Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/401

Rh The Goths who conquered Spain, spread themselves over the country, and soon became very weak. They made three important regulations; they abolished an ancient custom which prohibited intermarriages with the Romans; they enacted that all the freedmen belonging to the Fisc, should serve in war, under penalty of being reduced to slavery; and they ordained that each Goth should arm and bring into the field the tenth part of his slaves. This was but a small proportion: besides, these slaves thus carried to the field, did not form a separate body; they were in the army, and might be said to continue in the family.

HEN a whole nation is of a martial temper, the slaves in arms are less to be feared. By a law of the Alemans, a slave who had committed a clandestine theft was liable to the same punishment as a freeman in the like case; but if he was found guilty of a forcible robbery, he was only bound to restore the thing so taken. Among; the Alemans, courage and intrepidity extenuated the guilt of an action. They employed their slaves in their wars. Most republics have been attentive to dispirit their slaves: but the Alemans relying on themselves, and being always armed, were so far from fearing theirs, that they were rather for augmenting their courage; they were the instruments either of their depredations or of their glory. Rh