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Considerations on the Romans

Montesquieu

Thomas Nugent (1777)

Published in 1734, Montesquieu's Considerations on the Causes of the Grandeur and Declension of the Romans traces Rome's rise and fall across twenty-three chapters. He argues that Rome's fortunes flowed not from luck but from general causes—civic virtue, military discipline, and sound institutions, and later the corruptions of empire, luxury, and lost liberty. A landmark of Enlightenment historiography, it seeks the underlying principles of historical change and rehearses ideas Montesquieu would expand in The Spirit of Laws.

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Contents

1. Chapter I
2. Chapter II
3. Chapter III
4. Chapter IV
5. Chapter V
6. Chapter VI
7. Chapter VII
8. Chapter VIII
9. Chapter IX
10. Chapter X
11. Chapter XI
12. Chapter XII
13. Chapter XIII
14. Chapter XIV
15. Chapter XV
16. Chapter XVI
17. Chapter XVII
18. Chapter XVIII
19. Chapter XIX
20. Chapter XX
21. Chapter XXI
22. Chapter XXII
23. Chapter XXIII