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It has been a favourite opinion among many writers on political economy that artists and workmen are cowardly and unfit for soldiers; but experience does not warrant that conclusion; though it is certain that, according to the manner the Romans carried on war, the bodily fatigue was greater than men bred up promiscuously to trades of different sorts could in general undergo.
So long as the Romans had enemies to contend with, from whom they obtained little, the manners and laws, the mode of education, and the government of their country, remained pure as at first. Their business, indeed, became more easy; for the terror of their name, their inflexibility, and the superior means they had of bringing their powers into action, all served to facilitate their conquests. But when they conquered Carthage, and begun =sic= to taste the fruits of wealth, their ground-work altered by degrees, and the superstructure became less solid. {31}
Wealth, as we have already seen, was confined to Asia and Africa, and of it the Carthaginians possessed a great share. It has long been the opinion adopted by writers on those subjects that the Carthaginians, as being a commercial and a trading nation, were quite an unequal match for the Romans; that in Rome all was virtue, public spirit, and every thing that was great and noble, while at Carthage all was venal, vile, and selfish. A spirit of war and conquest reigned, say they, in one place together with a spirit of glory, in the other a spirit of gain presided over private actions and public counsels.
This is all very true, and very well said, with respect to the fact, but with respect to the cause there is one of the greatest errors into which a number of men of discernment and ability have ever fallen. {32}
The true state of the case is easily to be understood, if we only
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{31} It will be seen, in the subsequent part of this inquiry, that, in the present mode of warfare, the Romans would not have had equal advantage. -- Skill, and not personal strength, is now the great object, and money to purchase arms and ammunition is the next.
{32} M. Montesquieu, notwithstanding his very superior knowledge, accuracy, and acuteness, enlarges upon this subject; and never takes any notice of the corrupt, mercenary, and degraded state into which Rome fell when it became as rich as Carthage.