Writing about Rome: after Bossuet, Saint-Evremond and so many others, the company no longer had, in 1734, the merit of novelty. However, Montesquieu was able to renew this “worn material”, in the words of Voltaire who recognized in the Considerations “very fine reflections and very strong paintings”. As a true historian – and no longer as a storyteller – the writer describes ancient Rome, its power, its abuses and its fall according to a principle of a chain of causes and effects, leaving aside any heroic or providential consideration. If some have pointed out a perspective that is too narrow because it is essentially political and moral, it nonetheless remains modern to the extent that Montesquieu renounces the facilities of narrative history in favor of a rational history.