Vico, painting the Romans with their horrible traits, represents them as excusable, because he shows that all their conduct was governed by preexisting ideas and customs, and that they were informed, so to speak, by a superior genius of which they were unconscious; in Montesquieu, the Roman atrocity revolts, but is not explained.

Therefore, as a writer, Montesquieu brings greater credit upon French literature; as a philosopher, Vico bears away the palm.
Originally, property in Rome was national, not private.

Numa was the first to establish individual property by distributing the lands captured by Romulus.

What was the dividend of this distribution effected by Numa?
What conditions were imposed upon individuals, what powers reserved to the State?
None whatever.

Inequality of fortunes, absolute abdication by the republic of its right of eminent domain over the property of citizens,--such were the first results of the division of Numa, who justly may be regarded as the originator of Roman revolutions.
He it was who instituted the worship of the god Terminus,--the guardian of private possession, and one of the most ancient gods of Italy.