Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/192

140 virtue, renders every man able and willing to live on his own property, and consequently prevents the growth of luxury.

The laws concerning the new division of lands insisted upon so eagerly in some republics, were of the most salutary nature. They were dangerous only as they were sudden. By reducing instantaneously the wealth and riches of some, and increasing that of others, they form a revolution in each family, and must produce a general one in the state.

In proportion as luxury gains ground in a republic, the minds of the people are turned towards their particular interests. Those who are allowed only what is necessary, have nothing to wish tor but their own and their country's glory. But a soul depraved by luxury has many other desires; and soon becomes an enemy to the laws that confine it. The luxury in which the garrison of Rhegio began to live, was the cause of their massacring the inhabitants.

No sooner were the Romans corrupted, than their desires became boundless and immense. Of this we may judge by the price they set on things. A pitcher of Falernian wine was sold for a hundred Roman denarii; a barrel of sait meat from the kingdom of Pontus cost four hundred; a good cook four talents; and for boys no price was reckoned too great.

When the whole world, impelled by the force of a general corruption, is immersed in voluptuousness, what must then become of virtue?

HERE is this inconveniency in an ill constituted aristocracy, that the wealth centers Rh