Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/82

30 When virtue is banished, ambition invades the hearts of those who are disposed to receive it, and avarice possesses the whole community. The desires now change their objects; what they were fond of before, becomes indifferent; they were free, while under the restraint of laws, they will now be free to act against law; and as every citizen is like a slave escaped from his master's house, what was a maxim of equity, they call rigour; what was a rule of action, they call constraint; and to precaution they give the name of fear. Frugality, and not the thirst of gain, now passes for avarice. Formerly the wealth of individuals constituted the public treasure; but now the public treasure is become the patrimony of private persons. The members of the commonwealth riot on the public spoils, and its strength is only the power of some citizens, and the licentiousness of the whole community.

Athens was possessed of the same number of forces, when she triumphed with so much glory, and when with so much infamy she was inslaved. She had twenty thousand citizens, when she defended the Greeks against the Persians, when she contended for empire with Sparta, and invaded Sicily. She had twenty thousand when Demetrius Phalereus numbered them, as slaves are told by the head in a market. When Philip attempted to reign in Greece, and appeared at the gates of Athens, she had even then lost nothing but time. We may see in Demosthenes how difficult it was to awake her: the Rh