Book V.
Chap. 14.dispute the crown with him. They can neither pretend to, nor take any advantage of the will of a father. There is then no more occasion to confine or kill the king's brother than any other subject.
But in despotic governments, where the prince's brothers are equally his slaves and his rivals, prudence requires that their persons be secured; especially in Mahometan countries where religion considers victory or success as a divine decision in their favour; so that they have no such thing as a monarch de jure, but only de facto.
There is far a greater incentive to ambition in countries where the princes of the blood are sensible that if they do not ascend the throne they must be either imprisoned or put to death, than amongst us, where they are placed in such a station, as may satisfy, if not their ambition, at least their moderate desires.
The princes of despotic governments have always perverted the use of marriage. They generally take a great many wives, especially in that part of the world where absolute power is in some measure naturalized, namely Asia. Hence they come to have such a multitude of children, that they can hardly have any great affection for them, nor the children for one another.
The reigning family resembles the state; it is too weak itself, and its head too powerful; it seems very numerous and extensive, and yet is suddenly extinct. Artaxerxes[1] put all his children to death for conspiring against him. It is not at all probable that fifty children should conspire against their father, and much less that this conspiracy should be owing to his having refused to resign his concubine to his
- ↑ See Justin.
