Society
The Ludovisi Gaul, Roman copy of a Hellenistic sculpture of a dying
Celtic couple, Palazzo Massimo alle Terme.
To the extent that sources are available, they depict a pre-Christian Iron Age Celtic social structure based
formally on class and kingship, although this may only have been a particular late phase of organisation
in Celtic societies. Patron-client relationships similar to those of Roman society are also described by
Caesar and others in the Gaul of the 1st century BC.[ citation needed ]
In the main, the evidence is of tribes being led by kings, although some argue that there is also evidence
of oligarchical republican forms of government eventually emerging in areas which had close contact
with Rome. Most descriptions of Celtic societies portray them as being divided into three groups: a
warrior aristocracy; an intellectual class including professions such as druid, poet, and jurist; and
everyone else. In historical times, the offices of high and low kings in Ireland and Scotland were filled by
election under the system of tanistry, which eventually came into conflict with the feudal principle
of primogeniture in which succession goes to the first-born son.[ citation needed ]