• isTe.
NOTE.] OF THE ROMANS. 387 vast geographical surface, containing one hundred and twenty million people, and supporting a military and naval establishment of four hundred and fifty thousand men. But a large portion of the revenues of the principal modern states goes in payment of interest on imnaense national debts — a species of burden from which the Eomans were free; and the much greater complexity and fruitfulness of modern production of wealth is necessarily associated with a greater complexity and magnitude of expenditure in the form of taxes.
TV. As to the weigTit with which taxation fell upon the Roman citizen, we can with some distinct- ness trace four periods: 1. From the commencement of Roman history down to the time of the conquest of Macedon the taxes were, on the whole, comparatively light. The continual acquisitions which the state was making during this period of growth — the seizures which it made of the wealth of kings, and the exactions which it imposed upon vanquished nations — served, in a great measure, to meet the demands of the govern- ment. This period extended to the year 586 of the city.
2. In the year just stated — which marks the close of the first and the beginning of the second period — all direct taxes were taken off; and this exemption continued down to the consulate of Hir- tius and Pansa, in the year 711 of the city— that 388 GRANDEUK AND DECADENCE [baker.
is, during a period df one hundred and twenty- five years. Something more than a century after the direct taxes were thus suspended — that is, in the year of the city 692 — the import duties were like- wise taken off; but these were replaced by Caesar, probably about fifteen years after their removal, and only about four years before the reimposition of the direct taxes; so that, for about a century and a quarter, the Romans paid no direct tax, whilst for about fifteen years of this time they were charged with no tax of any sort, direct or indirect. For their immunity from the first, they were indebted to the immense spoils of Macedon, brought in by Paulus ^milius; for their immunity from the second, they were indebted to the still greater spoils of Asia, brought in by Pompey; and it is worthy of re- mark that, as their condition became such that they could relieve themselves from taxation, they first threw off the direct, and then the indirect tax; and that, when it became necessary to resume these bur- dens, they took them up in the reverse order — thus disclosing the same preference for a masked rather than an open charge, which we observe in our mod- ern societies.
3. From the time of the reimposition of the di- rect taxes in the consulate of Hirtius and Pansa to the time of Diocletian, we have about three hun- dred and twenty-five years, during which the public charges were much heavier than they had previously NOTE.] OF THE ROMANS. 389 been, with an average tendency to grow heavier still.
i. From the time of Diocletian to the closing days of the empire — a period of something less than two centuries — taxation settled like a vampire upon the Eoman world, literally absorbing the life-prin- ciple of the state. The imperial indictions and su- perindictions, which we now meet, fell with dis- tractive weight upon agriculture, a branch of indus- try upon which the Koman power was stiU more dependent than is the power of any great state at the present time. Sir James Stephen says that the land tax in Gaul rose "to the almost incredible amount of one third of the net produce of the land"; and, as the indiction extended to all the lands of the empire, and was based upon an actual survey as to amount, and classification as to quality, it is presumable that the tax laid upon the Gaulish lands may be taken as a fair sample of the general burden.^ "The curse of fiscal tyranny," adds the same writer, speaking of the condition of Gaul, "had depopulated extensive districts, had stricken the land with barrenness, had swept away all the smaller pro- prietors, had degraded into slaves the actual culti- vators of the soil, and had broken asunder the bonds by which the wealthy and the poor had once been united; and now, when the very name and shadow of the empire was departing, the fairest of her former possessions awaited as a helpless prey the 390 GEANDETIR AND DECADENCE [eakeb.
first formidable arm and resolute will wUcIl should assert a sovereignty over it." As we might expect, the collection of these ruinous impositions upon the lands of the empire was guarded by legal penalties of monstrous rigor. By a law of the Theodosian Code, death and confiscation of estate was the pun- ishment denoimced against the farmer who should attempt to evade the tax. And a certain periodical tax — which was collected upon other industries at intervals of four years — appears to have been equally oppressive. According to Gibbon, "the historian Zosimus laments that the approach of the fatal pe- riod was announced by the tears and terrors of the citizens, who were often compelled by the impending scourge to embrace the most abhorred and unnatural methods of procuring the sum at which their prop- erty had been assessed." The additional remark of the English historian, that "the testimony of Zosi- mus cannot indeed be justified from the charge of passion and prejiidice," need not reflect the slightest discredit upon the statement of this writer, when read, as it should be, in the light of that law of the Theodosian Code to which I have just alluded — the atrocious inhumanity of which not only shows the wide difference between the fiscal enactments of the Koman emperors and those of our own time, but furnishes a solid ground for belief that shocking cruelty was practiced in the collection of the impo- sitions. Where the legal punishment for the evasion NOTE.] OF THE ROMANS. 391 of taxes is death and confiscation, the employment of the scourge in their collection is by no means improbable.
In short — tracing the power of Home from its origin to its fall — the tax imposed upon her citizens and subjects was first moderate, then nil, then heavy, and finally crushing."
2 See Gibbon's Rome, New York, 1852, vol. i, pp. 189-196; vol. ii, pp. 141-150; Adam's Rom. Ant., Phila., 1872, pp. 45, 46; Oicero, De Officiis, lib. ii, c. xxii; Suetonius, Julitts Ccesar, 43; Stephen's Lectures on the His- tory of France, London, 1852, vol. i, pp. 24, 54, 55; Guizot's Sistoire de la Civilisation en France, torn, i, pp. 50, 61; Smith's Wealth of Nations, Phila., 1789, vol. i, pp. 64, 284, 285.
392 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [montesqoteu.
CHAPTEE XIX, GEEATNESS OF ATTILA. OATJSB OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE BAEBAEIANS. BEASONB "WHY THE WESTEEN EMPIEE FELL FIEST.
Since Christianity grew stronger as the empire grew weaker, the Christians reproached the Pagans, and the Pagans arraigned the Christians, as being the cause of the decay of the state. The Christians said that Diocletian had ruined the empire by his policy of associating three colleagues with himself; ' that each emperor incurred as great expenses, and sup- ported as large armies, as if he had been the sole ruler; and that, the number of those who gave, being no longer justly proportioned to the number of those who received, the burdens of the government had become so oppressive that the cultivated lands, abandoned by the laborers, were grown over with forests. The Pagans, on the contrary, incessantly cried out against the new worship, unheard of until recently; and, as formerly, when Eome was flourish- ing, the floods of the Tiber and other efEects of nature ' LACTANTins, On tJie Death of Persecutors.
CHAP. XIX.] OF THE ROMANS. 393 were attributed to the wratli of the gods, so now, when Eome was dying, the public calamities were imputed to the new religion, and to the overthrow of the ancient altars.
In a letter written to the emperors on the sub- ject of the altar of Victory," the prefect Symmachus makes the most of the popular argument against Christianity — ^the argument which was consequently the one most capable of misleading. "What," said he, " can better conduct us to a knowledge of the gods than the experience of our past prosperity? We ought to be faithful to the example of so many ages, and follow our fathers as they so happUy fol- lowed theirs. Be persuaded that Eome addresses you and says to you: ' Great Princes! Fathers of your country! respect my years, during which I have con- stantly observed the religion of my ancestors. It is this religion that has siibjected the world to my laws! It was by this that Hannibal was repelled from my walls, and that the Gauls were driven from the Capi- tol! ' It is for the gods of our country that we sup- plicate peace; we entreat it in behaK of the indig- nant gods! We enter into no disputes which are ^ In pagan times the altar and the statue of Victory had stood in the senate chamber, and upon this altar the senators were aworn. Gibbon describes the goddess as " a majestic female standing on a globe, with flowing garments, expanded wings, and a crown of laurel in her out- stretched hand." The altar and the statue had been removed by Conatan- tius, replaced by Julian, again removed by Gratian, and now the pagan party sought to hare it again restored. (Gibbon's Rome, New York, 1852, vol. iii, pp. 133-136.) — Tkanslator.
394 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [moniesquied.
proper only to idle men; and we offer prayers and not violence.'"
Three celebrated writers replied to Symmachus. Orosius composed bis history in order to prove that the world had always been the theatre of as great calamities as those of which the Pagans complained. Salvian wrote a book in which he maintained that it was the disorders of the Christian church which had drawn upon the empire the ravages of the barba- rians; * and St. Augustin showed that the City of God was different from that city of the earth in which the ancient Komans had — by means of some human virtues — received recompenses which were as vain as these virtues."
We have said that it was the early policy of the Romans to divide every power that gave them um- brage; but in the course of time they were no longer able to do so. They were powerless to pre- vent Attila from subduing all the nations of the ITorth. He extended his sway from the Danube to the Rhine — destroyed all the fortifications and works which had iieen erected upon these rivers — and laid both the empire of the East and the West under tribute. " Theodosius," he had the insolence to say, " is, like myself, the son of a very noble father; but, by paying tribute to me, he has forfeited his birth- right, and become my slave; and it is not right that ' Zetters of Symmachus, Book X, letter liv.
* The Oovernmeni of God. ■ ^ T/ie City of God.
it CHAP. XIX.] OF THE ROMANS. 395 he, like a bad slave, should set snares for his mas- ter.""
"It is not fit," said he on another occasion, "that an emperor should be a liar. He has promised one of my subjects that he would give him the daughter of Saturninus in marriage. If he will not keep his word, I wiU declare war against him; if he can not, and is in such a condition that his subjects dare to disobey him, I wiU march to his relief."
"We need not suppose it was from moderation that Attila suffered the Romans to exist. He fol- lowed the custom of his nation, which led them not to conquer, but to render other peoples tributary to their power. This prince, quartered in the wooden house in which he is represented to us by Priscus," master of all the barbaric nations, and in some sort master of nearly all the polished nations as well,° was one of the grandest monarchs of whom history ' Gothic History, and Relation of the Mmbassy, written by Priscus. It was Theodosiua the Younger.
' The utterance of these words grew out of an affair which shows that, however insolent their tone, they carried a merited reproof to a rery unworthy monarch. A plot for the assassination of Attila, to which Theodosiua the Younger was privy, had been concocted in Constantinople. The conspiracy was disclosed to its intended victim, who at once dis- patched an embassy to the Court of the East, where, according to Gib- bon's account of the incident, the reproof was administered directly to the emperor, in presence of his courtiers, by an embassador of the king of the Huns. (Gibbon's Rome, vol. iii, pp. 416-418.) — Tkanslator.
' Gothic History: Hoe sedes regis harhariem totam tenentis, hmc captis civitatibtis habitacida prmponebat. ( Joknandes, De Rebus getids.)
' It appears, from the Relation of Priscus, that the idea of imposing tribute upon the Persians also was entertained at the court of Attila.
396 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [montesquieu.
speaks. We see at his court the embassadors of the Eastern and the "Western empire — come to receive his laws or to implore his clemencj. Sometimes he de- manded the rendition of Huns who had deserted, or of Eoman slaves who had escaped. At other times he desired that some minister of the emperor should be delivered into his hands. He levied a tribute of two thousand one hundred pounds of gold upon the empire of the East." He received the emoluments of a general of the Eoman armies. Those whom he wished to reward he sent to Constantinople, in order that they might be loaded with presents — carrying on thus a constant traffic in the fears of the Eo- mans.
He was feared by his subjects, but it does not appear that he was hated by them." Prodigiously proud, and yet cunning; fiery in his wrath, and yet knowing how to pardon, or to proportion his punish- ments to his interests; never making war when peace was sufficiently profitable, he was faithfully waited upon by dependent kings, whilst reserving for him- self alone the simplicity of the ancient manners of the Huns. Eor the rest, one cannot bestow much praise upon the courage of the chief of a nation in which the sons were seized with frenzy at the re- cital of the warlike feats of their fathers, whilst the '" This was an annual tribute. (Gibbon's Rome, vol. iii, p. 402.) — Translator.
" For the character of this prince, and the manners of his court, Jor- nandea and Priscus should be consulted.
CHAP. XIX.] OP THE ROMANS. 397 fathers wept because they were no longer able to imitate their sons."
After the death of Attila, all the barbaric nations were again separated; but the Komans were so feeble that no nation was so weak as to be unable to hurt them.
It was no particular inyasion, but all of them to- gether, that ruined the empire. After the invasion which had taken place under Gallus, and which was so general, it appeared to be re-established, for the reason that it had lost no territory; but, step by step, it proceeded from its decline to its fall, until, under Arcadius and Honorius, it sank suddenly down."
In vain had the barbarians been repeatedly driven back into their own countries; they would have gone " It may be of interest to add here the physical portrait of this re- markable barbarian, in whom, on the mental side, we can so distinctly trace the rude lineaments of the spirit of chivalry. Following Jornandes, Gibbon says of the person of Attila: " His features, according to the ob- servation of a Gothic historian, bore the stamp of his national origin; and the portrait of Attila exhibits the genuine deformity of a modem Calmuk; a large head, a swarthy complexion, small, deep-seated eyes, a flat nose, a few hairs in the place of a beard, broad shoulders, and a short, square body, of nervous strength, though of a disproportioned form." (Vol. iii, p. 389.)— Translatoe.
" Montesquieu is not here to be understood as meaning that the West- em empire terminated with the reign of Honorius, A. D. 395-423, but simply as characterizing, by a strong expression, the great and sudden collapse which it experienced during this reign, and from which it never recovered. It will be seen that he subsequently speaks of Odoacer as giving the "mortal blow" which finished the empire of the West, thus directing the mind to Augustulus (whom Odoacer set aside) as the last of the Western emperors, and to the year a. d. 476 or 479 as the date of the final catastrophe. (See Gibbon's Home, vol. iii, pp. 512, 513, and note 125.) — Tkanslator.
ggg GRANDEUK AND DECADENCE [montesquibu.
back all the same in order to secure their plunder. In vain were they exterminated; cities -were none the less sacked, towns burned, and families killed or dis- persed."
When one province had been laid waste, the bar- barians who came after, finding nothing left, were obliged to pass on to another. At first they only ravaged Thrace, Moesia, and Pannonia. When these countries had been devastated, they ruined Macedon, Thessaly, and Greece; and thence it was necessary that they should penetrate to Noricum. The empire — that is, the inhabited part of it — continually dimin- ished, and Italy became the frontier.
The reason why the barbarians made no perma- nent establishment under Gallus and Gallienus was, that they still found countries to pillage.
In like manner, when the Normans — who were the very image of the conquerors of the Koman em- pire— had ravaged France during many centuries, and when at length they no longer found anything to plunder, they accepted a province which was totally devastated, and divided it among themselves."
During the times of which we speak, Scythia be- ing almost wholly uncultivated," its peoples were " The Goths were a very destructive nation. They destroyed all the laborers of Thrace, and out off the hands of all wagon-drivers. (Mal- CHOS, Byzantine History, in the Excerpt ofilie Embassies.)
'* See, in the Chronicles collected by Andr^ of Chesne, the state of this province towards the end of the ninth, and at the beginning of the tenth century. (Script. Norm. hist, veteres.)
" The Goths, as we have already said, did not cultivate their lands.
CHAP. XIX.] OF THE ROMANS. 399 subject to frequent famines. They subsisted in part by means of commerce with the Bomans, who car- ried them food from the neighboring provinces of the Danube." The barbarians gave in return the articles of booty which they had obtained by pillage, the prisoners whom they had taken in war, and the gold and silver which they had received as the price of their peace. But, when the empire could no longer afford to pay them tributes sufficiently large to enable them to subsist, they were forced to estab- lish themselves."
The empire of the West was the first to fall. The reasons for this were as follows: Aiter passing the Danube, the barbarians found the Bosporus, Constantinople, and all the forces of the Eastern empire to their left. This arrested them in that direction, and caused «^;hem to turn to the right, in the direction of Illyria, and to push on to the West. There was thus a reflux and a transfer of nations westward. The passes into Asia being The Tandals called them Ti-ulles — the name of a small measure — for the reason that during a famine they sold them such a measure of grain at a very high price. (Oltmpiodokus, in the BiUiothelce of Photius, Book XXX.)
" We see in Priscus' History that there were trading posts estab- lished by treaties along the shores of the Danube.
" When the Goths sent a deputation to request Zeno to receive Theodoric, son of Triarius, into his alliance on the same terms which he had accorded to Theodoric, son of Balaraer, the senate, after consulting, made answer that the revenues of the state were not sufficient to support two Gothic nations, and that it was necessary to choose the friendship of the one or the other. {Malchm' History, in the Excerpt of the Embas- sies).
400 GEANDEUR AND DECADENCE [montesquieu.
better guarded, all moved towards Europe; whereas at the time of the first invasion, under GaUus, the forces of the barbarians separated."
The empire having been really divided, the em- perors of the East, who had entered into alliances with the barbarians, would not break with them in order to succor the emperors of the West. This division of the administration, says Priscus,'" was very prejudicial to the affairs of the "West. Thus, the Komans of the East — because of their alliance with the Vandals — refused a fleet to their brethren of the "West; " the Yisigoths, having formed an alli- ance with Arcadins, entered the "Western empire, and Honorius was obliged to seek refuge in Ravenna;" and Zeno, with a view of getting rid of Theodoric, persuaded him to invade Italy — which Alaric had already ravaged.
There was a very close alliance between AttUa and Genseric, king of the Yandals." The latter feared the Goths." He had married his son to the daughter of the Gothic king, and, after having caused her nose to be cut off, he had returned her. It was " The great invasion, or rather Invasions, under Decius and Gallus — A. D. 249-253 — ^took place about seventy years before the founding pf Constantinople, and consequently before the line of the Bosporus had been so strengthened as to deflect the whole force of the barbarians upon the European provinces, after they had crossed the Danube. — Teanslatok.
»» PRISC0S, Book II. " Ibid.
°^ Peooopius, War of the Vandals. '' Prisocs, Book II.
'* See JoENANDES, De Bebus geiicis, cap. xxxvi.
CHAP. XIX.] OF THE ROMANS. 401 therefore that he united himself with Attila; and the two empires, bound as it were in chains by these two barbaric princes, did not dare to succor each other. The condition of the Western empire was especially deplorable. It had no fBrce upon sea. The entire marine was in the East " — in Egypt, Cyprus, Phoenicia, Ionia, Greece — the only countries in which any commerce was then carried on. The Yandals and other barbaric nations attacked the West on all sides. We learn from Priscus that an embassy of Italians was sent to Constantinople for the pur- pose of making it known that it was impossible for the Western empire to maintain itself longer without a reconciliation with the Vandals."
Those who governed in the West were not want- ing in policy. They decided that it was necessary to save Italy, which was in some sort the head and the heart of the empire. The barbarians were re- moved to the frontier provinces, and there located. The design was well conceived and well executed. These nations demanded nothing more than a sub- sistence. Plains were assigned to them; mountainous countries, defiles, passes over watercourses, and strong- holds along the great rivers, were reserved — as was also the sovereignty of the empire." Appearances '5 This is especially apparent in the war between Constantine and Licinius.
'« Peiscus, Book n.
'' For the purpose of fixing a definite conception, by means of a familiar illustration, I will again draw attention to the similarity of the 402 GRAifDEUR AND DECADENCE [montesquietj.
indicated that the barbaric nations would have been forced to become Komans; and the facility with which these destroyers were themselves destroyed by the Franks, by the Byzantine Greeks, and by the Moors, sufficiently justifies that idea. But this whole system was overturned by a revolution which was more fatal than all the others. The army of Italy — composed of foreigners — exacted the same terms which had been accorded to nations more foreign still. Under Odoacer this army formed an aristocracy which ap- propriated to itself one third of the lands of Italy; and thus the mortal blow was given to the empire.
In the midst of so many disasters we feel a sad curiosity in following the destiny of the city of Eome. It was, so to speak, without defence; it could be easily reduced by famine; and the extent of its walls rendered it very difficult to defend them. As the city was situated upon a plain, it could be readily carried by storm. Its people — who were ex- tremely reduced in numbers — were without resources. The emperors were compelled to retire to Eavenna, a city formerly defended by the sea, as Yenice is at the present day.
Being nearly always abandoned by their sover- eigns, the Koman people began to become sovereign themselves, and to make treaties for their own pres- Indian policy of the United States and the policy of the Romans in set- tling the barbarians within the limits of the empire. We notice, in both cases, a like reservation of the ultimate sovereign power. — Translator.
CHAP. XIX.] OP THE EOMANS. 403 ervation,"' thus adopting the most legitimate means for the acquisition of sovereign power. It was thus also that the people of Armorica and Brittany began first to live under their own laws." " Such was the end of the empire of the "West. Kome had grown great for the reason that she had only conducted wars which were successive, each na- tion, by an inconceivable good fortune, not attacking her until another had been ruined. Home was de- stroyed for the reason that all nations attacked her at once, and penetrated her dominions on all sides.
"^^ Alaric, who besieged Eome during the reign of Honoring, com- pelled that city to accept his alliance, even against the emperor, who was unable to help himself. (PROOOFins, Gothic War, Book I.) See Zosi- mus, Book VI.
" ZosiMus, Book VI.
404 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [bakee.
NOTE BY THE TEANSLATOE.