The Spirit of the Laws
Montesquieu
The Spirit of the Laws
The book this one opened the way to, and the one whose research went back into the revised 1748 edition of the Considerations.
Read our takeConsiderations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline
Montesquieu
Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline
by Montesquieu
Twenty-three short chapters on why Rome grew and why it fell, written in 1734 by a judge who thought a country's dissensions were a sign of life.
- 1734
About Montesquieu
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeCharles-Louis de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu, published this book anonymously in Amsterdam in the spring of 1734, between the Persian Letters and The Spirit of the Laws. Twenty-three short chapters cover roughly two thousand two hundred years, from the founding of Rome to the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Montesquieu begins with a city built for storing plunder and cattle, and follows it through the wars that made it an empire. Then he asks the question the book exists for. Why did a state whose institutions did not change nonetheless stop being free?[1] His answers are unusual. Rome's strength came partly from its internal quarrels, not in spite of them. Its ruin came from growing too large for a citizen army, and from generals whose soldiers came to belong to them rather than to the republic.[2] Edward Gibbon admired the book; Voltaire found it thin.[1]
The story, in more detail
The shape of the book is a rise and a long fall. Chapters 1 to 7 take Rome from its infancy to the point where it could beat anyone. They cover the early wars, the Roman way of making war, how the city grew, the Gauls, Pyrrhus, Carthage and Hannibal. Then comes the conduct by which the Romans subdued everyone else, and the puzzle of how Mithridates managed to hold them off. Chapter 8 turns to the divisions that were always in the city. Chapter 9 names two causes of Rome's loss. Chapter 10 is on the corruption of the Romans, 11 on Sulla, Pompey and Caesar, and the rest runs down through the emperors to the eastern empire and 1453.[2]
Montesquieu's opening move is to stop the reader picturing a marble city. Rome in its infancy, the 1883 English translation has it, should not be imagined from the cities that exist now. The exception it offers is the cities of the Crim Tartars, built for the stowing and securing of plunder, cattle, fruits, and other produce of the country. A fortified depot with a market, in other words. Everything that follows is an argument about how such a place could end up owning the Mediterranean.[3]
The book grew in the writing. Catherine Volpilhac-Auger, who edited the modern scholarly edition, records that Montesquieu meant to write a few pages on the Roman monarchy. He ended up tracing the republic from its start to the fall of the empire. For the earliest history he used Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and for the Byzantine centuries Procopius. But he followed no single authority. His way of working was to check laws, customs, treaties and private letters against one another.[1]
He kept revising. A notebook of corrections begun after 1734 fed a substantially rewritten Paris edition of 1748, printed by Huart et Moreau and described on its title page as reviewed, corrected and enlarged by the author. That edition benefited from the research he had been doing for The Spirit of the Laws, which appeared the same year.[1]
Themes and analysis
Quarrelling as a sign of health
Chapter 8 is titled, in the French, on the divisions that were always in the city, and its claim runs against ordinary political instinct. The long struggle between the Senate and the people was not a flaw in the Roman republic that it survived. Volpilhac-Auger's summary of the book puts it directly: those divisions were the best sign of Roman vitality, and the liberty of the republic depended on them.
Montesquieu explains why in the chapter that follows, and the explanation turns on a musical comparison. Union in a body politic is a very equivocal thing, he writes. The true kind is a union of harmony, in which all the parts, however opposed they may look to us, work together for the general good of the society. Dissonances in music, he says, work together for the total chord in the same way. A country where everybody agrees is not harmonious on that account. Harmony needs parts that pull against each other.
The argument matters because of what it licenses. A government that suppresses disagreement in the name of unity is, by Montesquieu's account, removing the thing that kept the state alive. Fourteen years later the same instinct produces Book XI of The Spirit of the Laws, where the powers of a state are set against one another on purpose so that no one of them can win. The Considerations reaches that idea through Roman history rather than through constitutional design.
Montesquieu also sets a limit on it, in the same chapter 8. A free government, the 1734 Dublin English printing has it, is one for ever in motion, and cannot support itself unless its own laws are capable of correcting its disorders. Quarrels keep a state alive only while there is machinery that settles them. Rome had that machinery for centuries, and the rest of the book is about what happened when the quarrels grew larger than it.
The two causes of the loss of Rome
Chapter 9 gives the book its hinge, and it starts from something concrete: the size of the map. While the dominion of Rome was confined to Italy, Montesquieu writes, the republic could easily subsist. Every soldier was also a citizen. Each consul raised an army, and other citizens went to war under whoever came next. A legion was a body of men who went home.
Conquest broke that. Armies stationed far from Italy stayed in the field for years, stopped being citizens in any practical sense, and began to belong to the man who commanded them. A general at that distance, Montesquieu argues, came to recognise only his own strength. The soldiers' loyalty transferred from the republic to whoever paid and led them, and once that had happened the republic was at the mercy of anyone with a reputation and a legion. Chapter 11, on Sulla, Pompey and Caesar, is the working out of the point.
The second cause is the growth of the city itself. Rome extended citizenship to the peoples of Italy, and in doing so stopped being a single people with a single interest. Each new body of citizens arrived with its own concerns and its own loyalties, and the cohesive body politic broke into competing factions. The divisions that had been a sign of health in a city became something else in an empire.
There is a wider claim behind the two. Free states, the 1734 English version puts it, are not so permanent as other forms of government, because the misfortunes and the successes that happen to them generally occasion the loss of liberty. Defeat invites a strongman; victory produces one. Volpilhac-Auger identifies the central pivot of the book as the moment Rome willingly sacrificed its freedom while its institutions stood unchanged — Augustus established what she calls a durable servitude without needing to abolish anything.
History written to be argued with
The chapters are short and the sentences are declarative, and that is a choice about what history is for. Montesquieu is not narrating Rome; a reader who wants the events has to bring them. He is explaining Rome, and the chapter titles read like a list of problems to be solved: how the Romans were able to grow great, the conduct by which they subdued all nations, how Mithridates was able to resist them.
Volpilhac-Auger calls the result one of the first appearances of the philosophical spirit in history. The method is comparison and cross-checking — laws against customs, treaties against private correspondence — rather than trust in a single ancient authority. Dionysius of Halicarnassus supplies the early material and Procopius the Byzantine, but neither is followed where the other evidence points elsewhere.
Contemporary readers split on it. Voltaire thought the book sparse. Edward Gibbon, who would spend twenty years writing the fullest narrative history of Rome's decline anyone has produced, admired it greatly. The disagreement is really about whether explanation without narration counts as history, and Gibbon's own footnotes suggest which side he came down on.
For Montesquieu the book was a staging post. Volpilhac-Auger records that it opened the way to The Spirit of the Laws, that he wrote Reflections on universal monarchy as a continuation of it, and that the two have since been published together in the modern complete works. The 1748 revision of the Considerations drew on the research he was doing for the larger book, so the two texts were feeding each other by the end.
Anonymous in Amsterdam, then rewritten in Paris
The first edition was an anonymous octavo printed by Jacques Desbordes in Amsterdam in the spring of 1734 — the same publishing house that had produced the Persian Letters thirteen years earlier under a false Cologne imprint. Montesquieu was by then a member of the Academie francaise and had given up the work of his Bordeaux judgeship, and he still did not put his name on a book.
A revised Paris edition followed in 1748 from Huart et Moreau, reviewed, corrected and enlarged by the author, drawing on a notebook of corrections he had kept since the 1730s. The Spirit of the Laws appeared in Geneva the same year. Anyone comparing the two editions of the Considerations is reading a book rewritten by a man who had spent the intervening fourteen years on a much larger one.
English versions arrived immediately and then kept arriving. A translation called Reflections on the Causes of the Grandeur and Declension of the Romans, by the author of the Persian letters, was printed in Dublin by R. Reilly in 1734, the year of the French. A Glasgow edition of 1883 from W. S. Sime carries the title Montesquieu's Considerations on the Cause of the Grandeur and Declension of the Roman Empire and names no translator; both are public domain, and the quotations here come from them.
One warning for anyone searching for the text online. David Lowenthal's English translation, published by Hackett and still in print, is in copyright, and several scanned copies of it circulate on the Internet Archive labelled with the date 1734. The date belongs to Montesquieu's French, not to that translation. None of the quotations here come from Lowenthal.
Quotes from Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline
We are not to form to ourselves an idea of the city of Rome, in its infancy, from the cities which exist at this time, except we have in view those of the Crim Tartars, built for the stowing and securing of plunder, cattle, fruits, and other produce of the country.
Union in a body politic is a very equivocal thing: the true kind is a union of harmony, which makes all the parts, however opposed they may appear to us, work together for the general good of society, as dissonances in music work together for the total chord.L’union dans un corps politique est une chose très équivoque : la vraie est une union d’harmonie, qui fait que toutes les parties, quelque opposées qu’elles nous paraissent, concourent au bien général de la société, comme des dissonances dans la musique concourent à l’accord total.
While the dominion of Rome was confined to Italy, the republic could easily subsist. Every soldier was equally a citizen: each consul raised an army, and other citizens went to war under the one who succeeded him.Lorsque la domination de Rome était bornée dans l’Italie, la République pouvait facilement subsister. Tout soldat était également citoyen : chaque consul levait une armée, et d’autres citoyens allaient à la guerre sous celui qui succédait.
the reason why free states are not so permanent as other forms of government, is, because the misfortunes and successes which happen to them, generally occasion the loss of liberty.
Why we recommend it
The case that a country's quarrels keep it alive
Montesquieu argues that the long fight between the Senate and the people was the best sign of Roman vitality, and compares a healthy state to a chord that needs its dissonances. The idea reappears in Book XI of The Spirit of the Laws.
A short book on a very long subject
Twenty-three chapters carry two thousand years, and the sentences are declarative. Edward Gibbon needed six volumes for the second half of the same story and still admired this.
For readers who want to see a method being built
Montesquieu explains Rome by causes — the map, the army, the grant of citizenship — rather than by the intentions of famous men. Fourteen years later he applied the same approach to every legal system he could find.
On how a republic can end without anything being abolished
The pivot of the book is the moment Rome gave up its freedom while its institutions stood untouched, and Augustus established what its modern editor calls a durable servitude.
What this book explores
Bring it to book club
- Montesquieu says a state's internal divisions are a sign of its health. Where does he put the limit, and is the limit convincing?
- The two causes of Rome's loss are the distance of its armies and the extension of its citizenship. Which of the two does the book treat as the graver?
- Voltaire found the book sparse and Gibbon admired it. Which complaint does explanation-without-narration deserve?
- Augustus ends the republic without abolishing its institutions. What does that suggest about how much protection institutions offer?
Timeline
1728
Elected to the Academie francaise, Montesquieu leaves on three years of European travel, gathering the comparative material that shapes his history and his later work.
1734
The Considerations is published in the spring as an anonymous octavo by Jacques Desbordes in Amsterdam — the house that had printed the Persian Letters in 1721.
1734
An English version, Reflections on the Causes of the Grandeur and Declension of the Romans, by the author of the Persian letters, is printed in Dublin by R. Reilly in the same year.
1730s
Montesquieu begins a notebook of corrections to the book, which he keeps adding to while working on The Spirit of the Laws.
1748
A substantially revised edition appears in Paris from Huart et Moreau, reviewed, corrected and enlarged by the author. The Spirit of the Laws is published in Geneva the same year.
1776
Edward Gibbon, an admirer of the book, publishes the first volume of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — six volumes on the second half of Montesquieu's subject.
1876
Edouard Laboulaye's edition for Garnier Freres appears in Paris; its French text is the one transcribed on French Wikisource and quoted here.
1883
A Glasgow edition from W. S. Sime prints an English text with no translator named. It is public domain and free on the Internet Archive.
1999
Hackett publishes David Lowenthal's translation, which becomes the standard modern English text and remains in copyright.
2000
The modern complete works publish the Considerations together with Reflections on universal monarchy, the continuation Montesquieu wrote for it.
Book editions
Hardcover
- Hardcover
- 1734
Hardcover
- Hardcover
- R. Reilly, Dublin
- 1734
Hardcover
- Hardcover
- Huart et Moreau, Paris
- 1748
Hardcover
- Hardcover
- W. S. Sime, Glasgow, and Houlston and Sons, London
- 1883
- Paperback
- Hackett Publishing Company
- 1999
- 9780872204966
- David Lowenthal
Reader reviews
Readers may also like
Persian Letters
Montesquieu
Persian Letters
The book before it, printed by the same Amsterdam house and also anonymous — the same argument about power, made as comedy.
Read our takeConsiderations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline: frequently asked questions
What is the Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans about?
Twenty-three short chapters on why Rome grew powerful and why it stopped being free, covering roughly 753 BC to AD 1453. Montesquieu explains rather than narrates: he asks what the map, the army, the grant of citizenship and the character of the people did to Roman politics, and gives answers a reader can argue with.
What are the two causes of Rome's decline?
Chapter 9 names them. The first is the size of the empire: armies posted far from Italy stopped being citizen armies and came to belong to their generals rather than to the republic. The second is the extension of citizenship to the peoples of Italy, which meant Rome was no longer a single people with a single interest.
Why does Montesquieu think Rome's internal divisions were a good thing?
Because he thinks agreement is not the same as health. Union in a body politic, he writes, is a very equivocal thing; the true kind is a union of harmony, in which opposed parts work together for the general good as dissonances in music work together for the total chord. The Senate and the people pulling against each other is what kept the republic free.
How does it relate to The Spirit of the Laws?
It came first and opened the way. Its modern editor, Catherine Volpilhac-Auger, treats it as the book that made the larger one possible, and the research Montesquieu did for The Spirit of the Laws went back into the revised 1748 edition of the Considerations. Both books explain laws and politics by causes rather than by intentions.
Was it published anonymously?
Yes. The first edition was an anonymous octavo printed in Amsterdam in the spring of 1734 by Jacques Desbordes, the same house that had printed the Persian Letters under a false Cologne imprint in 1721.
What did other writers make of it?
Opinion split. Voltaire found it sparse. Edward Gibbon, who then spent twenty years writing six volumes on Rome's decline, admired it greatly. Volpilhac-Auger calls it one of the first appearances of the philosophical spirit in history.
Which translation should I read, and which are free?
David Lowenthal's Hackett translation is the modern standard and is in copyright. The free English versions are the 1734 Dublin printing and an 1883 Glasgow edition with no named translator, both on the Internet Archive; the French text is on French Wikisource. Be careful with online scans of Lowenthal labelled 1734 — that date belongs to Montesquieu's French.
If you like Montesquieu
Explore authors with a similar voice, perspective, and influence.
Louis-Ferdinand Céline
The doctor of the Paris slums who wrote the century's blackest, funniest novel — and changed the sound of French prose.
View author
Henry Miller
The Brooklyn dropout who arrived in Paris broke at thirty-eight and wrote the exuberant, banned books that ended American censorship.
View author
Victor Hugo
Poet, novelist and playwright who spent sixteen years in an apartment on the Place des Vosges that is now his museum, wrote a novel about Notre-Dame that shamed France into repairing the cathedral, spent nineteen years in exile for opposing the emperor Napoleon III, and was buried in the Panthéon — the Paris monument where France buries its most honoured dead — in 1885 after a funeral that brought roughly two million people into the streets of Paris.
View author
References
References
The sources below include the primary text, editions, scholarship, archival materials, and other records that informed this page. They document Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline, its publication, and its place in literary history.
1abcdConsiderations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans, in Dictionnaire Montesquieu
EssaysENS de Lyon, 2013Used forCatherine Volpilhac-Auger's scholarly article — the authority here for the 1734 Amsterdam publication, the 1748 revision, the sources, the argument, and the reception by Voltaire and Gibbon.
2abConsiderations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur decadence
NonfictionGarnier Freres, ed. Edouard Laboulaye; text on French Wikisource, 1876Used forThe French text in Edouard Laboulaye's edition, transcribed on French Wikisource: the chapter list and the verbatim French of the passages quoted from Chapter IX.
3↑Montesquieu's Considerations on the Cause of the Grandeur and Declension of the Roman Empire
NonfictionW. S. Sime, Glasgow, and Houlston and Sons, London, 1883Used forThe public-domain Glasgow English edition, for the chapter titles and the opening sentence of Chapter I.
4Montesquieu — Écrivain et philosophe français des Lumières
WebsiteBibliothèque nationale de France (BnF Essentiels)Used forThe French national library on where this book sits between the Persian Letters and The Spirit of the Laws.
5Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, in The Catholic Encyclopedia
EssaysRobert Appleton Company, New York, 1913Used forA Catholic reference work of 1913, for the Amsterdam publication in 1734.
6Montesquieu
EssaysStanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyUsed forThe philosophical summary, for the anonymous 1734 publication and the book's place in Montesquieu's work.
7Biography of Montesquieu, in Dictionnaire Montesquieu
BiographyENS de Lyon, ed. Catherine Volpilhac-Auger, 2013Used forFrancois Cadilhon's scholarly life, for what Montesquieu was doing in the years around 1734.
8Montesquieu edition records
WebsiteOpen LibraryUsed forOpen Library edition records, used to resolve the Hackett ISBN and to establish that the mislabelled online scans are David Lowenthal's 1999 translation.
9Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline
NovelMontesquieu, 1734Used forThe primary text represented by this page, used for descriptions of the work’s contents and for any quoted passages shown here.
i
Why these sources are here
The primary text is the baseline reference for every book page. Additional references document publication history, interpretation, and historical context where that evidence is available.
Explore more resources