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| That If the Gods Had Really Possessed Any Regard for Righteousness, the Romans Should Have Received Good Laws from Them, Instead of Having to Borrow Them from Other Nations.
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Chapter 16.—That If the Gods Had
Really Possessed Any Regard for Righteousness, the Romans Should
Have Received Good Laws from Them, Instead of Having to Borrow Them
from Other Nations.
Moreover, if the Romans had been
able to receive a rule of life from their gods, they would not have
borrowed Solon’s laws from the Athenians, as they did some years
after Rome was founded; and yet they did not keep them as they
received them, but endeavored to improve and amend them.110
| 110 In the year
a.u. 299, three ambassadors were sent from Rome to Athens to
copy Solon’s laws, and acquire information about the institutions
of Greece. On their return the Decemviri were appointed to draw
up a code; and finally, after some tragic interruptions, the
celebrated twelve tables were accepted as the fundamental statutes
of Roman law (fons universi publici privatique juris).
These were graven on brass, and hung up for public information.
Livy, iii. 31–34. | Although
Lycurgus pretended that he was authorized by Apollo to give laws to
the Lacedemonians, the sensible Romans did not choose to believe
this, and were not induced to borrow laws from Sparta. Numa
Pompilius, who succeeded Romulus in the kingdom, is said to have
framed some laws, which, however, were not sufficient for the
regulation of civic affairs. Among these regulations were many
pertaining to religious observances, and yet he is not reported to
have received even these from the gods. With respect, then, to
moral evils, evils of life and conduct,—evils which are so
mighty, that, according to the wisest pagans,111
| 111 Possibly he refers to Plautus’
Persa, iv. 4. 11–14. | by them states are ruined while
their cities stand uninjured,—their gods made not the smallest
provision for preserving their worshippers from these evils, but,
on the contrary, took special pains to increase them, as we have
previously endeavored to prove.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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