shed sovereign to
oppress his own subjects, and thus to alienate their affection.

When they granted peace to a king, they took some of his brothers
or children as hostages. This gave them the means of troubling his
kingdom at their pleasure. If they held the nearest heir, they
intimidated the possessor; if only a prince of a remote degree,
they used him to stir up revolts against the legitimate ruler.

Whenever any people or prince withdrew their obedience from their
sovereign, they immediately accorded to them the title of allies of
the Roman people, and thus rendered them sacred and inviolable; so
that there was no king, however great he might be, who could for a
moment be sure of his subjects, or even of his family.

Although the title of Roman ally was a species of servitude, it
was, nevertheless, very much sought after; for the possession of
this title made it certain that the recipients of it would receive
injuries from the Romans only, and there was ground for the hope
that this class of injuries would be rendered less grievous than
they would otherwise be.

Thus, there was no service which nations and kings were not ready
to perform, nor any humiliation which they did not submit to, in
order to obtain this distinction....

These customs were not merely some particular facts which happened
at hazard. They were permanently established principles, as may be
readily seen; for the maxims which the Romans acted upon against
the greatest powers were precisely those which they had employed in
the beginning of their career against the small cities which
surrounded them....

But nothing served Rome more effectually than the respect which she
inspired among all nations. She immediately reduced kings to
silence, and rendered them as dumb. With the latter, it was not a
mere question of the degree of their power: their very persons were
attacked. To risk a war with Rome was to expose themselves to
captivity, to death, and to the infamy of a triumph. Thus it was
that kings, who lived in pomp and luxury, did not dare to look with
steady eyes upon the Roman people, and, losing courage, they hoped,
by their patience and their obsequiousness, to obtain some
postponement of the calamities with which they were menaced.

The "Spirit of Laws" is prob