This abominable worship — a monstrous outbirth from the Semitic genius— followed the expansion of that race from Syria to the straits of Gibraltar, pol- luting the fairest heaven with the smoke of its al- NOTE.] OF THE ROMANS. 105 tars, and filling the minds of its votaries with gloom and terror. The description which Deodorus Sicnlus gives of the Carthaginian Moloch is no less revolting than the above — a brazen image with outstretched arms so inclined as to roll the child "into a pit be- low, filled with fire "; and Dr. Davis is satisfied, that the "ashes and bones" which he found in the deep excavation which he made upon the site of the ancient temple of Baal Hammon at Carthage, were the identical "remains of the victims immolated to this divinity." Nor were infants the only human sacrifices which were made. Adults were also ac- ceptable to the god, although it seems that children were the favorite and usual offering. And the num- ber who were sacrificed appears to have been shock- ingly great. "WTien Agathocles invested Carthage, no fewer than two hundred children, drawn from the first families of the city, were offered up to appease the wrath of Baal; and besides these, it seems that more than three hundred adult persons presented themselves as voluntary victims on the same occa- sion. Over against this it may be stated that, when Home was all but overwhelmed by the defeat at Cannae, the burying alive of four persons — two Greeks and two Gauls — was sufficient to satisfy her superstitious fears.
Judging the Carthaginians therefore only by such lights as we have in the total absence of the story which they might have told for themselves had their 106 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [baker.
literature survived, and assigning to them tlie most liberal credits — as in such case justice demands that we should do — ^yet, the sinister side of their character rather plainly appears to have united the two fatal drawbacks of supreme avarice and rapacity, and su- preme devotion to a gloomy and bloody superstition. These qualities rendered them unfit to take charge of the general interests of civilization; and we may very safely conclude that it was not alone the des- tiny, but also the better forttme, of the Mediterranean world, that it was subjected to the Eoman instead of the Carthaginian yoke.'
' Aristotle's Politics, ch. xi; Arnold's HM. of Rome, ch. xxii, & ch. xxxix, notes 2 & 14; Hume's Phil. Works, Boston, 1854, vol. iii, pp. Vl, 478; Stephen's Lectures on Hist, of France, London, 1852, Tol. i, p. 24; Adam's Rom. Ant., Phila., 18'72, pp. 214, 215, 221; Potter's Oredan Ant., Edinburgh, 1808, vol. i, pp. 257, 258; Livy, Book XXII, ch. 61; Gibbon's flome, vol. i, pp. 27-28; Anthon's Clas. Die., art. Cartluti Carthage and her Remains, N. Y., 1861, ch. xiii.
MONTESQUiEn.] OF THE ROMANS. 107 CHAPTER Y.
STATE OF GEEECE, OF MAOEDOlf, OF 8TEIA AND EGYPT, AFTER THE ABASEMENT OF CAETHAGE.
I IMAGINE that Hannibal indulged in yerj few fine sayings, and fewer still in favor of Fabius and Mar- cellus and against himself. I regret to see Liry scat- ter his flowers' of rhetoric over these colossal figures of antiquity, and would prefer that he had followed the example of Homer, who, whilst neglecting the decoration of his heroes, knows so well how to make them act.
It were at all events necessary that the remarks attributed to Hannibal should be sensible ones; but, if, on being informed of the defeat of his brother, he declared that he foresaw in that defeat the ruin of Carthage, I know nothing which could have been better calculated to depress the hopes of the peoples attached to his cause, and to discourage an army which looked forward to such great recompenses after the war should be finished.
As the Carthaginians put forward no army in Spain, Sardinia or Sicily, which was not unfortunate, -j^Qg GEANDEUE AND DECADENCE [MONTESQPiEn.
Hannibal, whose enemies constantly grew stronger, was finally reduced to the necessity of making war on the defensive. This suggested to the Eomans the idea of carrying the war into Africa; and Scipio descended upon the southern shore of the Mediterra- nean. The successes which there attended his arms compelled the Carthaginians to recall Hannibal — ^who, in abandoning to the Komans a country in which he had so often vanquished them, shed tears of bitter regret.
All that a great statesman and a great general could do, Hannibal did to save his country. Not being able to incline Scipio to peace, he gave a bat- tle, in which Fortune seeined to take pleasure in con- founding his ability, his experience, and his good sense.'
Carthage received peace, not from an enemy, but from a master. She was required to give hostages, to deliver over her vessels and her elephants, to pay ten thousand talents in fifty years, to engage in no war whatever vdthout the consent of the Koman people; and, in order to hold her in perpetual hu- miliation, the power of Masinissa, her implacable ene- my, was strengthened.
' This was the battle of Zama, which was fought in Numidia, B. o. 202, at a point about " five days journey west of Carthage." (Anthoa's Clas. Die, articles Zama & Hannibal.) Here the power of the Cartha- ginians was irrecoverably broken. Their subsequent history is short, and is marked by the desperate but vain effort to rise again. At the close of the third Punic War, fifty-six years after the battle of Zama — b. c. 146 — Carthage was captured and burned by the Romans. — ^Tkanslator.
CHAP, v.] OF THE ROMANS. 109 After humbling the Carthaginians, Kome seldom had other than small wars and great victories; where- as, before that task was accomplished, she had had small victories and great wars.
Previous to the prostration of Carthage, there were, so to speak, two separate worlds. In the one, the Eomans and the Carthaginians contended for empire; the other was agitated by the quarrels which continued from the time of the death of Alexander the Great. The East gave no thought to what was going on in the West;' for, although Philip, king of Macedon, made a treaty with Hannibal, almost nothing came of it. He contributed but very feeble succors to the Carthaginians, and uselessly disclosed to the Romans a bad will.
"When two great peoples engage in a long and obstinate war, it is often bad policy in other nations to imagine that they can remain tranquil spectators of the conflict; for the one of the two which is con- queror immediately undertakes new wars, and a na- " It is surprising, as Joaephus remarks in the book against Api- on, that neither Herodotus nor Thucydides should erer have spoken of the Romans, notwithstanding they had carried on such great wars, (a) (a) We here see a striking illustration of the very limited intercom- munication which existed between the states of the ancient world when compared with that which exists between modern nations. The penin- sulas of Greece and Italy are only separated by an arm of the Mediter- ranean— itself an inland sea; and yet, for the purposes of mutual intelli- gence, they were much farther apart in the times of Herodotus and Thucydides, than are the continents of Europe and America at the present time. — Tbaksiatob.
110 GRANDEUK AND DECADENCE [montesquieu.
tion of soldiers proceeds to attack peoples who are only citizens.'
This was clearly illustrated at the time of which we speak; for the Eomans had scarcely subdued the Carthaginians, when they proceeded to assail new peoples, and to display their standard as invaders of the world.
There were then in the East but four powers capable of resisting them. These were the Eepub- lics of Greece and the Kingdoms of Macedon, Syria, and Egypt. It is necessary that we should look at the situation of the first two; for the Komans com- menced by subduing them.
There were three considerable peoples iu Greece — the ^tolians, the Achasans, and the Boeotians. These were associations of free cities, having general assemblies and common magistrates. The JEtohans were warlike, hardy, rash, avaricious of gain, always free with their word and their oath, and making war upon land as pirates do upon sea. The Achseans were incessantly harassed by their neighbors or by ' What is here said was much more true in ancient than it is in modern times; and this is one of the prominent facts which go to prove the relatively greater ascendency of the military spirit among the na- tions of antiquity than is seen in our own day. Supposing our Ke- public to have been influenced by the ancient spirit, it is eminently like- ly that her great armies, triumphant over the Rebellion in 1866, would have been turned upon Mexico or Canada; and, upon a similar sup- position, it is equally likely that the returning armies of the German Empire, fresh from their triumphal march through Paris in 1871, would have been diverted to new fields of aggressive operation. — Tbass- LATOK.
CHAP, v.] OF THE ROMANS. HI their inconvenient protectors.* The Boeotians, the dullest of the Greeks, took the least part they could in general affairs. Guided solely by the sentiment of present good and evil, they had. so little spirit that it was difficult for the orators to move them; and — what is extraordinary — their republic maintained itself even in a state of anarchy.'
Lacedsemon had preserved her power— that is to say, she had retained that warlike spirit which she had received from the institiltions of Lycurgus. The Thessalians were in some sort subject to the Mace- donians. The kings of Illyria had already been ex- tremely crippled by the Eomans. The Acarnanians and the Athamanes were ravaged successively by the forces of Macedon and by those of.^tolia. The Athenians, without allies," and without power of their own, had ceased to astonish the world except by the flattery of kings; and the tribune, where Demosthenes had spoken, was no longer ascended except for the proposal of the most cowardly and scandalous de- crees.
* Reference seems here to be made to the Macedonians, whose aid was involied by Aratus, the Achjean commander, in the war which he was carrying on against Cleomenes, king of Sparta. As usual, the friendly aid of the powerful protector soon degenerated into oppression. — Teanslatok.
' The magistrates, in order to please the multitude, ceased to open the tribunals. The dying bequeathed their estates to their friends, to be ex- pended in feasts. See a fragment of the twentieth Book of Polybius, in the Extract of Virtues arid Vices.
^ They had no alliance with the other peoples of Greece. (Polybius, Book VIII.)
112 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [MONTBSQTTnm.
Greece was otherwise formidable from her situa- tion, her strength, the multitude of her cities, the number of her soldiers, her police, her manners, and her laws. She loved war and she knew the art of war. She would have been invincible if she had been united. She had been surprised by the first Philip, by Alexander and Antipater, but not subju- gated; and the kings of Macedon, who could not consent to abandon their pretensions and their hopes, persisted obstinately in the work of subduing her.
Macedon was almost surrounded by inaccessible mountains. Her people were admirably adapted to war. They were brave, obedient, industrious and in- defatigable— qualities which they must have taken from the climate — since yet at the present day the men who are drawn from this country are the best soldiers of the Turkish empire.
Greece maintained herself by a sort of balance of power. The Lacedsemonians were generally allies of the ^tolians, and the Macedonians of the Achseans. But, upon the arrival of the Komans, all equihbrium was destroyed.
As the kings of Macedon could not support 'a large number of troops,' the least reverse was of consequence to them; and they found it difficult to extend their power; for, their designs not being un- known, the eyes of the other states were constantly open to their proceedings; and the successes which ' See Plutarch, Life of Flaminius.
CHAP, v.] 01? THE ROMANS. 113 they acliieved in wars undertaken for their allies were regarded as evils which these same allies were the first to counteract.
But these kings were generally able princes. Their monarchy was not of the number of those which move forward by a species of pace imparted at the beginning. Continually instructed by dangers and by affairs, embarrassed by all the quarrels of Greece, it was necessary for them to gain the principal per- sons of cities, to dazzle the people, and to divide or reunite interests; in short, they were obliged, at each instant, to exhibit personal ability.
Philip,' who, by his moderation at the beginning of his reign, had drawn to himself the love and the confidence of the Greeks, suddenly changed his course. At a time when he should have been just from policy and from ambition he became a cruel tyrant.' He saw, although at a distance, the Cartha- ginians and the Eomans, whose forces were immense. He had finished the war in which he had engaged to the advantage of his allies; and he had reconciled himself with the ^tolians. It was natural that he should think of uniting the whole of Greece with himself, in order to prevent it from falling under the dominion of foreigners. But, on the contrary, he irritated the Greeks by small usurpations; and, amus- ing himself with the discussion of vain interests when ' Philip V of Macedon is here meant. — Translator. ' See, in PolybiuB, the injustices and the cruelties by which Philip brought himself into discredit.
114 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [mohtesquieu.
his very existence was at stake, by three or four bad actions he rendered himseH odious and detestable to all Greece.
The JEtolians were most ofEended; and the Ko- mans, seizing the occasion of their resentment, or rather of their foUy, formed an alliance with them, entered into Greece, and armed it against Philip.
This prince was defeated at the battle of Cynos- cephalse; and that victory was due in part to the valor of the ^Etolians. Philip was so overwhelmed with consternation that he consented to a treaty which was less a peace than an abandonment of his own forces. He withdrew his garrisons from all Greece, delivered over his vessels, and obligated him- seK to pay one thousand talents in ten years.
"With his usual good sense, Polybius compares the military method of the Eomans with that of the Macedonians — which last had been adopted by aU the successors of Alexander the Great. He points out the advantages and the inconveniences of the pha- lanx and the legion. He gives the preference to the latter; and, if we are to judge by the events of the time, it would appear that he was right."
'» [Bossuet, in his Discours mr VHhtoire universelle, states these ad- Tantages and inconveniences, and, after having weighed them, accepts the opinion of Polybius, who for the rest has been followed by Livy, and by most of the writers who have occupied themselves with military mat- ters. The following are the remarks of the bishop of Meaux: " The Macedonians, so jealous in preserving the ancient order of their soldiery which had been formed by Philip an^l Alexander, believed that their phalanx was invincible; and they could not be persuaded that the CHAP, v.] OF THE ROMANS. 115 A circumstance wMcli contributed mucli to put the Eomans in peril during the second Punic war was the fact that Hannibal straightway armed his soldiers in the Eoman manner. But the Greeks changed neither their arms nor their method of fighting. It did not so much as enter into their minds to renounce usages by means of which they had accomplished such great results.
The success which the Eomans achieved against human mind was capable of contriving anytliing more firm. Polybius, however, and Livy after him, have demonstrated that, considering solely the nature of the Roman and the Macedonian armies, the latter could not fail to be beaten in the long run; for the Macedonian phalanx, which was but a great square battalion, and very heavy throughout, could only move as a whole; whereas the Roman army, divided into small bodies, was more active, and better adapted to all sorts of movements.
" The Romans then had discovered or very early learned the art of di- viding armies into many battalions and squadrons, and of forming corps of reserve, of which the movement was so proper to push on or sustain those who might give way at one point or another. Let the Macedonian phalanx move against troops thus disposed. That big and unwieldy ma- chine will be terrible, it is true, to an army on which it may fall with all its weight. But, as Polybius says, it could not long preserve its natural propriety — that is, its solidity and its consistence; for it required fields of action adapted to its composition, and, so to speak, made expressly for it; and in default of finding such it became self-embarrassed, or rather it broke from its own proper movement; and, being once broken, it knew not how to rally. On the other hand, the Roman army, being divided into small bodies, profited by all places, and accommodated itself to them. It united and separated at will. It defiled easily and reassembled with- out difiiculty. It was adapted to the sending out of detachments, to rally- ing, and to all sorts of changes and evolutions, which it executed entire or in part as occasion required. It had more diverse movements, and consequently more action and more force than the phalanx. We con- clude, therefore, with Polybius, that it was necessary that the phalanx should succumb to it, and that Macedou should be conquered." {TroisUme pariie, ch. vi.)]
;|^-|^0 GRANDEUK AND DECADENCE [montesquieu.
PHlip was the greatest of all the steps which they took in the way of general conquest." In order to assure themselves of Greece, they humbled, in all manner of ways, those very JEtolians who had helped them to conquer her; and they ordered that every Greek city which had been under the domin- ion of Philip or of any other prince should be gov- erned for the future by its own laws.
It is easy to see that these small republics could not be other than dependents. The Greeks aban- doned themselves to a stupid joy, and believed them- selves to be free in fact, for the reason that the Eomans had declared them so.
The ^tolians, who had imagined that they should dominate in Greece, finding that they had only given themselves masters, were reduced to despair; and — as they always took extreme resolutions — seeking now to correct their folly by their foUy, they called Antiochus, king of Syria, into Greece, as they had previously called in the Romans.
The kings of Syria were the most powerful of the successors of Alexander, for they possessed near- ly all the states of Darius except Egypt; but events had taken place which had led to a great reduction of their power.
Seleucus, who founded the empire of Syria, had, " If we regard the greatness of an achievement as proportioned to its difficulty, the prostration of the power of Carthage must be viewed as a much greater step in the career of Roman conquest than the subjuga- tion of Greece. — Translator.
CHAP, v.] OF THE ROMANS. 117 towards the close of his life, destroyed the kingdom of Lysimachus. In the confusion of things many provinces revolted. The kingdoms of Pergamns, Cap- padocia, and Bithynia were formed; and these small and timid states constantly regarded the humilia- tion of their ancient masters as fortunate for them- selves.
As the kings of Syria always looked with ex- treme envy upon the felicity of the kingdom of Egypt, they were absorbed with the purpose of con- quering it. This led them to neglect the East; and the result was that they there lost many provinces, whilst they were very badly obeyed in the others.
Finally, the kings of Syria held both high and low Asia. But experience has shown in such case that, when the capital and the principal forces are in the provinces of low Asia, the dependencies of high Asia cannot be preserved; and that, when the seat of empire is in high Asia, it is weakened on the side of the lower provinces. The empires of Persia and Syria were never so strong as that of the Parthians, who only held part of the provinces of the first two. If Cyrus had not conquered the kingdom of Lydia — if Seleucns had remained at Babylon, and left the maritime provinces to the successors of Antigonus — the empire of Persia would have been invincible to the Greeks, and that of Seleucns to the Komans. To mortify the ambition of men, nature has pre- scribed certain boundaries to states. Whenever the jj^g GRANDEUK AND DECADENCE [montesquieu.
Komans transgressed these, they almost invariably perished at the hands of the Parthians;" whenever the Parthians dared to disregard them, they were immediately obliged to retrace their steps; and, in our own day, the Turks, who have advanced be- yond these limits, have been constrained to retire within them.
The kings of Syria and Egypt had in their re- spective countries two classes of subjects — ^the con- quering and the conquered peoples.'^ The first, yet full of the idea of their origin, were very difficult to govern. They had not that spirit of independence which prompts men to throw off the yoke, but they were influenced by that impatience which creates the desire for a change of masters.
But the principal weakness of the kingdom of Syria arose from the feebleness of the Court, in which reigned the successors of Darius rather than of Alexander. Luxury, vanity, and efileminacy, which at no period have quitted the courts of Asia, were especially supreme in that of Syria. The malady extended to the people and to the soldiers, and be- came contagious among the Romans themselves; for the war which the latter made against Antiochus marks the true epoch of their corruption.
Such was the situation of Syria when Antiochus '^ I will give the reasons for this In chapter xv. They arc drawn in part from the geographical characters of the two empires.
" That is, the conquering Greeks and the conquered Syrians and Egyptians. — Tkanslatok.
CHAP, v.] OF THE ROMANS. H9 — who had heretofore accomplished great things — undertook to make war against the Komans. But on this occasion he did not conduct himself even with the same prudence which men employ in ordi- nary affairs. Hannibal advised that the war should be renewed in Italy, and that Philip of Macedon should be gained or rendered neutral." Antiochus did nothing of the kind. He presented himself in Greece with a small part of his forces; and, as if he had desired to be a spectator of war, instead of en- gaging in it, he occupied himself with his pleasures only. He was beaten, and fled back into Asia — more frightened than conquered.
Philip — drawn along by the Romans during this war as by a torrent — aided them with all his power, and became the instrument of their victories. The pleasure of revenging himself and of ravaging ^to- lia — ^the jealousy which he felt towards Antiochus — the promise that his tribute should be diminished and that some cities should be left to him — ^in short, small motives determined his course; and, not dar- ing to conceive the thought of throwing off the Eoman yoke, his only study was to mitigate its rigor.
Antiochus judged so badly of affairs that he im- agined that the Eomans would leave him undis- turbed in Asia. But they followed him into his " Hannibal was now at the court of Antiochus, whither he had fled B. c. 196 — some six years after the battle of Zama, and in about the fifty-first year of his age. — Tkanslator.
-^20 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [montesquieu.
own dominions; they defeated him again; and, in his consternation, he consented to the most in- famous treaty that was eyer accepted by a great prince.
I know nothing so magnanimous as the resolu- tion taken by a monarch who has reigned in our own time" — to bury himself under the ruins of his throne sooner than accept proposals which a king ought not to hear. He possessed a soul too proud to descend yet lower than his misfortunes had placed him; and he knew that, whilst courage may reaffirm a crown, infamy never does."
" Louis XIV.
'' I suppose Montesquieu here alludes to some incidents in the life of Louis XIV which occurred during the war of the Spanish Succession. In the year 1709 France was grievously pressed by the combined forces of England, Holland, and Austria, and Louis was well-nigh reduced to the last extremity. He sued for peace upon the humblest terms; but the allies, whom he had deeply offended, and who felt that they now had him at their mercy, were inexorable. So deplorable was the condition of France that, upon a representation of the state of the kingdom being made at a sitting of the king's council, by the Duke de Beauvilliers, the whole council was moved to tears. The Marquis de Torsi, a member of the council, proposed to go in person on a mission of peace. He pro- ceeded under an assumed name to the Hague, and appeared in the ante- chamber of the Grand Pensionary, Heinsius. He could obtain no peace. The allies were willing, however, to accord a truce, but upon terms which were exceedingly humiliating, and coupled with conditions which were still more so — among which was the requirement that the French king " should unite his forces with those of his enemies, in order to drive his own grandson from Spain within the space of two months." It was upon being informed of these conditions that Louis is related to have said in presence of his council: " Since I must fight, I prefer to make war upon my enemies rather than upon my children." (PuisquHl faut /aire la guerre, faime mieux la /aire d mes ennemis qu'd mes enfans.) But the heroism of the incident is much impaired by the circumstance CHAP, v.] OF THE ROMANS. 121 It is a common thing to see princes -who know how to fight a battle; but there are few among them who know how to conduct a war; who are equally capable of availing themselves of fortune and of waiting for it; and who, together with that disposition of mind which imparts distrust before en- terprises are undertaken, possess that intrepidity which fears nothing after they are entered upon.
After the overthrow of Antiochus, only small powers remained — if we except Egypt — which, in view of its situation, its fertility, and its commerce, in view of the number of its inhabitants and the strength of its forces on land and sea, ought to have been a formidable state. But the cruelty, the cow- ardice, the avarice and imbecility of its kings, joined to their frightful sensuality, rendered them so odious to their subjects that, for the most part, they were only able to maintain themselves through the pro- tection of the Eomans.
It was in some sort a fundamental law of the crown of Egypt that sisters succeeded with brothers; that, still supplicating for peace, the plenipotentiaries of Louis soon af- terwards offered to recognize the Archduke Charles as king of Spain, to abandon Philip V to his fate, and even to furnish money to aid in expelling him from the Spanish throne.
At a later period of the war (1712) it is further related of this mon- arch that he told Marshall Harcourt " that, in case of a new disaster, he should summon all the noblesse of his kingdom, lead them against the enemy notwithstanding his age of 1i years, and perish at their head." Executed, this would have been an heroic or a mad action; threatened, it may have been no more than gasconade. (See Siicle de Louis XIV, chs. xxi, xxii.) — Teanslatoe. 6 J22 GEANDEUK AND DECADENCE [moNTESQuiEr.