Opinion Do five people make a village? That’s the question from Australia

I came, I saw, I haggled and bought,” sounds more like a successful shopping expedition than the pithy boast of a conqueror. But what if, in the Asterix comics, Julius Caesar had successfully pursued this strategy to acquire that one village whose redoubtable warriors were preventing him from completing his conquest of Gaul? How big a bribe would it have taken — Roman citizenship for the inhabitants, a Senate seat for the chief, a big bag of gold? Roman merchants would then have been able to move in to exploit the region’s rare, ahem, grape vines, and it would have ensured maritime security for the empire in the English Channel. Unfortunately for Caesar, he had neither the business acumen nor the full head of hair of a real-estate magnate.

In Australia today, there is another inconvenient village that has now reportedly been listed for sale online. Licola has five permanent residents as well as a caravan park, and is a hub for travellers on their way to a national park. The land and buildings are all privately owned by a community club, which is now trying to sell it off, citing financial pressures, sparking resistance from residents as well as travellers.

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Do five people make a village? It’s hard to dispute when their lives and livelihoods are rooted in the place and they are at the heart of a broader, transient community that depends on the local general store. Hopefully, the residents will be able to reach an accommodation with the club. It’s a reminder that all the tiny villages of the world, inconvenient though they may be to larger interests, are someone’s home. Sometimes, like the Gauls, they may need a magic potion to defend it.