It is simply the reverse side of the total want of urban
commonwealths among the Celts just noticed, that the opposite pole
of political development, knighthood, so thoroughly preponderates
in the Celtic clan-constitution. The Celtic aristocracy was to all
appearance a high nobility, for the most part perhaps the members
of the royal or formerly royal families; as indeed it is remarkable
that the heads of the opposite parties in the same clan
very frequently belong to the same house. These great families
combined in their hands financial, warlike, and political ascendency.
They monopolized the leases of the profitable rights of the state.
They compelled the free commons, who were oppressed by the burden
of taxation, to borrow from them, and to surrender their freedom
first de facto as debtors, then de jure as bondmen. They developed
the system of retainers, that is, the privilege of the nobility
to surround themselves with a number of hired mounted servants--
the -ambacti- as they were called (18)--and thereby to form a state
within the state; and, resting on the support of these troops
of their own, they defied the legal authorities and the common levy
and practically broke up the commonwealth. If in a clan,
which numbered about 80,000 men capable of arms, a single noble
could appear at the diet with 10,000 retainers, not reckoning
the bondmen and the debtors, it is clear that such an one
was more an independent dynast than a burgess of his clan. Moreover,
the leading families of the different clans were closely connected
and through intermarriages and special treaties formed virtually
a compact league, in presence of which the single clan was powerless.
Therefore the communities were no longer able to maintain
the public peace, and the law of the strong arm reigned throughout.
The dependent found protection only from his master, whom duty
and interest compelled to redress the injury inflicted on his client;
the state had no longer the power to protect those who were free,
and consequently these gave themselves over in numbers to some
powerful man as clients.

Abolition of the Monarchy

The common assembly lost its political importance; and even
the power of the prince, which should have checked the encroachments
of the nobility, succumbed to it among the Celts as well as in Latium.
In place of the king came the "judgment-worker" or -Vergobretus-,(19)
who was like the Roman consul nominated only for a year.
So