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CHAP. XII.: The Isle of Delos. Mithridates. - Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, Complete Works, vol. 2 The Spirit of Laws [1748]

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The Complete Works of M. de Montesquieu (London: T. Evans, 1777), 4 vols. Vol. 2.

Part of: Complete Works of Montesquieu, 4 vols.

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CHAP. XII.

The Isle of Delos. Mithridates.

UPON the destruction of Corinth by the Romans, the merchants retired to Delos, an island, which from religious considerations was looked upon as a place of safety:* besides, it was extremely well situated for the commerce of Italy and Asia, which, since the reduction of Africa, and the weakening of Greece, was grown more important.

From the earliest times, the Greeks, as we have already observed, sent colonies to Propontis, and to the Euxine sea: colonies which retained their laws and liberties under the Persians. Alexander, having undertaken his expedition against the barbarians only, did not molest these people. Neither does it appear that the kings of Pontus, who were masters of many of those colonies, ever deprived them of their own civil government.

The power§ of those kings increased as soon as they subdued those cities. Mithridates found himself able to hire troops on every side, to repair his frequent losses: to have a multitude of workmen, ships, and military machines; to procure himself allies; to bribe those of the Romans, and even the Romans themselves; to keep the barbarians of Asia and Europe in his pay;* to continue the war for many years, and of course to discipline his troops: he found himself able to train them to arms, to instruct them in the military art of the Romans, and to form considerable bodies out of their deserters; in a word, he found himself able to sustain great losses, and to be frequently defeated, without being ruined; neither would he have been ruined, if the voluptuous and barbarous king had not destroyed, in his prosperous days, what had been done by the great prince in times of adversity.

Thus it is that when the Romans were arrived at their highest pitch of grandeur, and seemed to have nothing to apprehend but from the ambition of their own subjects, Mithridates once more ventured to contest the mighty point, which the overthrows of Philip, of Antiochus, and of Perseus, had already decided. Never was there a more destructive war: the two contending parties being possessed of great power, and receiving alternate advantages, the inhabitants of Greece and of Asia fell a sacrifice in the quarrel, either as foes, or as friends of Mithridates. Delos was involved in the general fatality; and commerce failed on every side; which was a necessary consequence, the people themselves being destroyed.

The Romans, in pursuance of a system of which I have spoken elsewhere,§ acting as destroyers, that they might not appear as conquerors, demolished Carthage and Corinth; a practice by which they would have ruined themselves, had they not subdued the world. When the kings of Pontus became masters of the Greek colonies on the Euxine sea, they took care not to destroy what was to be the foundation of their own grandeur.

[* ]See Strabo, lib. x.

[]He confirmed the liberty of the city of Amisus, an Athenian colony, which had enjoyed a popular government, even under the kings of Persia. Lucullus having taken Sinone and Amisus, restored them to their liberty, and recalled the inhabitants, who had fled on board their ships.

[]See what Appian writes concerning the Phanagoreans, the Amisians, and the Synopians, in his treatise of the Mithridatic war.

[§ ]See Appian, in regard to the immense treasures which Mithridates employed in his wars, those which he had buried, those which he frequently lost by the treachery of his own people, and those which were found after his death.

[* ]See Appian on the Mithridatic war.

[]Ibid.

[]He lost at one time 170,000 men, yet he soon recruited his armies.

[§ ]In the Considerations on the causes of the rise and declension of the Roman grandeur.