12.18. 18. How dangerous it is in Republics to be too severe in punishing
the Crime of High Treason.
As soon as a republic has compassed the
destruction of those who wanted to subvert it, there should be an end of
terrors, punishments, and even of rewards.
Great punishments, and consequently great changes, cannot take place
without investing some citizens with an exorbitant power. It is,
therefore, more advisable in this case to exceed in lenity than in
severity; to banish but few, rather than many; and to leave them their
estates, instead of making a vast number of confiscations. Under
pretence of avenging the republic's cause, the avengers would establish
tyranny. The business is not to destroy the rebel, but the rebellion.
They ought to return as quickly as possible into the usual track of
government, in which every one is protected by the laws, and no one
injured.
The Greeks set no bounds to the vengeance they took upon tyrants, or
of those they suspected of tyranny; they put their children to
death,
[50]
nay, sometimes five of their nearest relatives;
[51]
and they
proscribed an infinite number of families. By such means their republics
suffered the most violent shocks: exiles, or the return of the exiled,
were always epochs that indicated a change of the constitution.
The Romans had more sense. When Cassius was put to death for having
aimed at tyranny, the question was proposed whether his children should
undergo the same fate: but they were preserved. "They," says Dionysius
Halicarnassus,
[52]
"who wanted to change this law at the end of the
Marsian and civil wars, and to exclude from public offices the children
of those who had been proscribed by Sulla, are very much to blame."
We find in the wars of Marius and Sulla to what excess the Romans
had gradually carried their barbarity. Such scenes of cruelty it was
hoped would never be revived. But under the triumvirs they committed
greater acts of oppression, though with some appearance of lenity; and
it is provoking to see what sophisms they made use of to cover their
inhumanity. Appian has given us
[53]
the formula of the proscriptions.
One would imagine they had no other aim than the good of the republic,
with such calmness do they express themselves; such advantages do they
point out to the state; such expediency do they show in the means they
adopt; such security do they promise to the opulent; such tranquillity
to the poor; so apprehensive do they seem of endangering the lives of
the citizens; so desirous of appeasing the soldiers; such felicity, in
fine, do they presage to the commonwealth.
Rome was drenched in blood when Lepidus triumphed over Spain: yet,
by an unparalleled absurdity, he ordered public rejoicings in that city,
upon pain of proscription.
Footnotes
[50]
Dionysius Halicarnassus, "Roman Antiquities," Book viii.
[51]
Tyranno occiso quinque ejus proximos cognatione magistratus
necato. — Cicero, "De Invent." lib ii, 29.
[52]
Cook Book viii, p. 547.
[53]
"Of the Civil Wars," Book iv.
