Reflections on the Rise and Fall of the Ancient Republicks

In 1759 at the height of the Seven Years' War when Great Britain was suffering a series of military reversals Montagu considered his country's plight in an historical context formed by the study of five ancient republics: Sparta Athens Thebes Carthage and Rome. Montagu's focus on the ancient republics gives his contribution a distinctive twist to the chorus of voices lamenting Britain's decline and his analysis exerted influence in three momentous eighteenth-century crises: the Seven Years' War the American War of Independence and the French Revolution. This is the first modern edition of Montagu's work. Montagu's warnings in Reflections on the Rise and Fall of the Ancient Republicks are unusual in that each of the five states he examines supplies a separate lesson adapted to the needs of Britain during the crisis. Sparta instructs modern Britain to suppress commerce refinement and opulence and to bolster the landed interest. Athens warns of the dangerous levity of a democratical form of government of the disastrous influence the people can exercise over the constitution and policy of a state if they are not checked by a powerful and confident aristocracy of the proneness of the people to encourage charismatic despotism and lastly of the folly of foreign entanglements and empire-building. Thebes more encouragingly demonstrates the potency of a very small number of virtuous patriots to save a state from corruption. The calamitous Carthaginian experience with mercenaries shows the incomparable superiority of a militia over hired soldiers. Finally Rome plays her usual role of showing the fatal consequences of luxury. In the end it was the Epicurean atheism of the Roman upper classes that gave the coup de grâce to the Roman state | Pages: 0.…