It is in vain to think that superior bravery or skill would alone have done the business; those are often triumphant, but occasionally defeated. The Romans owed their gradual aggrandizement to a line of conduct that, whether in good or ill fortune, tended to make them the sovereigns of the world. A line of conduct in which, if it had been in human nature to persevere, they would have preserved the situation to which they had elevated themselves. Along with this decided conduct, which seems to have arisen from something innate in themselves, or to have been occasioned by some circumstance that is not known, the Romans possessed a number of methods, in addition to personal bravery, by which they advanced the end they had in view. When the kings were abolished, Rome was only a small, rude, irregular place, and a receptacle for plunder; inhabited, however, by men who had great strength of mind, and who possessed a great command over themselves. Their moral code was suitable to their situation. To rob, plunder, and destroy an enemy was a merit; to betray a trust, or to defraud a fellow citizen, was a crime of the greatest magnitude. With the Romans, oaths were inviolable; and attachment to the public was the greatest virtue. As they had neither arts nor commerce, and but very little territory, plunder was their means of subsistence; it was to them a regular source of wealth, and it was distributed with perfect impartiality; they were in fact an association; the wealth of the public, and of the individual, were, to a certain degree, the same; they were as an incorporated company, in which private interest conspired with the love of their country to forward the general interest. Plundering and pillage, as well as the modes of dividing the spoil, were reduced to system and method; and the religious observation of oaths was conducive to the success of both. Every soldier was sworn to be faithful to his country, both in fighting its battles, and in giving a rigid account of whatever might be the fruits of the contest. [end of page #28] The moveables and lands taken from an enemy were sold for the benefit of the public; the former went wholly for that purpose, and the latter were divided into two equal portions; one of which, like the moveables, went into the general stock, the other was distributed to the poorer citizens, at the price of a small acknowledgement. The consequence of this system was, a perpetual state of warfare; in which it was clear that the armies must obtain a superiority over neighbours, who but occasionally employed themselves in acts of hostility.