[357] CHAPTER VIII.

Of Lordship over the Conquered.

I. 1 SINCE the victor can subject individuals to personal servitude, it is not surprizing that he should be allowed to reduce a body of men, whether they be a State, or part of a State, to a servitude, either civil or domestic, or mixed. This is the argument used by some one in Seneca: That he is my slave whom I have bought by the laws of war, is a rule expedient for you Athenians; otherwise your empire which has been gained by war is reduced within its ancient limits. And accordingly, Tertullian says that empire is sought by arms and extended by victories: and Quintilian, that kingdoms, peoples, the boundaries of nations and of cities, are defined by wars. Alexander, in Curtius, says, that laws are given by the conquerors, and accepted by the conquered. So Minio in his speech to the Romans: Why do you send to Syracuse and the other Greek cities of Sicily every year your proctor with the ensigns of office? You can only say that you have imposed those laws on conquered peoples. So Ariovistus in Cesar.

2 Justin, from Trogus, relates, that those who made war, before Ninus, did not seek empire but glory; and, content with victory, abstained from empire; that Ninus was the first who extended the bounds of empire, and reduced other nations to his authority by war; and that thenceforth it became a custom. So Bocchus in Sallust, says, that he had taken arms to defend his government; for that the part of Numidia from which he had expelled Jugurtha was his by the right of war.

3 But authority may sometimes be acquired by victory, only so far as it exists in the king or other ruler: and in that case, the conqueror succeeds only to his rights, and no more: or as far as it is in the people; in which case the victor has the authority, in such a way that be may alienate it, as the people could have done. And hence it comes to pass, that some kingdoms are patrimonial, as we have elsewhere said.

II. 1 But more may sometimes be effected by the right of conquest; namely, so that what was a state may cease to be a state; so that it may become an accessory part to another state, as the Roman 358provinces; or may be attached to no state, as if a king, carrying on a war at his own expense, subject a people to him in such a way, that he may direct it to be governed mainly to the advantage, not of the people, but of the governor; which is a character, not of civil government, but of a master over servants. So Aristotle: Government is sometimes for the advantage of the governor, sometimes, of the governed: the latter has place among freemen: the former is the government of servants by a master. The people which is so governed is, from the time of conquest, not a state, but a large family. For it was well said by Anaxandrides, that slaves do not make a state.

2 And Tacitus opposes these conditions to one another: Not masters and slaves, but a governor and citizens. So Xenophon of Agesilaus, that he governed the cities which he reduced not as slaves under a master, but as free men obey their rulers.

III. And hence we may understand what is that mixed government, compounded of mastership and civil rule, of which we have spoken; namely, when servitude is combined with a certain personal liberty. Thus we read of peoples whose arms were taken from them, and who were commanded not to possess any iron except for agriculture; and of others who were compelled to change their language and habits of living.

IV. 1 For, as the things which had belonged to individuals, do, by the laws of war, become the property of those who conquer them, so also the property of the general body becomes the property of the victors, if these so choose. What Livy says of persons who surren­der, that all things are surrendered to the conqueror, and that it is for him to decide what they may keep and what they must forfeit, holds with regard to the conquered in war. For surrender gives up what would otherwise be taken by force. So Scaptius in Livy, of the land of Corioli. Annibal in his oration to his soldiers in the same historian, told them that all that the Romans had won would be theirs. So Antiochus said of the possessions of Seleucus. So Pompey took all that belonged to the empire of Mithridates.

2 And hence incorporeal rights also, which had belonged to the general body, become the rights of the victor, so far as he chooses. Thus when Alba was conquered, the Romans claimed what had been the rights of the Albans. Whence it follows that the Thessalians were altogether liberated from the obligation of a hundred talents, claimed by the Thebans; which sum Alexander the Great, having conquered Thebes, gave to them by the right of victory; nor is that true which is alleged for the Thebans in Quintilian: that that only belongs to the victor which he himself has in his hands; and that an incorporeal right cannot so be taken possession of: that the condition of an heir is different from that of a victor, because to the former the right passes, to the latter the thing only. For he who is lord of the persons, is lord of the things also, and of all things which belong to the person. He 359who is in the possession of another, has no possession for himself; and he who is not his own master, can be master of nothing else.

3 Even if any victor leave to the conquered people the rights of their state, he may take to himself some things which belonged to the state: for it depends on his own will what limit he chooses to fix to the benefits which he gives. Cesar imitated the act of Alexander, in remitting to the Dyrrachians the debt which they owed to some of the adverse party. But here it might be objected that the war of Cesar was not of that kind for which this law of nations was established.