12.21. 21. Of the Cruelty of Laws in respect to Debtors in a Republic.
Great is the superiority which one fellow-subject has already over
another, by lending him money, which the latter borrows in order to
spend, and, of course, has no longer in his possession. What must be the
consequence if the laws of a republic make a further addition to this
servitude and subjection?
At Athens and Rome
[61]
it was at first permitted to sell such
debtors as were insolvent. Solon redressed this abuse at Athens
[62]
by ordaining that no man's body should answer for his civil debts. But the
decemvirs
[63]
did not reform the same custom at Rome; and though they
had Solon's regulation before their eyes, yet they did not choose to
follow it. This is not the only passage of the law of the Twelve Tables
in which the decemvirs show their design of checking the spirit of
democracy.
Often did those cruel laws against debtors throw the Roman republic
into danger. A man covered with wounds made his escape from his
creditor's house and appeared in the forum.
[64]
The people were moved
with this spectacle, and other citizens whom their creditors durst no
longer confine broke loose from their dungeons. They had promises made
them, which were all broken. The people upon this, having withdrawn to
the Sacred Mount, obtained, not an abrogation of those laws, but a
magistrate to defend them. Thus they quitted a state of anarchy, but
were soon in danger of falling into tyranny. Manlius, to render himself
popular, was going to set those citizens at liberty who by their inhuman
creditors
[65]
had been reduced to slavery. Manlius's designs were
prevented, but without remedying the evil. Particular laws facilitated
to debtors the means of paying;
[66]
and in the year of Rome 428 the
consuls proposed a law
[67]
which deprived creditors of the power of
confining their debtors in their own houses.
[68]
A usurer, by name
Papirius, attempted to corrupt the chastity of a young man named
Publius, whom he kept in irons. Sextus's crime gave to Rome its
political liberty; that of Papirius gave it also the civil.
Such was the fate of this city, that new crimes confirmed the
liberty which those of a more ancient date had procured it. Appius's
attempt upon Virginia flung the people again into that horror against
tyrants with which the misfortune of Lucretia had first inspired them.
Thirty-seven years after
[69]
the crime of the infamous Papirius, an
action of the like criminal nature
[70]
was the cause of the people's
retiring to the Janiculum,
[71]
and of giving new vigour to the law made
for the safety of debtors.
Since that time creditors were oftener prosecuted by debtors for
having violated the laws against usury than the latter were sued for
refusing to pay them.
Footnotes
[61]
"A great many sold their children to pay their debts." --
Plutarch, "Life of Solon."
[63]
It appears from history that this custom was established among
the Romans before the Law of the Twelve Tables. — Livy, dec. 1, ii. 23,
24.
[64]
Dionysius Halicarnassus. "Roman Antiquities," Book vi.
[65]
Plutarch, "Life of Furius Camillas."
[66]
See below, xxii. 22.
[67]
One hundred and twenty years after the law of the Twelve Tables:
Eo anno plebi Romanæ, velut aliud initium libertatis factum est, quod
necti desierunt. -- Livy, viii. 38.
[68]
"Bona debitoris, non corpus obnoxium esset."-- Ibid.
[69]
The year of Rome 465.
[70]
That of Plautius who made an attempt upon the body of Veturius.
-- Valerius Maximus, vi, 1, art. 9. These two events ought not to be
confounded; they are neither the same persons nor the same times.
[71]
See a fragment of Dionysius Halicarnassus in the "Extract of
Virtues and Vices" [Historica]; Livy's Epitome, ii., and Freinshemius,
ii.
