IX. These ambitious spirits bring on their subjects another injury, which is sufficiently serious, though less noticed than the former; and that is, that being totally occupied with the idea of aggrandizing their power by all possible ways and means, they do not only endeavour to augment it externally, and among strangers, but also internally, and among their own subjects. They are not only desirous of ruling over the most vassals they can, but are also anxious to domineer the most they can over their own subjects. It is not so easy to satisfy ambition in this second way, as in the first; for by adopting it, without an addition of subjects, he, who will disembarrass himself of the restriction of laws, may form an empire without limits; and an empire reduced to despotism, if, instead of estimating it by the number of those who are to obey, you make the computation according to the number of things that may be commanded, is an infinite one.
X. Finally, conquering Princes are evils to themselves; for as the dropsical thirst of accumulating new subjects is never satiated, the anxieties of their hearts are never quieted: Plusque cupit, quo plura suam demittit in alvum. Their backs are turned on all they have acquired, and they turn their eyes on what remains for them to acquire. From hence it follows, that this last being always in their view, has more power to inquiet their minds by irritating their appetite, than the other has to calm their souls by insinuating the happiness of possession, and the pleasure of enjoyment; and we may add to this anxiety, the dread of poison or the knife, which are the ordinary finishers of the lives of conquerors.
XI. There only remains to them, as the fruit of all their labours and toils, a single good, which they cannot enjoy, and therefore should not be reckoned to them as a benefit; that is, their names being celebrated in future ages; a tribute, which is paid to their ashes by the folly of mankind, and than which no tribute is more unjust. If the remembrance of conquerors was to be recorded in phrases dictated by the understanding, they would be described in terms of execration, not applause. Whoever sets about celebrating a Nimrod, an Alexander, or a Romulus, may with equal reason, employ himself in celebrating a tiger, a dragon, or a basilisk. I find the same qualities in the three eminent heroes, as in the three furious wild beasts, to wit, a great strength and power to commit mischief, and a great inclination to do it.
XII. I can’t refrain from laughter, when I reflect on the Romans, who were masters of the world, being vain of fixing the origin of their empire in Romulus. There was nothing in the deeds or character of this man, which could reflect lustre on his descendants. If you look to his birth, you will find that his mother was nothing better than a common prostitute. If you consider his life and profession, you will find that he was a daring and enterprising robber, who, being made captain of others like himself, erected his infamous gang into a republic. The rape of the Sabines, if the story is true, proves that Romulus, and all his followers, were looked upon as despicable and vile, and as a nuisance, by all Italy, because no other people chose to give them wives, or to intermarry with them; and it was necessary, in order to have women, that they should steal, and take them by violence. The life of Romulus was taken away by the same ministers he himself had raised, they not being able to bear with, or endure him. But such is the blindness of the world, that the same person who was deemed unworthy to live among men, and who was put to death on that account, is presently afterwards placed among the deities.
XIII. Other great conquerors met with the same lot; they were abhorred while living, and worshipped when dead. Nimrod was the first object of idolatry. They changed the name Nimrod, which signified rebel, into that of Bel, Baal, or Baalim, which signifies Lord. This is the Jupiter Belus of antiquity. Alexander fell a victim to poison, from the resentment of Antipater, and presently there were victims sacrificed on the altars to Alexander. They had scarce murdered Cæsar in the capital, as an enemy to his country, when they venerated him in Heaven, as the tutelar deity of the republic. The raising men to the rank of deities, was a great error in the Gentiles; but the raising those to that rank, who on account of their vices should have been degraded from the rank of men, was a much greater.
SECT. III.
XIV. Those who have a just idea of the Deity, cannot fall into so gross an error; but we don’t on that account cease to err. It is true, we do not worship conquerors as deities, but we celebrate them as heroes. What is this, but debasing so noble an epithet? True heroes are wrought and fashioned by virtue, and therefore we should reject all those as spurious and ill-made, which are fabricated in the workshops of ambition. A great and a bad man are contradictions in terms. Agesilaus answered wisely, to one who was extolling the greatness of the King of Persia, and at the same time took occasion to insinuate a remark on the smallness of the kingdom of Sparta, compared to the Persian empire. His reply was: He only can be greater than me, who is better than me. He could not have spoke more to the purpose, if he had read the celebrated saying of St. Austin, in the following words: In his, quæ non mole, sed virtute, præstant, idem est majus esse, quod melius esse. With regard to those things, which are estimated, not by the bulk, but by the virtue or excellence of them, that is greatest, which is best.
XV. Let a Theodosius, a Charles the Great, a Godfrey of Bulloign, a George Castriotus, be celebrated as heroes; and, in fine, all those in whom Fortune assisted Valour, and Valour Justice; those, who only drew their swords in the cause of Heaven, or for the good of the public; those, who in wars take to themselves the toil and the danger only, and leave untouched as the property of others, the fruits and acquisitions; those, who are pacific by inclination, and warriors through necessity; finally, all those, who, as an example to posterity, have by their actions, impressed an idea on the minds of men, that they were just, clement, wise, and animated Princes, in whose sceptres justice reigned, and whose swords never wounded their own consciences.
XVI. But discard from the stock of heroes, those crowned Tigers called conquering Princes, and let them be numbered with the delinquents. Throw down their statues, and translate their images, from the Palace to the dens of wild beasts, that the copies at least may be placed among company, and in such a situation, as suited the characters of the originals. I will in this place give a general trait or description of all conquering Princes, which I find delineated in very lively colours, in the words of a Prince on his death-bed, to whom they gave this epithet, which was William the First of England.
XVII. This prince, in that last stage of life, in which a man finding himself on the verge of eternity, begins to see things in their true light; and at the period of time, when the eyes of the soul open, with the same pace with which those of the body proceed to shut; and when the thoughts of his past victories gnawed his conscience, without feeding his ambition. At this crisis, either from motives of repentance, despair, or from a desire to unburthen himself, after reflecting with horror on the sum of his past actions, in the presence of many nobles who surrounded his bed—He made this confession: I have hated the English, I have dishonoured their Nobility, I have mortified and oppressed the people, and have been the cause of the death of infinite numbers, by famine and the sword; and to sum up the whole, I have desolated this fine and illustrious kingdom, by the murder and destruction of thousands and tens of thousands of its inhabitants. In these few lines, are painted, in their true colours, the exploits of that conqueror; and the same tints, would serve to delineate those of most others who have been dignified with that epithet.