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Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow CHAP. XX.: That the Romans were under a Necessity of making Laws, to encourage the Propagation of the Species. - Complete Works, vol. 2 The Spirit of Laws

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CHAP. XX.: That the Romans were under a Necessity of making Laws, to encourage the Propagation of the Species. - Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, Complete Works, vol. 2 The Spirit of Laws [1748]

Edition used:

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. XX.

That the Romans were under a Necessity of making Laws, to encourage the Propagation of the Species.

THE Romans, by destroying others, were themselves destroyed: incessantly in action, in the heat of battle, and in the most violent attempts, they wore out like a weapon kept constantly in use.

I shall not here speak of the attention with which they applied themselves to procure* citizens in the room of those they lost, of the associations they entered into, the privileges they bestowed, and of that immense nursery of citizens, their slaves. I shall mention what they did to recruit the number, not of their citizens, but of their men; and as these were the people in the world who knew best how to adapt their laws to their projects, an examination of their conduct, in this respect, cannot be a matter of indifference.

[* ]I have treated of this in the Considerations on the causes of the rise and declension of the Roman grandeur.