The same notions were current in the Celtic lands. Livy (5. 34. 2) tells of a
legendary Gaulish king Ambigatus in the time of Tarquin: he was a model of
virtue, with the consequence that the country became outstandingly fertile in
both crops and men. In Irish eyes the essence of justice was fír, ‘truth’, and
more specificallyfírflatha or flathemon, ‘the sovereign’s truth’.^45 Its blessings
as enumerated in Audacht Morainn include the following:
It is through the sovereign’s truth that the mouth may taste the abundant fruit of the
great forest; it is through the sovereign’s truth that milk-yields of numerous cattle
may be traded; it is through the sovereign’s truth that there may be plenty of every
high, tall grain; it is through the sovereign’s truth that an abundance of the water’s
fish swim up streams; it is through the sovereign’s truth that fair offspring, born of
young women, are well begotten (17–21, trs. Koch).
There are many passages in Irish literature where good weather and abundant
crops and livestock are connected with the virtue of the ruler, or bad weather,
pestilence, and famine with his inadequacies.^46
The king’s liberalityBesides being a fountain of justice, the king was a whirlpool of wealth. He
accumulated it and he distributed it, to reward his heroes and his poets.
We noted evidence for the guerdon of poets in Chapter 1. Now we can take a
wider view.
The king’s gifts were typically of horses, cattle, or gold, this commonly in
the form of rings and diadems. In a praise poem on an inscription the Indian
King Skandagupta is celebrated as ‘giver of many millions of gold and cows,
all righteously acquired’.^47 Afra ̄siya ̄b in the Sha ̄h-na ̄ma, attacked at night in
his palace by Rostam, calls out ‘Has sleep fettered all my warriors? Let all
those champions who wish for a ring and a diadem hem them in on every
side!’^48
Posidonius described the carefree liberality of the Celtic chieftain
Louernios or Louerios, who scattered gold and silver from his chariot for his
followers to pick up. Cú Chulainn and Fer Diad are ‘the two heroes... the
two bestowers of gifts and rewards and wages in the northwestern world’.
(^45) Cf. Campanile (1981), 36, 48–52; id. (1990b), 45 f.; Wolfgang Meid, Die keltischen Sprachen
und Literatur (Innsbruck 1997), 39.
(^46) McCone (1990), 108, 129 f., 139. C. Watkins, Ériu 30 (1979), 181–9= id. (1994), 626–34,
strikingly compares the Audacht Morainn passage with Vedic and Avestan statements in the
form ‘it is by truth that.. .’:r
̇
téna ..., RV 1. 2. 8; 4. 3. 9–12, al.; ta ̄ ba ̄ asˇa ... yat
̃
..., Yt. 5. 77.
(^47) Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum iii. 13. 11.
(^48) Levy (1967), 171.
424 11. King and Hero