and, in order to maintain the nnity of the govern- ment, the brother married the sister. It is difficult to imagine anything more pernicious in the polity of a state than such a succession. Every little domestic quarrel became a public disorder. The one of the two sovereigns who felt the least chagrin immediately excited against the other the people of Alexandria — an immense populace, always ready to join itself to the first of its rulers who appealed to it. In addition to this, the kingdoms of Gyrene and Cyprus being ordinarily in the hands of other princes of the same house, with reciprocal rights to all, it happened that there were nearly always princes reigning and princes who were pretenders to the crown. Thus it was that the sovereigns of Egypt were seated upon unstable thrones; and, being badly established within their own dominions, they were without power abroad.
The forces of the kings of Egypt, like those of the kings of Asia, consisted in their Greek auxiliaries. Aside from that spirit of liberty, of honor, and of glory, which animated the Greeks, they occupied themselves incessantly with all sorts of bodily exercises. They established games in their principal cities, at which the conquerors obtained crowns before the eyes of all Greece; and thsis a spirit of general emulation was created.
At a time when men fought with arms the eflS- ciency of which depended upon the physical strength and dexterity of those who used them, we cannot fail CHAP. T.] OF THE EOMANS. 123 to see tliat a nation of people tlius exercised would possess great advantages over that multitude of bar- barians who were taken indiscriminately and led to war without choice — as we clearly see in the case of the armies of Darius.
In order to deprive the kings of such soldiers, and to quietly strip them of their principal forces, the Eomans did two things. In the first place, they grad- ually established it as a maxim among the Greek cit- ies that the latter could form no alliance, supply no succors, nor wage any war whatever, without their consent. In the next place — in their treaties with the kings — they prohibited them from making any levies among the allies of the Homans, thus reducing them to the employment of their own national troops."
" The Eomans had already practiced this policy with the Carthagin- ians, whom they obligated by treaty to arail themselves no longer of the services of auxiliary troops — as we see in a fragment of Dion.
3^24 GEAITDEITK AND DECADENCE [bakeb.
NOTE BY THE TEANSLATOE.
At the close of this chapter — which carries us for- ward to a time when the Eomans had extended their power very considerably beyond the limits of Italy — it is proper to add some observations with a view of giving a more comprehensive and definite idea of the manner in which that power affected the interests of civilization in general.
Two leading facts challenge our attention. First, in extending her sway over southern Europe, Rome dealt almost exclusively with cities, towns, and vil- lage communities. Secondly, the general character of the society thus constituted was greatly changed by her domination. Much light will be shed upon the position which the Eomans occupy in universal his- tory by considering the social value of these two car- dinal'facts — involving, as the one does, a rational idea of the leading feature of European society when these conquerors commenced their career, and the other a like idea of the principal changes wrought in this society by the extension of their power.
1. In early times, southern Europe was covered HOTE.] or THE ROMANS. 125 over with independent towns or small combinations of towns, each surrounded by its little domain, and all occupied with ever-recurring quarrels among them- selves. As a general fact, these town communities were more developed in Greece and Italy, and less so in Spain and Gaul. Considering the comparative- ly limited territories over which they were dispersed, their number was very great. Thus, for the Italian peninsula, we have to count the numerous towns of Great Greece or southern Italy; those of Samnium, Latium, Umbria, Campania, Picenum, and Etruria; those of the Sabines, the ^quians, the Yolscians, the Marsians, the Hemicans, the Pelignians, the Frenta- nians, the Vestinians, and others. Of these, the httle Latin confederacy alone is said to have been made up of "forty -seven independent communities," by which we are to understand towns with diminutive portions of adjacent territory; and the ^quians — a people of still less importance — are reported to have possessed no less than forty " towns."
The Gallic peoples, lying further north, were di- vided into many tribes, with loose interdependence, and grouped about municipal centers of which we may form some idea at a later epoch from the ac- count of Csesar, and at an earlier one from the re- mains of the Swiss Lake Tillages of the stone and bronze periods. The number of these Gallic tribes is variously stated by ancient writers at from one hundred and fifteen to four himdred.
J26 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [bakee.
The peninsula of Spain was divided among a great number of these small communities, as is sufficiently apparent from the single statement of Livy, that Scipio, at the close of one campaign, received the submission of more than one hundred and twenty " states."
Crossing the Adriatic, we find that the same fun- damental fact reappears upon the Grecian peninsula. Small as this celebrated territory is, we find it occupied by a considerable number of municipal states — ^Attica, Bceotia, Laconia, Argolis, Messenia, Elis, Arcadia, Cor- inthia, Achia, Megaris, and the rest — whose histories are little more than the histories of Athens, Thebes, Sparta, Argus, and the other capital cities of Greece.
Indeed — ^to ascend from particulars to a general principle — the tribal and municipal character was a necessary feature of all the early societies. It was a direct consequence of that process by which primitive societies appear to have been everywhere formed, and which Aristotle points out with an acumen which his- torical investigation persistently tends to verify: first the family (hoikos), arising from the junction of the sexes; then the tribe, or village (kome), arising from the junction of several allied families; then the more extended state (polis), arising from the junction of several villages, or towns; and, it may be added, that as the family thus grew up into the municipal state, it very naturally gave to society its earliest form of civil government — the patriarchal.
NOTE.] OF THE ROMANS. 127 Guizot fully recognizes the nmmcipal character of that multitude of small European states which were ahsorbed by the Eoman power; but he does not couple the fact with the cause; nor does he recognize the like character as having belonged to the early states of Asia. And Mr. Baldwin, in his able and very suggestive work on " The Prehistoric Nations," observing the municipal type of the ancient Mediter- ranean states, regards this form of political organiza- tion in Europe as having been due to a still more ancient influence exerted by the Arabian Cushites; thus referring to the particular genius of a single people a form of organization which is necessarily common to all mankind in a certain stage of social development.
Thus, then, when the Eomans entered upon the stage of action, the civilization of the European world was divided up into a vast number of independent nuclei, with the consequent absence of extensive in- tercommunication and extensive social ideas, and the consequent presence of an ever-recurring succession of small wars. It appears probable that a society thus loosely constituted could hardly have stood as a bulwark against the accumulating force of the bar- barous nations beyond the Alps, the Rhine, and the Danube. It seems likely that it would have been prematurely overwhelmed by the first great waves of invasion that came from the north.
2. The Eomans changed this society in two main 128 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [bakeb.
respects: they gave it a considerable degree of tmity; and they conferred upon it the boon of internal peace. As their standards advanced, carrying war in front, their conquering arms left peace behind. The result ■was that the social condition of southern Europe be- came less distinctly municipal and more universal in its character, less intensely military and more indus- trial in its tone. And — ^to take what is probably the highest view of the subject — that great Mediterra- nean Society was thus formed which, in the then existing condition of the world, seemed to be de- manded as a counterpoise to the Barbarism of the North, and which performed its office so efficiently, not only by holding the barbarians in check during so many ages, but none the less by so modifying the threatening mass of barbarism itself, that, when its hour of triumph came, it was as much conquered by Eome as Rome by it. And thus it was that the Eomans, without consciously intending it, and not- withstanding their enormous greed and oppression, performed an exceedingly great role in the interest of the world's civilization.'
/ ' See Lubbock's Prehistoric Times, cb. vi; Eiitimeyer's Fauna der Fhalbauien in der Schweis, Basel, 1861, pp. 230-244; Gibbon's Rome, ch. i, note 1\; Livy, Book XXII, cb. 20, and XXVII, ch. 9, SpiUan & Edmonds' trans.; Arnold's Hist, of Rome, chs. xi and xlvi; Anthon's Clas. Die., art. JEqui; Ferguson's Hist, of Home, cb. i; Dionys. Halicar., lib. iv; Maine's Ancient Law, New York, 1864, pp. 118-122; Guizot'sSs- toire de la Civilisation en Europe, Paris, 1871, pp. 42-44; Baldwin's Pre- historic Nations, New York, ISYl, pp. 112-116; and Comte's PhUosopUe positive, Paris, 1869, torn, v, pp. 126, 121.
MONTESQUiEiT.] OF THE KOMANS. 129 CHAPTEE VI.
POLICY ADOPTED BY THE EOMANS FOE THE CONQITEST OF ALL NATIONS.
' In the course of so mucli prosperity — from which men ordinarily grow negligent — the Koman sen- ate was constantly actuated by the same profound policy; and, whilst the armies spread consternation on all sides, it held to the earth the nations which were once overthrown.
This body erected itself into a tribunal for the judgment of all peoples; and at the end of every war it decided upon the punishments and the recom- penses which it conceived each to be entitled to. It took away parts of the lands of the conquered states, in order to bestow them upon the allies of Eome, thus accomplishing two objects at once — attaching to Rome those tings of whom she had little to fear and much to hope, and weakening those of whom she had little to hope and all to fear.
Allies were employed to make war upon an enemy; but the destroyers were at once destroyed in their turn. Philip was beaten with the help of the ^to- ■^30 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [MONiESQriEu.
lians, who were immediately afterwards annihilated for having joined themselves to Antiochus. Antio- chus was beaten with the help of the Ehodians, who, after having received signal rewards, were humiliated for ever under the pretext that they had requested that peace might be made with Perseus.'
When they had many enemies on hand at the same time, they accorded a truce to the weakest, which considered itself happy in obtaining such a respite — counting it for much to be able to secure a postponement of its ruin.
When they were engaged in a great war, the senate affected to ignore all sorts of injuries, and si- lently awaited the arrival of the proper time for punishment — when, if it saw that only some indi- viduals were culpable, it refused to punish them — choosing rather to hold the entire nation as criminal, and thus reserve to itself a useful vengeance.
As they inflicted inconceivable evils upon their enemies, there were not many leagues formed against them; for those who were most distant from danger were not willing to draw nearer to it. The conse- quence of this was, that they were rarely attacked — whilst, on the other hand, they constantly made war at such time, in such manner, and against such peo- " This Perseus was the son and successor of Philip V on the throne of Macedon. During his reign the war with the Romans was renewed. The power of Perseus was destroyed by Paulus ^Emilius at the battle of Pydna; and Macedon — which under Alexander had extended her sway over half the known world — sunk (b. c. 148) to the condition of a Roman province. — Thanslatok.
CHAP. VI.] OF THE ROMANS. 131 pies, as suited their convenience; and, among the many nations which they assailed, there were very few that would not have submitted to every species of injury at their hands if they had been willing to leave them in peace.
It being their custom to speak always as masters, the embassadors whom they sent to nations which had not yet felt their power were certain to be in- sulted; and this was an infallible pretext for a new war.'
As they never made peace in good faith, and as, with the design of universal conquest, their treaties were, properly speaking, only suspensions of war, they always put conditions in them which began the ruin of the states which accepted them. They either provided that the garrisons of strong places should be withdrawn, or that the number of troops should be limited, or that the horses or the elephants of the vanquished party should be delivered over to themselves; and, if the defeated people was powerful on sea, they compelled it to bum its vessels, and sometimes to remove, and occupy a place of habita- tion farther inland.
After having destroyed the armies of a prince, they ruined his finances by excessive taxes, or by the imposition of a tribute under pretext of requir- ing him to pay the expenses of the war — a new spe- ' One of the examples of this sort is seen in their war against the Dalmatians. See Polybius.
132 GEANDEUK AND DECADENCE [montesquiet.
cies of tyranny, wHcli forced the vanquished sover- eign to oppress Ms own subjects, and thus to alienate their affection.
"When they granted peace to a king, they took some of his brothers or children as hostages. This gave them the means of troubling his kingdom at their pleasure. If they held the nearest heir, they intimidated the possessor; if only a prince of a re- mote degree, they used him to stir up revolts against the legitimate ruler.
Whenever any people or prince withdrew their obedience from their sovereign, they immediately accorded to them the title of allies of the Eoman people,' and thus rendered them sacred and invio- lable; so that there was no king, however great he might be, who could for a moment be sure of his subjects, or even of his family.
Although the title of Eoman ally was a species of servitude, it was nevertheless very much sought after; * for the possession of this title made it cer- tain that the recipients of it would receive injuries from the Komans only, and there was ground for the hope that this class of injuries would be rendered less grievous than they would otherwise be. Thus there was no service which nations and kings were not ready to perform, nor any humiliation which ' See especially their treaty with the Jews, in the first Book of Mac- cabees, ch. viii.
* Polybius tells us that Ariarathes made a sacrifice to the gods, in or- der to return them thanks that he had obtMned this aUiance.
CHAP. Ti.] OF THE ROMANS. 133 they did not submit to, in order to obtain tbis dis- tinction.
The Eomans bad many sorts of allies. Some were united witb tbem by privileges, and by participation in their grandeur — as the Latins and the Hernicans; others by the very act of establishment — as their col- onies; some were attached to them by benefits con- ferred— as Masinissa, Eumenes, and Attains, who owed to them their Idngdoms or their aggrandizement; others yet were held by voluntary treaties — and these, through a long continued habit of alliance, be- came subjects — as Egypt, Bithynia, Oappadocia, and most of the Greek cities; and many, finally, were united to them by forced treaties, and by the law of their subjugation — as Philip of Macedon and Antiochus of Syria; for they never made a treaty of peace with an eneniy which did not involve an alliance; in other words, they never subdued a nation which they did not use as an instrument in the subjugation of others.
Whenever they left a city free, they at once gave rise to two factions among its citizens.' The one fended the ancient laws and liberty of the city; the other maintained that there was no law but the will of the Romans; and, as the latter faction was always the stronger of the two, it is easy to see that such lib- erty was no more than a name.
Sometimes they rendered themselves masters of a country under pretext of testamentary inheritance. ' See Polybiua on the cities of Greece.
J 34 GEAJ^DEUR AND DECADENCE [uoNTESQmEn.
They entered into Pergamus, Bithynia, and Libya by means of the testaments of Attains, Nicomedes," and Apion; and Egypt was enthralled by the will of the king of Cyrene.
"With a view to rendering great princes perma- nently weak, they would not allow them to receive into their alliance any state to which they had ac- corded their own;' and, as they never refused an alliance with any of the neighbors of a powerful mon- arch, this condition, embodied in a treaty of peace, left him without allies.
Furthermore, when they had vanquished any con- siderable prince, they provided in the treaty that he should make no war on account of his differences with the allies of Rome — that is to say, ordinarily, that he should make no war with any of his neigh- bors— but that he should put such differences in arbitration — a provision which deprived him of the future use of his military power.
And, in order to reserve such power wholly to themselves, they even denied the use of it to their own allies. As soon as the latter engaged in the least quarrel with each other, they dispatched embassadors who compelled them to make peace. We need only refer to the manner in which they put a stop to the wars of Attains and Prusias.
"Whenever any prince had achieved a conquest— which oftentimes had exhausted him — a Eoman em- ^ Son of Philopator. ' This was the case with Antiochus.
CHAP. VI.] OF THE ROMANS. 135 bassador immediately came forward and plucked it from his hands. Among a thousand examples of this, we may recall how, with a word, they drove Antiochus from Egypt.
Knowing how admirably the peoples of Europe were adapted to war, they established it as a law that no Asiatic king should be permitted to enter into Europe for the purpose of subjugating any people whatever." The principal cause of the war against Mithridates was that he had subdued some barbarians in controvention of this prohibition."
When they saw that two nations were engaged in war, although they may have had no alliance and no quarrel with the one or the other, they never failed to appear upon the scene — and, like our knights-errant, they took the part of the weaker. It was, says Dio- nysius of Halicamassus, an ancient usage of the Eo- mans to extend their aid to all who came to im- plore it."
These customs were not merely some particular facts which happened at hazard. They were perma- nently established principles, as may be readily seen; for the maxims which the Komans acted upon against the greatest powers were precisely those which they had employed in the beginning of their career against ^ This prohibition was applied to Antiochus even before the Romans made war with him, and it became general as to the other kings.
'" Appian, De Bella Miihridaiico^oh. xiii.
'' Fragment of Dion. Hal. taken from the Excerpt of the Embassies.
236 GKANDEUR AND DECADENCE [montesquieii.
the small cities which surrounded them. They availed themselves of Eumenes and of Masinissa in order to subjugate PhiKp and Antiochus as they had availed themselves of the Latins and the Hernicans in order to subjugate the Yolscians and the Etrurians. They required the fleets of Carthage and of the kings of Asia to be turned over to them just as they had previously exacted the barks of' Antium. They dissolved the civil and pohtical connections of the four parts of Macedon in like manner as they had before broken the union of the small Latin towns."
But, above all, their constant maxim was to di- vide. The Kepublic of Achaia consisted of an asso- ciation of free cities: the Eoman senate declared that for the future each city should govern itself by its own laws, without dependence upon any common au- thority. The Kepublic of Bceotia was a similar asso- ciation of many cities; but as, during the war with Perseus, some of these cities followed the party of this prince, and others that of the Komans, the lat- ter admitted them to grace, providing meanwhile for the dissolution of their common alliance.
If a great monarch," who has reigned in our day, had followed these maxims when he saw one of his neighbors dethroned, he would have employed greater forces to sustain him, and limited him to the island which remained faithful to his cause. By thus divid- ing the sole power which was able to oppose his de- ^'' LiTT, Book Vn. IS [Louis XIV.]
CHAP. Ti] OF THE ROMANS. 137 Bigns, he would have drawn immense advantages even from the misfortune of his ally." " "Whenever any controversy arose in a state the Ro- mans immediately judged the affair. By this means they were certain to have against them only the party which they had condemned. If it were a case in which princes of the same blood disputed the crown, they sometimes declared both to be kings." If one of them was under age, they decidefd in his favor, and took him into their tutelage, as protectors of the universe;" for they had carried things to such a height that nations and kings were their subjects without knowing precisely by what title — it being established that it was enough to have heard them spoken of in order to owe them obedience.
They never made war at a distance without hav- ing first procured some ally near the enemy to be attacked, who might join his forces to the army which they sent out; and, as this army was never considerable for its numbers, they constantly ob- " [James II of England.]
"■ The view here presented by Montesquieu appears to me to be very sagaoious-^that the true policy of Louis XIV, in imitation of that of the Bomans in like case, was, not to attempt to drive William III from the throne of Kngland, but to erect for James II a new throne in Ireland. — Tkanslatob.
'' As happened to Ariarathes and Holophemes in Cappadocia. — Ar- PIAN, in Syriake.
" In order to be able to work the ruin of Syria in the character of tutors, they declared in favor of the infant son of Antiochus, and against Demetrius, the latter of whom, being in their hands as a hostage, im- plored them to render him justice, saying that Rome was his mother, and her senators his fathers.
138 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [MOWESiinm;.
served the practice of holding another in the prov- ince which was nearest the enemy, and a third at the city of Eome — always ready to inarch." Thus they only exposed a third of their own forces, whilst the enemy hazarded aU of his."
Sometimes they abused the subtlety of the terms of their language. They destroyed Carthage, saying they had promised to spare the city, and not the town."" And we know how the ^tolians — who abandoned themselves to their good faith — were de- ceived by them. The Komans pretended that the words — to aicmdon themselves to the good faith of an enemy — imported the loss of all sorts of things — of persons, lands, cities, temples, and even the sep- ulchres of the dead.
"With equal facility they could impose an arbi- trary interpretation upon a treaty. Thus, when they desired to humble the Khodians, they said they had not previously given them Lycia as a present, but as a friend and ally.
When one of their generals concluded a peace in order to save his army, which was ready to perish, the senate, declining to ratify it, profited by the peace and continued the war. Thus, when Ju- '* This was an inTariable practice, as we may see in the course of their history.
" See how they conducted themselves in the war with Macedon.
*" That is, to spare the city taken as a municipal corporation, composed of its inhabitants, laws, and magistrates, as distinguished from the city taken as the assemblage of its houses, &o. — Translator.
CHAP. Ti.] OF THE ROMANS. 139 gurtha had cooped up a Eoman army, and had al- lowed it to go upon the faith of a treaty, the very troops which he had spared from the sword were employed against him; and, when the Numantians had reduced twenty thousand Komans — near dying of famine — to ask for peace, that peace, which had saved the lives of so many citizens, was broken at Home, and the public faith was eluded by sending to the enemy the consul who had signed it.'" " Sometimes they would treat for peace upon con- ditions which were reasonable; and, after these were executed, they would add others which were such as to force a renewal of the war. Thus, after they had compelled Jugurtha to give up his elephants, his horses, his treasure, and the deserters who had fled to him, they demanded that he should surrender his own person — a requisition which, being for a prince the last of calamities, can never be made a condition of peace."'
Finally, they judged kings for their faults and for their private crimes. They heard the com- plaints of all who had controversies with Philip, and *' They acted in the same manner with the Samniteg, the Lnsitanians, and the Corsicans. Eespecting these last, see a fragment of the first book of Dion.
'^ C. Hostillus Mancinus was the consul here alluded to. To the credit of the Numantians, they declined to receive him, and left him at liberty to return to Rome, which he did. — Translator.
'' They acted in the same manner with Viriathus: after having com- pelled him to surrender the deserters, they demanded that he should sur- render his arms — to which neither he nor his followers could consent. (Fragment of Dion.)
j^^Q GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [MOUTESQurau.
sent deputies to look after their safety. They caused Perseus to be accused before them for some mur- ders, and for some quarrels with citizens of allied towns.
As the glory of a general was estimated by the quantity of gold and silver which was carried in his triumph, he left nothing to the vanquished enemy. Kome continually grew richer, and each war gave her the means to undertake another.
All the nations who were her friends or allies ruined themselves by the immense presents which they made in order to retain her favor, or to obtain it in greater measure; and half the money which was sent for such purpose to the Eomans would have sufficed to conquer them."
Masters of the world, they attributed to them- selves all its wealth. They were ravishers less un- just in their character as conquerors than in their character as legislators. Having learned that Ptol- emy, king of Cyprus, was immensely rich, they enacted a law, in pursuance of the proposition of a tribune, by which they gave to themselves the suc- cession to a living man, and the confiscated estate of a prince who was an ally."
Soon the cupidity of individuals completed the spoliation of that which had escaped tl^e public avarice. Magistrates and governors sold t\eir in- " The presents which the senate sent to kings were mere trinfes, such as a chair and a baton of ivory, or some robe of magistracy. '' Flokus, Book III, ch. jx.
CHAP. Ti.] OF THE ROMANS. 141 justice to kings. Two competitors would ruin eacli other by their rivalry in the purchase of a protec- tion which was always doubtful against any other rival who was not wholly exhausted; for there was wanting even the justice of brigands, who practice a certain probity in the trade of crime itself. In short, rights legitimate and rights usurped being maintained by means of money alone, princes, in order to obtain it, despoiled temples and confiscated the property of the richer class of citizens. A thousand crimes were committed in order to give to the Komans all the money ia the world.