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past masters commons

Annotation Guide:

cover
The Complete Works of Montesquieu. Electronic Edition.
cover
Volume I.
Body
BOOK XII.: OF THE LAWS THAT FORM POLITICAL LIBERTY, AS RELATIVE TO THE SUBJECT.
CHAP. XVI.: Of Calumny, with Regard to the Crime of High-Treason.

CHAP. XVI.: Of Calumny, with Regard to the Crime of High-Treason.

TO do justice to the Cæsars, they were not the first devisers of the horrid laws which they enacted.

259 ―
It is Sylla†432 that taught them that calumniators ought not to be punished: but the abuse was soon carried to such excess as to reward them†433.