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Early European societies were built upon the principle of isonomia, unlike eastern civilized societies, where one (European) king ruled over masses of (non-European) slaves.
Does that mean that European societies were "egalitarian"? Let's find out!
Does that mean that European societies were "egalitarian"? Let's find out!
ἰσονομία, ἴσος "equal, equivalent" + νόμος "custom, law", thus "equality of rights". If we dig a bit deeper, we find that the word νόμος is derived from the verb νέμω, which on its turn is derived from PIE *nem-, "to assign, to allot".
Isonomia, thus, didn't mean all were equal, but referenced a group of those equally honoured because they were allotted equal portions of the ancestral honour.
They were brothers and cousins born to honourable lineages and reincarnating as the same ancestors, so it's just natural that they would treat each other as equals.
But even among equals there was a hierarchy, it just wasn't a permanent one. At any given time, the divine hierarchy manifests itself differently in temporal reality.
The ancestral strength or wisdom usually reemerges in the same lineage, as the apple never falls far the tree, but it's not that unprecedented that virtues might return elsewhere, in a more distant relative or any member of the tribe, if they share the same blood.
Thus the isonomoi were tested and participated in competitions, as a means to ensure that the wrong person wouldn't reclaim any honours that didn't belong to them. They knew that if this happened the consequences would be disastrous, and in fact they were...
When people became selfish and started to favour their own progeny at the cost of the long-term common good of the tribe, things started to go awry. That's what a lot of the reforms we see in Archaic Greece were all about.
Similar phenomena probably happened everywhere, due to the impact of agriculture.
Agriculture also brought war...
Agriculture also brought war...
Hunter-gatherers kept smaller populations and couldn't afford sending armies of their bravest and noblest men into mass slaughters. Besides, they were barbarians, so unlike civilized people so they dealt with their differences in less murderous manners, often through duels.
Later sword dance rituals and deities related to war were linked to much older symbolism (related to rebirth) and to the older pre-agricultural duel culture (which remained alive in Europe until the mid-late 19th century).
So there you go, hunter-gatherers were not any more egalitarian than later European barbarians, and neither of them were "egalitarian" in modern sense (as Indo-patriarchal crypto-christians suggest).
Our distant ancestors were free-spirits and answered only to the laws of Nature and the gods, which btw corresponded perfectly to their own will and impulses...
So WTF! Adhering to a principle of isonomia was their will and you question it?
Thanks for reading.
So WTF! Adhering to a principle of isonomia was their will and you question it?
Thanks for reading.
