Reflections on the Rise and Fall of the Ancient Republicks. Edward Wortley MontaguЧитать онлайн книгу.
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I wish to thank Professor Ran Halévi for his prompt assistance in placing the French translation of Montagu’s Reflections in the complicated and volatile context of French revolutionary politics.
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REFLECTIONS
ON THE
RISE AND FALL
OF THE
ANCIENT REPUBLICKS.
ADAPTED TO THE
PRESENT STATE
OF
GREAT BRITAIN.
Οὐ τί τῷδε, ἢ τῷδε δόξει, λογιζόμενος
Ἀλλὰ τί πέπρακται λέγων.
Lucian. Histor. Scribend.1
BY EDWARD WORTLEY MONTAGU, ESQ.
THE FOURTH EDITION
LONDON:
Printed for J. Rivington and Sons, T. Longman, S. Crowder, T. Cadell, T. Becket, and W. Fox.
Plutarch takes notice of a very remarkable law of Solon’s,
which declared every man infamous, who, in any sedition or civil dissention in the state, should continue neuter, and refuse to side with either party.a
Aulus Gellius, who gives a more circumstantial detail of this uncommon law, affirms the penalty to be
no less than confiscation of all the effects, and banishment of the delinquent.b
Cicero mentions the same law to his friend Atticus, and even makes the punishment capital, though he resolves at the same time not to conform to it under his present circumstances, unless his friend should advise him to the contrary.c
[print edition page 2]
Which of these relators has given us the real penalty annexed to this law by Solon, [2] is scarce worth our enquiry. But I cannot help observing, that strange as this law may appear at first sight, yet if we reflect upon the reasons of it, as they are assigned by Plutarch and A. Gellius, it will not appear unworthy of that great legislator.
The opinion of Plutarch is, “That Solon intended no citizen, as soon as ever he had provided for the security of his own private affairs, should be so unfeeling with respect to the public welfare as to affect a brutal insensibility,a and not sympathize with the distress and calamities of his country: but that he should immediately join the honester and juster party; and rather risque his all in defence of the side he had espoused, than keep aloof from danger till he saw which party proved the stronger.”4
