In Rome, as in all other places, the dissension between the rich and the poor was not caused directly by the desire for wealth (people, as a general thing, do not covet that which they deem it illegitimate to acquire), but by a natural instinct of the plebeians, which led them to seek the cause of their adversity in the constitution of the republic.So we are doing to-day;instead of altering our public economy, we demand an electoral reform.The Roman people wished to return to the social compact;they asked for reforms, and demanded a revision of the laws, and a creation of new magistracies.The patricians, who had nothing to complain of, opposed every innovation.Wealth always has been conservative.Nevertheless, the people overcame the resistance of the Senate; the electoral right was greatly extended; the privileges of the plebeians were increased,--they had their representatives, their tribunes, and their consuls; but, notwithstanding these reforms, the republic could not be saved.
When all political expedients had been exhausted, when civil war had depleted the population, when the Caesars had thrown their bloody mantle over the cancer which was consuming the empire,--inasmuch as accumulated property always was respected, and since the fire never stopped, the nation had to perish in the flames.
The imperial power was a compromise which protected the property of the rich, and nourished the proletaires with wheat from Africa and Sicily: a double error, which destroyed the aristocrats by plethora and the commoners by famine.At last there was but one real proprietor left,--the emperor,--whose dependent, flatterer, parasite, or slave, each citizen became; and when this proprietor was ruined, those who gathered the crumbs from under his table, and laughed when he cracked his jokes, perished also.
Montesquieu succeeded no better than Bossuet in fathoming the causes of the Roman decline; indeed, it may be said that the president has only developed the ideas of the bishop.If the Romans had been more moderate in their conquests, more just to their allies, more humane to the vanquished; if the nobles had been less covetous, the emperors less lawless, the people less violent, and all classes less corrupt; if...&c.,--perhaps the dignity of the empire might have been preserved, and Rome might have retained the sceptre of the world! That is all that can be gathered from the teachings of Montesquieu.But the truth of history does not lie there; the destinies of the world are not dependent upon such trivial causes.The passions of men, like the contingencies of time and the varieties of climate, serve to maintain the forces which move humanity and produce all historical changes; but they do not explain them.The grain of sand of which Pascal speaks would have caused the death of one man only, had not prior action ordered the events of which this death was the precursor.
Montesquieu has read extensively; he knows Roman history thoroughly, is perfectly well acquainted with the people of whom he speaks, and sees very clearly why they were able to conquer their rivals and govern the world.While reading him we admire the Romans, but we do not like them; we witness their triumphs without pleasure, and we watch their fall without sorrow.
Montesquieu's work, like the works of all French writers, is skilfully composed,--spirited, witty, and filled with wise observations.He pleases, interests, instructs, but leads to little reflection; he does not conquer by depth of thought; he does not exalt the mind by elevated reason or earnest feeling.
In vain should we search his writings for knowledge of antiquity, the character of primitive society, or a description of the heroic ages, whose morals and prejudices lived until the last days of the republic.Vico, painting the Romans with their horrible traits, represents them as excusable, because he shows that all their conduct was governed by preexisting ideas and customs, and that they were informed, so to speak, by a superior genius of which they were unconscious; in Montesquieu, the Roman atrocity revolts, but is not explained.Therefore, as a writer, Montesquieu brings greater credit upon French literature; as a philosopher, Vico bears away the palm.
Originally, property in Rome was national, not private.Numa was the first to establish individual property by distributing the lands captured by Romulus.What was the dividend of this distribution effected by Numa? What conditions were imposed upon individuals, what powers reserved to the State? None whatever.
Inequality of fortunes, absolute abdication by the republic of its right of eminent domain over the property of citizens,--such were the first results of the division of Numa, who justly may be regarded as the originator of Roman revolutions.He it was who instituted the worship of the god Terminus,--the guardian of private possession, and one of the most ancient gods of Italy.
