I. I Seek in men that love of their country, which I find so much
celebrated in books, but I do not meet with it; I mean that just, noble
and virtuous love, which they owe to their country. In some, I see no
kind of affection for their country at all; in others, I perceive only
a criminal affection, which is vulgarly called national prejudice.
II. I do not deny, that by turning over history, you will find
thousands of victims sacrificed to this idol. What war is undertaken
without this specious pretence? What field do we see drenched with
human blood, that posterity, over the carcases from whence it flowed,
has not fixed the honourable inscription, that those men lost their
lives for the good of their country? But if we examine things
critically, we shall find the world is much mistaken, in thinking
there have been so many, or so refined sacrifices made to this
imaginary deity. Let us figure to ourselves a republic, armed for a
war, undertaken on the principle of a just defence; and let us also
proceed to examine by the light of reason, the impulse which animates
men’s hearts to expose their lives in the quarrel. Among the private
men, some inlist for the pay and the plunder, others with the hopes of
bettering their fortunes, and acquiring military honour and preferment;
but the greatest part, from motives of obedience, and fear of the
Prince or the General. He who commands the army, is instigated by his
interest and his glory. The Prince, or Chief Magistrate, who is at a
distance from the danger, acts more for the sake of maintaining his
dominion, than for supporting the republic. Now admitting that all
these people should find it more for their interest to retire to their
houses, than to defend the walls, you would hardly see ten men left on
the ramparts.
III. Even those feats of prowess of the antients, which are so blazoned
and immortalized by fame, as the ultimate exertions of zeal for the
public good, were more probably generated by ambition, and the love of
glory, than by the love of their country; and I am inclined to think,
that if there had not been witnesses present, to have handed down to
posterity an account of their exploits, that from a principle of love
to his country, neither Curtius would have precipitated himself into
the pit, nor Marcus Attilius Regulus have submitted to die a lingering
death in an iron cage; nor would the twin brothers, for the sake of
extending the boundaries of Carthage, have consented to be buried
alive. The incitement of posthumous fame had great influence among
the Gentiles; and it might also happen, that some rushed on a violent
death, not so much with a view of acquiring posthumous fame, as from
the mad vanity of seeing themselves admired and applauded for a few
instants of their lives, of which Lucian gives us a striking example,
in the death that was submitted to by the philosopher Peregrinus.
IV. Among the Romans, the love of their country, was so much in
vogue and so prevalent, that it seemed as if this noble inclination
was the soul of their whole republic. But what appears to me is,
that the Romans themselves, on account of Cato’s constant and steady
attachment to the public, looked upon him as a very uncommon man,
and as one descended from Heaven. It may be said of all the rest
of them, almost without exception, that in serving their country,
they sought more their own exaltation than the public utility. They
gave Cicero the glorious surname of father of his country, for the
successful and vigorous opposition he made to Catiline’s conspiracy.
This in appearance was a great merit, although in reality it was but
an equivocal one; for not only the success of Cicero’s attaining the
consulate, depended upon that fury’s not carrying his point, but his
life also; for it is true, that when afterwards Cæsar tyrannized over
the republic, Cicero accommodated himself very well with him. The
subornations of Jugurtha, King of Numidia, shewed abundantly, what sort
of spirit influenced the Roman senate; which, contrary to the interest
of the republic, tolerated in that penetrating and violent Prince, many
grave and pernicious evils, because every new insolence he committed,
was accompanied with a new present to the senators. He was at last
brought to Rome, and detained there; and although he was so far from
correcting or reforming his old practices, that within the city itself,
he committed new and enormous offences; by the favour of gold, he was
permitted to go at large, which in the delinquent himself begot such a
contempt of that government, that when he left Rome, after getting at a
little distance from the city, he turned about, and looking at it with
disdain, called it _a venal city_, adding, that it would soon perish,
if any one could find money enough to pay the price of its ruin:
_Urbem venalem, et mature perituram, si emptorem invenirit_ (Sallust
in Jugurtha). The same thing, and even more pointedly, was said by
Petronius:
_Venalis populus, venalis curia patrem._
This is a picture of the love of their country so celebrated among the
Romans, and to which many at this day, judge they owed the enormous
extension of the Roman empire.