HKB
must have been exercised over a superstitious nation by this caste of men, depositaries of all knowledge, authors and interpreters of all law, divine or human, remunerators, judges, and executioners.”[129]
The knights, when required by the necessities of war, and that happened almost yearly, were all bound to take up arms. Each, according to his birth and fortune, was accompanied by a greater or less number of attendants or clients. Those who were called ambacti[130] performed in war the part of esquires.[131] In Aquitaine, these followers were named soldures; they shared the good as well as the evil fortune of the chief to whom they were attached, and, when he died, not one of them would survive him. Their number was considerable: we shall see a king of the Sotiates possess no less than six hundred of them.[132]
The states were governed either by an assembly, which the Romans called a senate, or by a supreme magistrate, annual or for life, bearing the title of king,[133] prince,[134] or vergobret.[135]
The different tribes formed alliances among themselves, either permanent or occasional; the permanent alliances were founded, some on a community of territorial interests,[136] others on affinities of races,[137] or on treaties,[138] or, lastly, on the right of patronage.[139] The occasional alliances were the results of the necessity of union against a common danger.[140]
In Gaul, not only each state and each tribe (pagus), but even each family, was divided into two parties (factiones); at the head of these parties were chiefs, taken from among the most considerable and influential of the knights. Cæsar calls them principes.[141] All those who accepted their supremacy became their clients; and, although the principes did not exercise a regular magistracy, their authority was very extensive. This organisation had existed from a remote antiquity; its object was to offer to each man of the people a protection against the great, since each was thus placed under the patronage of a chief, whose duty it was to take his cause in hand, and who would have lost all credit if he had allowed one of his clients to be oppressed.[142] We see in the “Commentaries” that this class of the principes enjoyed very great influence. On their decisions depended all important resolutions;[143] and their meeting formed the assembly of the whole of Gaul (concilium totius Galliæ).[144] In it everything was decided by majority of votes.[145]
Affairs of the state were allowed to be treated only in these assemblies. It appertained to the magistrates alone to publish or conceal events, according as they judged expedient; and it was a sacred duty for any one who learnt, either from without or from public rumour, any news which concerned the civitas, to give information of it to the magistrate, without revealing it to any other person. This measure had for its object to prevent rash or ignorant men from being led into error by false reports, and from rushing, under this first impression, into extravagant resolutions.
In the same manner as each state was divided into two rival factions, so was the whole of Gaul (with the exception of Belgic Gaul and Helvetia) divided into two great parties,[146] which exercised over the others a sort of sovereignty (principatus);[147] and when, in extraordinary circumstances, the whole of Gaul acknowledged the pre-eminence of one particular state, the chief of the privileged state took the name of princeps totius Galliæ, as had been the case with the Arvernan Celtillus, the father of Vercingetorix.[148]