Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/194

142 even necessary here that the expencces of the rich should be in proportion to the inequality of fortunes; and that luxury, as we have already observed, should increase in this proportion. The augmentation of private wealth is owing to its having deprived One part of the citizens of their necessary support; this must therefore be restored to them.

For the preservation therefore of a monarchical state, luxury ought continually to increase and to grow more extensive, as it rises from the labourer to the artificers, to the merchants, to the magistrates, to the nobility, to the great officers of state, up to the very prince; otherwise the nation will be undone.

In the reign of Augustus, a proposal was made in the Roman senate, which was composed of grave magistrates learned civilians, and of men whose heads were filled with the notion of the primitive times, to reform the manners and luxury of women. It is curious to see in Dio, with what art this prince eluded the importunate sollicitations of those senators. This was because he was founding a monarchy, and dissolving a republic.

Under Tiberius the Aediles proposed in the senate the re-establishment of the ancient sumptuary laws. This prince, who did not want sense, opposed it. "The state, said he,, could not possibly subsist in the present situation of things. How could Rome, how could the provinces, live? We were frugal while we were inhabitants of a single city; now we consume the riches of the universe, and employ both masters and slaves in our service." He plainly saw that sumptuary laws would not suit the present form of government. Rh