The Spirit of Laws (1758)/Book VIII

by Montesquieu

BOOK VIII.
Of the Corruption of the Principles of the three Governments.

CHAP. I.
General Idea of this Book.

Book VIII.
Chap. 1.THE corruption of each government generally begins with that of the principles.

CHAP. II.
Of the Corruption of the Principle of Democracy.

THE principle of democracy is corrupted, not only when the spirit of equality is extinct, but likewise when they fall into a spirit of extreme equality, and when every citizen wants to be upon a level with those he has chosen to command him. Then the people, incapable of bearing the very power they have intruded, want to do every thing of themselves, to debate for the senate, to execute for the magistrate, and to strip the judges.

When this is the case, virtue can no longer subsist in the republic. The people want to exercise the functions of the magistrates; who cease to be revered. The deliberations of the senate are flighted; all respect is then laid aside for the senators, and consequently for old age. If there is no more respect for Book VIII.
Chap. 2.old age, there will be none soon for parents; deference to husbands will be likewise thrown off, and submission to masters. This licentiousness will soon taint the mind; and the restraint of command be as fatiguing as that of obedience. Wives, children, slaves, will shake off all subjection. No longer will there be any such thing as manners, order, or virtue.

We find in Xenophon's banquet a very lively description of a republic in which the people abused their equality. Each guest gives in his turn the reason why he is satisfied. "Content I am with myself, says Chamides, because of my poverty. When I was rich, I was obliged to pay my court to informers, knowing I was more liable to be hurt by them, than capable of doing them harm. The republic constantly demanded some new sum of me; and I could not decline paying. Since I am grown poor, I have acquired authority; no body threatens me, I rather threaten others. I can go or stay where I please. The rich already rise from their seats and give me the way. I am a king, I was before a slave: I paid taxes to the republic, now it maintains me: I am no longer afraid of losing; I hope to acquire."

The people fall into this misfortune, when those in whom they confide, desirous of concealing their own corruption, endeavour to corrupt. To prevent them from seeing their own ambition, they speak to them only of their grandeur; to conceal their own avarice, they incessantly flatter theirs.

The corruption will increase among the corrupters, and likewise among those who are already Book VIII.
Chap.2.corrupted. The people will distribute the public money among themselves, and having added the administration of affairs to their indolence, they will be for adding to their poverty the amusements of luxury. But with their indolence and luxury, nothing but the public treasure will be able to satisfy their demands.

We must not be surprised to see their suffrages given for money. It is impossible to give a great deal to the people without squeezing much more out of them: and to compass this, the state must be subverted. The greater the advantages they seem to derive from their liberty, the nearer they draw to the critical moment of losing it. Petty tyrants arise, who have all the vices of a single tyrant. The small remains of liberty soon become unsupportable; a single tyrant starts up, and the people lose all, even the advantages of their corruption.

Democracy hath therefore two excesses to avoid, the spirit of inequality which leads to aristocracy or monarchy; and the spirit of extreme equality, which leads to despotic power, as the latter is compleated by conquest.

True it is that those who corrupted the Greek republics, did not become tyrants. This was because they had a greater passion for eloquence than for the military art. Besides there reigned an implacable hatred in the hearts of the Greeks against those who subverted a republican government; and for this reason anarchy degenerated into annihilation, instead of being changed into tyranny.

But Syracuse, which was situated in the midst of a great number of petty states whose government Book VIII.
Chap. 2. had been changed from oligarchy to tyranny^[1]; Syracuse which had a senate^[2] scarce ever mentioned in history, was exposed to such miseries as are the consequences of a more than ordinary corruption. This city continually in a state of licentiousness^[3] or oppression, equally labouring under its liberty and servitude, receiving always the one and the other like a tempest, and notwithstanding its external strength constantly determined to a revolution by the least foreign power: This city, I say, had in its bosom an immense multitude of people, whose fate it was to have always this cruel alternative, of either giving themselvcs a tyrant, or of being the tyrant themselves.

CHAP. III.
Of the Spirit of extreme Equality.

AS distant as heaven is from earth, so is the true spirit of equality from that of extreme equality. The former does not consist in managing so that every body should command, or that no one should be commanded; but in obeying and commanding our equals. It endeavours not to be without a master, but that its masters should be none but its equals.

In the state of nature indeed, all men are born equal; but they cannot continue in this equality. Book VIII.
Ch.4.& 5.Society makes them lose it, and they recover it only by means of the laws.

Such is the difference between a well regulated democracy, and one that is not so, that in the former men are equal only as citizens, but in the latter they are equal also as magistrates, as senators, as judges, as fathers, as husbands, or as masters.

The natural place of virtue is near to liberty; but it is not nearer to extreme liberty than to servitude.

CHAP. IV.
Particular Cause of the Corruption of the People.

GREAT success, especially when chiefly owing to the people, swells them so high with pride, that it is impossible to manage them. Jealous of their magistrates they soon become jealous likewise of the magistracy; enemies to those that govern, they soon prove enemies also to the constitution. Thus it was the victory over the Persians obtained in the streights of Salamis that corrupted the republic of Athens^[4]; and thus the defeat of the Athenians ruined the republic of Syracuse^[5].

Marseilles never experienced those great transitions from lowness to grandeur: this was owing to the prudent conduct of this republic, which always preserved her principles.

CHAP. V.
Of the Corruption of the Principle of Aristocracy.

ARISTOCRACY is corrupted if the power of the nobles becomes arbitrary: Book VIII.
Chap. 5.when this is the case there can no longer be any virtue either in the governours, or the governed.

If the reigning families observe the laws, it is a monarchy with several monarchs, and in its own nature one of the mod excellent; for almost all these monarchs are tied down by the laws. But when they do not observe them, it is a despotic state governed by a great many despotic princes.

In this last case the republic consists only in the nobles. The body governing is the republic; and the body governed is the despotic state; which forms two of the most heterogeneous and divided bodies in the world.

The extremity of corruption is when the power of the nobles becomes hereditary^[6]; for then they can hardly have any moderation. If they are few in number, their power is greater, but their security less; if they are a larger number, their power is less, and their security greater: insomuch that power goes on increasing, and security diminishing, up to the very despotic prince whose head is encircled with excels of power and danger.

The great number therefore of nobles in an hereditary aristocracy renders the government less violent: but as there is less virtue, they fall into a spirit of supineness and negligence, by which means the state loses all its strength and activity^[7].

An aristocracy may maintain the full vigor of its constitution, if the laws be such as are apt to render the nobles more sensible of the perils and fatigues, than of the pleasure of command; and if Book VIII.
Chap. 6.the government is in such a situation as to have something to dread, while security shelters under its protection, and uncertainty threatens from abroad.

As a certain kind of confidence forms the glory and stability of monarchies, republics on the contrary must have something to apprehend^[8]. A fear of the Persians supported the laws of Greece. Carthage and Rome were alarmed, and strengthened by each other. Strange, that the greater security those states enjoyed, the more, like stagnated waters, they were subject to corruption!

CHAP. VI.
Of the Corruption of the Principle of Monarchy.

AS democracies are destroyed when the people despoil the senate, the magistrates, and judges of their functions; so monarchies are corrupted when the prince insensibly deprives societies or cities of their privileges. In the first case the multitude usurp a despotic power; in the second it is usurped by a single person.

"The deduction of the Dynasties of Tsin and Soiii," says a Chinese author, "was owing to this: the princes instead of confining themselves like their ancestors to a general inspection, the only one worthy of a sovereign, wanted to govern every thing immediately by themselves^[9]." The Chinese author gives us here the cause of the corruption of almost all monarchies.

Book VIII.
Chap. 6 & 7.Monarchy is destroyed, when a prince thinks he shews a greater exertion of power in changing, than in conforming to, the order of things; when he deprives some of his subjects of their hereditary employments to bestow them arbitrarily upon others; and when he is fonder of being guided by fancy than judgment.

Monarchy is destroyed, when the prince, directing every thing entirely to himself, calls the state to his capital, the capital to his court, and the court to his own person.

Monarchy is destroyed, in fine, when the prince mistakes his authority, his situation, and the love of his people; and when he is not fully persuaded that a monarch ought to think himself secure, as a despotic prince ought to think himself in danger.

CHAP. VII.
The same Subject continued.

THE principle of monarchy is corrupted, when the first dignities are marks of the first servitude, when the great men are stripped of popular respect, and rendered the low tools of arbitrary power.

It is still more corrupted, when honor is set up in contradiction to honors, and when men are capable of being loaded at the very same time with infamy^[10] and with dignities.

Book VIII.
Chap. 7. & 8.It is corrupted when the prince changes his justice into severity; when he puts like the Roman emperors a Medusa's head on his breast^[11]; and when he assumes that menacing and terrible air which Commodus ordered to be given to his statues^[12].

Again it is corrupted, when mean and abject souls grow vain of the pomp attending their servitude; and imagine that the motive which induces them to be entirely devoted to their prince, exempts them from all duty to their country.

But if it be true, (and indeed the experience of all ages has shewn it) that in proportion as the power of the monarch becomes boundless and immense, his security diminishes; is the corrupting this power, and the altering its very nature, a less crime than that of high treason against the prince?

CHAP. VIII.
Danger of the Corruption of the Principle of monarchical Government.

THE danger is not when the state passes from one moderate to another moderate government, as from a republic to a monarchy, or from a monarchy to a republic; but when it precipitates from a moderate to a despotic government.

Most of the European nations are still governed by principles of morality. But if by a long abuse Book VIII
Chap. 9.of power, or the fury of conquest, despotic sway should prevail to a certain degree; neither morals nor climate would be able to withstand its baleful influence: and then human nature would be exposed, for some time at least, even in this beautiful part of the world, to the insults with which she has been abused in the other three.

CHAP. IX.
How ready the Nobility are to defend the Throne.

THE English nobility buried themselves with Charles the first, under the ruins of the throne; and before that nine, when Philip the second endeavoured to tempt the French with the allurement of liberty, the crown was constantly supported by a nobility who think it an honor to obey a king, but consider it as the lowest infamy to share the power with the people.

The house of Austria has used her constant endeavours to oppress the Hungarian nobility; little thinking how serviceable that very nobility would be one day to her. She wanted money from their country which it had not; but took no notice of the men with which it abounded. When a multitude of princes fell to a dismembering of her dominions, the several pieces of her monarchy fell motionless, as it were, one upon the other. No life was then to be seen but in that very nobility, who resenting the injuries done to their sovereign, and forgetting those done to themselves, took up arms to avenge her cause, and considered it as the highest glory bravely to die and to forgive.

CHAP. X.
Of the Corruption of the Principle of despotic Government.

Book VIII.
Chap. 10. & 11.THE principle of despotic government is subject to a continual corruption, because it is even in its nature corrupt. Other governments are destroyed by particular accidents which do violence to the principles of each constitution; this is ruined by its own intrinsic imperfection, when no accidental causes impede or corrupt the principles on which it is founded. It maintains itself therefore only when circumstances drawn from the climate, religion, situation, or genius of the people, oblige it to follow some order, and to admit of some rule. By these things its nature is forced without being changed: its ferocity remains; and it is made tame and tractable only for a time.

CHAP. XI.
Natural Effects of the Goodness and Corruption of the Principles of Government.

WHEN once the principles of government are corrupted, the very best laws become bad and turn against the slate: but when the principles are sound, even bad laws have the same effect as good; the force of the principle draws every thing to it.

The inhabitants of Crete used a very singular method, to keep the principal magistrates dependent on the laws; which was that of Insurrection. Part of the citizens rose up in arms^[13], put the magistrates to Book VIII.
Chap. 11.flight, and obliged them to return to a private life. This was supposed to be done in consequence of the law. One would have imagined that an institution of this nature, which established sedition in order to hinder the abuse of power, would have subverted any republic whatsoever; and yet it did not subvert that of Crete. The reason is this^[14].

When the ancients wanted to express a people that had the strongest love for their country, they always mentioned the inhabitants of Crete: Our country, said Plato^[15], a name so dear to the Cretans. They called it by a name which signifies the love of a mother for her children^[16]. Now the love of our country sets every thing right.

The laws of Poland have likewise their Insurrection: But the inconveniencies thence arising plainly shew that the people of Crete alone were capable of employing such a remedy with success.

The gymnic exercises established amonest the Greeks, had the same dependance on the goodness of the principle of government. "It was the Lacedaemonians and Cretans, said Plato^[17], that opened those celebrated academies which gave them so eminent a rank in the world. Modesty at first was alarmed; but it yielded to the public utility." In Plato's time these institutions were admirable^[18]; as they had a relation to a very important Book VIII.
Chap. 11. & 12.object, which was the military art. But when virtue fled from Greece, the military art was destroyed by these institutions; people appeared then on the arena, not for improvement, but for debauch.

Plutarch informs us^[19] that the Romans in his time were of opinion that those games had been the principal cause of the slavery into which the Greeks were fallen. On the contrary, it was the slavery of the Greeks that had corrupted these exercises. In Plutarch's time^[20], their fighting naked in the parks, and their wrestling, infected the young people with the spirit of cowardice, inclined them to infamous passions, and made them mere dancers. But in Epaminondas's time the exercise of wrestling made the Thebans win the famous battle of Leuctra^[21].

There are very few laws which are not good, while the state retains its principles: here I may apply what Epicurus said of riches; it is not the liquor, but the vessel, that is corrupted.

CHAP. XII.
The same Subject continued.

IN Rome the judges were chosen at first from the order of senators. This privilege the Gracchi transferred to the knights: Drusus gave it to the senators and knights; Sylla to the senators only; Cotta to the senators, knights, and public treasurers; Caesar excluded the latter; Antony made decuries of senators, knights, and centurions.

Book VIII.
Chap. 12.When once a republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the rising evils, but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles: every other correction is either useless or a new evil. While Rome preserved its principles intire, the power of judging might without any abuse be lodged in the hands of senators: but as soon as this city was corrupted, let the judicial authority be transferred to whatsoever body, whether to the senate, to the knights, to the treasurers, to two of these bodies, to all three together, or to any other; matters still went always wrong. The knights had no more virtue than the senate, the treasurers no more than the knights, and these as little as the centurions.

When the people of Rome had obtained the privilege of sharing the magistracy with the Patricians, it was natural to think that their flatterers would immediately become arbiters of the government. But no such thing ever happened.— It was observable that the very people who had rendered the plebeians capable of public offices, constantly fixed their choice upon the Patricians. Because they were virtuous, they were magnanimous; and because they were free, they had a contempt of power. But when their morals were corrupted, the more power they were possessed of, the less prudent was their conduct; till at length upon becoming their own tyrants and slaves, they lost the strength of liberty to fall into the weakness and impotency of licentiousness.

CHAP. XIII.
The Effect of an Oath among a virtuous People.

Book VIII.
Chap. 13.THERE is no nation, says Livy^[22], that has been longer uncorrupted than the Romans; no nation where moderation and poverty have been longer respected.

Such was the influence of an Oath among these people, that nothing bound them stronger to the laws. They often did more for the observance of an oath, than they would ever have done for the thirst of glory or for the love of their country.

When Quintius Cincinnatus the Consul wanted to raise an army in the city against the Æqui and the Volsci, the tribunes opposed him. "Well, said he, let all those who have taken an oath to the Consul of the preceding year, march under my banners^[23]." In vain did the tribunes cry out that this oath was no longer binding; and that when they made it, Quintius was but a private person. The people were more religious than those who pretended to direct them; they would not listen to the distinctions or equivocations of the tribunes.

When the same people thought of retiring to the Sacred Mount, they felt an inward check from the oath they had taken to the Consuls, that they would follow them into the field^[24]. They entered then into a design of killing the Consuls; but dropped it, when they were given to understand that their oath would still be binding. Now it is easy to judge of the notion they entertained of the violation of an oath, by the crime they intended to commit.

Book VIII.
Chap. 14.After the battle of Cannæ, the people were seized with such a panic, that they wanted to retire to Sicily. But Scipio having prevailed upon them to swear they would not stir from Rome; the fear of violating this oath surpassed all other apprehensions. Rome was a ship held by two anchors, religion and morality, in the midst a furious tempest.

CHAP. XIV.
How the smallest Charge in the Constitution is attended with the Ruin of its Principles.

ARISTOTLE mentions the city of Carthage as a well regulated republic. Polybius tells us^[25], that there was this inconveniency at Carthage in the second Punic war, that the senate had lost almost all their authority. We are informed by Livy that when Hannibal returned to Carthage, he found that the magistrates and the principal citizens had abused their power, and converted the public revenues to their own emolument. The virtue therefore of the magistrates, and the authority of the senate both fell at the same time; and all was owing to the same cause.

Every one knows the wonderful effects of the censorship among the Romans. There was a time when it grew burthensome; but still it was supported, because there was more luxury than corruption. Claudius^[26] weakened its authority, and by this means the corruption became greater than the luxury, and the censorship dwindled away of itself^[27].

CHAP. XV.
Sure Method of preferring the three Principles.

Book VIII.
Chap. 15. & 16.I Shall not be able to make myself rightly understood, till the reader has perused the four following chapters.

CHAP. XVI.
Distinctive Properties of a Republic.

IT is natural to a republic to have only a small territory; otherwise it cannot long subsist. In a large republic there are men of large fortunes, and consequently of less moderation; there are trusts too great to be placed in any single subject; he has interests of his own; he soon begins to think that he may be happy, great, and glorious, by oppressing his fellow citizens; and that he may raise himself to grandeur on the ruins of his country.

In a large republic the public good is sacrificed to a thousand views; it is subordinate to exceptions; and depends on accidents. In a small one, the interest of the public is easier perceived, better understood, and more within the reach of every citizen; abuses have a less extent, and of course are less protected.

The long duration of the republic of Sparta was owing to its having always continued in the same extent of territory after all its wars. The sole aim of Sparta was liberty; and the sole advantage of its liberty, glory.

Book VIII.
Chap. 16. & 17.It was the spirit of the Greek republics to be as contented with their territories, as with their laws. Athens was first fired with ambition and gave it to Lacedæemon; but it was an ambition rather of commanding a free people, than of governing slaves; rather of directing than of breaking the union. All was lost upon the starting up of monarchy, a government whose spirit is more turned to increase and advancement.

Excepting particular circumstance^[28], it is difficult for any other than a republican government to subsist long in a single town. A prince of so petty a state would naturally endeavour to oppress his subjects, because his power would be great, while the means of enjoying it or of causing it to be respected, would be very inconsiderable. The consequence is, he would trample upon his people. On the other hand, such a prince might be easily crushed by a foreign or even by a domestic force; the people might every instant unite and rise up against him. Now as soon as a prince of a single town is expelled, the quarrel is over; but if he has many towns, it only begins.

CHAP. XVII.
Distinctive Properties of a Monarchy.

AMONARCHICAL state ought to be of a moderate extent. Were it small, it would form itself into a republic: were it very large, the nobility, possessed of great estates, far from Book VIII.
Chap. 17.the inspection of the prince, with a private court of their own, and secure moreover from sudden executions by the laws and manners of the country, such a nobility, I say, might throw off their allegiance, having nothing to fear from too slow and too distant a punishment.

Thus Charlemain had scarce founded his empire when he was obliged to divide it; whether the governors of the provinces refused to obey; or whether in order to keep them more under subjection there was a necessity of parcelling the empire into several kingdoms.

After the decease of Alexander his empire was divided. How was it possible for those Greek and Macedonian chiefs, who were each of them free and independent, or commanders at least of the victorious bands dispersed throughout that vast extent of conquered land, how was it possible, I say, for them to obey?

Attila's empire was dissolved soon after his death; such a number of kings, who were no longer under restraint, could not resume their fetters.

The sudden establishment of unlimited power is a remedy, which in those cases may prevent a dissolution: but how dreadful the remedy, that after the inlargement of dominion, opens a new scene of misery!

The rivers hasten to mingle their waters with the sea; and monarchies lose themselves in despotic power.

CHAP. XVIII.
Particular case of the Spanish Monarchy.

LET not the example of Spain be produced against me; it rather proves what I affirm. Book VIII.
Chap. 19. & 20.To preserve America she did what even despotic power itself does not attempt, she destroyed the inhabitants. To preserve her colony, she was obliged to keep it dependent even for its subsistence.

In the Netherlands she essayed to render herself arbitrary; and as soon as she abandoned the attempt, her perplexity increased. On the one hand the Walloons would not be governed by Spaniards, and on the other the Spanish soldiers refused to submit to Walloon officers^[29].

In Italy she maintained her ground, merely by exhausting herself and by enriching that country. For those who would have been glad to have got rid of the king of Spain, were not in a humour to refuse his gold.

CHAP. XIX.
Distinctive Properties of a despotic Government.

A Large empire supposes a despotic authority in the person that governs. It is necessary that the quickness of the prince's resolutions should supply the distance of the places they are sent to; that fear should prevent the carelessness of the remote governor or magistrate; that the law should be derived from a single person, and should change continually according to the accidents which incessantly multiply in a state in proportion to its extent.

CHAP. XX.
Consequence of the preceding Chapters.

IF it be therefore the natural property of small states to be governed as a republic, of middling ones to be subject to a monarch, and of large empires to be swayed by a despotic prince; the Book VIII.
Chap. 21.consequence is, that in order to preserve the principles of the established government, the state must be supported in the extent it has acquired, and that the spirit of this state will change in proportion as it contracts or extends its limits.

CHAP. XXI.
Of the Empire of China.

BEFORE I finish this book, I shall answer an objection that may be made to what has been here advanced.

Our missionaries tell us that the vast empire of China has an admirable government, in which there is a proper mixture of fear, honor, and virtue. Consequently I must have given an idle distinction, in establishing the principles of the three governments.

But I cannot conceive what this honor can be among people that will not do the least thing without blows^[30].

Again, our mercantile people are far from giving us any idea of that virtue so much talked of by the missionaries; we need only consult them in relation to the robberies and extortions of the Mandarines^[31].

Besides, Father Parennin's letters concerning the emperor's proceedings against some new converted princes of the blood^[32] who had incurred his displeasure, plainly shew us a continued plan of tyranny, and inhuman injuries committed by rule, that is in cool blood.

We have likewise Monsieur de Mairan's, and the same Father Parennin's letters on the Government of China. I find therefore that after some pertinent questions and answers, the whole wonder vanishes.

Book VIII.
Chap. 21.Might not our missionaries have been deceived by an appearance of order? Might not they have been struck with that continual exercise of a single person's will, an exercise by which they themselves are governed, and which they are so pleased to find in the courts of the Indian princes; because as they go thither only in order to introduce great changes, it is much easier to convince those princes that there are no bounds to their power, than to persuade the people that there are none to their submission^[33]?

In fine, there is frequently some kind of truth even in errors themselves. It may be owing to particular, and perhaps very singular circumstances, that the Chinese government is not so corrupt as one might naturally expect. The climate and some other physical causes may, in that country, have had so strong an influence on the morals, as in some measure to produce wonders.

The climate of China is surprizingly favourable to the propagation of the human species. The women are the most prolific in the whole world. The most barbarous tyranny can put no stop to the progress of propagation. The prince cannot say there like Pharaoh, Let us deal wisely with them lest they multiply. He would be rather reduced to Nero's wish, that mankind had all but one head. In spite of tyranny, China by the force of its climate will be always populous, and will triumph over the tyrannical oppressor.

China like all other countries, that live chiefly upon rice, is subject to frequent famines. When Book VIII.
Chap. 21.the people are ready to starve with hunger, they disperse in order to seek for nourishment; in consequence of which, small gangs of robbers are formed on all sides. Most of them are extirpated in their very infancy; others swell, and are likewise suppressed. And yet in so great a number of such distant provinces, some gang or other may happen to meet with success. In that case they maintain their ground, strengthen their party, form themselves into a military body, march strait up to the capital, and their leader ascends the throne.

From the very nature of things, a bad administration is here immediately punished. The want of subsistence in so populous a country, produces sudden disorders. The reason why the redress of abuses is in other countries attended with such difficulty, is because their effects are not immediately felt; the prince is not informed in so sudden and sensible a manner as in China.

The emperor of China is not taught like our princes, that if he governs ill, he will be less happy in the other life, less potent and less rich in this. He knows that if his government is not good, he will be stript both of empire and life.

As China grows every day more populous notwithstanding the exposing of children, the inhabitants are incessantly employed in tilling the lands for their subsistence. This requires a very extraordinary attention, in the government. It is their perpetual concern that every body should be able to work without any apprehension of being deprived of the fruits of his labour. Consequently this is not so much a civil as a domestic government.

Book VIII.
Chap. 21.Such has been the origin of those regulations which nave been so greatly extolled. They wanted to make the laws reign in conjunction with despotic power; but whatever is joined with the latter loses all its force. In vain did this arbitrary sway, labouring under its own misfortunes, desire to be fettered; it armed itself with its chains, and is become still more terrible.

China is therefore a despotic state, whose principle is fear. Perhaps in the earliest dynasties, when the empire had not so large an extent, the government might have deviated a little from this spirit: but the case at present is otherwise.

 

1. See Plutarch in the lives of Timoleon and Dio.
2. It was that of the six hundred, of whom mention is made by Diodorns.
3. Upon the expulsion of the tyrants they made citizens of strangers and mercery troops, which produced civil wars, Aristot. Polit. lit. 5. cap. 3. the people having been the cause of the victory over the Athenians, the republic was changed, ibid. cap. 4. The passion of two young magistrates, one of whom carried off the other's boy, and in revenge the other debauched his wife, was attended with a change in the form of this republic, ibid. lib. 7. cap. 4.
4. Aristot. Polit. lib. 5. cap. 5.
5. Ibid.
6. The aristocracy is changed into an oligarchy.
7. Venice is one of those republics that has best corrected by its laws the inconveniencies of hereditary aristocracy.
8. Justin attributes the extinction of Athenian virtue to the death of Epamiriondas. Having no further emulation, they spent their revenues in feasts, frequentitu caenam, quam castra visentes. Then it was that the Macedonians emerged out of obscurity, 1. 6.
9. Compilement of works made under the Mings. related by father DuHarde.
10. Under the reign of Tiberius statues were erected to, and triumphal ornaments conferred on. informers; which debased these honors to such a degree, that those who had really merited them disdained to accept of them. Fragm of Dio, book 58. taken from the extract of virtues and vices, by Constantine Porphyrog. See in Tacitus in what manner Nero on the discovery and punishment of a pretended conspiracy, bestowed triumphal ornaments on Petronius Turpilianus, Nerva, and Tigellinus Annal book 14. See likewise how the generals refused to serve, because they contemned the military honors, pervnlgatis triumphi insignibus, Tacit. Annal. book 13.
11. In this state the prince knew extremely well the principle f his government.
12. Herodian.
13. Aristot. Polit. book 2. Chap. 10.
14. They always united immediately against foreign enemies, which was called Syncretism. Plut. Mor. p. 88.
15. Repub. lib. 9.
16. Plutarch's morals, treatise whether man advanced in years ought to meddle with public affairs.
17. Repub. lib. 5.
18. The Gymnic art was divided into two parts, dancing and wrestling. In Crete they had the armed dances of the Curetes: at Sparta they had those of Castor and Pollux; at Athens the armed dances of Pallas, which were extremely proper for those that were not yet of age for military service. Wrestling is the image of war, said Plato, of laws book 7. He commends antiquity for having established only two dances, the pacific and the Pyrrhic. See how the latter dance was applied to the military art, Plato ibid.
19. Plutarch's morals, in the treatise entitled Questions concerning the affairs of the Romans.
20. Ibid
21. Plutarch's morals, Table propositions, book 2.
22. Book 1.
23. Livy Book 3.
24. Ibid Book 3.
25. About a hundred years after.
26. See Book 11th Ch. 12th.
27. The tribunes hindered them from making the census, and opposed their election. See Cicero to Atticus, Book 4th, Letter 10 and 15.
28. As when a petty sovereign supports himself betwixt two great powers by means of their mutual jealousy; but then he has only a precarious exigence.
29. See the history of the United Provinces, by Mons. Le Clere.
30. It is the cudgel that governs China, says Father du Halde.
31. Among others, De lange's relation.
32. Of the family of Sourniama, Edifying Letters, 18th collection.
33. See in Father Du Halde how the missionaries availed themselves of the authority of Canhi to silence the Mandarines, who constantly declared, that by the laws of the country, no foreign worship could be established in the empire.