| Links to other philosophers |
4 - 6 some Institutions among the Greeks.
the laws of Crete were the model of those of Sparta; and those of Plato reformed them. Link.
They, who shall attempt hereafter to introduce the like institutions, must establish the community of goods, as prescribed in Plato’s Republic; Link.
4 - 7 In what Case these singular Institutions may be of Service.
the laws of Minos, Link. of Lycurgus, Link. and of Plato, Link.
4 - 8 Explication of a Paradox of the Ancients, in Respect to Manners.
THAT judicious writer, Polybius, Link. informs us, that music was necessary to soften the manners of the Arcadians, who lived in a cold gloomy country; that the inhabitants of Cynete, who slighted music, were the cruellest of all the Greeks, and that no other town was so immersed in luxury and debauch
Plato, Link. is not afraid to affirm, that there is no possibility of making a change in music without altering the frame of government. Aristotle, Link. who seems to have written his politics only in order to contradict Plato, agrees with him, notwithstanding, in regard to the power and influence of music over the manners of the people. This was also the opinion of Theophrastus, Link. of Plutarch, Link.
Plato, Link. in his laws, orders a citizen to be punished if he attempted to concern himself with trade.
5 - 5 Manner the Laws establish Equality in a Democracy.
From the same source arose those laws by which the next relation was ordered to marry the heiress. Link. This law was given to the Jews after the like distribution. Plato¶, who grounds his laws on this division, [56] made the same regulation which had been received as a law by the Athenians.
5 - 19 New Consequences of the Principles of the three Governments.
Plato Link. cannot bear with this prostitution: “This is exactly (says he) as if a person were to be made a mariner or pilot of a ship for his money. Is it possible that this rule should be bad in every other employment of life and hold good only in the administration of a republic?”
6 - 8 Accusation in different Governments.
By Plato’s laws, Link. those who neglect to inform or assist the magistrates are liable to punishment. This would not be so proper in our days. the public prosecutor warches for the safety of the citizens; he proceeds in his office while they enjoy their quiet and ease.
7 - 16 excellent Custom of the Samnites.
the Samnites were descended from the Lacedæmonians; and Plato, Link. whose institutes are only an improvement of those of Lycurgus, enacted nearly the same law.*
8 - 11 Natural Effects of the Goodness and Corruption of the Principles of Government.
When the ancients would express a people that had the strongest affection for their country, they were sure to mention the inhabitants of Crete: Our country, said Plato, Link. a name so dear to the Cretans. They called it by a name which signifies the love of a mother for her children. Now, the love of our country sets every thing to right.
gymnic exercises, established among the Greeks, had the same dependence on the goodness of the principle of government. “It was the Lacedæmonians and Cretans (said Plato. Link.) 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.”
8 - 14 How the smallest Change of the Constitution is attended with the Ruin of its Principles.
ARISTOTLE mentions the city of Carthage as a well regulated republic. Polybius Link. tells us, that there was this inconvenience, at Carthage, in the second Punic war, that the senate had lost almost all their authority.
11 - 17 executive Power in the same Republic.
So great was the share the senate took in the executive power, that, as Polybius informs us, Link. foreign nations imagined that Rome was an aristocracy. the senate disposed of the public money, and farmed out the revenue; they were arbiters of the affairs of their allies; they determined war or peace, and directed, in this respect, the consuls; they fixed the number of the Roman and of the allied troops, disposed of the provinces and armies to the consuls or prætors, and, upon the expiration of the year of command, had the power of appointing successors; they decreed triumphs, received and sent embassies; they nominated, rewarded, punished, and were judges of kings, declared them allies of the Roman people, or stripped them of that title.
15 - 16 Regulations between Masters and Slaves.
When a citizen uses the slave of another ill, the latter ought to have the liberty of complaining before the judge. the laws of Plato, Link. and of most nations, took away from slaves the right of natural defence: it was necessary then that they should give them a civil defence.
At Sparta, Link. slaves could have no justice against either insults or injuries. So excessive was their misery, that they were not only the slaves of a citizen, but also of the public; they belonged to all as well as to one.
19 - 22 How the Laws ought to have a Relation to Manners and Customs.
WHEN a people have pure and regular manners, their laws become simple and natural. Plato. Link. says that Rhadamanthus, who governed a nation extremely religious, finished every process with extraordinary dispatch, administering only the oath on each accusation. But, says the same Plato, when a people are not religious, we should never have recourse to an oath, except he who swears is intirely disinterested, as in the case of a judge and a witness.
19 - 23 How the Laws are founded on the Manners of a People.
AT the time when the manners of the Romans were pure, they had no particular law against the embezzlement of the public money. When this crime began to appear, it was thought so infamous, that, to be condemned to restore∥ what they had taken, was considered as a sufficient disgrace: for a proof of this, see the sentence of L. Scipio. Link.
20 LAWS IN RELATION TO COMMERCE, CONSIDERED IN ITS NATURE AND DISTINCTIONS.
20 - 1 Commerce.
Commercial laws, it may be said, improve manners, for the same reason as they destroy them. They corrupt the purest morals; Link. this was the subject of Plato’s complaints: and we every day see, that they polish and refine the most barbarous.
20 - 18 Judges of Commerce.
Plato says, Link. that in a city where there is no maritime commerce, there ought not to be above half the number of civil laws: This is very true. Commerce brings into the same country different kinds of people; it introduces also a great number of contracts, and of species of wealth, with various ways of acquiring it.Plato says, Link. that in a city where there is no maritime commerce, there ought not to be above half the number of civil laws: This is very true. Commerce brings into the same country different kinds of people; it introduces also a great number of contracts, and of species of wealth, with various ways of acquiring it.
21 - 11 Carthage and Marseilles.
We find, however, in Scylax and Polybius, Link. that the Carthaginians had considerable settlements on those coasts.
If we may believe Aristotle, Link. the Phœnicians, who arrived at Tartessus, found so much silver there, that their ships could not hold it all: and they made of this metal their meanest utensils.
We find in a fragment of Polybius, cited by Strabo, Link. that the silver mines at the source of the river Bætis, in which forty thousand men were employed, produced to the Romans twenty-five thousand drachmas a day, that is, about five millions of livres a year, at fifty livres to the mark. the mountains that contained these mines were called the§ Silver Mountains: which shews they were the Potosi of those times. At present, the mines of Hanover do not employ a fourth part of the workmen, and yet they yield more.
We see in the treaty which put an end to the first Punic war, that Carthage was principally attentive to preserve the empire of the sea, and Rome that of the land. Hanno, Link. in his negociation with the Romans, declared, that they should not be suffered even to wash their hands in the sea of Sicily; they were not permitted to sail beyond the promontorium pulchrum they were forbid to trade in Sicily,† Sardinia, and Africa, except at Carthage: an exception that lets us see there was no design to favour them in their trade with that city.
In early times there had been very great wars between Carthage and Marseilles Link. on the subject of fishing.
21 - 12 Isle of Delos. Mithridates.
UPON the destruction of Corinth by the Romans, the merchants retired to Delos, an island, which from religious considerations was looked upon as a place of safety: Link. besides, it was extremely well situated for the commerce of Italy and Asia, which, since the reduction of Africa, and the weakening of Greece, was grown more important.
23 - 7 Fathers Consent to Marriage.
In the small republics, or singular institutions already mentioned, they might have laws which gave to magistrates that right of inspection over the marriages of the children of citizens, which nature had already given to fathers. the love of the public might there equal or surpass all other love. Thus Plato would have marriages regulated by the magistrates: Link. this the Lacedæmonian magistrates performed. Link.
the politics of the Greeks were particularly employed in regulating the number of citizens. Plato. Link. fixes them at five thousand and forty, and he would have them stop or encourage propagation, as was most convenient, by honours, shame, and the advice of the old men; he would even† regulate the number of marriages, in such a manner, that the republic might be recruited without being overcharged.
25 - 7 Luxury of Superstition.
“THOSE are guilty of impiety towards the gods, says Plato, Link. who deny their existence; or who, while they believe it, maintain that they do not interfere with what is done below; or, in fine, who think that they can easily appease them by [192] sacrifices: three opinions equally pernicious.” Plato has here said all that the clearest light of nature has ever been able to say, in point of religion.
the magnificence of external worship has a principal connection with the constitution of the state. In good republics, they have curbed not only the luxury of vanity, but even that of superstition. They have introduced frugal laws into religion. Of this number are many of the laws of Solon, Link. many of those of Plato on funerals, Link. adopted by Cicero; Link. and, in fine, some of the laws of Numa on sacrifices. Link.
Religion ought not, under the pretence of gifts, to draw from the people, what the necessities of the state have left them; but, as Plato† says, “the chaste and the pious ought to offer gifts, which resemble themselves.” Link.
26 - 3 Civil Laws contrary to the Law of Nature.
IF a slave, says Plato, Link. defends himself, and kills a freeman, he ought to be treated as a parricide. This is a civil law which punishes self-defence, though dictated by nature.
26 - 4 same Subject continued.
GUNDEBALD king of Burgundy decreed, Link. that if the wife or son of a person guilty of robbery, did not reveal the crime, they were to become slaves. This was contrary to nature: a wife to inform against her husband! a son to accuse his father! to avenge one criminal action, they ordained another still more criminal.
the law of Recessuinthus, Link. permits the children of the adulteress, or those of her husband, to accuse her, and to put the slaves of the house to the torture. How iniquitous the law, which, to preserve a purity of morals, overturns nature, the origin, the source of all morality!
AN Athenian law obliged children to provide for their fathers, when fallen into poverty; it excepted those who were born of a courtezan, Link. those whose chastity had been infamously prostituted by their father, and those to whom he had not given any means of gaining a livelihood.
the Voconian law ordained, that no woman should be left heiress to an estate, not even if she was an only child. Never was there a law, says St. Augustine, Link. more unjust. A formula of Marculfus† treats that custom as impious, which deprives daughters of the right of succeeding to the estate of their fathers. Justinian‡ gives the appellation of barbarous, to the right which the males had formerly of succeeding in prejudice to the daughters. These notions proceed from their having considered the right of children to succeed to their fathers possessions, as a consequence of the law of nature; which it is not.
29 - 9 Greek and Roman Laws punished Suicide, but not through the same Motive.
A MAN, says Plato, Link. who has killed one nearly related to him, that is himself, not by an order of the magistrate, not to avoid ignominy, but through pusillanimity, shall be punished. The Roman law punished this action when it was not committed through pusillanimity, through weariness of life, through impatience in pain, but from a criminal despair. The Roman law acquitted where the Greek condemned, and condemned where the other acquitted.
Plato’s law was formed upon the Lacedæmonian institutions, Link. where the orders of the magistrate were absolute, where shame was the greatest of miseries, and pusillanimity the greatest of crimes. The Romans had no longer those refined ideas; theirs was only a fiscal law.
29 - 16 Things to be observed in the composing of Laws.
Plato’s law, Link. as I have observed already, required that a punishment should be inflicted on the person who killed himself not with a design of avoiding shame, but through pusillanimity. This law was so far defective, that in the only case in which it was impossible to draw from the criminal an acknowledgment of the motive upon which he had acted, it required the judge to determine concerning these motives.