Ch. xiv. among the Romans. 247 



of Roman citizens ; and indeed from the nature of 

 these laws, consisting as they did principally of 

 privileges, it would appear that they were directed 

 chiefly to this part of society. But vicious habits 

 of every possible kind preventive of population* 

 seem to have been so generally prevalent at this 

 period, that no corrective laws could have any 

 considerable influence. Montesquieu justly ob- 

 serves, that " the corruption of manners had de- 

 " stroyed the office of censor, which had been 

 " established itself to destroy the corruption of 

 " manners ; but when the corruption of manners 

 " becomes general, censure has no longer any 

 f force."f Thirty-four years after the passing of 

 the law of Augustus respecting marriage, the 

 Roman knights demanded its repeal. On sepa- 

 rating the married and the unmarried, it appeared 

 that the latter considerably exceeded in number 

 the former; a strong proof of the inefficacy of the 



law.J 



In most countries vicious habits preventive of 

 population appear to be a consequence, rather 

 than a cause, of the infrequency of marriage ; but 

 in Rome the depravity of morals seems to have 

 been the direct cause which checked the marriage 

 union, at least among the higher classes. It is 



* Sed jacet aurato vix ulla puerpera lecto j 



Tantum artes bujus, tantum niedicamina possunt, 

 Quae steriles facit, atque homines in ventre necandos 

 Conducit. Juvenal, Sat. vi. 593. 



f Esprit des Loix, liv. xxiii. c. 21. 



t Ibid. 



S 



