaw.html#WOMEN
and
http://www.utexas.edu/courses/cc302/law.html (for the rights of women)
It also appears that Roman women (depending on what era we're talking about) had somewhat stronger property rights.
> >>Not only is Caesar a biased source and would not have understood the
> >>society he was criticising
>
> >He is biased but I don't think that you can claim that as a result
> >his social picture of the Gauls is incorrect. It doesn't take too
> >much brains to notice that a farmer is downtrodden.
>
> It's pretty obvious from the writings attributed to him that he had
> little contact with ordinary Gauls
> and his dealings with their
> leaders show a little understanding of the social structure.
He had enough understanding of the social structure to divide & conquer the Gallic tribes.
He had a homosexual affair with one of the Gallic Princes, BTW, so he was rather more, umm, initimate with Gallic culture than you credit him with.
Tacitus (IIRC) recounts that his soldiers had a little ditty that went something like "Caesar conquered Gaul; but Gaul conquered Caesar!"
>
>
> >>but I'm very suspicious of a translation which uses the word "knights".
>
> >The actual word he would have used "equestrian" (an important social
> >rank in Rome that was based on those who served in the Roman cavalry)
> >is usually translated as "knights". All it means is that the Celtic
> >nobility fought on horseback.
>
> That's precisely what I mean, not only do we have Caesar applying a
> term with a precise meaning to something only vaguely similar but
> Latin scholars following a medieval tradition of translating the
> result as "knights". How may other similar inaccurate translations
> are there? which aren't so easy to spot. It doesn't take much of
> that sort of thing to turn any agricultural society into a feudal
> one.
Errr, but you're so hung up on the translation of "knights" that you missed the geist of the passage I quoted from Caesar.
"Everywhere in Gaul there are only two classes of men who are of any account
or consideration. The common people are
treated almost as slaves, never venture to act on their own initiative, and
are not consulted on any subject. Most of
them, crushed by debt or heavy taxation or the oppression of more powerful
persons, bind themselves over to serve men
of rank, who exercise over them all the rights that masters have over
slaves."
So in other words, for protection, your common Gaul bound himself over to a "lord", who .
It is just the same, though less elaborate and extensive, as dark ages feudalism, which arose from common people seeking protection from predation by making a social contract with local lords/warlords/toughs whatever.
>
> >Nobody has any way of knowing this. It can be argued that in
> >a status-proud society, like the norse or the celts, that the
> >plight of a humble thrall is worse than that of a medieval
> >villien. Once again, one should distinguish between the law
> >and practice.
>
> There's no way of knowing for sure, but the relatively small
> proportion of slaves
Doesn't really tell you much about the status of slaves per se. Rome did not have many slaves before its wars of conquest. Conquering Gaul, etc. swelled the ranks of slaves. It may not be that the Gauls didn't have slaves because they found the practice repellent or distasteful, but instead because they weren't as good at conquering other peoples as the Romans.
The Irish were infamous slavers and pirates, frex.
> and the fact that they shared accomodation
> with their masters indicates that they were individually known
> to their masters.
They still, from accounts I've read of Brehon Law, had no rights whatsoever.
Roman slaves had precious little rights also, but they did have some rights in Roman (e.g. they did have certain property rights over property given to them, even though they themselves were property).
> The worst abuses have always been inflicted
> on groups of people who were not individually known to their
> abusers.
Can't say I agree with this, cf. the Balkans in recent history.
<snip>
>
> The laws applying to escaped slaves in the 19th Century US have no
> relevance to Celtic society. While another tribe would be unlikely
> to take in an escaped slave unless they could prove kinship that's
> true of any stranger. Equally they would have no obligation to
> capture and return a slave.
And no obligation not to kill them, either. Slaves had no rights, under Brehon law.
Tom
End of The Glorantha Digest V8 #183
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