During the short time that the tyranny of the De- cemvirs continued, we see to what an extent the ag- grandizement of Rome depended upon her liberty. The state seemed to have lost the soul which caused it to move." There were but two sorts of people in " As we see in the treatise entitled: Origo genik TOmana'— which is believed to be by Aurelius Victor.
" DioNYs. Hal., lib. iv.
" See in Dionys. Hal. one of the treaties made with them.
" Under pretext of giving written laws to the people, they seized the govei-nmcnt.
CHAP. I.] OF THE ROMANS. 29 the city — those who suffered servitude, and those who, for theii" own private interests, sought to impose it upon others. The senators withdrew as from a sti'ange city; and the neighboring nations nowhere met with resistance.
The senate having found the means of giving pay to the soldiers, the siege of Yeii was undertaken — a siege which lasted ten years. We now see a new art among the Eomans, and another method of conduct- ing war. Their successes are more striking, they profit better by their victories, they make greater conquests, and send out more colonies. The capture of Yeii was a species of revolution."
But the difficulties which they encountered were none the less. If they struck more powerful blows against the Etrurians, the ^quians and the Yolscians, this led to the desertion of their allies, the Hernicans and the Latins, who had the same arms and the same discipline as themselves; it led to the formation of leagues among the Etrurians, and prompted the Sam- nites — ^the most martial of all the peoples of Italy — to make war upon them with the utmost fury.
From the time of the institution of pay, the senate ceased to distribute the lands of conquered peoples among the soldiers. It imposed other conditions upon the vanquished. It obligated them, for example, to " Veii was situated upon the opposite, or Etrurian side of the Tiber, and only about twelve miles from Rome — so small was yet the territory of the Romans, after three hundred and fifty years of all but incessant war. — Tkanslatok.
30 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [MONTEsaniEU.
furnish pay for the army during a certain time, and to supply it with clothing and food."
The capture of Kome by the Gauls deprived it of none of its strength. The army, rather dispersed than vanquished, withdrev? almost entire to Yeii; the peo- ple saved themselves in the neighboring towns; and the burning of the city was no more than the burning of the cabins of a community of shepherds. " See tlie treaties which were made.
BAKEB.] OF THE ROMANS. qi NOTE BY THE TKANSLATOE.
I. The burning of Eome by the Gauls is referred to the year 365 of the city. It seems however that it was not wholly burnt. The Gauls, at least in the be- ginning of their occupancy, which is represented as ex- tending to " many months," appear to have proceeded tentatively in the application of the torch — ^reserving a part of the town as a means of influencing the Capital and the Citadel to capitulate. These, together with "the temples of the gods" were at all events saved. Yet, the destruction was so great, that a powerful party, headed by the tribunes, is said to have favored the abandonment of Home, and the transfer of its peo- ple to Yeii, which had been acquired by the Bomans a few years before — a measure which seems to have been agitated to some extent even before the burning of the city, and which was now effectually opposed by the superior influence of Oamillus.'
The cause which is assigned for this Gallic inva- sion, and the resulting disaster to the city of Eome, shows that the Gauls, at this early period — 388 years ' See LiTj, Book V., cha. 39-58, Spillan's trans., N. T., 1871.
32 GRANDEUE AND DECADENCE [baker.
before Christ— had no mean idea of some of the prin- ciples of International Law. Three Eoman brothers, bearing the name of Fabius, had been sent to them in the character of embassadors, for the purpose of interceding in behalf of the Clusians, an Etrurian people whom the Senonian Grauls, freshly arrived from the north of the Alps, were pressing for terri- tory. Having come to a rupture with the Gauls, these embassadors joined the Etrurians in a battle against them — fighting, as the story runs, in the very van, and one of them killing a Gallic general with his own hand. Hereupon the Gauls dispatched an embassy to Eome, demanding that the three Fabii should be delivered up to them. The senate, embar- rassed by the case, referred it to the people, who, so far from awarding any punishment whatever, con- ferred upon the embassadors the distinction of Mili- tary Tribunes with consular power. Thereupon the Gauls, enraged that the offenders were not only not punished, but actually honored, seized their standards and advanced upon Eome. On their march to the city they appear to have acted honorably towards the intermediate peoples through whose states they passed, quieting their fears by loud shouts as they moved pre- cipitately along, that they were on their way to Eome So far as the cause of quarrel goes, our sympathies are decidedly with the Gauls.'
11. As regards the urban quality of Eome during NOTE.] or THE ROMANS. 33 its early years, Livy states in effect that it was looked upon by its neighbors, not as a city, but as a menac- ing camp.'
Taken in connection with the ancient state of Southern Europe, Northern Africa and Southwestern Asia, the geographical position of Eome was admira- bly adapted to empire. The great capital was found- ed not very far from the center of these three vast areas — over which its influence and its power were destined to extend. In the speech which Camillus is represented as making, with the view of dissuading his countrymen from abandoning their own city and moving to Yeii, we find a good statement of some of the natural advantages of the site chosen by the founders of the former city; advantages however which were obviously much better adapted to the circumstances of ancient than they are to those of modem times. " Not without good reason," the dic- tator is represented as saying, " did gods and men select this place for founding a city: these most healthful hills; a commodious river, by means of which the produce of the soil may be conveyed from the inland countries, by which maritime supplies may be obtained; close enough to the sea for all purposes of commerce, and not exposed by too much proxim- ity to the dangers of foreign fleets; a situation in the center of the regions of Italy, singularly adapted by nature to the increase of a city."* 34 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [baker.
The immediate physical relations of the ancient city of Home may be stated in few words. It stood in north latitude 41° 53' 52", which is something more than one degree farther north than New York. It was therefore, geographically speaking, a northern rather than a southern city. It was huilt upon some moderate hills which rise upon the left bank of the Tiber, at a distance of about thirteen miles from the ancient mouth of this river. These hills — as indeed the whole face of the adjacent country — are of vol- canic origin, indicating that in prehistoric times Kome and its environs were a scene of much more violent volcanic action than has been known within the period of history. The city stood near the sea level, it being ascertained by modern measurements that the river at liome is twenty feet above the level of the Mediterranean.
The Tiber, like the Jordan, the Scamander and the Ilissus, derives its fame wholly from the human interest with which it is associated, and in no appre- ciable degree from its physical magnitude. In its whole course, from its rise in the Tuscan Apennines to its mouth, this celebrated river only measures about two hundred and twelve miles. It is navigable for boats of fifty tons burden for a distance of one hundred miles. At Eome it is one hundred yards wide, with a depth of twelve to eighteen feet. It is yellow, from commixture with the mud which it brings with it from the Apennines; and the deposit of this NOTE.] OF THE ROMANS. 35 mud at the mouth of the river has, since the time of the Romans, formed a delta of about two miles — the ancient sea-port of Ostia being now about that dis- tance inland.'
III. The observation of Montesquieu in relation to the city of Rome, that "the works which hereto- fore have given, and which yet give, the highest idea of her power, were erected under the kings," admits of comment. Such a statement appears to involve an improbable inversion of ideas, and is scarcely in harmony with facts, when rationally interpreted, al- though favored by an opinion of Livy and by an expression of Pliny.° . It is true that the physical dimensions of the city, as determined by the extent of the walls already es- tablished during the time of the kings, underwent no enlargement until near the close of the third cen- tury after Christ. "What are called the walls of Servius TuUius," says Dr. Arnold, "continued to be the walls of Rome for nearly eight hundred years, down to the Emperor Aurehan." It is also true that, in presence of the numerous small states into which ancient Italy was divided, the monarchy of the kings was a considerable one, embracing probably the whole of the little Latin Confederacy, besides something on ' Sir George Head's Tour in Rome, London, 1849, Vol. 1, pp. 20-21; Arnold's Bist. of Rome, ch. iii; Mommsen's Romische Geschickte, Berlin, 1868, Vol. 1, p. 43; Chambers' Enc, arts. Tiber, Rome; Anthon's Clas. Die., art. Ostia, * Livy, Book I, ch. 66; Adam's Rom. Ant., Phila., 1872, p. 405; Pliny,. xxxri, 13.
36 GEANDEUK AND DECADENCE [bakeb.
the opposite side of the Tiber —an extent of domain which was greatlj reduced during the troubles which immediately followed the expulsion of the house of Tarquin, and which the Eepublic did not fully recover until long afterward.'
Still, Eome under the kings was yet rude, weak, and poor in comparison with what she ultimately came to be under the Eepublic and Empire; and it would be curious indeed, if in a truly judicious sense, the works which "give the highest idea of her power," were constructed at this early and immature stage of her development. The chief works referred to the time of the kings were the Temple of Jupiter on the Tarpeian Hill, the great Circus, and the " princi- pal Sewer" of the city. It is in reference to the sewers of Eome that Pliny makes the remark alluded to above, saying that "they are called the greatest of all works — passing under mountains — and that the city, suspended above, is navigated underground; " {pperurn omnium dictu -maxim/um, snffossis monti- lus, atque urbe pensili, suUerque navigatd) The mountains here referred to were the low hills upon which Eome stood; the material used in the con- struction of the sewers, according to Brocchi, was volcanic tufa— a sort of stone which is easily wrought; and, as for the subterranean navigation of the city, that must be accepted as a rhetorical ilourish. Even granting that all these works were completed under NOTE.] OF THE ROMANS. 37 the kings — and it is known that much work was sub- sequently and repeatedly done on the Circus Maximus — we have to recount, at later periods, the Pantheon of Agrippa — far surpassing the old temple of Jupiter; the Amphitheatre of Statilius Taurus; the Colisasum of Vespasian and Titus; the Baths, the Basilicas, the hundreds of Temples by which the city was adorned; the immense system of Aqueducts by which it was supplied with water from a distance — and which as works of art must be adjudged as ranking the great Sewer of the Tarquins; the stone piered bridges which spanned so many of the rivers of Europe, espe- cially the one over the Garden at Nismes, and those of Trajan over the Tagus and the Danube; and above all, that grand system of massive stone Eoads, con- necting the Capital with the cities of Italy and the provinces of the Empire, and which were at once the greatest mechanical achievement of the Eoman world, and the greatest of the kind in all history. Here was evident expansion in that assemblage of sensible ob- jects which impresses an idea of power. As Eome developed in her language, her literature, her empire and her laws, she also developed in her material works."
TV. I think also that the statement of Montesquieu in relation to the consular system of the Eomans must be regarded as incomplete. The provision which was « See Livy, Book I, chs. 55, 66; Arnold's Hisi. of Rome, ch. t, note 6; Adam's Rom. Ant, Lum Circensbs.
38 GKANDEUK AND DECADENCE [baksb.
made by the republic in tbis respect is to be viewed rather as a necessity growing out of tbe imperiect state of Eoman polity, than as an appointment wise in itself. The division of the command of the same forces between two chiefs of equal authority was much the same thing as a single body with two heads. The object appears to have been to prevent usurpa- tion, by means of the mutual restraint which the two consuls would exercise upon each other. But, in thus accomplishing the object aimed at, the unity of the consular function was destroyed, and, consequently, the function itself very seriously impaired. In more perfect social organizations, checks are not provided for by thus sacrificing the unity of any of the great functions of the state, but by so adjusting them that they may mutually restrain each other, while left to operate with undivided energy in their respective spheres of action.
Doubtless the Koman consular system corresponded well with the particular stage of social development from which it sprang; but it is none the less certain that their dual consulate must be taken as evidence of a very imperfect political organization. It was by no means always that the two equal heads of the same army agreed in their views, or that either of them was willing to defer to the other. On numer- ous occasions the evils of a divided command mani- fested themselves, and sometimes in consequences which were extremely serious. Thus— to give a few NOTE.] OF THE ROMANS. 39 out of many examples — the defeat on the Trebia was preceded by a disagreement between the consuls — Scipio reluctant, and Sempronius pressing the battle; at a later period, when the master of the horse, Mi- nucius, was made equal in authority with the dictator, Fabius, the army being divided into two independent commands, that of Minucius came near being de- stroyed by Hannibal before it could be succored by the other division; and everybody is familiar with the broils — well calculated to demoralize an army — which occurred between the two Koman chiefs on the eve of the fatal battle of Cannse — Paulus vehe- mently opposing, and Yarro more vehemently urging the conflict.
The custom was to divide the legions between the two consuls; but sometimes it seems each of the con- suls commanded the whole army on alternate days. Tlie Koman historian, Livy, was fully sensible of the defects of such an arrangement; and Machiavelli fin- ishes his discussion of the subject with the judicious conclusion that " it is better to entrust a campaign to one commander of ordinary prudence than to two of the greatest ability and of equal authority "; ° a maxim which has been much approved, and which has been shortened into the blunt English, that " one bad gen- eral is better than two good ones." '° ° Epuossi conchiudere veramenie, come gli i meglio mandare in una espedizione un uomo solo di commiale prudema, che duoi valentissimi tiomi- ni insieme con la medesima, autoriid.
'o Adam's Rom. Ant, Phila., 18Y2, p. 76; Livy, Book XXI, chs. 62, 40 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [baker.
V. The reader needs hardly to be reminded of the uncertainty which attaches to much of the early history of Kome. But we should be careful not to carry our skepticism too far. As regards the great elements, from which the general movement and spirit of this section of Koman history may be ration- ally made out, we have a good foundation for his- torical credence. Prominent among these elements should be placed the following general facts.
1. That those kindred tribes which formed the Latin language and coalesced under the Eoman name, had, in prehistoric times, emigrated from Asia; being — like the Hellenic tribes which formed the Greek lan- guage and the Greek states — an ofE-shoot from that great Aryan or Indo-European stock, whose primal, or at least whose very early seat, appears to have been somewhere in the interior of Southwestern Asia, and whose waves of dispersion extended to India in the one direction, and to Europe in the other.
2. That these immigrating tribes — destined in the fullness of time to establish the capital of the world upon the banks of the Tiber— found the Etrurians al- ready old in Italy— a people of high civilization for ancient times— and who, in their turn, had been pre- ceded in all parts of Italy by peoples in that social state, usually called savage, which is destitute of the use of metals, and dependent upon implements of stone.
NOTE.] OF THE ROMANS. 41 3. That the Romans started low, mucli lower than their Etrurian neighbors, to whom they sent for au- gurs and for master workmen, and to whom they were indebted for many of their religious rites, for their first mechanical and architectural structures, for their earliest decorative art, for their household uten- sUs, for their coinage of copper money, for their institution of lictors, for their curule chairs of mag- istracy, and for their famous purple-fringed robe of state."
4. That they were governed first by kings, then by consuls, tribunes and magistrates; and, that from the time of the expulsion of the kings there was a constant internal struggle going on between the upper and the lower classes, and an equally constant external struggle with the surrounding nations.
6. That their laws were hard, their manners coarse, their customs cruel; and that, being won- derfully addicted to war, and none the less remark- able for those sorts of fortitude, cunning, and fraud, which are the accompaniments of incessant war in low states of society, they were enabled gradually to acquire ascendency over their hardy neighbors.
These, and similar general elements of the early history of the Komans — intermixed, as we have seen, with reliable particulars — appear to be thoroughly credible, and, when taken together, they are quite " Livy, Book I, chs. 8, 55, 66; Arnold's Mst. of Rome, N. Y., ISSV, pp. 22-24; Francis Pulszky in Indigenous Races of the Earth, Phila., 1S68, p. 173.
42 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [bakbh.
sufficient to enable ns to form a tolerably distinct idea of the substance and spirit of the archaic his- tory of this people. It is when we descend from such generalities to the mass of facts of a minor kind, that we come upon the appropriate field for critical selection, doubt, and positive disbelief.
In respect to credibility — when the application of the word is limited to all except such cardinal ele- ments as have just been indicated — Koman history may be divided into four periods; the first extend- ing from the beginning of the city to the expulsion of the kings; the second from the expulsion of the kings to the capture of the city by the Gauls; the third from the capture of the city to the second Pu- nic war; and the fourth embracing the residue of Koman history, down to the fall of the empire. The detailed history of Eome becomes progressively more credible as we pass from the first to the closing member of this series of epochs.
The first period, commonly reckoned as com- mencing Y63 years before Christ, and including 244 years, is intensely mythical and fabulous. The sec- ond, embracing 121 years, is only less indistinct and questionable than the first. Livy himself, who con- siders both these periods as one, regards their annals as obscure, not only on account of their antiquity, but also from the extremely limited use of letters in those early ages, and from the further circumstance that the pontifical and other records were mostly NOTE.] OF THE ROMANS. 43 destroyed when the city was burnt." The third pe- riod, which embraces 169 years, becomes more distinct and authentic." But it is not until the beginning of the fourth period — 534 years after the foundation of the city — ^that we come upon the first Bomom histo- rian, Fabius Pictor, who by the way, appears to have been a writer of inferior ability and small credit. Thence the stream of Roman history is enlightened by a tolerable succession of writers, down to the dis- solution of the empire — the main drawback being. the loss of many parts of the best historians, among which the missing portions of Polybius, Livy and Tacitus, are especially to be regretted.
The names of Perizonius, Bayle, Pouilly, Beau- fort, Voltaire, Mebuhr, Arnold and others — but in a distinguished sense that of Niebuhr — are associated with that spirit of modem criticism which has sub- stituted rational views in the place of that undis- criminating credence with which the early annals of Pome were formerly received. Yoltaire supplies an apt statement of the leading thought which under- lies this critical spirit — whether applied to Eoman history in particular, or to history in general: " It is only at a very late period that the history of a nation can ever be written. Men begin with some extremely summary registries, which are preserved, as well as may be, in a temple or a citadel. An unfortunate war often destroys these annals, and it •i! Book VI, ch. 1. " ^*'"- 44: GRAlfDETIR AND DECADENCE [baker.
is necessary to reeommence twenty times, like ants whose habitation has been disturbed by the foot. It is only at the end of many centuries that it is pos- sible for a history of some detail to succeed these informal registries j and this first history is always mixed with the false marvelous, by which men would replace the truth which is wanting." " The idea of historical development which is here suggested, becomes yet more complete and more striking, when we penetrate beyond the archaic " registries " of which Voltaire speaks, and place our thought in relation with those strictly prehistoric ages, the rude memorials of which so generally in- dicate a total want of letters, and a very low phys- ical and mental condition for man.
As already intimated, such appears to have been the most ancient condition of man in Italy. The humble and semi-barbaric commencement of Eoman greatness was preceded by a true barbarism, diffused at an earlier period over the whole peninsula and its adjacent islands. It is now well ascertained that Italy must, in this respect, take its place in company with the other European countries; and that, as in Spain, Switzeriand, France, Germany, Belgium, the British Islands and the Scandinavian states, an Age of Stone preceded the use of metals and the begin- nings of history proper, the same was equally true of the Italian peninsula. In the provinces of Abruz- » ffi««m Computes do Voltaire, torn, xis, p. 316, Paris, 1827.
NOTE.] OF THE ROMANS. 45 zo, Kome, Terra di Lavoro, Benevento, Otranto and Calabria; in the deposits of tlie Yibrata, and of the Tiber not far from the city of Eome; and in the Islands of Elba and Capri, stone implements have been found in abundance, similar in character to those which mark the prehistoric barbarism of other countries. In the valley of the Yibrata these imple- ments "have been collected by thousands." In con- cluding his account of the objects of the JSTicoUucci collection — presented by Col. Theodore Lyman to the Peabody Museum — ^professor Jeffries Wyman says: " From this general statement of the kinds of objects and their distribution, it will be seen that the penin- sula of Italy, one of the last regions to be explored for remains of the stone age, has yielded these very largely. They antedate all historical records, and until within a few years the existence of such does not appear to have been generally known to archaeolo- gists." " Prehistoric knowledge, such as we have, is almost whoUy a creation of the last half century, and as Professor Wyman correctly suggests, it is but lately that it has come to be definitely realized that in the possession of a prehistoric stone age^ Italy forms no exception to the general rule for Europe. In view however of the actual knowledge which for some time has existed upon the subject, the remarks of " Sixth Annual Report of the Trustees oftlie Peabody Museum, 1873, pp. 7-12; Gastaldi's Prehistoric Remains in Italy, London, 1865, pp. 2-6.
one of the most eminent of recent writers upon Ko- man history may be classed among the curiosities of historical literature: "Italy however," says Momm- sen, "is conspicuously destitute of mementoes of the primitive epoch, and stands in this respect in remark- able contrast with other seats of civilization...■ ISTothing hitherto has come to light which authorizes the conclusion that the existence of the human race in Italy preceded the cultivation of land and the smelting of metals; and if, within the confines of Italy, man was really once in that primitive state which we are accustomed to call savage, yet, every trace of such a condition is utterly lost." " It is certainly very remarkable that a statement so erroneous and misleading, and that too upon a question of high value as affecting the theory of uni- versal history, should be republished at Berlin as late as 1868, in a first class historical work, and with- out a note of correction. Positive information re- specting the stone epoch of Italy appeared in the Annali delle Scienze Naturali di Bologna as early as the year 1850. The work of Gastaldi was pub- " " Italien indess ist-auffallend arm an Donkmalern der primitiven Epoohe und steht in dieser Beziehung in einem bemerkenswerthcn Ge- gensatz zu andern Culturgebieten...Es ist bisher nicbts zum Vorschein gekommen, was zu der Annabme bereobtigt, dass in Itallen die Existenz deg MencbengescMechts alter sei als die Bebauung des Ackers und dag Scbmelzen der Metalle; und wenn wirklicb innerbalb der Grenzen Italiens daa Meucbengeacblecbt einmal auf der primitiven Culturstufe gestanden hat, die wir den Ziistand der Wildheit zu nennen pflegen, so ist davon doch jede spur Bcblecbterdings ausgeloscbt." (RomiscJie Geschichte, Bth edition, Berlin, 1868, Vol. i, pp. 8-9.)
NOM.] OP THE ROMANS. 47 listed in Italian in 1862, and the English translation in 1865."
Thus, as the great stream of Eoman history takes its vague rise in a rude age and by the side of an older civilization — the memory of which has only sur- vived in fragments and glimpses — ^we thence look back upon a period still more removed in tin^e, and still ruder in its human conditions, when pure baibpxigm held its low sway over all those seats which awaited the coming of the Etrurian and the Eoman.
" See Prehistoric Remains in Italy, pp. 2-B, and Introduction to the same work.
4:8 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [MONTEsaniEU.
CHAPTER II.
AKT OF WAE AMONG THE EOMANS.
CoNSECEATmG themselves to war, and regarding it as tlie sole art, the Eomans devoted their whole mind and soul to its perfection. It was without doubt a god, says Yegetius,' who inspired them with the idea of the legion.
They regarded it as requisite that the soldiers of the legion should he furnished with arms, both offen- sive and defensive, which were heavier and stronger than those of any other people whatever.'
But, as there are things to be done in war of which a heavy corps is not capable, they provided that the legion should be supplied with a light troop, which might sally forth to engage in combat, and, in case of necessity, fall back under cover of its ranks; that it ' Lib. ii, ch. i.
' See in Polybius — and in Josephus, de hello Jvdaico, lib. iii — what ■were the arms of the Roman Boldier. The latter says there is little difference between horses ranged in ranks and Roman soldiers. " They carry," says Cicero, " their provisions for more than fifteen days, together ■with all their camp equipage and implements for fortification; and, with regard to their arms, they arc no more encumbered by them than by their hands." (Tuscul, liv. ii, ch. xv.)
CHAP. 11.] OF THE ROMANS.
49 should be provided with cavalry, archers, and slingers —for the pursuit of fugitives and the completion of victory; that it should be defended by all sorts of military machines — which it drew with it in its marches; that it should entrench itself on the occa- sion of each encampment," and be, as Yegetius says, a species of stronghold.* In order that they might be able to wield arms which were heavier than those of other men, it was necessary that they should render themselves more than men. This they accomplished by incessant labor — which increased their strength; and by exercises which were calculated to give them dexterity — which is nothing other than a just application of the natu- ral force with which men are endowed.
"We remark at the present day that the soldiers of our armies su:ffer much from immoderate labor;' and yet it was by immense labor that the Eoman soldiers preserved themselves. The reason is, I think, that the labors of the latter were constant; whereas ' Lib. ii, eh. xv.
* " They never passed a night, even in the longest marches, without pitching a camp, and fortifying it with a rampart and ditch." (Adam's Rom. Ant., Phila., 1872, p. 253.)
A description of the camp thus improvised at the close of each day's march will give some idea of the worit involved in the Eoman fashion of soldiering: " The form of the Roman camp was a square, and always of the same figure. In later ages, in imitation of the Greeks, they some- times made it circular, or adapted it to the nature of the ground. It was surrounded with a ditch, usually nine feet deep and twelve feet broad, and a rampart, composed of the earth dug from the ditch, and sharp stakes stuck into it." (Idem, p. 264.) — Translator.
' Above all, in making earthworks.
gQ GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [montesquieit.
our soldiers pass incessantly from extreme labor to extreme idleness— wliicli of all things in the world is most calculated to destroy their lives.