historical and political thought in the seventeenth - RePub - Erasmus ...

Chapter 2. Intellectual context
Cunaeus’s and Grotius’s different views on trade are not isolated cases. They
are examples of the division that existed in the Dutch Republic between those
who held a positive view on trade and the acquisition of wealth and those
who did not. Among the latter we can count, besides Cunaeus, Lipsius and
Heinsius. In the Politica Lipsius had described money as ‘the mother of Luxury
and many other evils’ and had signalled the destructive powers of ‘excessive
wealth’ for ‘princes’ and ‘the kingdom’. 113 He had advised to install a censor,
who, amongst others, ‘shall abolish the pursuit of riches, or reduce it as much as
the circumstances permit’. 114 In his description of the fall of the Roman Republic
Heinsius made it clear that the moral defects (voluptuousness, avarice, and
ambition) that had accompanied the huge amounts of resources and wealth
Rome’s empire had bequeathed it, had been easily exploited by its enemies
to create internal discord. Interestingly, Heinsius described Jugurtha, the first
person who took advantage of the decline in Roman moral standards, as a sly
and cunning merchant, who ‘lured the Senate into his factions with presents
and gifts, as if the Senate was an object for sale’. This not only shows that in
the seventeenth century the persona of the merchant was not even undisputed
among the Dutch themselves, but also points out to the problem that it were
especially those in power who were most liable to bribery and corruption. 115
113 Lipsius, Politica, IV.11, p. 487. ‘Often I have heard about the kings, and the nations, which have
lost through abundance great empires which they had obtained through virtue when they were poor.’
Lipsius quotes Sallust, Epistulae ad Caesarem senem de re publica, 2.7.5. (It is uncertian if Sallustius Crispus
is indeed the author of these letters.) Some of Lipsius’s comments on the left side of the quotes on this
page read: ‘It is in the interest of Princes to reduce wealth.’ ‘And of the kingdom.’ ‘Which perish through
excessive wealth.’ It must be noted, however, that although Lipsius in this part of the Politica (IV.11) does
not have a theory of ‘financial bookkeeping’ of the monarchy or state, he does point out in another part
of the Politica (V.6) that getting enough money belonged to the preparations for war. I owe this observation
to Jan Waszink whom I would like to thank for his help on this matter.
114 Ibidem, pp. 488-89. ‘Itaque merito Censor, Pecuniae studium tollet, aut quoad res feret, minuet.’
‘Thus it is right that our Censor shall abolish the pursuit of riches, or reduce it as much as the circumstances
permit.’ Lipsius quotes Sallust, Epistulae ad Caesarem senem de re publica, 2.7.3.
115 Daniel Heinsius, “De secunda & postrema Romanorum aetate: & de Taciti utilitate ac praestantia.
Habita cum C. Cornelii Taciti Equitis Romani Annales interpretaturus esset”, in idem, Orationum
editio nova, Prioribus auctior. Accedunt Dissertationes aliquot, cum nonnullis Praefationibus … (Elzevier;
Amsterdam, 1657), XV, p. 170. ‘Graeci disciplinas attulerunt, sed cum iis pariter ambitionem: Asia
delicias ingentes, sed cum iis voluptates. Omnes simul, opes maximas ac copias, sed auaritiam cum
istis. Vt cum homines jam nihil possent, spoliati libertate sua & exuti, vitia victorum, orbem victum
vindicare atque vlcisci voluisse videantur. Primus omnium Jugurtha, qui in bello Numantino Scipionem
fuerat secutus, vafer ac versutus, suis posse vitiis Romanorum expugnari callide intellexit. Tanti animi
mercator, vt cum spem in ferro non haberet, auro fugam ab exercitu redimeret, Senatum vero donis ac
muneribus in partes suas, vt venale mercimonium, pertraheret.’ The characterisation of Jugurtha as a
merchant seems to be of Heinsius’s own coining, for neither Sallust nor the Roman historian Florus,
Heinsius’s main sources, describe Jugurtha as a merchant. See, however, Sallust, The Jugurthine War,
XXXV.10, where Sallust has Jugurtha say that Rome ‘“was a city for sale and soon to be doomed – if only
it found a buyer”’. Sallust, Catilina, Ivgvrtha, Historiarvm fragmenta selecta; Appendix Sallvstiana. Recognovit
brevique adnotatione critica instrvxit L.D. Reynolds (Clarendon Press; Oxford, 1991), Ivgvrtha,
XXXV.10, p. 85. ‘Sed postquam Roma egressus est, fertur saepe eo tacitus respiciens postremo dixisse:
“urbem uenalem et mature perituram, si emptorem inuenerit.”’ English translation quoted from Sallust,
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