CHAP. XXI.: 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 farther addition to this servitude and subjection?

At Athens and Rome A great many sold their children to pay their debts. Plutarch, life of Solon. ^†449 it was first permitted to sell such debtors as were insolvent. Solon redressed this abuse at Athens Plutarch, life of Solon. ^†450, by ordaining that no man’s body should answer for his civil debts. But the decemvirs It appears, from history, that this custom was established among the Romans before the law of the twelve tables. Livy, 1 dec. book 2. ^†451 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 shew their design of checking the spirit of democracy.

Often did those cruel laws against debtors throw the Roman republic into danger. A man, all covered with wounds, made his escape from his creditor’s house, and appeared in the forum Dionys. Halicarn. Rom. An. book 6. ^†452. 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 broke. The people, upon this, having withdrawn to the Sacred Mount, obtained not an abrogation of those laws, but a magistrate to defend them.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 under tyranny. Manlius, to render himself popular, was going to set those citizens at liberty, who by their inhuman creditors Plutarch, life of Furius Camillus. ^†453 had been reduced to slavery. Manlius’s designs were prevented; but without remedying the evil. Particular laws facilitated to debtors the means of paying See what follows, in the 24th chapter of the book of laws, as relative to the use of money. ^†454; and, in

the year of Rome 428, the consuls proposed a law 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, lib. 8. ^†455, which deprived creditors of the power of confining their debtors in their own houses Bona debitoris, non corpus obnoxium esset. Ibid. ^†456. An 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 The year of Rome 465. ^†457 the crime of the infamous Papirius an action of the like criminal nature That of Platius, who made an attempt upon the body of Veturius. Valerius Maximus, book 6, art. 9. These two events ought not to be confounded; they are neither the same persons nor the same times. ^†458 was the cause of the people’s retiring to the Janiculum See a fragment of Dronys. Halicarn. in the extract of virtues and vices; Livy’s epitome, book 2; and Freinshemius, book 2. ^†459, 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.