This I declare, and it feels as if I have written this book solely to prove it : the legislator’s spirit must be one of moderation ; the political good like the moral good is always between two boundaries. Here is an example :
The formalities of justice are necessary to liberty ; but their (…)
Cecilius, in Aulus Gellius, [1] discoursing on the law of the Twelve Tables, which allowed the creditor to cut the insolvent debtor into pieces, justifies it by its very atrocity, which prevented people from borrowing beyond their means. [2] Will the cruellest laws then be the best ones ? The (…)
The law of Solon that declared disgraceful all those who took no side in a sedition, appeared quite extraordinary : but one must take note of the circumstances in which Greece found herself then. She was divided into very small states ; it was to be feared that in a republic worn by civil (…)
There are laws that the legislator has so little known that they are contrary to the very goal he had in mind. Those who established among the French that when one of two claimants to a benefice dies, the benefice devolves to the survivor, sought no doubt to put out quarrels ; but a contrary (…)
The law I am about to address is found in this oath which Æschines has preserved for us : “I swear I shall never destroy a city of the Amphictyones, and that I shall never divert its running waters ; if any people dares do such a thing, I shall declare war on them, and destroy their cities.” The (…)
Cæsar made it illegal to keep more than sixty sesterces at home. This law was regarded in Rome as very appropriate for reconciling debtors with creditors, because by obliging the rich to lend to the poor, it put the latter in a position to satisfy the rich. A law just like it made in France (…)
The law of ostracism was established in Athens, in Argos, and in Syracuse. It harmed Syracuse in a thousand ways, because it was made without prudence. The principal citizens would banish each other by placing a fig leaf in their hand, so that those who had some merit withdrew from activity. In (…)
In France we accept most of the Roman laws on substitutions, but substitutions here have a completely different purpose than they did for the Romans. For them, heredity was tied to certain sacrifices that had to be made by the heir, and which were determined by the law of the pontiffs ; as a (…)
A man, says Plato, who has killed the man closely allied with him, in other words himself, not by order of the magistrate, nor to escape ignominy, but out of weakness, shall be punished. Roman law punished this act when it had not been done out of weakness of soul, weariness of life, or lack of (…)
Today one goes into a man’s house to summon him to stand trial ; that could not be done among the Romans. [1]
The call to stand trial was a violent act, [2] and like a sort of corporal constraint [3] ; and you could no more enter a man’s house to summon him to trial than you can seize a man (…)
Montesquieu
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