Olympic Games (interesting, actually)

[Sean Manning]

Thanks for the information, Jona. I'll have to read that article when I learn French; thanks for kinding providing some of the main points.

I think what you mean to say is that the Germanics and the Iroquois had tribal elements. These certainly were not conscious political institutions, explicitly deliberated and chosen into law.

The fact of the matter is that many tribal/pre-civilized societies had groups of elders, chiefs, etc. That is a fact stemming from their lack of strong social/national forces, not from libertarian/republican ideals. Every society by inertia begins with some tribal elements, and then ossifies into a centralized monarchy. Europeans in the middle ages had very fractured nations, with fiefdoms, little petty kingdoms, a King which had power over nothing, a necessary council with his leading Nobles, etc. The German Empire even had electors choosing an emperor. But no sensitive observer would say that the Holy Roman Empire was a source of ideals and a bastion of liberty. Anyhow, we're straying from our thread again.

Signifer, I disagree with many of the things you are saying, but I will try to avoid expanding this discussion even further. Centralized monarchies do rise ... and then they break down into smaller kingdoms, with towns and remote areas often effectively self-governing. Rome, or the medieval German empire, is a good example of that. Germanic peoples were quite conscious that law was formed by communal tradition, as tested by the consensus of the fighting men, and that their chiefs had specific and limited powers. See the lists of laws which they were kind enough to write down, or the analysis in Harold J. Berman, Law and Revolution (1983). Have a look at Icelandic literature for proof that one group of Germanic peoples (the Norse) were very aware of what liberties they had and their value. The Iroquois quite deliberately organized a state out of a loose tribal confederacy, and if it evolved over time so does any state. I think that the stuff on the Gilgamesh Games site is much overstated, but so are some of the claims of Greek exceptionalism which they attack.