Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/179

Rh prevent the intriguing for places. Dio says that the senate engaged the consuls to propose it, by reason that C. Cornelius the tribune had resolved to cause most severe punishments to be established against this crime; to which the people seemed greatly inclined. The senate rightly judged that immoderate punishments would strike indeed a terror into people's minds, but must have also this effect, that there would be no body afterwards to accuse or condemn; whereas by proposing moderate punishments there would be always judges and accusers.

AM strongly confirmed in my sentiments upon finding the Romans on my side, and I think that punishments are connected with the nature of the government, when I behold this great people changing in this respect their civil laws in proportion as they altered their form of government.

The regal laws made for a multitude composed of fugitives, slaves, and vagabonds, were very severe. The spirit of a republic would have required that the Decemvirs should not have inserted those laws in their twelve tables; but men who aimed at tyranny were far from conforming to a republican spirit.

Livy says in relation to the punishment of Metius Suffetius, dictator of Alba, who was condemned by Tullus Hostilius to be pulled to pieces by two chariots, that this was the first and last punishment in which the remembrance of Rh