Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/470

418 could not bear his manners. For though Cæsar, the Triumvirs, and Augustus, were really kings, they had preserved all the outward appearance of equality, while their private lives were a kind of contrast to the pomp and luxury of foreign monarchs; so that when they were resolved to have no king, this only signified that they would preserve their customs, and not take up those of the African and eastern nations.

The same writer informs us, that the Romans were exasperated against Augustus for making certain laws which were too severe; but as soon as he had recalled Pylades the comedian, whom the jarring of different factions had driven out of the city, the discontent ceased. A people of this stamp have a more lively sense of tyranny when a player is banished, than when they are deprived of all their laws.

EN are influenced by various causes, by the climate, the religion, the laws, the maxims of government, by precedents, morals and customs; from whence is formed a general spirit which takes its rise from these.

In proportion, as in every nation any one of these causes acts with more force, the others in the same degree become weak. Nature and the climate rule almost alone over the savages; customs govern the Chinese; the laws tyrannize in Japan; morals had formerly all their influence at Sparta; maxims of government, and the ancient simplicity of manners, once prevailed at Rome. Rh