10 - Of duels

Summary

Private duels, whose origin lay in the very anarchy of the laws, arose from this need for others' esteem. Duels are alleged to have been unknown in the ancient world, perhaps because the ancients did not foregather in temples, in theatres and with their friends warily forearmed, or perhaps because the duel was a common and ordinary spectacle which enslaved and debased gladiators gave to the public, and free men disdained to be considered and called gladiators because of their private combats.

Attempts to put a stop to this custom by decrees of death against those who engage in duels have been in vain, for it is founded on something which some men fear more than death. Deprived of the esteem of others, the man of honour sees himself doomed to become either a merely solitary being, which would be an insupportable condition for a sociable man, or the butt of insults and slander, whose combined effect would be greater than the danger of punishment.

Why is it that ordinary people for the most part do not duel as noblemen do? It is not just that they are unarmed, but because the need for others' esteem is less common among the humble classes than it is among those who, being exalted, regard each other with greater circumspection and jealousy.