But nothing served Kome more effectually than the respect which she inspired among all nations. She immediately reduced king^ to silence, and ren- dered them as dumb. With the latter, it was not a mere question of the degree of their power: their very persons were attacked. To risk a war with Rome was to expose themselves to captivity, to death, and to the infamy of a triumph. Thus it was that kings, who lived in pomp and luxury, did not dare to look with steady eyes upon the Eoman people, and, losing courage, they hoped, by their patience and their obsequiousness, to obtain some postponement of the calamities with which they were menaced."
Observe, I pray you, the conduct of the Eomans.
" As much as they could, they concealed their power and their wealth from the Eomans. See, respecting this, a fragment of the first book of Sion.
-^^2 GRANDEUR AKD DECADENCE [MONiESQUiEr.
After the defeat of Antiochus, they were masters of Africa, of Asia, and of Greece— holding, however, in their own right scarcely any cities in either. It seemed that they only conquered to bestow. But they retained such complete mastery in fact, that whenever they made war upon any king, they threw upon him, so to speak, the weight of the universe. The proper time for seizing conquered countries had not yet arrived. If they had held the cities which they took from Philip, they would have opened the eyes of the Greeks. If after the second Punic- war, or after the war against Antiochus, they had seized the countries of Africa and Asia, they would not have been able to retain conquests so incompletely established." It was necessary to wait until aU nations should become accustomed to obey as free states and as allies before commanding them as subjects, thus leaving them to lose themselves little by little in the Eoman Kepublic. "Witness the treaty which they made with the Latins after the victory which they obtained over the latter near the lake Eegillus.'' This treaty was one of the principal foundations of their power; and yet we do not find in it a single word which might excite a suspicion of empire.
^' They did not dare to expose their colonies in these countries. They preferred to stimulate ceaseless jealousy between the Carthaginians and Masinissa, and to avail themselves of the aid of both in the subju- gation of Macedon and Greece.
'5 Dionysius of Halicarnassus reports this treaty, Book VI, ch. xct, Oxford edition.
CHAP. VI.] OF THE ROMANS. 143 This was a slow metHod of conquering. They Tanquished a nation, and contented themselves with weakening it. They imposed conditions npon it which insensibly undermined its power. If it raised itself up, they humbled it yet more; and thus it be- came subject, without any one being able to fix the epoch of its subjugation.
Thus Eome was not, properly speaking, either a republic or a monarchy, but the head of a body which was made up of aU the peoples of the world." ^ 29 [We are yet startled when we consider that nations which are at present such formidable kingdoms — all of Gaul, all of Spain, nearly the whole of Great Britain, lUyria as far as the Danube, Germany as far as the Elbe, Africa as far as her frightful and impenetrable deserts, Greece, Thrace, Syria, Egypt, all the kingdoms of Asia Minor and those which lie between the Euxine and Caspian seas, and others, perhaps, which I cither forget or will not mention — were, during many centuries, no more than Koman provinces. (Bossuet, Disc, mr VSist. univ., troisiSme partie, ch. vi.)]
*° And it may be added that, as in the sphere of empire this great governing head, the city of Rome, subsidized the physical force and the wealth of so many nations, so, too, in the sphere of intelligence, such purely intellectual distinction as it attained was mainly acquired by sub- sidizing genius from without. It has been justly remarked how few of the Latin authors were natives of Rome. Indeed, the great body of the Latin literature of the classical period was produced by men who were born in the neighboring states of Italy or in the provinces.
Of the poets, Ennius, " the father of Roman song," was a native of Calabria; Nsevius was a native of Campania; Virgil was bom at the village of Andes, near Mantua, in Cisalpine Gaul; Ovid at Sulmo, in the territory of the Pelignians; Horace at Venusia, in Apulia; Martial at Bilbilis, in Spain; Catullus in the territory of Verona; Persius at Vola- terrae, in Etruria; Terence at Carthage; Lucan at Corduba, in Spain; Plautus at Sarsina, in Umbria; and Juvenal is said to have been born at Aquinum, in Latium. TibuUus and Lucretius were bom at Rome.
Of the prose-writers, Cicero was a native of Arpinum, in Latium; Livy of Patavium, in Cisalpine Gaul; Pliny the Elder of Comum or Vero- H^ GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [MONiESQuiEt;.
If the Spaniards, after the conquest of Mexico and Peru, had adopted a similar policy, they would not have been obliged to destroy all in order to hold all.
The desire to force their own laws and customs upon all peoples is the folly of conquerors. Such a policy is utterly worthless; for men are capable of obeying under every form of government.
Inasmuch as Eome imposed no general laws, the nations subject to her power were not united among themselves by any dangerous ties. They only consti- tuted one body through a common obedience; and, without being compatriots, they were all Eomans.
It will be objected, perhaps, that empires founded upon the laws of fiefs have never been either dura- ble or powerful. But there are no two things in the world more opposite than were the polity of the Eomans and that of the barbarians; and, to give but a word to these respective schemes of government— na, in the same province; Pliny the Younger of Comum; Sallast of Ami- tumum, in the territory of the Sabines; Quintilian of Calligurris, in Spain; Seneca of Corduba, in the same province; and Tacitua is com- monly supposed to have been born at Interamna, in Umbria. Csesar and Varro were natives of Rome. (See Anthon's Clas. Die, art. Unnius, etc.)
It may be that the number of the men of genius produced by Rome bears some such relation to the number of those who took their origin without as the population of the city bore to the aggregate population of the outlying towns in which letters had taken some hold. But the facts stated mean more. In harmony with the like experience in modern times, they concur in showing that great cities have no special aptitude for giving birth to great men, and that they rather serve as theatres for the display of genius than as nurseries for its production. — Teanslaioe.
CHAP. Yi.] OF THE ROMANS. 145 the first was the work of strength, the other of weakness; in the one subjection was extreme, in the other independence. In the countries which were conquered by the Germanic nations, the power of the state was in the hands of vassals, the right only in the hands of princes. The case was completely the reverse with the Eomans, 146 GKANDEUR AND DECADENCE [bakeb.
i;rOTE BY THE TEANSLATOE.
We find in the preceding chapter a masterly state- ment of the principal elements of what, in modem phrase, may be termed the foreign policy of the Eo- mans — that low, selfish, but exceedingly consistent and able policy, which, in the circumstances of the ancient world, was best calculated to conduct them to empire. There was one custom, however — intimately connected with this policy — which naerits more atten- tion than is given to it in the text, inasmuch as it supplies an exceptionally excellent illustration of the semi -savage military spirit which characterized the ancient nations in general and the Eomans in a spe- cial manner. I allude to that Triumph which was so much dreaded by kings and princes. When this usage is studied in connection with the analogous war cus- toms of the true savage, a close kinship is at once detected; and so important is the triumph, as a means of helping to a correct idea of the Eoman type of civilization, that I will here insert a description of it at some length, drawn with admirable care and learn- ing from many ancient sources: NOTE.] OF THE ROMANS. liT "The triumplial procession began from the Cam- pus Martins, and went from thence along the Via Triumphalis, through the Campus and Circus Flam- inius to the Porta Triumphalis, and thence through the most public places of the city to the capitol.
"The streets were strewed with flowers, and the altars smoked with incense.
"First went musicians of various kinds, singing • and playing triumphal songs; next were led the oxen to be sacrificed, having their horns gilt, and their heads adorned with fiUets and garlands; then in carriages were brought the spoils taken from the enemy — stat- ues, pictures, plate, armor, gold and silver, and brass; also, golden crowns, and other gifts sent by the allied and tributary states. The titles of the vanquished nations were inscribed on wooden frames, and the images or representations of the conquered countries, cities, &c. The captive leaders followed in chains, with their children and attendants; after the captives came the Hctors, having their fasces wreathed with laurel, followed by a great company of musicians and dancers, dressed like satyrs, and wearing crowns of gold: in the midst of whom was a pantomime, clothed in a female garb, whose business it was, with his looks and gestures, to insult the vanquished. Next followed a long train of persons carrying perfumes. Then came the general (Dux), dressed in purple em- broidered with gold, with a crown of laurel on his head, a branch of laurel in his right hand, and in his 148 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [bakek.
left an ivory sceptre, with an eagle on the top, having his face painted with vermilion, in like manner as the statue of Jupiter on festival days, and a golden ball hanging from his neck on his breast, with some amu- let in it, or magical preservative against envy, standing in a gilded chariot adorned with ivory, and drawn by four white horses, at least after the time of Camillus, sometimes by elephants, attended by his relations, and a great crowd of citizens all in white. His children ■ used to ride in the chariot along with him, and, that he might not be too much elated, a slave, carrying a golden crown, sparkling with gems, stood behind him, who frequently whispered in his ear, Kemembee That Thou Aet A Man! After the general, followed the consuls and senators on foot, at least according to the appointment of Augustus; for formerly they used to go before him. His legati and military tribunes com- monly rode by his side.
" The victorious army, horse and foot, came last, all in their order, crowned with laurel, and deco- rated with the gifts which they had received for their valor, singing their own and their general's praises; but sometimes throwing out railleries against him, often exclaiming lo TEroMPHE, in which all the citizens, as they passed along, joined.
"The general, when he began to turn his chariot from the forum to the capitol, ordered the captive kings and leaders of the enemy to be led to prison, and there to be slain, but not always; and when he NOTE.] OF TEE EOMANS. 149 reached the capitol, he used to wait till he heard that these savage orders were executed." ' Upon analyzing this representation, it is seen, on the one hand, that the display of the spoils of the enemy — ^the coarse exultation of the conquering chief — the red war-paint with which his face was covered — ^the cruel insult and mockery inflicted upon the disarmed and powerless captives — and the admitted right, sometimes at least exercised, of slaying these captives as a part of the performance — are strictly savage elements; whilst, on the other hand, the re- sources of art which entered into the spectacle, the forethought, the purpose of great and permanent empire with which it was associated, evince a cul- ture much more than savage. And thus the Tri- umph declares the status of Eome to have been what it reaUy was — an intermediate state between pure savagery and the more advanced civilization which has succeeded.
It is this hard military character of the Eomans, combined with their relentless policy of conquest, that has given rise to the greatest difficulty in set- tling their true historical value — the judgments of eminent writers fluctuating between the opposite opinions that they were a great beneflt and a great curse to the interests of humanity. With a view to clearing up, or at least diminishing this difficulty, I have already devoted some part of these Notes 150 GEANDEUK AND DECADENCE [baker.
to the purpose of presenting an idea of tlie Tnain function wMcli the Eomans performed in nniversal history; and I will here add something further in the same direction.
Correct conceptions of such national functions, or, in other words, correct conceptions of the "world- historical" values of different peoples, belong to the highest results of rational history; and, in the ab- sence of such conceptions, our historical knowledge, however complete in details and in lesser generaliza- tions, remains essentially superficial. "We need to know what distinctive service each of the historical peoples has rendered to civilization in general. The whole of human history is to be viewed as a vast movement in the direction of an ideally perfect civ- ilization; and particular nations are to be valued ac- cording to the influence which they exert upon this movement. Waiving the difficult and obscure ques- tion whether or not there are peoples whose values are purely retardative, it is certain, at all events, that the best contributions to human development so far have been chiefly due to a comparatively small part of the total race. Take away what has been done by the Aryan family, and by the small Judaic sec- tion of the Semitic family, and the civilization of the world becomes wonderfully impoverished.
Of the Aryan stock in ancient Europe, the Greeks were pre-eminent for thought and art, the Eomans for action. The distinctive genius of the NOTE.] OF THE ROMANS. 151 one was eminently theoretical — everywliere seeking universality in idea and perfection in taste; the dis- tinctive genius of the other was intensely practical — everywhere seeking universality of empire. One great consequence which has proceeded from this difEerence is, that the Greeks have left an unchal- lenged reputation as rich contributors to the world's store of civilization, whilst the repute of the Eomans in this respect is by no means so unequivocal.
As transcendent thinkers and artists, the prodig- ious impulse which the Greeks gave to the world's thought and sesthetic feeling is a fact so singularly attractive in itself, and so obviously beneficent in its nature, that all agree in assigning to it a very high positive value. As transcendent actors, on the other hand, the Eomans were the great disturbers of the an- cient world — everywhere beating down, often destroy- ing, and always pursuing a policy of conquest which was thoroughly selfish and unscrupulous. It hence follows that our idea of their work will vary, accord- ingly as we set more store upon the worse or the better results of their action. Under the first aspect, they are to be viewed as cruel and remorseless con- querors— so cunning with all their pride, so secretive with all their professed openness of character, so double-dealing with all their boasted regard for good faith, that their proceedings often rivalled the most unworthy passages that are to be found in the an- nals of human meanness. Under the second aspect.
152 GKANDEUK AND DECADENCE [bakbb.
they are to be viewed as the agents by whom a civ- ilization made up of scattered nuclei, and character- ized for small social ideas, small policies, small an- tagonisms, and small industrial development, was transmuted into a civihzation vastly larger in its physical connections and social conceptions, and at the same time much more pacific and industrial in its character. "We have here a result of such pri- mary importance, that it seems judicious to say that it overbalances the immense debit side of the ac- count, and thus admits the Eomans to the distinc- tion of having imparted — in a manner however dif- ferent from that of the Greeks — a great and funda- mental impulse to the world's civilization.
As a justification of the analysis just made, it is curious and instructive to notice the two different classes of terms which distinguished writers have employed to express their most general idea of the part which the Eomans performed in history.
Mainly influenced, it would seem, by the first of the foregoing views. Dr. Robertson says: " The martial and independent spirit which had distin- guished their ancestors became, in a great measure, extinct among all the people subjected to the Eoman yoke; they lost not only the habit but even the capacity of deciding for themselves, or of acting from the impulse of their own minds; and the do- minion of the Eomans, like that of all great em- pires, degraded and debased the human species."
NOTE.] OF THE ROMANS. 153 Quite in the same vein is the language of Abb6 Eaynal in reference to the influence exerted by the Roman sway: " Their despotism, their military gov- ernment, oppressed the nations, extinguished genius, and degraded the human race." And BucMe seems to be influenced chiefly by the same side of the case when he speaks of the Eomans as — " The scourges and oppressors of the world, whom a false and ignorant sympathy has invested with noble qualities which they never possessed."
Not to go further, Gibbon and Comte, pn the other hand — with what I take for better reason — appear to regard the second of the foregoing views as the leading element of a correct historical valu- ation. " Whatever evils," says the great historian, "either reason or declamation has imputed to ex- tensive empire, the power of Home was attended with same beneficial consequences to mankind; and the same freedom of intercourse which extended the vices difiused likewise the improvements of social life.". And Comte supplies a much more definite and Compi-ehensive appreciation of the value of the Eomans upon the plane of the world's history: " Bom to command in order to assimilate — destined to extinguish irrevocably, by their universal ascend- ant, that sterile military activity which threatened indefinitely to prolong the decomposition of human- ity into small antagonistic peoples, who only agreed with each other in delaying the general rise of a 154 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [bakee.
fundamental civilization — this noble people, notwith- standing their immense imperfections, certainly mani- fested, in a high degree, that assemblage of qualities which were best adapted to such a mission — a mis- sion which, inasmuch as it could never reproduce itself, nor consequently permit a new eclat of the same kind, will necessarily perpetuate their name to whatever age the political life of our species may be prolonged." ' It is chiefly to the fact that the Komans united a multitude of small hostile states in a single great one of comparative internal peace and order, and to the further fact that the powerful state thus consti- tuted stood for ages as a barrier to, and a modifier of, the ancient barbarism of northern Europe and northwestern Asia, that we must look for a rational conception of the highest and best part which these conquerors performed in the world's history.'
^ See Comte's Philosophie Positive, Paris, 1809, torn, t, pp. 198, 194; Gibbon's Rome, New York, 1870, vol. i, p. 65; Buckle's Hist, of Civ. in England, New York, 1870, vol. ii, p. 129; Eaynal's Histoire PUlosophiqm des deux Indes, Paris, 1783, torn, i, p. 8; Robertson's Charles V, Phila., 1812, vol. i, p. 2.
^ See my Note at the end of Chapter V.
MONiESQUiEn.] OF THE ROMANS. 155 CHAPTEE yil.
MITHBIDATES HOW HE WAS ABLE TO EESIST THE EOMANS.
Of all the kings whom the Romans attacked, Mithridates alone defended himself with courage, and placed them in peril. The situation of his states was admirable for the prosecution of war against Eome. They ^touched upon the inaccessible countries of the Caucasus, filled with fierce nations which he could summon to his service; and thence they extended along the shores of the Pontus - Euxine. This sea Mithridates covered with his fleets, by means of which he was enabled continually to bring in new armies of Scythian mercenaries. Asia was open to his incursions; and — ^inasmuch as his cities upon the Euxine carried on an advantageous commerce with the less industrious nations — he was rich.
Proscription — of which the practice commenced at this time— compelled many Eomans to abandon their country. These Mithridates received with open arms. He formed legions in which he placed them, and which constituted his best troops.'
' Frontinus (Straiac/erm, Book II) aay3 that Archelaua, lieutenant of Mithridates, engaged against Sylla, placed his scythe-chariots in the first ■j^gg GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [montesquied.
On the other hand, Kome, embarrassed by her civil dissensions, and occupied with ills more press- ing, neglected the affairs of Asia, and left Mithri- dates to pursue his victories, or to recuperate after his defeats.
ITothing had contributed more to the ruin of most of the kings than the desire which they had manifested for peace. They had thus discouraged all other peoples from sharing with them in a danger from which they had shovTn so marked an inclinar tion to withdraw themselves. But Mithridates at once caused it to be everywhere felt that he was an enemy of the Eomans, and that he would always be such.
Finally, the cities of Greece and Asia, finding that the Koman yoke grew heavier upon them every day, gave their confidence to this barbaric king," who called them to liberty.
rank, hia phalanx in the second, and in the third his auxiliaries armed in the Roman manner: Mixtis fugitivk Italice, quorum pervicacice mullum fidehat. Mithridates even formed an alliance with Sertorius. See Plu- tarch, lAfe of Lucullus.
' It seems probable that few contemporary Romans were superior, and not many equal, to this " barbaric king " in mental culture. He is said to have given " great attention to the study of philosophy and polite literature," and to have been " able to converse in twenty-two different languages " — which would apparently make him the linguistic superior of Sir William Jones, whose number of really conquered languages appears to have been but sixteen — but would yet leave him greatly the inferior of Mezzofanti, who "understood and spoke fifty-eight different tongues, and whom Byron might well describe as " a walking polyglot, a monster of languages, and a Briareus of parts of speech." (Anthon's Clas. Die-, art. Mithridates; Lord Teigumouth's lAfe of Sir Wm. Jones, Phila., 1803, pp. 385, 386; Chambers' Enc., art. Mezzofanii.) — Tkanslator.
CHAP. Til.] OF THE ROMANS. 157 This disposition of affairs gaye rise to three great wars, which form one of the finest parts of Eoman history; for we do not here contemplate princes al- ready conquered by liixury and pride — as was the case with Antiochus and Tygranes — nor yet by their fears — as we see in the instances of Philip, Perseus, and Jugurtha; but we behold a magnanimous king, who, in the midst of adversities — ^like the lion that looks at his wounds — was only rendered the more resolute and indignant.
These were singular wars; for during their con- tinuance rerolutions were incessant and always unex- pected. If, on the one hand, Mithridates could easily replenish his armies, it happened on the other, when reverses took place, and when consequently there was most need of obedience and discipline, that his barbaric troops abandoned him. If he had the art of winning nations, and of iuducing cities to revolt, he in his turn experienced perfidy on the part of his generals, his children, and his wives; and if at times he had incompetent Roman commanders to deal with, he was confronted at other times by Sylla, LucuUus, and Pompey.
After having beaten the Eoman generals, and achieved the conquest of Asia, Macedon, and Greece, this prince was vanquished in his turn by Sylla, and reduced by treaty to his ancient limits. Har- assed still by the Roman commanders, he became a second time their conqueror, and the conqueror of ]^58 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [montesquieu.
Asia. Driven before Lucullus, lie was followed into his own country, and compelled to fly to the court of Tygranes; and, seeing the latter ruined without resource after the defeat to which he too was sub- jected, and relying solely upon himself, he took refuge in his own states, and there re-established himself.
Pompey succeeded Lucullus, and Mithridates was overwhelmed. He fled from his own states. Cross- ing the Araxes, he marched from peril to perU through the country of the Lazians; and, assembling the bar- barians whom he found along the line of his route, he appeared in Bosporus, before his son Machares, who had made his peace with the Komans.'
In the abyss in which he found himself, Mithri- dates formed the design of carrying the war into Italy — of marching to Eome at the head of the same nations who subjugated the empire some centuries later — and by the same road which they took.* Be- trayed by Pharnaces, another of his sons, abandoned by an army which was alarmed at the greatness of his enterprises and deterred by the dangers which he was about to seek, he died as a king.'
It was then that Pompey, by the rapid succes- sion of his victories, completed the pompous work of Eoman aggrandizement. He added immense countries to the body of the empire — countries, how- ' Mithridates had made him king of Bosporus. On hearing of the arrival of his father, he liilled himself.
■■ See Appian, De Bdlo Mihridatico, eh. cix.
' He committed suicide, to avoid capture. — Translatob.
CHAP, vii.] OF THE ROMANS. 169 ever, which contributed more to the spectacle of its magnificence than to the real measure of its force; and, although it appeared by the placards which were borne in his triumph that he had augmented the revenues of his country by more than one third, yet, in fact, the actual power of the state was not increased, whilst public liberty was only the more endangered.'
' See Plutarch, in the lAfe of Pompey; and Zonaras, Book II.
IQQ GKANDETJR AND DECADENCE [bakee.
NOTE BY THE TEANSLATOE, MiTHEiDATES was one of tlie most extraordinary men with whom we meet in the whole course of Eoman history. Cicero, who was his contemporary, reckons him to have been, after Alexander, the greatest of the kings; ' and in another place attrib- utes to him the distinction of having been indisput- ably the foremost of all the kings with whom the Eoman people had waged war." Next to Hannibal, he appears to have been the most formidable enemy with whom republican Eome had to deal; and, had the material of his armies been equal to that which composed the phalanxes of Greece, the legions of Eome, or the columns of the Carthaginians during the second Punic war, it is easily within the range of rational conception that his role as a warrior or conqueror might have ranked in history with those of Hannibal, Csesar, and Alexander. But the marked and ever-recurring inferiority of the Asiatic infantry "...ille rex post Alexandrum maximus. Acad. Qucesl,, lib. secun- du3, 1.
"...omnibus regihus, guihuscum populiis Romanus hellvm gessU, hunc regem nimirum antcpones. Pro Murena, cap. 10.
NOTE.] OF THE ROMANS. 161 to that of Europe made it impossible for any leader, however great his ability, to effectually resist the ex- pansion of the Eoman power into Asia.
Tor five-and-twenty years, with small interrup- tions, Mithridates kept up the struggle with Eome; defeating and being defeated; rallying from disaster and reinstating himself with astonishing genius and energy; until at length, reduced to extremity, he formed the daring design to which Montesquieu re- fers in the text. This was — to march from the north and east of the Euxine to Gaul, and thence, with the added forces which he might assemble on his route, and with the still additional aid of the disaffected Gauls, descend upon northern Italy, availing himself, furthermore, of all disaffeetions towards Korae which he might find among the Italian peoples — ^repeating thus, in a modified form, the great movement of Hannibal.'
At the time Hannibal executed his feat he was about twenty-nine years of age; at the time Mithri- dates resolved to execute his, he was about sixty-eight.