| |
| 1515 |
| THE PRINCE |
| by Nicolo Machiavelli |
| translated by W. K. Marriott |
| CHAPTER I |
| HOW MANY KINDS OF PRINCIPALITIES THERE ARE, |
| AND BY WHAT MEANS THEY ARE ACQUIRED |
| |
| ALL STATES, all powers, that have held and hold rule over men have |
| been and are either republics or principalities. |
| Principalities are either hereditary, in which the family has been |
| long established; or they are new. |
| The new are either entirely new, as was Milan to Francesco Sforza, |
| or they are, as it were, members annexed to the hereditary state of |
| the prince who has acquired them, as was the kingdom of Naples to that |
| of the King of Spain. |
| Such dominions thus acquired are either accustomed to live under a |
| prince, or to live in freedom; and are acquired either by the arms |
| of the prince himself, or of others, or else by fortune or by ability. |
| CHAPTER II |
| CONCERNING HEREDITARY PRINCIPALITIES |
| |
| I WILL leave out all discussion on republics, inasmuch as in another |
| place I have written of them at length, and will address myself only |
| to principalities. In doing so I will keep to the order indicated |
| above, and discuss how such principalities are to be ruled and |
| preserved. |
| I say at once there are fewer difficulties in holding hereditary |
| states, and those long accustomed to the family of their prince, |
| than new ones; for it is sufficient only not to transgress the customs |
| of his ancestors, and to deal prudently with circumstances as they |
| arise, for a prince of average powers to maintain himself in his |
| state, unless he be deprived of it by some extraordinary and excessive |
| force; and if he should be so deprived of it, whenever anything |
| sinister happens to the usurper, he will regain it. |
| We have in Italy, for example, the Duke of Ferrara, who could not |
| have withstood the attacks of the Venetians in '84, nor those of |
| Pope Julius in '10, unless he had been long established in his |
| dominions. For the hereditary prince has less cause and less necessity |
| to offend; hence it happens that he will be more loved; and unless |
| extraordinary vices cause him to be hated, it is reasonable to |
| expect that his subjects will be naturally well disposed towards |
| him; and in the antiquity and duration of his rule the memories and |
| motives that make for change are lost, for one change always leaves |
| the toothing for another. |
| CHAPTER III |
| CONCERNING MIXED PRINCIPALITIES |
| |
| BUT the difficulties occur in a new principality. And firstly, if it |
| be not entirely new, but is, as it were, a member of a state which, |
| taken collectively, may be called composite, the changes arise chiefly |
| from an inherent difficulty which there is in all new |
| principalities; for men change their rulers willingly, hoping to |
| better themselves, and this hope induces them to take up arms |
| against him who rules: wherein they are deceived, because they |
| afterwards find by experience they have gone from bad to worse. This |
| follows also on another natural and common necessity, which always |
| causes a new prince to burden those who have submitted to him with his |
| soldiery and with infinite other hardships which he must put upon |
| his new acquisition. |
| In this way you have enemies in all those whom you have injured in |
| seizing that principality, and you are not able to keep those |
| friends who put you there because of your not being able to satisfy |
| them in the way they expected, and you cannot take strong measures |
| against them, feeling bound to them. For, although one may be very |
| strong in armed forces, yet in entering a province one has always need |
| of the goodwill of the natives. |
| For these reasons Louis XII, King of France, quickly occupied Milan, |
| and as quickly lost it; and to turn him out the first time it only |
| needed Lodovico's own forces; because those who had opened the gates |
| to him, finding themselves deceived in their hopes of future |
| benefit, would not endure the ill-treatment of the new prince. It is |
| very true that, after acquiring rebellious provinces a second time, |
| they are not so lightly lost afterwards, because the prince, with |
| little reluctance, takes the opportunity of the rebellion to punish |
| the delinquents, to clear out the suspects, and to strengthen |
| himself in the weakest places. Thus to cause France to lose Milan |
| the first time it was enough for the Duke Lodovico to raise |
| insurrections on the borders; but to cause him to lose it a second |
| time it was necessary to bring the whole world against him, and that |
| his armies should be defeated and driven out of Italy; which |
| followed from the causes above mentioned. |
| Nevertheless Milan was taken from France both the first and the |
| second time. The general reasons for the first have been discussed; it |
| remains to name those for the second, and to see what resources he |
| had, and what any one in his situation would have had for |
| maintaining himself more securely in his acquisition than did the King |
| of France. |
| Now I say that those dominions which, when acquired, are added to an |
| ancient state by him who acquires them, are either of the same country |
| and language, or they are not. When they are, it is easier to hold |
| them, especially when they have not been accustomed to |
| self-government; and to hold them securely it is enough to have |
| destroyed the family of the prince who was ruling them; because the |
| two peoples, preserving in other things the old conditions, and not |
| being unlike in customs, will live quietly together, as one has seen |
| in Brittany, Burgundy, Gascony, and Normandy, which have been bound to |
| France for so long a time: and, although there may be some |
| difference in language, nevertheless the customs are alike, and the |
| people will easily be able to get on amongst themselves. He who has |
| annexed them, if he wishes to hold them, has only to bear in mind |
| two considerations: the one, that the family of their former lord is |
| extinguished; the other, that neither their laws nor their taxes are |
| altered, so that in a very short time they will become entirely one |
| body with the old principality. |
| But when states are acquired in a country differing in language, |
| customs, or laws, there are difficulties, and good fortune and great |
| energy are needed to hold them, and one of the greatest and most |
| real helps would be that he who has acquired them should go and reside |
| there. This would make his position more secure and durable, as it has |
| made that of the Turk in Greece, who, notwithstanding all the other |
| measures taken by him for holding that state, if he had not settled |
| there, would not have been able to keep it. Because, if one is on |
| the spot, disorders are seen as they spring up, and one can quickly |
| remedy them; but if one is not at hand, they heard of only when they |
| are one can no longer remedy them. Besides this, the country is not |
| pillaged by your officials; the subjects are satisfied by prompt |
| recourse to the prince; thus, wishing to be good, they have more cause |
| to love him, and wishing to be otherwise, to fear him. He who would |
| attack that state from the outside must have the utmost caution; as |
| long as the prince resides there it can only be wrested from him |
| with the greatest difficulty. |
| The other and better course is to send colonies to one or two |
| places, which may be as keys to that state, for it necessary either to |
| do this or else to keep there a great number of cavalry and |
| infantry. A prince does not spend much on colonies, for with little or |
| no expense he can send them out and keep them there, and he offends |
| a minority only of the citizens from whom he takes lands and houses to |
| give them to the new inhabitants; and those whom he offends, remaining |
| poor and scattered, are never able to injure him; whilst the rest |
| being uninjured are easily kept quiet, and at the same time are |
| anxious not to err for fear it should happen to them as it has to |
| those who have been despoiled. In conclusion, I say that these |
| colonies are not costly, they are more faithful, they injure less, and |
| the injured, as has been said, I being poor and scattered, cannot |
| hurt. Upon this, one has to remark that men ought either to be well |
| treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter |
| injuries, of more serious ones they cannot; therefore the injury |
| that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does |
| not stand in fear of revenge. |
| But in maintaining armed men there in place of colonies one spends |
| much more, having to consume on the garrison all income from the |
| state, so that the acquisition turns into a loss, and many more are |
| exasperated, because the whole state is injured; through the |
| shifting of the garrison up and down all become acquainted with |
| hardship, and all become hostile, and they are enemies who, whilst |
| beaten on their own ground, are yet able to do hurt. For every reason, |
| therefore, such guards are as useless as a colony is useful. |
| Again, the prince who holds a country differing in the above |
| respects ought to make himself the head and defender of his powerful |
| neighbours, and to weaken the more powerful amongst them, taking |
| care that no foreigner as powerful as himself shall, by any |
| accident, get a footing there; for it will always happen that such a |
| one will be introduced by those who are discontented, either through |
| excess of ambition or through fear, as one has seen already. The |
| Romans were brought into Greece by the Aetolians; and in every other |
| country where they obtained a footing they were brought in by the |
| inhabitants. And the usual course of affairs is that, as soon as a |
| powerful foreigner enters a country, all the subject states are |
| drawn to him, moved by the hatred which they feel against the ruling |
| power. So that in respect to these subject states he has not to take |
| any trouble to gain them over to himself, for the whole of them |
| quickly rally to the state which he has acquired there. He has only to |
| take care that they do not get hold of too much power and too much |
| authority, and then with his own forces, and with their goodwill, he |
| can easily keep down the more powerful of them, so as to remain |
| entirely master in the country. And he who does not properly manage |
| this business will soon lose what he has acquired, and whilst he |
| does hold it he will have endless difficulties and troubles. |
| The Romans, in the countries which they annexed, observed closely |
| these measures; they sent colonies and maintained friendly relations |
| with the minor powers, without increasing their strength; they kept |
| down the greater, and did not allow any strong foreign powers to |
| gain authority. Greece appears to me sufficient for an example. The |
| Achaeans and Aetolians were kept friendly by them, the kingdom of |
| Macedonia was humbled, Antiochus was driven out; yet the merits of the |
| Achaeans and Aetolians never secured for them permission to increase |
| their power, nor did the persuasions of Philip ever induce the |
| Romans to be his friends without first humbling him, nor did the |
| influence of Antiochus make them agree that he should retain any |
| lordship over the country. Because the Romans did in these instances |
| what all prudent princes ought to do, who have to regard not only |
| present troubles, but also future ones, for which they must prepare |
| with every energy, because, when foreseen, it is easy to remedy |
| them; but if you wait until they approach, the medicine is no longer |
| in time because the malady has become incurable; for it happens in |
| this, as the physicians say it happens in hectic fever, that in the |
| beginning of the malady it is easy to cure but difficult to detect, |
| but in the course of time, not having been either detected or |
| treated in the beginning, it becomes easy to detect but difficult to |
| cure. Thus it happens in affairs of state, for when the evils that |
| arise have been foreseen (which it is only given to a wise man to |
| see), they can be quickly redressed, but when, through not having been |
| foreseen, they have been permitted to grow in a way that every one can |
| see them. there is no longer a remedy. Therefore, the Romans, |
| foreseeing troubles, dealt with them at once, and, even to avoid a |
| war, would not let them come to a head, for they knew that war is |
| not to be avoided, but is only put off to the advantage of others; |
| moreover they wished to fight with Philip and Antiochus in Greece so |
| as not to have to do it in Italy; they could have avoided both, but |
| this they did not wish; nor did that ever please them which is for |
| ever in the mouths of the wise ones of our time:- Let us enjoy the |
| benefits of the time- but rather the benefits of their own valour |
| and prudence, for time drives everything before it, and is able to |
| bring with it good as well as evil, and evil as well as good. |
| But let us turn to France and inquire whether she has done any of |
| the things mentioned. I will speak of Louis [XII] (and not of |
| Charles [VIII]) as the one whose conduct is the better to be observed, |
| he having held possession of Italy for the longest period; and you |
| will see that he has done the opposite to those things which ought |
| to be done to retain a state composed of divers elements. |
| King Louis was brought into Italy by the ambition of the |
| Venetians, who desired to obtain half the state of Lombardy by his |
| intervention. I will not blame the course taken by the king, |
| because, wishing to get a foothold in Italy, and having no friends |
| there- seeing rather that every door was shut to him owing to the |
| conduct of Charles- he was forced to accept those friendships which he |
| could get, and he would have succeeded very quickly in his design if |
| in other matters he had not made some mistakes. The king, however, |
| having acquired Lombardy, regained at once the authority which Charles |
| had lost: Genoa yielded; the Florentines became his friends; the |
| Marquess of Mantua, the Duke of Ferrara, the Bentivoglio, my lady of |
| Forli, the Lords of Faenza, of Pesaro, of Rimini, of Camerino, of |
| Piombino, the Lucchesi, the Pisans, the Sienese- everybody made |
| advances to him to become his friend. Then could the Venetians realize |
| the rashness of the course taken by them, which, in order that they |
| might secure two towns in Lombardy, had made the king master of |
| two-thirds of Italy. |
| Let any one now consider with what little difficulty the king |
| could have maintained his position in Italy had he observed the |
| rules above laid down, and kept all his friends secure and |
| protected; for although they were numerous they were both weak and |
| timid, some afraid of the Church, some of the Venetians, and thus they |
| would always have been forced to stand in with him, and by their means |
| he could easily have made himself secure against those who remained |
| powerful. But he was no sooner in Milan than he did the contrary by |
| assisting Pope Alexander to occupy the Romagna. It never occurred to |
| him that by this action he was weakening himself, depriving himself of |
| friends and those who had thrown themselves into his lap, whilst he |
| aggrandized the Church by adding much temporal power to the spiritual, |
| thus giving it great authority. And having committed this prime error, |
| he was obliged to follow it up, so much so that, to put an end to |
| the ambition of Alexander, and to prevent his becoming the master of |
| Tuscany, he was himself forced to come into Italy. |
| And as if it were not enough to have aggrandized the Church, and |
| deprived himself friends, he, wishing to have the kingdom of Naples, |
| divides it with the King of Spain, and where he was the prime |
| arbiter of Italy he takes an associate, so that the ambitious of |
| that country and the malcontents of his own should have where to |
| shelter; and whereas he could have left in the kingdom his own |
| pensioner as king, he drove him out, to put one there who was able |
| to drive him, Louis, out in turn. |
| The wish to acquire is in truth very natural and common, and men |
| always do so when they can, and for this they will be praised not |
| blamed; but when they cannot do so, yet wish to do so by any means, |
| then there is folly and blame. Therefore, if France could have |
| attacked Naples with her own forces she ought to have done so; if |
| she could not, then she ought not to have divided it. And if the |
| partition which she made with the Venetians in Lombardy was |
| justified by the excuse that by it she got a foothold in Italy, this |
| other partition merited blame, for it had not the excuse of that |
| necessity. |
| Therefore Louis made these five errors: he destroyed the minor |
| powers, he increased the strength of one of the greater powers in |
| Italy, he brought in a foreign power, he did not settle in the |
| country, he did not send colonies. Which errors, if he had lived, were |
| not enough to injure him had he not made a sixth by taking away |
| their dominions from the Venetians; because, had he not aggrandized |
| the Church, nor brought Spain into Italy, it would have been very |
| reasonable and necessary to humble them; but having first taken |
| these steps, he ought never to have consented to their ruin, for they, |
| being powerful, would always have kept off others from designs on |
| Lombardy, to which the Venetians would never have consented except |
| to become masters themselves there; also because the others would |
| not wish to take Lombardy from France in order to give it to the |
| Venetians, and to run counter to both they would not have had the |
| courage. |
| And if any one should say: King Louis yielded the Romagna to |
| Alexander and the kingdom to Spain to avoid war, I answer for the |
| reasons given above that a blunder ought never be perpetrated to avoid |
| war, because it is not to be avoided, but is only deferred to your |
| disadvantage. And if another should allege the pledge which the king |
| had given to the Pope that he would assist him in the enterprise, in |
| exchange for the dissolution of his marriage and for the hat to Rouen, |
| to that I reply what I shall write later on concerning the faith of |
| princes, and how it ought to be kept. |
| Thus King Louis lost Lombardy by not having followed any of the |
| conditions observed by those who have taken possession of countries |
| and wished to retain them. Nor is there any miracle in this, but |
| much that is reasonable and quite natural. And on these matters I |
| spoke at Nantes with Rouen, when Valentino,* as Cesare Borgia, the son |
| of Pope Alexander, was usually called, occupied the Romagna, and on |
| Cardinal Rouen observing to me that the Italians did not understand |
| war, I replied to him that the French did not understand statecraft, |
| meaning that otherwise they would not have allowed the Church to reach |
| such greatness. And in fact it has been seen that the greatness of the |
| Church and of Spain in Italy has been caused by France, and her ruin |
| may be attributed to them. From this a general rule is drawn which |
| never or rarely fails: that he who is the cause of another becoming |
| powerful is ruined; because that predominancy has been brought about |
| either by astuteness or else by force, and both are distrusted by |
| him who has been raised to power. |
| |
| * So called- in Italian- from the duchy of Valentinois, conferred on |
| him by Louis XII. |
| CHAPTER IV |
| WHY THE KINGDOM OF DARIUS, CONQUERED BY ALEXANDER, |
| DID NOT REBEL AGAINST THE SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER AT HIS DEATH |
| |
| CONSIDERING the difficulties which men have had to hold a newly |
| acquired state, some might wonder how, seeing that Alexander the Great |
| became the master of Asia in a few years, and died whilst it was yet |
| scarcely settled (whence it might appear reasonable that the whole |
| empire would have rebelled), nevertheless his successors maintained |
| themselves, and had to meet no other difficulty than that which |
| arose among themselves from their own ambitions. |
| I answer that the principalities of which one has record are found |
| to be governed in two different ways: either by a prince, with a |
| body of servants, who assist him to govern the kingdom as ministers by |
| his favour and permission; or by a prince and barons, who hold that |
| dignity by antiquity of blood and not by the grace of the prince. Such |
| barons have states and their own subjects, who recognize them as lords |
| and hold them in natural affection. Those states that are governed |
| by a prince and his servants hold their prince in more |
| consideration, because in all the country there is no one who is |
| recognized as superior to him, and if they yield obedience to |
| another they do it as to a minister and official, and they do not bear |
| him any particular affection. |
| The examples of these two governments in our time are the Turk and |
| the King of France. The entire monarchy of the Turk is governed by one |
| lord, the others are his servants; and, dividing his kingdom into |
| sanjaks, he sends there different administrators, and shifts and |
| changes them as he chooses. But the King of France is placed in the |
| midst of an ancient body of lords, acknowledged by their own subjects, |
| and beloved by them; they have their own prerogatives, nor can the |
| king take these away except at his peril. Therefore, he who |
| considers both of these states will recognize great difficulties in |
| seizing the state of the Turk, but, once it is conquered, great ease |
| in holding it. The causes of the difficulties in seizing the kingdom |
| of the Turk are that the usurper cannot be called in by the princes of |
| the kingdom, nor can he hope to be assisted in his designs by the |
| revolt of those whom the lord has around him. This arises from the |
| reasons given above; for his ministers, being all slaves and |
| bondmen, can only be corrupted with great difficulty, and one can |
| expect little advantage from them when they have been corrupted, as |
| they cannot carry the people with them, for the reasons assigned. |
| Hence, he who attacks the Turk must bear in mind that he will find him |
| united, and he will have to rely more on his own strength than on |
| the revolt of others; but, if once the Turk has been conquered, and |
| routed in the field in such a way that he cannot replace his armies, |
| there is nothing to fear but the family of the prince, and, this being |
| exterminated, there remains no one to fear, the others having no |
| credit with the people; and as the conqueror did not rely on them |
| before his victory, so he ought not to fear them after it. |
| The contrary happens in kingdoms governed like that of France, |
| because one can easily enter there by gaining over some baron of the |
| kingdom, for one always finds malcontents and such as desire a change. |
| Such men, for the reasons given, can open the way into the state and |
| render the victory easy; but if you wish to hold it afterwards, you |
| meet with infinite difficulties, both from those who have assisted you |
| and from those you have crushed. Nor is it enough for you to have |
| exterminated the family of the prince, because the lords that remain |
| make themselves the heads of fresh movements against you, and as you |
| are unable either to satisfy or exterminate them, that state is lost |
| whenever time brings the opportunity. |
| Now if you will consider what was the nature of the government of |
| Darius, you will find it similar to the kingdom of the Turk, and |
| therefore it was only necessary for Alexander, first to overthrow |
| him in the field, and then to take the country from him. After which |
| victory, Darius being killed, the state remained secure to |
| Alexander, for the above reasons. And if his successors had been |
| united they would have enjoyed it securely and at their ease, for |
| there were no tumults raised in the kingdom except those they provoked |
| themselves. |
| But it is impossible to hold with such tranquillity states |
| constituted like that of France. Hence arose those frequent rebellions |
| against the Romans in Spain, France, and Greece, owing to the many |
| principalities there were in these states, of which, as long as the |
| memory of them endured, the Romans always held an insecure possession; |
| but with the power and long continuance of the empire the memory of |
| them passed away, and the Romans then became secure possessors. And |
| when fighting afterwards amongst themselves, each one was able to |
| attach to himself his own parts of the country, according to the |
| authority he had assumed there; and the family of the former lord |
| being exterminated, none other than the Romans were acknowledged. |
| When these things are remembered no one will marvel at the ease with |
| which Alexander held the Empire of Asia, or at the difficulties |
| which others have had to keep an acquisition, such as Pyrrhus and many |
| more; this is not occasioned by the little or abundance of ability |
| in the conqueror, but by the want of uniformity in the subject state. |
| CHAPTER V |
| CONCERNING THE WAY TO GOVERN CITIES OR PRINCIPALITIES WHICH |
| LIVED UNDER THEIR OWN LAWS BEFORE THEY WERE ANNEXED |
| |
| WHENEVER those states which have been acquired as stated have been |
| accustomed to live under their own laws and in freedom, there are |
| three courses for those who wish to hold them: the first is to ruin |
| them, the next is to reside there in person, the third is to permit |
| them to live under their own laws, drawing a tribute, and establishing |
| within it an oligarchy which will keep it friendly to you. Because |
| such a government, being created by the prince, knows that it cannot |
| stand without his friendship and interest, and does its utmost to |
| support him; and therefore he who would keep a city accustomed to |
| freedom will hold it more easily by the means of its own citizens than |
| in any other way. |
| There are, for example, the Spartans and the Romans. The Spartans |
| held Athens and Thebes, establishing there an oligarchy, |
| nevertheless they lost them. The Romans, in order to hold Capua, |
| Carthage, and Numantia, dismantled them, and did not lose them. They |
| wished to hold Greece as the Spartans held it, making it free and |
| permitting its laws, and did not succeed. So to hold it they were |
| compelled to dismantle many cities in the country, for in truth |
| there is no safe way to retain them otherwise than by ruining them. |
| And he who becomes master of a city accustomed to freedom and does not |
| destroy it, may expect to be destroyed by it, for in rebellion it |
| has always the watch-word of liberty and its ancient privileges as a |
| rallying point, which neither time nor benefits will ever cause it |
| to forget. And what ever you may do or provide against, they never |
| forget that name or their privileges unless they are disunited or |
| dispersed but at every chance they immediately rally to them, as |
| Pisa after the hundred years she had been held in bondage by the |
| Florentines. |
| But when cities or countries are accustomed to live under a |
| prince, and his family is exterminated, they, being on the one hand |
| accustomed to obey and on the other hand not having the old prince, |
| cannot agree in making one from amongst themselves, and they do not |
| know how to govern themselves. For this reason they are very slow to |
| take up arms, and a prince can gain them to himself and secure them |
| much more easily. But in republics there is more vitality, greater |
| hatred, and more desire for vengeance, which will never permit them to |
| allow the memory of their former liberty to rest; so that the safest |
| way is to destroy them or to reside there. |
| CHAPTER VI |
| CONCERNING NEW PRINCIPALITIES WHICH ARE ACQUIRED |
| BY ONE'S OWN ARMS AND ABILITY |
| |
| LET no one be surprised if, in speaking of entirely new |
| principalities as I shall do, I adduce the highest examples both of |
| prince and of state; because men, walking almost always in paths |
| beaten by others, and following by imitation their deeds, are yet |
| unable to keep entirely to the ways of others or attain to the power |
| of those they imitate. A wise man ought always to follow the paths |
| beaten by great men, and to imitate those who have been supreme, so |
| that if his ability does not equal theirs, at least it will savour |
| of it. Let him act like the clever archers who, designing to hit the |
| mark which yet appears too far distant, and knowing the limits to |
| which the strength of their bow attains, take aim much higher than the |
| mark, not to reach by their strength or arrow to so great a height, |
| but to be able with the aid of so high an aim to hit the mark they |
| wish to reach. |
| I say, therefore, that in entirely new principalities, where there |
| is a new prince, more or less difficulty is found in keeping them, |
| accordingly as there is more or less ability in him who has acquired |
| the state. Now, as the fact of becoming a prince from a private |
| station presupposes either ability or fortune, it is clear that one or |
| other of these two things will mitigate in some degree many |
| difficulties. Nevertheless, he who has relied least on fortune is |
| established the strongest. Further, it facilitates matters when the |
| prince, having no other state, is compelled to reside there in person. |
| But to come to those who, by their own ability and not through |
| fortune, have risen to be princes, I say that Moses, Cyrus, Romulus, |
| Theseus, and such like are the most excellent examples. And although |
| one may not discuss Moses, he having been a mere executor of the |
| will of God, yet he ought to be admired, if only for that favour which |
| made him worthy to speak with God. But in considering Cyrus and others |
| who have acquired or founded kingdoms, all will be found admirable; |
| and if their particular deeds and conduct shall be considered, they |
| will not be found inferior to those of Moses, although he had so great |
| a preceptor. And in examining their actions and lives one cannot see |
| that they owed anything to fortune beyond opportunity, which brought |
| them the material to mould into the form which seemed best to them. |
| Without that opportunity their powers of mind would have been |
| extinguished, and without those powers the opportunity would have come |
| in vain. |
| It was necessary, therefore, to Moses that he should find the people |
| of Israel in Egypt enslaved and oppressed by the Egyptians, in order |
| that they should be disposed to follow him so as to be delivered out |
| of bondage. It was necessary that Romulus should not remain in Alba, |
| and that he should be abandoned at his birth, in order that he |
| should become King of Rome and founder of the fatherland. It was |
| necessary that Cyrus should find the Persians discontented with the |
| government of the Medes, and the Medes soft and effeminate through |
| their long peace. Theseus could not have shown his ability had he |
| not found the Athenians dispersed. These opportunities, therefore, |
| made those men fortunate, and their high ability enabled them to |
| recognize the opportunity whereby their country was ennobled and |
| made famous. |
| Those who by valorous ways become princes, like these men, acquire a |
| principality with difficulty, but they it with ease. The |
| difficulties they have in acquiring it arise in part from the new |
| rules and methods which they are forced to introduce to establish |
| their government and its security. And it ought to be remembered |
| that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to |
| conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in |
| the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has |
| for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and |
| lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This |
| coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws |
| on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not |
| readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of |
| them. Thus it happens that whenever those who are hostile have the |
| opportunity to attack they do it like partisans, whilst the others |
| defend lukewarmly, in such wise that the prince is endangered along |
| with them. |
| It is necessary, therefore, if we desire to discuss this matter |
| thoroughly, to inquire whether these innovators can rely on themselves |
| or have to depend on others: that is to say, whether, to consummate |
| their enterprise, have they to use prayers or can they use force? In |
| the first instance they always succeed badly, and never compass |
| anything; but when they can rely on themselves and use force, then |
| they are rarely endangered. Hence it is that all armed prophets have |
| conquered, and the unarmed ones have been destroyed. Besides the |
| reasons mentioned, the nature of the people is variable, and whilst it |
| is easy to persuade them, it is difficult to fix them in that |
| persuasion. And thus it is necessary to take such measures that, |
| when they believe no longer, it may be possible to make them believe |
| by force. |
| If Moses, Cyrus, Theseus, and Romulus had been unarmed they could |
| not have enforced their constitutions for long- as happened in our |
| time to Fra Girolamo Savonarola, who was ruined with his new order |
| of things immediately the multitude believed in him no longer, and |
| he had no means of keeping steadfast those who believed or of making |
| the unbelievers to believe. Therefore such as these have great |
| difficulties in consummating their enterprise, for all their dangers |
| are in the ascent, yet with ability they will overcome them; but |
| when these are overcome, and those who envied them their success are |
| exterminated, they will begin to be respected, and they will |
| continue afterwards powerful, secure, honoured, and happy. |
| To these great examples I wish to add a lesser one; still it bears |
| some resemblance to them, and I wish it to suffice me for all of a |
| like kind: it is Hiero the Syracusan. This man rose from a private |
| station to be Prince of Syracuse, nor did he, either, owe anything |
| to fortune but opportunity; for the Syracusans, being oppressed, chose |
| him for their captain, afterwards he was rewarded by being made |
| their prince. He was of so great ability, even as a private citizen, |
| that one who writes of him says he wanted nothing but a kingdom to |
| be a king. This man abolished the old soldiery, organized the new, |
| gave up old alliances, made new ones; and as he had his own soldiers |
| and allies, on such foundations he was able to build any edifice: |
| thus, whilst he had endured much trouble in acquiring, he had but |
| little in keeping. |
| CHAPTER VII |
| CONCERNING NEW PRINCIPALITIES WHICH ARE ACQUIRED |
| EITHER BY THE ARMS OF OTHERS OR BY GOOD FORTUNE |
| |
| THOSE who solely by good fortune become princes from being private |
| citizens have little trouble in rising, but much in keeping atop; they |
| have not any difficulties on the way up, because they fly, but they |
| have many when they reach the summit. Such are those to whom some |
| state is given either for money or by the favour of him who bestows |
| it; as happened to many in Greece, in the cities of Ionia and of the |
| Hellespont, where princes were made by Darius, in order that they |
| might hold the cities both for his security and his glory; as also |
| were those emperors who, by the corruption of the soldiers, from being |
| citizens came to empire. Such stand simply upon the goodwill and the |
| fortune of him who has elevated them- two most inconstant and unstable |
| things. Neither have they the knowledge requisite for the position; |
| because, unless they are men of great worth and ability, it is not |
| reasonable to expect that they should know how to command, having |
| always lived in a private condition; besides, they cannot hold it |
| because they have not forces which they can keep friendly and |
| faithful. |
| States that rise unexpectedly, then, like all other things in nature |
| which are born and grow rapidly, cannot have their foundations and |
| relations with other states fixed in such a way that the first storm |
| will not overthrow them; unless, as is said, those who unexpectedly |
| become princes are men of so much ability that they know they have |
| to be prepared at once to hold that which fortune has thrown into |
| their laps, and that those foundations, which others have laid |
| before they became princes, they must lay afterwards. |
| Concerning these two methods of rising to be a prince by ability |
| or fortune, I wish to adduce two examples within our own recollection, |
| and these are Francesco Sforza and Cesare Borgia. Francesco, by proper |
| means and with great ability, from being a private person rose to be |
| Duke of Milan, and that which he had acquired with a thousand |
| anxieties he kept with little trouble. On the other hand, Cesare |
| Borgia, called by the people Duke Valentino, acquired his state during |
| the ascendancy of his father, and on its decline he lost it, |
| notwithstanding that he had taken every measure and done all that |
| ought to be done by a wise and able man to fix firmly his roots in the |
| states which the arms and fortunes of others had bestowed on him. |
| Because, as is stated above, he who has not first laid his |
| foundations may be able with great ability to lay them afterwards, but |
| they will be laid with trouble to the architect and danger to the |
| building. If, therefore, all the steps taken by the duke be |
| considered, it will be seen that he laid solid foundations for his |
| future power, and I do not consider it superfluous to discuss them, |
| because I do not know what better precepts to give a new prince than |
| the example of his actions; and if his dispositions were of no |
| avail, that was not his fault, but the extraordinary and extreme |
| malignity of fortune. |
| Alexander VI, in wishing to aggrandize the duke, his son, had many |
| immediate and prospective difficulties. Firstly, he did not see his |
| way to make him master of any state that was not a state of the |
| Church; and if he was willing to rob the Church he knew that the |
| Duke of Milan and the Venetians would not consent, because Faenza |
| and Rimini were already under the protection of the Venetians. Besides |
| this, he saw the arms of Italy, especially those by which he might |
| have been assisted, in hands that would fear the aggrandizement of the |
| Pope, namely, the Orsini and the Colonna and their following. It |
| behoved him, therefore, to upset this state of affairs and embroil the |
| powers, so as to make himself securely master of part of their states. |
| This was easy for him to do, because he found the Venetians, moved |
| by other reasons, inclined to bring back the French into Italy; he |
| would not only not oppose this, but he would render it more easy by |
| dissolving the former marriage of King Louis. Therefore the king |
| came into Italy with the assistance of the Venetians and the consent |
| of Alexander. He was no sooner in Milan than the Pope had soldiers |
| from him for the attempt on the Romagna, which yielded to him on the |
| reputation of the king. The duke, therefore, having acquired the |
| Romagna and beaten the Colonna, while wishing to hold that and to |
| advance further, was hindered by two things: the one, his forces did |
| not appear loyal to him, the other, the goodwill of France: that is to |
| say, he feared that the forces of the Orsini, which was using, would |
| not stand to him, that not only might they hinder him from winning |
| more, but might themselves seize what he had won, and that the King |
| might also do the same. Of the Orsini he had a warning when, after |
| taking Faenza and attacking Bologna, he saw them go very unwillingly |
| to that attack. And as to the king, he learned his mind when he |
| himself, after taking the duchy of Urbino, attacked Tuscany, and the |
| king made him desist from that undertaking; hence the duke decided |
| to depend no more upon the arms and the luck of others. |
| For the first thing he weakened the Orsini and Colonna parties in |
| Rome, by gaining to himself all their adherents who were gentlemen, |
| making them his gentlemen, giving them good pay, and, according to |
| their rank, honouring them with office and command in such a way |
| that in a few months all attachment to the factions was destroyed |
| and turned entirely to the duke. After this he awaited an |
| opportunity to crush the Orsini, having scattered the adherents of the |
| Colonna. This came to him soon and he used it well; for the Orsini, |
| perceiving at length that the aggrandizement of the duke and the |
| Church was ruin to them, called a meeting at Magione, in the territory |
| of Perugia. From this sprung the rebellion at Urbino and the tumults |
| in the Romagna, with endless dangers to the duke, all of which he |
| overcame with the help of the French. Having restored his authority, |
| not to leave it at risk by trusting either to the French or other |
| outside forces, he had recourse to his wiles, and he knew so well |
| how to conceal his mind that, by the mediation of Signor Paolo |
| [Orsini]- whom the duke did not fail to secure with all kinds of |
| attention, giving him money, apparel, and horses- the Orsini were |
| reconciled, so that their simplicity brought them into his power at |
| Sinigaglia. Having exterminated the leaders, and turned their |
| partisans into his friends, the duke had laid sufficiently good |
| foundations to his power, having all the Romagna and the duchy of |
| Urbino; and the people now beginning to appreciate their prosperity, |
| he gained them all over to himself. And as this point is worthy of |
| notice, and to be imitated by others, I am not willing to leave it |
| out. |
| When the duke occupied the Romagna he found it under the rule of |
| weak masters, who rather plundered their subjects than ruled them, and |
| gave them more cause for disunion than for union, so that the |
| country was full of robbery, quarrels, and every kind of violence; and |
| so, wishing to bring back peace and obedience to authority, he |
| considered it necessary to give it a good governor. Thereupon he |
| promoted Messer Ramiro d'Orco [de Lorqua], a swift and cruel man, to |
| whom he gave the fullest power. This man in a short time restored |
| peace and unity with the greatest success. Afterwards the duke |
| considered that it was not advisable to confer such excessive |
| authority, for he had no doubt but that he would become odious, so |
| he set up a court of judgment in the country, under a most excellent |
| president, wherein all cities had their advocates. And because he knew |
| that the past severity had caused some hatred against himself, so, |
| to clear himself in the minds of the people, and gain them entirely to |
| himself, he desired to show that, if any cruelty had been practised, |
| it had not originated with him, but in the natural sternness of the |
| minister. Under this pretence he took Ramiro, and one morning caused |
| him to be executed and left on the piazza at Cesena with the block and |
| a bloody knife at his side. The barbarity of this spectacle caused the |
| people to be at once satisfied and dismayed. |
| But let us return whence we started. I say that the duke, finding |
| himself now sufficiently powerful and partly secured from immediate |
| dangers by having armed himself in his own way, and having in a |
| great measure crushed those forces in his vicinity that could injure |
| him if he wished to proceed with his conquest, had next to consider |
| France, for he knew that the king, who too late was aware of his |
| mistake, would not support him. And from this time he began to seek |
| new alliances and to temporize with France in the expedition which she |
| was making towards the kingdom of Naples against the Spaniards who |
| were besieging Gaeta. It was his intention to secure himself against |
| them, and this he would have quickly accomplished had Alexander lived. |
| Such was his line of action as to present affairs. But as to the |
| future he had to fear, in the first place, that a new successor to the |
| Church might not be friendly to him and might seek to take from him |
| that which Alexander had given him, so he decided to act in four ways. |
| Firstly, by exterminating the families of those lords whom he had |
| despoiled, so as to take away that pretext from the Pope. Secondly, by |
| winning to himself all the gentlemen of Rome, so as to be able to curb |
| the Pope with their aid, as has been observed. Thirdly, by |
| converting the college more to himself. Fourthly, by acquiring so much |
| power before the Pope should die that he could by his own measures |
| resist the first shock. Of these four things, at the death of |
| Alexander, he had accomplished three. For he had killed as many of the |
| dispossessed lords as he could lay hands on, and few had escaped; he |
| had won over the Roman gentlemen, and he had the most numerous party |
| in the college. And as to any fresh acquisition, he intended to become |
| master of Tuscany, for he already possessed Perugia and Piombino, |
| and Pisa was under his protection. And as he had no longer to study |
| France (for the French were already driven out of the kingdom of |
| Naples by the Spaniards, and in this way both were compelled to buy |
| his goodwill), he pounced down upon Pisa. After this, Lucca and |
| Siena yielded at once, partly through hatred and partly through fear |
| of the Florentines; and the Florentines would have had no remedy had |
| he continued to prosper, as he was prospering the year that |
| Alexander died, for he had acquired so much power and reputation |
| that he would have stood by himself, and no longer have depended on |
| the luck and the forces of others, but solely on his own power and |
| ability. |
| But Alexander died five years after he had first drawn the sword. He |
| left the duke with the state of Romagna alone consolidated, with the |
| rest in the air, between two most powerful hostile armies, and sick |
| unto death. Yet there were in the duke such boldness and ability, |
| and he knew so well how men are to be won or lost, and so firm were |
| the foundations which in so short a time he had laid, that if he had |
| not had those armies on his back, or if he had been in good health, he |
| would have overcome all difficulties. And it is seen that his |
| foundations were good, for the Romagna awaited him for more than a |
| month. In Rome, although but half alive, he remained secure; and |
| whilst the Baglioni, the Vitelli, and the Orsini might come to Rome, |
| they could not effect anything against him. If he could not have |
| made Pope him whom he wished, at least the one whom he did not wish |
| would not have been elected. But if he had been in sound health at the |
| death of Alexander, everything would have been easy to him. On the day |
| that Julius II was elected, he told me that he had thought of |
| everything that might occur at the death of his father, and had |
| provided a remedy for all, except that he had never anticipated |
| that, when the death did happen, he himself would be on the point to |
| die. |
| When all the actions of the duke are recalled, I do not know how |
| to blame him, but rather it appears to me, as I have said, that I |
| ought to offer him for imitation to all those who, by the fortune or |
| the arms of others, are raised to government. Because he, having a |
| lofty spirit and far-reaching aims, could not have regulated his |
| conduct otherwise, and only the shortness of the life of Alexander and |
| his own sickness frustrated his designs. Therefore, he who considers |
| it necessary to secure himself in his new principality, to win |
| friends, to overcome either by force or fraud, to make himself beloved |
| and feared by the people, to be followed and revered by the |
| soldiers, to exterminate those who have power or reason to hurt him, |
| to change the old order of things for new, to be severe and |
| gracious, magnanimous and liberal, to destroy a disloyal soldiery |
| and to create new, to maintain friendship with kings and princes in |
| such a way that they must help him with zeal and offend with |
| caution, cannot find a more lively example than the actions of this |
| man. |
| Only can he be blamed for the election of Julius II, in whom he made |
| a bad choice, because, as is said, not being able to elect a Pope to |
| his own mind, he could have hindered any other from being elected |
| Pope; and he ought never to have consented to the election of any |
| cardinal whom he had injured or who had cause to fear him if they |
| became pontiffs. For men injure either from fear or hatred. Those whom |
| he had injured, amongst others, were San Pietro ad Vincula, Colonna, |
| San Giorgio, and Ascanio.* Any one of the others, on becoming Pope, |
| would have had to fear him, Rouen and the Spaniards excepted; the |
| latter from their relationship and obligations, the former from his |
| influence, the kingdom of France having relations with him. Therefore, |
| above everything, the duke ought to have created a Spaniard Pope, and, |
| failing him, he ought to have consented to Rouen and not San Pietro ad |
| Vincula. He who believes that new benefits will cause great personages |
| to forget old injuries is deceived. Therefore, the duke erred in his |
| choice, and it was the cause of his ultimate ruin. |
| |
| * Julius II had been Cardinal of San Pietro ad Vincula; San |
| Giorgio was Raffaells Riaxis, and Ascanio was Cardinal Ascanio Sforza. |
| CHAPTER VIII |
| CONCERNING THOSE WHO HAVE OBTAINED A PRINCIPALITY |
| BY WICKEDNESS |
| |
| ALTHOUGH a prince may rise from a private station in two ways, |
| neither of which can be entirely attributed to fortune or genius, |
| yet it is manifest to me that I must not be silent on them, although |
| one could be more copiously treated when I discuss republics. These |
| methods are when, either by some wicked or nefarious ways, one ascends |
| to the principality, or when by the favour of his fellow-citizens a |
| private person becomes the prince of his country. And speaking of |
| the first method, it will be illustrated by two examples- one ancient, |
| the other modern- and without entering further into the subject, I |
| consider these two examples will suffice those who may be compelled to |
| follow them. |
| Agathocles, the Sicilian, became King of Syracuse not only from a |
| private but from a low and abject position. This man, the son of a |
| potter, through all the changes in his fortunes always led an infamous |
| life. Nevertheless, he accompanied his infamies with so much ability |
| of mind and body that, having devoted himself to the military |
| profession, he rose through its ranks to be Praetor of Syracuse. Being |
| established in that position, and having deliberately resolved to make |
| himself prince and to seize by violence, without obligation to others, |
| that which had been conceded to him by assent, he came to an |
| understanding for this purpose with Hamilcar, the Carthaginian, who, |
| with his army, was fighting in Sicily. One morning he assembled the |
| people and senate of Syracuse, as if he had to discuss with them |
| things relating to the Republic, and at a given signal the soldiers |
| killed all the senators and the richest of the people; these dead, |
| he seized and held the princedom of that city without any civil |
| commotion. And although he was twice routed by the Carthaginians, |
| and ultimately besieged, yet not only was he able to defend his |
| city, but leaving part of his men for its defence, with the others |
| he attacked Africa, and in a short time raised the siege of |
| Syracuse. The Carthaginians, reduced to extreme necessity, were |
| compelled to come to terms with Agathocles, and, leaving Sicily to |
| him, had to be content with the possession of Africa. |
| Therefore, he who considers the actions and the genius of this man |
| will see nothing, or little, which can be attributed to fortune, |
| inasmuch as he attained pre-eminence, as is shown above, not by the |
| favour of any one, but step by step in the military profession, |
| which steps were gained with a thousand troubles and perils, and |
| were afterwards boldly held by him with many hazards and dangers. |
| Yet it cannot be called talent to slay fellow-citizens, to deceive |
| friends, to be without faith, without mercy, without religion; such |
| methods may gain empire, but not glory. Still, if the courage of |
| Agathocles in entering into and extricating himself from dangers be |
| considered, together with his greatness of mind in enduring overcoming |
| hardships, it cannot be seen why he should be esteemed less than the |
| most notable captain. Nevertheless, his barbarous cruelty and |
| inhumanity with infinite wickednesses do not permit him to be |
| celebrated among the most excellent men. What he achieved cannot be |
| attributed either to fortune or to genius. |
| In our times, during the rule of Alexander VI, Oliverotto da |
| Fermo, having been left an orphan many years before, was brought up by |
| his maternal uncle, Giovanni Fogliani, and in the early days of his |
| youth sent to fight under Paolo Vitelli, that, being trained under his |
| discipline, he might attain some high position in the military |
| profession. After Paolo died, he fought under his brother |
| Vitellozzo, and in a very short time, being endowed with wit and a |
| vigorous body and mind, he became the first man in his profession. But |
| it appearing to him a paltry thing to serve under others, he resolved, |
| with the aid of some citizens of Fermo, to whom the slavery of their |
| country was dearer than its liberty, and with the help of the Vitelli, |
| to seize Fermo. So he wrote to Giovanni Fogliani that, having been |
| away from home for many years, he wished to visit him and his city, |
| and in some measure to look into his patrimony; and although he had |
| not laboured to acquire anything except honour, yet, in order that the |
| citizens should see he had not spent his time in vain, he desired to |
| come honourably, so would be accompanied by one hundred horsemen, |
| his friends and retainers; and he entreated Giovanni to arrange that |
| he should be received honourably by the citizens of Fermo, all of |
| which would be not only to his honour, but also to that of Giovanni |
| himself, who had brought him up. |
| Giovanni, therefore, did not fail in any attentions due to his |
| nephew, and he caused him to be honourably received by the Fermans, |
| and he lodged him in his own house, where, having passed some days, |
| and having arranged what was necessary for his wicked designs, |
| Oliverotto gave a solemn banquet to which he invited Giovanni Fogliani |
| and the chiefs of Fermo. When the viands and all the other |
| entertainments that are usual in such banquets were finished, |
| Oliverotto artfully began certain grave discourses, speaking of the |
| greatness of Pope Alexander and his son Cesare, and of their |
| enterprises, to which discourse Giovanni and others answered; but he |
| rose at once, saying that such matters ought to be discussed in a more |
| private place, and he betook himself to a chamber, whither Giovanni |
| and the rest of the citizens went in after him. No sooner were they |
| seated than soldiers issued from secret places and slaughtered |
| Giovanni and the rest. After these murders Oliverotto, mounted on |
| horseback, rode up and down the town and besieged the chief magistrate |
| in the palace, so that in fear the people were forced to obey him, and |
| to form a government, of which he made himself the prince. He killed |
| all the malcontents who were able to injure him, and strengthened |
| himself with new civil and military ordinances, in such a way that, in |
| the year during which he held the principality, not only was he secure |
| in the city of Fermo, but he had become formidable to all his |
| neighbours. And his destruction would have been as difficult as that |
| of Agathocles if he had not allowed himself to be overreached by |
| Cesare Borgia, who took him with the Orsini and Vitelli at Sinigaglia, |
| as was stated above. Thus one year after he had committed this |
| parricide, he was strangled, together with Vitellozzo, whom he had |
| made his leader in valour and wickedness. |
| Some may wonder how it can happen that Agathocles, and his like, |
| after infinite treacheries and cruelties, should live for long |
| secure in his country, and defend himself from external enemies, and |
| never be conspired against by his own citizens; seeing that many |
| others, by means of cruelty, have never been able even in peaceful |
| times to hold the state, still less in the doubtful times of war. I |
| believe that this follows from severities being badly or properly |
| used. Those may be called properly used, if of evil it is lawful to |
| speak well, that are applied at one blow and are necessary to one's |
| security, and that are not persisted in afterwards unless they can |
| be turned to the advantage of the subjects. The badly employed are |
| those which, notwithstanding they may be few in the commencement, |
| multiply with time rather than decrease. Those who practise the |
| first system are able, by aid of God or man, to mitigate in some |
| degree their rule, as Agathocles did. It is impossible for those who |
| follow the other to maintain themselves. |
| Hence it is to be remarked that, in seizing a state, the usurper |
| ought to examine closely into all those injuries which it is necessary |
| for him to inflict, and to do them all at one stroke so as not to have |
| to repeat them daily; and thus by not unsettling men he will be able |
| to reassure them, and win them to himself by benefits. He who does |
| otherwise, either from timidity or evil advice, is always compelled to |
| keep the knife in his hand; neither can he rely on his subjects, nor |
| can they attach themselves to him, owing to their continued and |
| repeated wrongs. For injuries ought to be done all at one time, so |
| that, being tasted less, they offend less; benefits ought to be |
| given little by little, so that the flavour of them may last longer. |
| And above all things, a prince ought to live amongst his people in |
| such a way that no unexpected circumstances, whether of good or |
| evil, shall make him change; because if the necessity for this comes |
| in troubled times, you are too late for harsh measures; and mild |
| ones will not help you, for they will be considered as forced from |
| you, and no one will be under any obligation to you for them. |
| CHAPTER IX |
| CONCERNING A CIVIL PRINCIPALITY |
| |
| BUT coming to the other point- where a leading citizen becomes the |
| prince of his country, not by wickedness or any intolerable |
| violence, but by the favour of his fellow citizens- this may be called |
| a civil principality: nor is genius or fortune altogether necessary to |
| attain to it, but rather a happy shrewdness. I say then that such a |
| principality is obtained either by the favour of the people or by |
| the favour of the nobles. Because in all cities these two distinct |
| parties are found, and from this it arises that the people do not wish |
| to be ruled nor oppressed by the nobles, and the nobles wish to rule |
| and oppress the people; and from these two opposite desires there |
| arises in cities one of three results, either a principality, |
| self-government, or anarchy. |
| A principality is created either by the people or by the nobles, |
| accordingly as one or other of them has the opportunity; for the |
| nobles, seeing they cannot withstand the people, begin to cry up the |
| reputation of one of themselves, and they make him a prince, so that |
| under his shadow they can give vent to their ambitions. The people, |
| finding they cannot resist the nobles, also cry up the reputation of |
| one of themselves, and make him a prince so as to be defended by his |
| authority. He who obtains sovereignty by the assistance of the |
| nobles maintains himself with more difficulty than he who comes to |
| it by the aid of the people, because the former finds himself with |
| many around him who consider themselves his equals, and because of |
| this he can neither rule nor manage them to his liking. But he who |
| reaches sovereignty by popular favour finds himself alone, and has |
| none around him, or few, who are not prepared to obey him. |
| Besides this, one cannot by fair dealing, and without injury to |
| others, satisfy the nobles, but you can satisfy the people, for |
| their object is more righteous than that of the nobles, the latter |
| wishing to oppress, whilst the former only desire not to be oppressed. |
| It is to be added also that a prince can never secure himself |
| against a hostile people, because of their being too many, whilst from |
| the nobles he can secure himself, as they are few in number. The worst |
| that a prince may expect from a hostile people is to be abandoned by |
| them; but from hostile nobles he has not only to fear abandonment, but |
| also that they will rise against him; for they, being in these affairs |
| more far-seeing and astute, always come forward in time to save |
| themselves, and to obtain favours from him whom they expect to |
| prevail. Further, the prince is compelled to live always with the same |
| people, but he can do well without the same nobles, being able to make |
| and unmake them daily, and to give or take away authority when it |
| pleases him. |
| Therefore, to make this point clearer, I say that the nobles ought |
| to be looked at mainly in two ways: that is to say, they either |
| shape their course in such a way as binds them entirely to your |
| fortune, or they do not. Those who so bind themselves, and are not |
| rapacious, ought to be honoured and loved; those who do not bind |
| themselves may be dealt with in two ways; they may fail to do this |
| through pusillanimity and a natural want of courage, in which case you |
| ought to make use of them, especially of those who are of good |
| counsel; and thus, whilst in prosperity you honour yourself, in |
| adversity you have not to fear them. But when for their own |
| ambitious ends they shun binding themselves, it is a token that they |
| are giving more thought to themselves than to you, and a prince |
| ought to guard against such, and to fear them as if they were open |
| enemies, because in adversity they always help to ruin him. |
| Therefore, one who becomes a prince through the favour of the people |
| ought to keep them friendly, and this he can easily do seeing they |
| only ask not to be oppressed by him. But one who, in opposition to the |
| people, becomes a prince by the favour of the nobles, ought, above |
| everything, to seek to win the people over to himself, and this he may |
| easily do if he takes them under his protection. Because men, when |
| they receive good from him of whom they were expecting evil, are bound |
| more closely to their benefactor; thus the people quickly become |
| more devoted to him than if he had been raised to the principality |
| by their favours; and the prince can win their affections in many |
| ways, but as these vary according to the circumstances one cannot give |
| fixed rules, so I omit them; but, I repeat, it is necessary for a |
| prince to have the people friendly, otherwise he has no security in |
| adversity. |
| Nabis, Prince of the Spartans, sustained the attack of all Greece, |
| and of a victorious Roman army, and against them he defended his |
| country and his government; and for the overcoming of this peril it |
| was only necessary for him to make himself secure against a few, but |
| this would not have been sufficient if the people had been hostile. |
| And do not let any one impugn this statement with the trite proverb |
| that 'He who builds on the people, builds on the mud,' for this is |
| true when a private citizen makes a foundation there, and persuades |
| himself that the people will free him when he is oppressed by his |
| enemies or by the magistrates; wherein he would find himself very |
| often deceived, as happened to the Gracchi in Rome and to Messer |
| Giorgio Scali in Florence. But granted a prince who has established |
| himself as above, who can command, and is a man of courage, undismayed |
| in adversity, who does not fail in other qualifications, and who, by |
| his resolution and energy, keeps the whole people encouraged- such a |
| one will never find himself deceived in them, and it will be shown |
| that he has laid his foundations well. |
| These principalities are liable to danger when they are passing from |
| the civil to the absolute order of government, for such princes either |
| rule personally or through magistrates. In the latter case their |
| government is weaker and more insecure, because it rests entirely on |
| the goodwill of those citizens who are raised to the magistracy, and |
| who, especially in troubled times, can destroy the government with |
| great ease, either by intrigue or open defiance; and the prince has |
| not the chance amid tumults to exercise absolute authority, because |
| the citizens and subjects, accustomed to receive orders from |
| magistrates, are not of a mind to obey him amid these confusions, |
| and there will always be in doubtful times a scarcity of men whom he |
| can trust. For such a prince cannot rely upon what he observes in |
| quiet times, when citizens had need of the state, because then every |
| one agrees with him; they all promise, and when death is far distant |
| they all wish to die for him; but in troubled times, when the state |
| has need of its citizens, then he finds but few. And so much the |
| more is this experiment dangerous, inasmuch as it can only be tried |
| once. Therefore a wise prince ought to adopt such a course that his |
| citizens will always in every sort and kind of circumstance have |
| need of the state and of him, and then he will always find them |
| faithful. |
| CHAPTER X |
| CONCERNING THE WAY IN WHICH THE STRENGTH |
| OF ALL PRINCIPALITIES OUGHT TO BE MEASURED |
| |
| IT IS necessary to consider another point in examining the character |
| of these principalities: that is, whether a prince has such power |
| that, in case of need, he can support himself with his own |
| resources, or whether he has always need of the assistance of |
| others. And to make this quite clear I say that I consider those are |
| able to support themselves by their own resources who can, either by |
| abundance of men or money, raise a sufficient army to join battle |
| against any one who comes to attack them; and I consider those |
| always to have need of others who cannot show themselves against the |
| enemy in the field, but are forced to defend themselves by |
| sheltering behind walls. The first case has been discussed, but we |
| will speak of it again should it recur. In the second case one can say |
| nothing except to encourage such princes to provision and fortify |
| their towns, and not on any account to defend the country. And whoever |
| shall fortify his town well, and shall have managed the other concerns |
| of his subjects in the way stated above, and to be often repeated, |
| will never be attacked without great caution, for men are always |
| adverse to enterprises where difficulties can be seen, and it will |
| be seen not to be an easy thing to attack one who has his town well |
| fortified, and is not hated by his people. |
| The cities of Germany are absolutely free, they own but little |
| country around them, and they yield obedience to the emperor when it |
| suits them, nor do they fear this or any other power they may have |
| near them, because they are fortified in such a way that every one |
| thinks the taking of them by assault would be tedious and difficult, |
| seeing they have proper ditches and walls, they have sufficient |
| artillery, and they always keep in public depots enough for one year's |
| eating, drinking, and firing. And beyond this, to keep the people |
| quiet and without loss to the state, they always have the means of |
| giving work to the community in those labours that are the life and |
| strength of the city, and on the pursuit of which the people are |
| supported; they also hold military exercises in repute, and moreover |
| have many ordinances to uphold them. |
| Therefore, a prince who has a strong city, and had not made |
| himself odious, will not be attacked, or if any one should attack he |
| will only be driven off with disgrace; again, because that affairs |
| of this world are so changeable, it is almost impossible to keep an |
| army a whole year in the field without being interfered with. And |
| whoever should reply: If the people have property outside the city, |
| and see it burnt, they will not remain patient, and the long siege and |
| self-interest will make them forget their prince; to this I answer |
| that a powerful and courageous prince will overcome all such |
| difficulties by giving at one time hope to his subjects that the |
| evil will not be for long, at another time fear of the cruelty of |
| the enemy, then preserving himself adroitly from those subjects who |
| seem to him to be too bold. |
| Further, the enemy would naturally on his arrival at once burn and |
| ruin the country at the time when the spirits of the people are |
| still hot and ready for the defence; and, therefore, so much the |
| less ought the prince to hesitate; because after a time, when |
| spirits have cooled, the damage is already done, the ills are |
| incurred, and there is no longer any remedy; and therefore they are so |
| much the more ready to unite with their prince, he appearing to be |
| under obligations to them now that their houses have been burnt and |
| their possessions ruined in his defence. For it is the nature of men |
| to be bound by the benefits they confer as much as by those they |
| receive. Therefore, if everything is well considered, it wilt not be |
| difficult for a wise prince to keep the minds of his citizens |
| steadfast from first to last, when he does not fail to support and |
| defend them. |
| CHAPTER XI |
| CONCERNING ECCLESIASTICAL PRINCIPALITIES |
| |
| IT ONLY remains now to speak of ecclesiastical principalities, |
| touching which all difficulties are prior to getting possession, |
| because they are acquired either by capacity or good fortune, and they |
| can be held without either; for they are sustained by the ordinances |
| of religion, which are so all-powerful, and of such a character that |
| the principalities may be held no matter how their princes behave |
| and live. These princes alone have states and do not defend them, they |
| have subjects and do not rule them; and the states, although |
| unguarded, are not taken from them, and the subjects, although not |
| ruled, do not care, and they have neither the desire nor the ability |
| to alienate themselves. Such principalities only are secure and happy. |
| But being upheld by powers, to which the human mind cannot reach, I |
| shall speak no more of them, because, being exalted and maintained |
| by God, it would be the act of a presumptuous and rash man to |
| discuss them. |
| Nevertheless, if any one should ask of me how comes it that the |
| Church has attained such greatness in temporal power, seeing that from |
| Alexander backwards the Italian potentates (not only those who have |
| been called potentates, but every baron and lord, though the smallest) |
| have valued the temporal power very slightly- yet now a king of France |
| trembles before it, and it has been able to drive him from Italy, |
| and to ruin the Venetians- although this may be very manifest, it does |
| not appear to me superfluous to recall it in some measure to memory. |
| Before Charles, King of France, passed into Italy, this country |
| was under the dominion of the Pope, the Venetians, the King of Naples, |
| the Duke of Milan, and the Florentines. These potentates had two |
| principal anxieties: the one, that no foreigner should enter Italy |
| under arms; the other, that none of themselves should seize more |
| territory. Those about whom there was the most anxiety were the Pope |
| and the Venetians. To restrain the Venetians the union of all the |
| others was necessary, as it was for the defence of Ferrara; and to |
| keep down the Pope they made use of the barons of Rome, who, being |
| divided into two factions, Orsini and Colonna, had always a pretext |
| for disorder, and, standing with arms in their hands under the eyes of |
| the Pontiff, kept the pontificate weak and powerless. And although |
| there might arise sometimes a courageous pope, such as Sixtus [IV], |
| yet neither fortune nor wisdom could rid him of these annoyances. |
| And the short life of a pope is also a cause of weakness; for in the |
| ten years, which is the average life of a pope, he can with difficulty |
| lower one of the factions; and if, so to speak, one pope should almost |
| destroy the Colonna, another would arise hostile to the Orsini, who |
| would support their opponents, and yet would not have time to ruin the |
| Orsini. This was the reason why the temporal powers of the pope were |
| little esteemed in Italy. |
| Alexander VI arose afterwards, who of all the pontiffs that have |
| ever been showed how a pope with both money and arms was able to |
| prevail; and through the instrumentality of the Duke Valentino, and by |
| reason of the entry of the French, he brought about all those things |
| which I have discussed above in the actions of the duke. And |
| although his intention was not to aggrandize the Church, but the duke, |
| nevertheless, what he did contributed to the greatness of the |
| Church, which, after his death and the ruin of the duke, became the |
| heir to all his labours. |
| Pope Julius came afterwards and found the Church strong, |
| possessing all the Romagna, the barons of Rome reduced to impotence, |
| and, through the chastisements Alexander, the factions wiped out; he |
| also found the way open to accumulate money in a manner such as had |
| never been practised before Alexander's time. Such things Julius not |
| only followed, but improved upon, and he intended to gain Bologna, |
| to ruin the Venetians, and to drive the French out of Italy. All of |
| these enterprises prospered with him, and so much the more to his |
| credit, inasmuch as he did everything to strengthen the Church and not |
| any private person. He kept also the Orsini and Colonna factions |
| within the bounds in which he found them; and although there was among |
| them some mind to make disturbance, nevertheless he held two things |
| firm: the one, the greatness of the church, with which he terrified |
| them; and the other, not allowing them to have their own cardinals, |
| who caused the disorders among them. For whenever these factions |
| have their cardinals they do not remain quiet for long, because |
| cardinals foster the factions in Rome and out of it, and the barons |
| are compelled to support them, and thus from the ambitions of prelates |
| arise disorders and tumults among the barons. For these reasons his |
| Holiness Pope Leo found the pontificate most powerful, and it is to be |
| hoped that, if others made it great in arms, he will make it still |
| greater and more venerated by his goodness and infinite other virtues. |
| CHAPTER XII |
| HOW MANY KINDS OF SOLDIERY THERE ARE, |
| AND CONCERNING MERCENARIES |
| |
| HAVING discoursed particularly on the characteristics of such |
| principalities as in the beginning I proposed to discuss, and having |
| considered in some degree the causes of their being good or bad, and |
| having shown the methods by which many have sought to acquire them and |
| to hold them, it now remains for me to discuss generally the means |
| of offence and defence which belong to each of them. |
| We have seen above how necessary it is for a prince to have his |
| foundations well laid, otherwise it follows of necessity he will go to |
| ruin. The chief foundations of all states, new as well as old or |
| composite, are good laws and good arms; and as there cannot be good |
| laws where the state is not well armed, it follows that where they are |
| well armed they have good laws. I shall leave the laws out of the |
| discussion and shall speak of the arms. |
| I say, therefore, that the arms with which a prince defends his |
| state are either his own, or they are mercenaries, auxiliaries, or |
| mixed. Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous; and if |
| one holds his state based on these arms, he will stand neither firm |
| nor safe; for they are disunited, ambitious and without discipline, |
| unfaithful, valiant before friends, cowardly before enemies; they have |
| neither the fear of God nor fidelity to men, and destruction is |
| deferred only so long as the attack is; for in peace one is robbed |
| by them, and in war by the enemy. The fact is, they have no other |
| attraction or reason for keeping the field than a trifle of stipend, |
| which is not sufficient to make them willing to die for you. They |
| are ready enough to be your soldiers whilst you do not make war, but |
| if war comes they take themselves off or run from the foe; which I |
| should have little trouble to prove, for the ruin of Italy has been |
| caused by nothing else than by resting all her hopes for many years on |
| mercenaries, and although they formerly made some display and appeared |
| valiant amongst themselves, yet when the foreigners came they showed |
| what they were. Thus it was that Charles, King of France, was |
| allowed to seize Italy with chalk in hand;* and he who told us that |
| our sins were the cause of it told the truth, but they were not the |
| sins he imagined, but those which I have related. And as they were the |
| sins of princes, it is the princes who have also suffered the penalty. |
| |
| * With which to chalk up the billets for his soldiers. |
| |
| I wish to demonstrate further the infelicity of these arms. The |
| mercenary captains are either capable men or they are not; if they |
| are, you cannot trust them, because they always aspire to their own |
| greatness, either by oppressing you, who are their master, or others |
| contrary to your intentions; but if the captain is not skilful, you |
| are ruined in the usual way. |
| And if it be urged that whoever is armed will act in the same way, |
| whether mercenary or not, I reply that when arms have to be resorted |
| to, either by a prince or a republic, then the prince ought to go in |
| person and perform the duty of captain; the republic has to send its |
| citizens, and when one is sent who does not turn out satisfactorily, |
| it ought to recall him, and when one is worthy, to hold him by the |
| laws so that he does not leave the command. And experience has shown |
| princes and republics, single-handed, making the greatest progress, |
| and mercenaries doing nothing except damage; and it is more |
| difficult to bring a republic, armed with its own arms, under the sway |
| of one of its citizens than it is to bring one armed with foreign |
| arms. Rome and Sparta stood for many ages armed and free. The Switzers |
| are completely armed and quite free. |
| Of ancient mercenaries, for example, there are the Carthaginians, |
| who were oppressed by their mercenary soldiers after the first war |
| with the Romans, although the Carthaginians had their own citizens for |
| captains. After the death of Epaminondas, Philip of Macedon was made |
| captain of their soldiers by the Thebans, and after victory he took |
| away their liberty. |
| Duke Filippo being dead, the Milanese enlisted Francesco Sforza |
| against the Venetians, and he, having overcome the enemy at |
| Caravaggio, allied himself with them to crush the Milanese, his |
| masters. His father, Sforza, having been engaged by Queen Johanna of |
| Naples, left her unprotected, so that she was forced to throw |
| herself into the arms of the King of Aragon, in order to save her |
| kingdom. And if the Venetians and Florentines formerly extended |
| their dominions by these arms, and yet their captains did not make |
| themselves princes, but have defended them, I reply that the |
| Florentines in this case have been favoured by chance, for of the able |
| captains, of whom they might have stood in fear, some have not |
| conquered, some have been opposed, and others have turned their |
| ambitions elsewhere. One who did not conquer was Giovanni Acuto,* |
| and since he did not conquer his fidelity cannot be proved; but |
| every one will acknowledge that, had he conquered, the Florentines |
| would have stood at his discretion. Sforza had the Bracceschi always |
| against him, so they watched each other. Francesco turned his ambition |
| to Lombardy; Braccio against the Church and the kingdom of Naples. But |
| let us come to that which happened a short while ago. The |
| Florentines appointed as their captain Paolo Vitelli, a most prudent |
| man, who from a private position had risen to the greatest renown. |
| If this man had taken Pisa, nobody can deny that it would have been |
| proper for the Florentines to keep in with him, for if he became the |
| soldier of their enemies they had no means of resisting, and if they |
| held to him they must obey him. The Venetians, if their achievements |
| are considered, will be seen to have acted safely and gloriously so |
| long as they sent to war their own men, when with armed gentlemen |
| and plebeians they did valiantly. This was before they turned to |
| enterprises on land, but when they began to fight on land they forsook |
| this virtue and followed the custom of Italy. And in the beginning |
| of their expansion on land, through not having much territory, and |
| because of their great reputation, they had not much to fear from |
| their captains; but when they expanded, as under Carmignola, they |
| had a taste of this mistake; for, having found him a most valiant |
| man (they beat the Duke of Milan under his leadership), and, on the |
| other hand, knowing how lukewarm he was in the war, they feared they |
| would no longer conquer under him, and for this reason they were not |
| willing, nor were they able, to let him go; and so, not to lose |
| again that which they had acquired, they were compelled, in order to |
| secure themselves, to murder him. They had afterwards for their |
| captains Bartolomeo da Bergamo, Roberto da San Severino, the Count |
| of Pitigliano, and the like, under whom they had to dread loss and not |
| gain, as happened afterwards at Vaila, where in one battle they lost |
| that which in eight hundred years they had acquired with so much |
| trouble. Because from such arms conquests come but slowly, long |
| delayed and inconsiderable, but the losses sudden and portentous. |
| |
| * As Sir John Hawkwood, the English leader of mercenaries, was |
| called by the Italians. |
| |
| And as with these examples I have reached Italy, which has been |
| ruled for many years by mercenaries, I wish to discuss them more |
| seriously, in order that, having seen their rise and progress, one may |
| be better prepared to counteract them. You must understand that the |
| empire has recently come to be repudiated in Italy, that the Pope |
| has acquired more temporal power, and that Italy has been divided up |
| into more states, for the reason that many of the great cities took up |
| arms against their nobles, who, formerly favoured by the emperor, were |
| oppressing them, whilst the Church was favouring them so as to gain |
| authority in temporal power: in many others their citizens became |
| princes. From this it came to pass that Italy fell partly into the |
| hands of the Church and of republics, and, the Church consisting of |
| priests and the republic of citizens unaccustomed to arms, both |
| commenced to enlist foreigners. |
| The first who gave renown to this soldiery was Alberigo da Conio, |
| a native of the Romagna. From the school of this man sprang, among |
| others, Braccio and Sforza, who in their time were the arbiters of |
| Italy. After these came all the other captains who till now have |
| directed the arms of Italy; and the end of all their valour has |
| been, that she has been overrun by Charles, robbed by Louis, ravaged |
| by Ferdinand, and insulted by the Switzers. The principle that has |
| guided them has been, first, to lower the credit of infantry so that |
| they might increase their own. They did this because, subsisting on |
| their pay and without territory, they were unable to support many |
| soldiers, and a few infantry did not give them any authority; so |
| they were led to employ cavalry, with a moderate force of which they |
| were maintained and honoured; and affairs were brought to such a |
| pass that, in an army of twenty thousand soldiers, there were not to |
| be found two thousand foot soldiers. They had, besides this, used |
| every art to lessen fatigue and danger to themselves and their |
| soldiers, not killing in the fray, but taking prisoners and liberating |
| without ransom. They did not attack towns at night, nor did the |
| garrisons of the towns attack encampments at night; they did not |
| surround the camp either with stockade or ditch, nor did they campaign |
| in the winter. All these things were permitted by their military |
| rules, and devised by them to avoid, as I have said, both fatigue |
| and dangers; thus they have brought Italy to slavery and contempt. |
| CHAPTER XIII |
| CONCERNING AUXILIARIES, MIXED SOLDIERY, AND ONE'S OWN |
| |
| AUXILIARIES, which are the other useless arm, are employed when a |
| prince is called in with his forces to aid and defend, as was done |
| by Pope Julius in the most recent times; for he, having, in the |
| enterprise against Ferrara, had poor proof of his mercenaries, |
| turned to auxiliaries, and stipulated with Ferdinand, King of Spain, |
| for his assistance with men and arms. These arms may be useful and |
| good in themselves, but for him who calls them in they are always |
| disadvantageous; for losing, one is undone, and winning, one is |
| their captive. |
| And although ancient histories may be full of examples, I do not |
| wish to leave this recent one of Pope Julius II, the peril of which |
| cannot fall to be perceived; for he, wishing to get Ferrara, threw |
| himself entirely into the hands of the foreigner. But his good fortune |
| brought about a third event, so that he did not reap the fruit of |
| his rash choice; because, having auxiliaries routed at Ravenna, and |
| the Switzers having risen and driven out the conquerors (against all |
| expectation, both his and others), it so came to pass that he did |
| not become prisoner to his enemies, they having fled, nor to his |
| auxiliaries, he having conquered by other arms than theirs. |
| The Florentines, being entirely without arms, sent ten thousand |
| Frenchmen to take Pisa, whereby they ran more danger than at any other |
| time of their troubles. |
| The Emperor of Constantinople, to oppose his neighbours, sent ten |
| thousand Turks into Greece, who, on the war being finished, were not |
| willing to quit; this was the beginning of the servitude of Greece |
| to the infidels. |
| Therefore, let him who has no desire to conquer make use of these |
| arms, for they are much more hazardous than mercenaries, because |
| with them the ruin is ready made; they are all united, all yield |
| obedience to others; but with mercenaries, when they have conquered, |
| more time and better opportunities are needed to injure you; they |
| are not all of one community, they are found and paid by you, and a |
| third party, which you have made their head, is not able all at once |
| to assume enough authority to injure you. In conclusion, in |
| mercenaries dastardy is most dangerous; in auxiliaries, valour. The |
| wise prince, therefore, has always avoided these arms and turned to |
| his own; and has been willing rather to lose with them than to conquer |
| with others, not deeming that a real victory which is gained with |
| the arms of others. |
| I shall never hesitate to cite Cesare Borgia and his actions. This |
| duke entered the Romagna with auxiliaries, taking there only French |
| soldiers, and with them he captured Imola and Forli; but afterwards, |
| such forces not appearing to him reliable, he turned to mercenaries, |
| discerning less danger in them, and enlisted the Orsini and Vitelli; |
| whom presently, on handling and finding them doubtful, unfaithful, and |
| dangerous, he destroyed and turned to his own men. And the |
| difference between one and the other of these forces can easily be |
| seen when one considers the difference there was in the reputation |
| of the duke, when he had the French, when he had the Orsini and |
| Vitelli, and when he relied on his own soldiers, on whose fidelity |
| he could always count and found it ever increasing; he was never |
| esteemed more highly than when every one saw that he was complete |
| master of his own forces. |
| I was not intending to go beyond Italian and recent examples, but |
| I am unwilling to leave out Hiero, the Syracusan, he being one of |
| those I have named above. This man, as I have said, made head of the |
| army by the Syracusans, soon found out that a mercenary soldiery, |
| constituted like our Italian condottieri, was of no use; and it |
| appearing to him that he could neither keep them nor let them go, he |
| had them all cut to pieces, and afterwards made war with his own |
| forces and not with aliens. |
| I wish also to recall to memory an instance from the Old Testament |
| applicable to this subject. David offered himself to Saul to fight |
| with Goliath, the Philistine champion, and, to give him courage, |
| Saul armed him with his own weapons; which David rejected as soon as |
| he had them on his back, saying he could make no use of them, and that |
| he wished to meet the enemy with his sling and his knife. In |
| conclusion, the arms of others either fall from your back, or they |
| weigh you down, or they bind you fast. |
| Charles VII, the father of King Louis XI, having by good fortune and |
| valour liberated France from the English, recognized the necessity |
| of being armed with forces of his own, and he established in his |
| kingdom ordinances concerning men-at-arms and infantry. Afterwards his |
| son, King Louis, abolished the infantry and began to enlist the |
| Switzers, which mistake, followed by others, is, as is now seen, a |
| source of peril to that kingdom; because, having raised the reputation |
| of the Switzers, he has entirely diminished the value of his own arms, |
| for he has destroyed the infantry altogether; and his men-at-arms he |
| has subordinated to others, for, being as they are so accustomed to |
| fight along with Switzers, it does not appear that they can now |
| conquer without them. Hence it arises that the French cannot stand |
| against the Switzers, and without the Switzers they do not come off |
| well against others. The armies of the French have thus become |
| mixed, partly mercenary and partly national, both of which arms |
| together are much better than mercenaries alone or auxiliaries |
| alone, yet much inferior to one's own forces. And this example |
| proves it, the kingdom of France would be unconquerable if the |
| ordinance of Charles had been enlarged or maintained. |
| But the scanty wisdom of man, on entering into an affair which looks |
| well at first, cannot discern the poison that is hidden in it, as I |
| have said above of hectic fevers. Therefore, if he who rules a |
| principality cannot recognize evils until they are upon him, he is not |
| truly wise; and this insight is given to few. And if the first |
| disaster to the Roman Empire should be examined, it will be found to |
| have commenced only with the enlisting of the Goths; because from that |
| time the vigour of the Roman Empire began to decline, and all that |
| valour which had raised it passed away to others. |
| I conclude, therefore, that no principality is secure without having |
| its own forces; on the contrary, it is entirely dependent on good |
| fortune, not having the valour which in adversity would defend it. And |
| it has always been the opinion and judgment of wise men that nothing |
| can be so uncertain or unstable as fame or power not founded on its |
| own strength. And one's own forces are those which are composed |
| either of subjects, citizens, or dependants; all others are |
| mercenaries or auxiliaries. And the way to take ready one's own forces |
| will be easily found if the rules suggested by me shall be reflected |
| upon, and if one will consider how Philip, the father of Alexander the |
| Great, and many republics and princes have armed and organized |
| themselves, to which rules I entirely commit myself. |
| CHAPTER XIV |
| THAT WHICH CONCERNS A PRINCE |
| ON THE SUBJECT OF THE ART OF WAR |
| |
| A PRINCE ought to have no other aim or thought, nor select |
| anything else for his study, than war and its rules and discipline; |
| for this is the sole art that belongs to him who rules, and it is of |
| such force that it not only upholds those who are born princes, but it |
| often enables men to rise from a private station to that rank. And, on |
| the contrary, it is seen that when princes have thought more of ease |
| than of arms they have lost their states. And the first cause of |
| your losing it is to neglect this art; and what enables you to acquire |
| a state is to be master of the art. Francesco Sforza, through being |
| martial, from a private person became Duke of Milan; and the sons, |
| through avoiding the hardships and troubles of arms, from dukes became |
| private persons. For among other evils which being unarmed brings you, |
| it causes you to be despised, and this is one of those ignominies |
| against which a prince ought to guard himself, as is shown later on. |
| Because there is nothing proportionate between the armed and the |
| unarmed; and it is not reasonable that he who is armed should yield |
| obedience willingly to him who is unarmed, or that the unarmed man |
| should be secure among armed servants. Because, there being in the one |
| disdain and in the other suspicion, it is not possible for them to |
| work well together. And therefore a prince who does not understand the |
| art of war, over and above the other misfortunes already mentioned, |
| cannot be respected by his soldiers, nor can he rely on them. He ought |
| never, therefore, to have out of his thoughts this subject of war, and |
| in peace he should addict himself more to its exercise than in war; |
| this he can do in two ways, the one by action, the other by study. |
| As regards action, he ought above all things to keep his men well |
| organized and drilled, to follow incessantly the chase, by which he |
| accustoms his body to hardships, and learns something of the nature of |
| localities, and gets to find out how the mountains rise, how the |
| valleys open out, how the plains lie, and to understand the nature |
| of rivers and marshes, and in all this to take the greatest care. |
| Which knowledge is useful in two ways. Firstly, he learns to know |
| his country, and is better able to undertake its defence; |
| afterwards, by means of the knowledge and observation of that |
| locality, he understands with ease any other which it may be necessary |
| for him to study hereafter; because the hills, valleys, and plains, |
| and rivers and marshes that are, for instance, in Tuscany, have a |
| certain resemblance to those of other countries, so that with a |
| knowledge of the aspect of one country one can easily arrive at a |
| knowledge of others. And the prince that lacks this skill lacks the |
| essential which it is desirable that a captain should possess, for |
| it teaches him to surprise his enemy, to select quarters, to lead |
| armies, to array the battle, to besiege towns to advantage. |
| Philopoemen, Prince of the Achaeans, among other praises which |
| writers have bestowed on him, is commended because in time of peace he |
| never had anything in his mind but the rules of war; and when he was |
| in the country with friends, he often stopped and reasoned with |
| them: "If the enemy should be upon that hill, and we should find |
| ourselves here with our army, with whom would be the advantage? How |
| should one best advance to meet him, keeping the ranks? If we should |
| wish to retreat, how ought we to set about it? If they should retreat, |
| how ought we to pursue?" And he would set forth to them, as he went, |
| all the chances that could befall an army; he would listen to their |
| opinion and state his, confirming it with reasons, so that by these |
| continual discussions there could never arise, in time of war, any |
| unexpected circumstances that he could deal with. |
| But to exercise the intellect the prince should read histories, |
| and study there the actions of illustrious men, to see how they have |
| borne themselves in war, to examine the causes of their victories |
| and defeat, so as to avoid the latter and imitate the former; and |
| above all do as an illustrious man did, who took as an exemplar one |
| who had been praised and famous before him, and whose achievements and |
| deeds he always kept in his mind, as it is said Alexander the Great |
| imitated Achilles, Caesar Alexander, Scipio Cyrus. And whoever reads |
| the life of Cyrus, written by Xenophon, will recognize afterwards in |
| the life of Scipio how that imitation was his glory, and how in |
| chastity, affability, humanity, and liberality Scipio conformed to |
| those things which have been written of Cyrus by Xenophon. A wise |
| prince ought to observe some such rules, and never in peaceful times |
| stand idle, but increase his resources with industry in such a way |
| that they may be available to him in adversity, so that if fortune |
| changes it may find him prepared to resist her blows. |
| CHAPTER XV |
| CONCERNING THINGS FOR WHICH MEN, AND ESPECIALLY PRINCES, |
| ARE PRAISED OR BLAMED |
| |
| IT REMAINS now to see what ought to be the rules of conduct for a |
| prince towards subject and friends. And as I know that many have |
| written on this point, I expect I shall be considered presumptuous |
| in mentioning it again, especially as in discussing it I shall |
| depart from the methods of other people. But, it being my intention to |
| write a thing which shall be useful to him who apprehends it, it |
| appears to me more appropriate to follow up the real truth of a matter |
| than the imagination of it; for many have pictured republics and |
| principalities which in fact have never been known or seen, because |
| how one lives is so far distant from how one ought to live, that he |
| who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, sooner effects |
| his ruin than his preservation; for a man who wishes to act entirely |
| up to his professions of virtue soon meets with what destroys him |
| among so much that is evil. |
| Hence it is necessary for a prince wishing to hold his own to know |
| how to do wrong, and to make use of it or not according to |
| necessity. Therefore, putting on one side imaginary things |
| concerning a prince, and discussing those which are real, I say that |
| all men when they are spoken of, and chiefly princes for being more |
| highly placed, are remarkable for some of those qualities which |
| bring them either blame or praise; and thus it is that one is |
| reputed liberal, another miserly, using a Tuscan term (because an |
| avaricious person in our language is still he who desires to possess |
| by robbery, whilst we call one miserly who deprives himself too much |
| of the use of his own); one is reputed generous, one rapacious; one |
| cruel, one compassionate; one faithless, another faithful; one |
| effeminate and cowardly, another bold and brave; one affable, |
| another haughty; one lascivious, another chaste; one sincere, |
| another cunning; one hard, another easy; one grave, another frivolous; |
| one religious, another unbelieving, and the like. And I know that |
| every one will confess that it would be most praiseworthy in a |
| prince to exhibit all the above qualities that are considered good; |
| but because they can neither be entirely possessed nor observed, for |
| human conditions do not permit it, it is necessary for him to be |
| sufficiently prudent that he may know how to avoid the reproach of |
| those vices which would lose him his state; and also to keep |
| himself, if it be possible, from those which would not lose him it; |
| but this not being possible, he may with less hesitation abandon |
| himself to them. And again, he need not make himself uneasy at |
| incurring a reproach for those vices without which the state can |
| only be saved with difficulty, for if everything is considered |
| carefully, it will be found that something which looks like virtue, if |
| followed, would be his ruin; whilst something else, which looks like |
| vice, yet followed brings him security and prosperity. |
| CHAPTER XVI |
| CONCERNING LIBERALITY AND MEANNESS |
| |
| COMMENCING then with the first of the above-named characteristics, I |
| say that it would be well to be reputed liberal. Nevertheless, |
| liberality exercised in a way that does not bring you the reputation |
| for it, injures you; for if one exercises it honestly and as it should |
| be exercised, it may not become known, and you will not avoid the |
| reproach of its opposite. Therefore, any one wishing to maintain among |
| men the name of liberal is obliged to avoid no attribute of |
| magnificence; so that a prince thus inclined will consume in such acts |
| all his property, and will be compelled in the end, if he wish to |
| maintain the name of liberal, to unduly weigh down his people, and tax |
| them, and do everything he can to get money. This will soon make him |
| odious to his subjects, and becoming poor he will be little valued |
| by any one; thus, with his liberality, having offended many and |
| rewarded few, he is affected by the very first trouble and |
| imperilled by whatever may be the first danger; recognizing this |
| himself, and wishing to draw back from it, he runs at once into the |
| reproach of being miserly. |
| Therefore, a prince, not being able to exercise this virtue of |
| liberality in such a way that it is recognized, except to his cost, if |
| he is wise he ought not to fear the reputation of being mean, for in |
| time he will come to be more considered than if liberal, seeing that |
| with his economy his revenues are enough, that he can defend himself |
| against all attacks, and is able to engage in enterprises without |
| burdening his people; thus it comes to pass that he exercises |
| liberality towards all from whom he does not take, who are numberless, |
| and meanness towards those to whom he does not give, who are few. |
| We have not seen great things done in our time except by those who |
| have been considered mean; the rest have failed. Pope Julius the |
| Second was assisted in reaching the papacy by a reputation for |
| liberality, yet he did not strive afterwards to keep it up, when he |
| made war on the King of France; and he made many wars without imposing |
| any extraordinary tax on his subjects, for he supplied his |
| additional expenses out of his long thriftiness. The present King of |
| Spain would not have undertaken or conquered in so many enterprises if |
| he had been reputed liberal. A prince, therefore, provided that he has |
| not to rob his subjects, that he can defend himself, that he does |
| not become poor and abject, that he is not forced to become rapacious, |
| ought to hold of little account a reputation for being mean, for it is |
| one of those vices which will enable him to govern. |
| And if any one should say: Caesar obtained empire by liberality, and |
| many others have reached the highest positions by having been liberal, |
| and by being considered so, I answer: Either you are a prince in fact, |
| or in a way to become one. In the first case this liberality is |
| dangerous, in the second it is very necessary to be considered |
| liberal; and Caesar was one of those who wished to become |
| pre-eminent in Rome; but if he had survived after becoming so, and had |
| not moderated his expenses, he would have destroyed his government. |
| And if any one should reply: Many have been princes, and have done |
| great things with armies, who have been considered very liberal, I |
| reply: Either a prince spends that which is his own or his subjects' |
| or else that of others. In the first case he ought to be sparing, in |
| the second he ought not to neglect any opportunity for liberality. And |
| to the price who goes forth with his army, supporting it by pillage, |
| sack, and extortion, handling that which belongs to others, this |
| liberality is necessary, otherwise he would not be followed by |
| soldiers. And of that which is neither yours nor your subjects' you |
| can be a ready giver, as were Cyrus, Caesar, and Alexander; because it |
| does not take away your reputation if you squander that of others, but |
| adds to it; it is only squandering your own that injures you. |
| And there is nothing wastes so rapidly as liberality, for even |
| whilst you exercise it you lose the power to do so, and so become |
| either poor or despised, or else, in avoiding poverty, rapacious and |
| hated. And a prince should guard himself, above all things, against |
| being despised and hated; and liberality leads you to both. |
| Therefore it is wiser to have a reputation for meanness which brings |
| reproach without hatred, than to be compelled through seeking a |
| reputation for liberality to incur a name for rapacity which begets |
| reproach with hatred. |
| CHAPTER XVII |
| CONCERNING CRUELTY AND CLEMENCY, AND |
| WHETHER IT IS BETTER TO BE LOVED THAN FEARED |
| |
| COMING now to the other qualities mentioned above, I say that |
| every prince ought to desire to be considered clement and not cruel. |
| Nevertheless he ought to take care not to misuse this clemency. Cesare |
| Borgia was considered cruel; notwithstanding, his cruelty reconciled |
| the Romagna, unified it, and restored it to peace and loyalty. And |
| if this be rightly considered, he will be seen to have been much |
| more merciful than the Florentine people, who, to avoid a reputation |
| for cruelty, permitted Pistoia to be destroyed. Therefore a prince, so |
| long as he keeps his subjects united and loyal, ought not to mind |
| the reproach of cruelty; because with a few examples he will be more |
| merciful than those who, through too much mercy, allow disorders to |
| arise, from which follow murders or robberies; for these are wont to |
| injure the whole people, whilst those executions which originate |
| with a prince offend the individual only. |
| And of all princes, it is impossible for the new prince to avoid the |
| imputation of cruelty, owing to new states being full of dangers. |
| Hence Virgil, through the mouth of Dido, excuses the inhumanity of her |
| reign owing to its being new, saying: |
| |
| Res dura, et regni novitas me talia cogunt |
| Moliri, et late fines custode tueri.* |
| |
| * ...against my will, my fate, |
| A throne unsettled, and an infant state, |
| Bid me defend my realms with all my pow'rs, |
| And guard with these severities my shores. |
| |
| Nevertheless he ought to be slow to believe and to act, nor should |
| he himself show fear, but proceed in a temperate manner with |
| prudence and humanity, so that too much confidence may not make him |
| incautious and too much distrust render him intolerable. |
| Upon this a question arises: whether it be better to be loved than |
| feared or feared than loved? It may be answered that one should wish |
| to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one |
| person, is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, |
| either must be dispensed with. Because this is to be asserted in |
| general of men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, |
| covetous, and as long as you succeed they are yours entirely; they |
| will offer you their blood, property, life and children, as is said |
| above, when the need is far distant; but when it approaches they |
| turn against you. And that prince who, relying entirely on their |
| promises, has neglected other precautions, is ruined; because |
| friendships that are obtained by payments, and not by greatness or |
| nobility of mind, may indeed be earned, but they are not secured, |
| and in time of need cannot be relied upon; and men have less scruple |
| in offending one who is beloved than one who is feared, for love is |
| preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of |
| men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear |
| preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails. |
| Nevertheless a prince ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if |
| he does not win love, he avoids hatred; because he can endure very |
| well being feared whilst he is not hated, which will always be as long |
| as he abstains from the property of his citizens and subjects and from |
| their women. But when it is necessary for him to proceed against the |
| life of someone, he must do it on proper justification and for |
| manifest cause, but above all things he must keep his hands off the |
| property of others, because men more quickly forget the death of their |
| father than the loss of their patrimony. Besides, pretexts for |
| taking away the property are never wanting; for he who has once |
| begun to live by robbery will always find pretexts for seizing what |
| belongs to others; but reasons for taking life, on the contrary, are |
| more difficult to find and sooner lapse. But when a prince is with his |
| army, and has under control a multitude of soldiers, then it is |
| quite necessary for him to disregard the reputation of cruelty, for |
| without it he would never hold his army united or disposed to its |
| duties. |
| Among the wonderful deeds of Hannibal this one is enumerated: that |
| having led an enormous army, composed of many various races of men, to |
| fight in foreign lands, no dissensions arose either among them or |
| against the prince, whether in his bad or in his good fortune. This |
| arose from nothing else than his inhuman cruelty, which, with his |
| boundless valour, made him revered and terrible in the sight of his |
| soldiers, but without that cruelty, his other virtues were not |
| sufficient to produce this effect. And shortsighted writers admire his |
| deeds from one point of view and from another condemn the principal |
| cause of them. That it is true his other virtues would not have been |
| sufficient for him may be proved by the case of Scipio, that most |
| excellent man, not of his own times but within the memory of man, |
| against whom, nevertheless, his army rebelled in Spain; this arose |
| from nothing but his too great forbearance, which gave his soldiers |
| more licence than is consistent with military discipline. For this |
| he was upbraided in the Senate by Fabius Maximus, and called the |
| corrupter of the Roman soldiery. The Locrians were laid waste by a |
| legate of Scipio, yet they were not avenged by him, nor was the |
| insolence of the legate punished, owing entirely to his easy nature. |
| Insomuch that someone in the Senate, wishing to excuse him, said there |
| were many men who knew much better how not to err than to correct |
| the errors of others. This disposition, if he had been continued in |
| the command, would have destroyed in time the fame and glory of |
| Scipio; but, he being under the control of the Senate, this |
| injurious characteristic not only concealed itself, but contributed to |
| his glory. |
| Returning to the question of being feared or loved, I come to the |
| conclusion that, men loving according to their own will and fearing |
| according to that of the prince, a wise prince should establish |
| himself on that which is in his own control and not in that of others; |
| he must endeavour only to avoid hatred, as is noted. |
| CHAPTER XVIII |
| CONCERNING THE WAY IN WHICH PRINCES SHOULD KEEP FAITH |
| |
| EVERY one admits how praiseworthy it is in a prince to keep faith, |
| and to live with integrity and not with craft. Nevertheless our |
| experience has been that those princes who have done great things have |
| held good faith of little account, and have known how to circumvent |
| the intellect of men by craft, and in the end have overcome those |
| who have relied on their word. You must know there are two ways of |
| contesting, the one by the law, the other by force; the first method |
| is proper to men, the second to beasts; but because the first is |
| frequently not sufficient, it is necessary to have recourse to the |
| second. Therefore it is necessary for a prince to understand how to |
| avail himself of the beast and the man. This has been figuratively |
| taught to princes by ancient writers, who describe how Achilles and |
| many other princes of old were given to the Centaur Chiron to nurse, |
| who brought them up in his discipline; which means solely that, as |
| they had for a teacher one who was half beast and half man, so it is |
| necessary for a prince to know how to make use of both natures, and |
| that one without the other is not durable. A prince, therefore, |
| being compelled knowingly to adopt the beast, ought to choose the |
| fox and the lion; because the lion cannot defend himself against |
| snares and the fox cannot defend himself against wolves. Therefore, it |
| is necessary to be a fox to discover the snares and a lion to |
| terrify the wolves. Those who rely simply on the lion do not |
| understand what they are about. Therefore a wise lord cannot, nor |
| ought he to, keep faith when such observance may be turned against |
| him, and when the reasons that caused him to pledge it exist no |
| longer. If men were entirely good this precept would not hold, but |
| because they are bad, and will not keep faith with you, you too are |
| not bound to observe it with them. Nor will there ever be wanting to a |
| prince legitimate reasons to excuse this nonobservance. Of this |
| endless modern examples could be given, showing how many treaties |
| and engagements have been made void and of no effect through the |
| faithlessness of princes; and he who has known best how to employ |
| the fox has succeeded best. |
| But it is necessary to know well how to disguise this |
| characteristic, and to be a great pretender and dissembler; and men |
| are so simple, and so subject to present necessities, that he who |
| seeks to deceive will always find someone who will allow himself to be |
| deceived. One recent example I cannot pass over in silence. |
| Alexander VI did nothing else but deceive men, nor ever thought of |
| doing otherwise, and he always found victims; for there never was a |
| man who had greater power in asserting, or who with greater oaths |
| would affirm a thing, yet would observe it less; nevertheless his |
| deceits always succeeded according to his wishes, because he well |
| understood this side of mankind. |
| Therefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good |
| qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to |
| have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and |
| always to observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them |
| is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, |
| and to be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to |
| be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite. |
| And you have to understand this, that a prince, especially a new |
| one, cannot observe all those things for which men are esteemed, being |
| often forced, in order to maintain the state, to act contrary to |
| faith, friendship, humanity, and religion. Therefore it is necessary |
| for him to have a mind ready to turn itself accordingly as the winds |
| and variations of fortune force it, yet, as I have said above, not |
| to diverge from the good if he can avoid doing so, but, if |
| compelled, then to know how to set about it. |
| For this reason a prince ought to take care that he never lets |
| anything slip from his lips that is not replete with the above-named |
| five qualities, that he may appear to him who sees and hears him |
| altogether merciful, faithful, humane, upright, and religious. There |
| is nothing more necessary to appear to have than this last quality, |
| inasmuch as men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, |
| because it belongs to everybody to see you, to few to come in touch |
| with you. Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what |
| you are, and those few dare not oppose themselves to the opinion of |
| the many, who have the majesty of the state to defend them; and in the |
| actions of all men, and especially of princes, which it is not prudent |
| to challenge, one judges by the result. |
| For that reason, let a prince have the credit of conquering and |
| holding his state, the means will always be considered honest, and |
| he will be praised by everybody because the vulgar are always taken by |
| what a thing seems to be and by what comes of it; and in the world |
| there are only the vulgar, for the few find a place there only when |
| the many have no ground to rest on. |
| One prince* of the present time, whom it is not well to name, |
| never preaches anything else but peace and good faith, and to both |
| he is most hostile, and either, if he had kept it, would have deprived |
| him of reputation and kingdom many a time. |
| |
| * Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor. |
| CHAPTER XIX |
| THAT ONE SHOULD AVOID BEING DESPISED AND HATED |
| |
| Now, concerning the characteristics of which mention is made |
| above, I have spoken of the more important ones, the others I wish |
| to discuss briefly under this generality, that the prince must |
| consider, as has been in part said before, how to avoid those things |
| which will make him hated or contemptible; and as often as he shall |
| have succeeded he will have fulfilled his part, and he need not fear |
| any danger in other reproaches. |
| It makes him hated above all things, as I have said, to be |
| rapacious, and to be a violator of the property and women of his |
| subjects, from both of which he must abstain. And when neither their |
| property nor honour is touched, the majority of men live content, |
| and he has only to contend with the ambition of a few, whom he can |
| curb with ease in many ways. |
| It makes him contemptible to be considered fickle, frivolous, |
| effeminate, mean-spirited, irresolute, from all of which a prince |
| should guard himself as from a rock; and he should endeavour to show |
| in his actions greatness, courage, gravity, and fortitude; and in |
| his private dealings with his subjects let him show that his judgments |
| are irrevocable, and maintain himself in such reputation that no one |
| can hope either to deceive him or to get round him. |
| That prince is highly esteemed who conveys this impression of |
| himself, and he who is highly esteemed is not easily conspired |
| against; for, provided it is well known that he is an excellent man |
| and revered by his people, he can only be attacked with difficulty. |
| For this reason a prince ought to have two fears, one from within, |
| on account of his subjects, the other from without, on account of |
| external powers. From the latter he is defended by being well armed |
| and having good allies, and if he is well armed he will have good |
| friends, and affairs will always remain quiet within when they are |
| quiet without, unless they should have been already disturbed by |
| conspiracy; and even should affairs outside be disturbed, if he has |
| carried out his preparations and has lived as I have said, as long |
| as he does not despair, he will resist every attack, as I said Nabis |
| the Spartan did. |
| But concerning his subjects, when affairs outside are disturbed he |
| has only to fear that they will conspire secretly, from which a prince |
| can easily secure himself by avoiding being hated and despised, and by |
| keeping the people satisfied with him, which it is most necessary |
| for him to accomplish, as I said above at length. And one of the |
| most efficacious remedies that a prince can have against |
| conspiracies is not to be hated and despised by the people, for he who |
| conspires against a prince always expects to please them by his |
| removal; but when the conspirator can only look forward to offending |
| them, he will not have the courage to take such a course, for the |
| difficulties that confront a conspirator are infinite. And as |
| experience shows, many have been the conspiracies, but few have been |
| successful; because he who conspires cannot act alone, nor can he take |
| a companion except from those whom he believes to be malcontents, |
| and as soon as you have opened your mind to a malcontent you have |
| given him the material with which to content himself, for by |
| denouncing you he can look for every advantage; so that, seeing the |
| gain from this course to be assured, and seeing the other to be |
| doubtful and full of dangers, he must be a very rare friend, or a |
| thoroughly obstinate enemy of the prince, to keep faith with you. |
| And, to reduce the matter into a small compass, I say that, on the |
| side of the conspirator, there is nothing but fear, jealousy, prospect |
| of punishment to terrify him; but on the side of the prince there is |
| the majesty of the principality, the laws, the protection of friends |
| and the state to defend him; so that, adding to all these things the |
| popular goodwill, it is impossible that any one should be so rash as |
| to conspire. For whereas in general the conspirator has to fear before |
| the execution of his plot, in this case he has also to fear the sequel |
| to the crime; because on account of it he has the people for an enemy, |
| and thus cannot hope for any escape. |
| Endless examples could be given on this subject, but I will be |
| content with one, brought to pass within the memory of our fathers. |
| Messer Annibale Bentivoglio, who was prince in Bologna (grandfather of |
| the present Annibale), having been murdered by the Canneschi, who |
| had conspired against him, not one of his family survived but Messer |
| Giovanni, who was in childhood: immediately after his assassination |
| the people rose and murdered all the Canneschi. This sprung from the |
| popular goodwill which the house of Bentivoglio enjoyed in those |
| days in Bologna; which was so great that, although none remained there |
| after the death of Annibale who were able to rule the state, the |
| Bolognese, having information that there was one of the Bentivoglio |
| family in Florence, who up to that time had been considered the son of |
| a blacksmith, sent to Florence for him and gave him the government |
| of their city, and it was ruled by him until Messer Giovanni came in |
| due course to the government. |
| For this reason I consider that a prince ought to reckon |
| conspiracies of little account when his people hold him in esteem; but |
| when it is hostile to him, and bears hatred towards him, he ought to |
| fear everything and everybody. And well-ordered states and wise |
| princes have taken every care not to drive the nobles to |
| desperation, and to keep the people satisfied and contented, for |
| this is one of the most important objects a prince can have. |
| Among the best ordered and governed kingdoms of our times is France, |
| and in it are found many good institutions on which depend the liberty |
| and security of the king; of these the first is the parliament and its |
| authority, because he who founded the kingdom, knowing the ambition of |
| the nobility and their boldness, considered that a bit in their mouths |
| would be necessary to hold them in; and, on the other side, knowing |
| the hatred of the people, founded in fear, against the nobles, he |
| wished to protect them, yet he was not anxious for this to be the |
| particular care of the king; therefore, to take away the reproach |
| which he would be liable to from the nobles for favouring the |
| people, and from the people for favouring the nobles, he set up an |
| arbiter, who should be one who could beat down the great and favour |
| the lesser without reproach to the king. Neither could you have a |
| better or a more prudent arrangement, or a greater source of |
| security to the king and kingdom. From this one can draw another |
| important conclusion, that princes ought to leave affairs of |
| reproach to the management of others, and keep those of grace in their |
| own hands. And further, I consider that a prince ought to cherish |
| the nobles, but not so as to make himself hated by the people. |
| It may appear, perhaps, to some who have examined the lives and |
| deaths of the Roman emperors that many of them would be an example |
| contrary to my opinion, seeing that some of them lived nobly and |
| showed great qualities of soul, nevertheless they have lost their |
| empire or have been killed by subjects who have conspired against |
| them. Wishing, therefore, to answer these objections, I will recall |
| the characters of some of the emperors, and will show that the |
| causes of their ruin were not different to those alleged by me; at the |
| same time I will only submit for consideration those things that are |
| noteworthy to him who studies the affairs of those times. |
| It seems to me sufficient to take all those emperors who succeeded |
| to the empire from Marcus the philosopher down to Maximinus; they were |
| Marcus and his son Commodus, Pertinax, Julian, Severus and his son |
| Antoninus Caracalla, Macrinus, Heliogabalus, Alexander, and Maximinus. |
| There is first to note that, whereas in other principalities the |
| ambition of the nobles and the insolence of the people only have to be |
| contended with, the Roman emperors had a third difficulty in having to |
| put up with the cruelty and avarice of their soldiers, a matter so |
| beset with difficulties that it was the ruin of many; for it was a |
| hard thing to give satisfaction both to soldiers and people; because |
| the people loved peace, and for this reason they loved the |
| unaspiring prince, whilst the soldiers loved the warlike prince who |
| was bold, cruel, and rapacious, which qualities they were quite |
| willing he should exercise upon the people, so that they could get |
| double pay and give vent to their greed and cruelty. Hence it arose |
| that those emperors were always overthrown who, either by birth or |
| training, had no great authority, and most of them, especially those |
| who came new to the principality, recognizing the difficulty of |
| these two opposing humours, were inclined to give satisfaction to |
| the soldiers, caring little about injuring the people. Which course |
| was necessary, because, as princes cannot help being hated by someone, |
| they ought, in the first place, to avoid being hated by every one, and |
| when they cannot compass this, they ought to endeavour with the utmost |
| diligence to avoid the hatred of the most powerful. Therefore, those |
| emperors who through inexperience had need of special favour adhered |
| more readily to the soldiers than to the people; a course which turned |
| out advantageous to them or not, accordingly as the prince knew how to |
| maintain authority over them. |
| From these causes it arose that Marcus, [Aurelius], Pertinax, and |
| Alexander, being all men of modest life, lovers of justice, enemies to |
| cruelty, humane, and benignant, came to a sad end except Marcus; he |
| alone lived and died honoured, because he had succeeded to the |
| throne by hereditary title, and owed nothing either to the soldiers or |
| the people; and afterwards, being possessed of many virtues which made |
| him respected, he always kept both orders in their places whilst he |
| lived, and was neither hated nor despised. |
| But Pertinax was created emperor against the wishes of the soldiers, |
| who, being accustomed to live licentiously under Commodus, could not |
| endure the honest life to which Pertinax wished to reduce them; |
| thus, having given cause for hatred, to which hatred there was added |
| contempt for his old age, he was overthrown at the very beginning of |
| his administration. And here it should be noted that hatred is |
| acquired as much by good works as by bad ones, therefore, as I said |
| before, a prince wishing to keep his state is very often forced to |
| do evil; for when that body is corrupt whom you think you have need of |
| to maintain yourself- it may be either the people or the soldiers or |
| the nobles- you have to submit to its humours and to gratify them, and |
| then good works will do you harm. |
| But let us come to Alexander, who was a man of such great |
| goodness, that among the other praises which are accorded him is this, |
| that in the fourteen years he held the empire no one was ever put to |
| death by him unjudged; nevertheless, being considered effeminate and a |
| man who allowed himself to be governed by his mother, he became |
| despised, the army conspired against him, and murdered him. |
| Turning now to the opposite characters of Commodus, Severus, |
| Antoninus Caracalla, and Maximinus, you will find them all cruel and |
| rapacious- men who, to satisfy their soldiers, did not hesitate to |
| commit every kind of iniquity against the people; and all, except |
| Severus, came to a bad end; but in Severus there was so much valour |
| that, keeping the soldiers friendly, although the people were |
| oppressed by him, he reigned successfully; for his valour made him |
| so much admired in the sight of the soldiers and people that the |
| latter were kept in a way astonished and awed and the former |
| respectful and satisfied. And because the actions of this man, as a |
| new prince, were great, I wish to show briefly that he knew well how |
| to counterfeit the fox and the lion, which natures, as I said above, |
| it is necessary for a prince to imitate. |
| Knowing the sloth of the Emperor Julian, he persuaded the army in |
| Sclavonia, of which he was captain, that it would be right to go to |
| Rome and avenge the death of Pertinax, who had been killed by the |
| praetorian soldiers; and under this pretext, without appearing to |
| aspire to the throne, he moved the army on Rome, and reached Italy |
| before it was known that he had started. On his arrival at Rome, the |
| Senate, through fear, elected him emperor and killed Julian. After |
| this there remained for Severus, who wished to make himself master |
| of the whole empire, two difficulties; one in Asia, where Niger, |
| head of the Asiatic army, had caused himself to be proclaimed emperor; |
| the other in the west where Albinus was, who also aspired to the |
| throne. And as he considered it dangerous to declare himself hostile |
| to both, he decided to attack Niger and to deceive Albinus. To the |
| latter he wrote that, being elected emperor by the Senate, he was |
| willing to share that dignity with him and sent him the title of |
| Caesar; and, moreover, that the Senate had made Albinus his colleague; |
| which things were accepted by Albinus as true. But after Severus had |
| conquered and killed Niger, and settled oriental affairs, he |
| returned to Rome and complained to the Senate that Albinus, little |
| recognizing the benefits that he had received from him, had by |
| treachery sought to murder him, and for this ingratitude he was |
| compelled to punish him. Afterwards he sought him out in France, and |
| took from him his government and life. He who will, therefore, |
| carefully examine the actions of this man will find him a most valiant |
| lion and a most cunning fox; he will find him feared and respected |
| by every one, and not hated by the army; and it need not be wondered |
| at that he, the new man, well, because his supreme renown always |
| protected him from that hatred which the people might have conceived |
| against him for his violence. |
| But his son Antoninus was a most eminent man, and had very excellent |
| qualities, which made him admirable in the sight of the people and |
| acceptable to the soldiers, for he was a warlike man, most enduring of |
| fatigue, a despiser of all delicate food and other luxuries, which |
| caused him to be beloved by the armies. Nevertheless, his ferocity and |
| cruelties were so great and so unheard of that, after endless single |
| murders, he killed a large number of the people of Rome and all |
| those of Alexandria. He became hated by the whole world, and also |
| feared by those he had around him, to such an extent that he was |
| murdered in the midst of his army by a centurion. And here it must |
| be noted that such-like deaths, which are deliberately inflicted |
| with a resolved and desperate courage, cannot be avoided by princes, |
| because any one who does not fear to die can inflict them; but a |
| prince may fear them the less because they are very rare; he has |
| only to be careful not to do any grave injury to those whom he employs |
| or has around him in the service of the state. Antoninus had not taken |
| this care, but had contumeliously killed a brother of that |
| centurion, whom also he daily threatened, yet retained in his |
| bodyguard; which, as it turned out, was a rash thing to do, and proved |
| the emperor's ruin. |
| But let us come to Commodus, to whom it should have been very easy |
| to hold the empire, for, being the son of Marcus, he had inherited it, |
| and he had only to follow in the footsteps of his father to please his |
| people and soldiers; but, being by nature cruel and brutal, he gave |
| himself up to amusing the soldiers and corrupting them, so that he |
| might indulge his rapacity upon the people; on the other hand, not |
| maintaining his dignity, often descending to the theatre to compete |
| with gladiators, and doing other vile things, little worthy of the |
| imperial majesty, he fell into contempt with the soldiers, and being |
| hated by one party and despised by the other, he was conspired against |
| and killed. |
| It remains to discuss the character of Maximinus. He was a very |
| warlike man, and the armies, being disgusted with the effeminacy of |
| Alexander, of whom I have already spoken, killed him and elected |
| Maximinus to the throne. This he did not possess for long, for two |
| things made him hated and despised; the one, his having kept sheep |
| in Thrace, which brought him into contempt (it being well known to |
| all, and considered a great indignity by every one), and the other, |
| his having at the accession to his dominions deferred going to Rome |
| and taking possession of the imperial seat; he had also gained a |
| reputation for the utmost ferocity by having, through his prefects |
| in Rome and elsewhere in the empire, practised many cruelties, so that |
| the whole world was moved to anger at the meanness of his birth and to |
| fear at his barbarity. First Africa rebelled, then the Senate with all |
| the people of Rome, and all Italy conspired against him, to which |
| may be added his own army: this latter, besieging Aquileia and meeting |
| with difficulties in taking it, were disgusted with his cruelties, and |
| fearing him less when they found so many against him, murdered him. |
| I do not wish to discuss Heliogabalus, Macrinus, or Julian, who, |
| being thoroughly contemptible, were quickly wiped out; but I will |
| bring this discourse to a conclusion by saying that princes in our |
| times have this difficulty of giving inordinate satisfaction to |
| their soldiers in a far less degree, because, notwithstanding one |
| has to give them some indulgence, that is soon done; none of these |
| princes have armies that are veterans in the governance and |
| administration of provinces, as were the armies of the Roman Empire; |
| and whereas it was then more necessary to give satisfaction to the |
| soldiers than to the people, it is now more necessary to all |
| princes, except the Turk and the Soldan, to satisfy the people |
| rather than the soldiers, because the people are the more powerful. |
| From the above I have excepted the Turk, who always keeps round |
| him twelve infantry and fifteen thousand cavalry on which depend the |
| security and strength of the kingdom, and it is necessary that, |
| putting aside every consideration for the people, he should keep |
| them his friends. The kingdom of the Soldan is similar; being entirely |
| in the hands of soldiers, follows again that, without regard to the |
| people, he must keep them his friends. But you must note that the |
| state of the Soldan is unlike all other principalities, for the reason |
| that it is like the Christian pontificate, which cannot be called |
| either an hereditary or a newly formed principality; because the |
| sons of the old prince not the heirs, but he who is elected to that |
| position by those who have authority, and the sons remain only |
| noblemen. And this being an ancient custom, it cannot be called a |
| new principality, because there are none of those difficulties in it |
| that are met with in new ones; for although the prince is new, the |
| constitution of the state is old, and it is framed so as to receive |
| him as if he were its hereditary lord. |
| But returning to the subject of our discourse, I say that whoever |
| will consider it will acknowledge that either hatred or contempt has |
| been fatal to the above-named emperors, and it will be recognized also |
| how it happened that, a number of them acting in one way and a |
| number in another, only one in each way came to a happy end and the |
| rest to unhappy ones. Because it would have been useless and dangerous |
| for Pertinax and Alexander, being new princes, to imitate Marcus, |
| who was heir to the principality; and likewise it would have been |
| utterly destructive to Caracalla, Commodus, and Maximinus to have |
| imitated Severus, they not having sufficient valour to enable them |
| to tread in his footsteps. Therefore a prince, new to the |
| principality, cannot imitate the actions of Marcus, nor, again, is |
| it necessary to follow those of Severus, but he ought to take from |
| Severus those parts which are necessary to found his state, and from |
| Marcus those which are proper and glorious to keep a state that may |
| already be stable and firm. |
| CHAPTER XX |
| ARE FORTRESSES, AND MANY OTHER THINGS TO WHICH |
| PRINCES OFTEN RESORT, ADVANTAGEOUS OR HURTFUL? |
| |
| 1. SOME princes, so as to hold securely the state, have disarmed |
| their subjects; others have kept their subject towns by factions; |
| others have fostered enmities against themselves; others have laid |
| themselves out to gain over those whom they distrusted in the |
| beginning of their governments; some have built fortresses; some |
| have overthrown and destroyed them. And although one cannot give a |
| final judgment on all one of these things unless one possesses the |
| particulars of those states in which a decision has to be made, |
| nevertheless I will speak as comprehensively as the matter of itself |
| will admit. |
| 2. There never was a new prince who has disarmed his subjects; |
| rather when he has found them disarmed he has always armed them, |
| because, by arming them, those arms become yours, those men who were |
| distrusted become faithful, and those who were faithful are kept so, |
| and your subjects become your adherents. And whereas all subjects |
| cannot be armed, yet when those whom you do arm are benefited, the |
| others can be handled more freely, and this difference in their |
| treatment, which they quite understand, makes the former your |
| dependants, and the latter, considering it to be necessary that |
| those who have the most danger and service should have the most |
| reward, excuse you. But when you disarm them, you at once offend |
| them by showing that you distrust them, either for cowardice or for |
| want of loyalty, and either of these opinions breeds hatred against |
| you. And because you cannot remain unarmed, it follows that you turn |
| to mercenaries, which are of the character already shown; even if they |
| should be good they would not be sufficient to defend you against |
| powerful enemies and distrusted subjects. Therefore, as I have said, a |
| new prince in a new principality has always distributed arms. |
| Histories are full of examples. But when a prince acquires a new |
| state, which he adds as a province to his old one, then it is |
| necessary to disarm the men of that state, except those who have |
| been his adherents in acquiring it; and these again, with time and |
| opportunity, should be rendered soft and effeminate; and matters |
| should be managed in such a way that all the armed men in the state |
| shall be your own soldiers who in your old state were living near you. |
| 3. Our forefathers, and those who were reckoned wise, were |
| accustomed to say that it was necessary to hold Pistoia by factions |
| and Pisa by fortresses; and with this idea they fostered quarrels in |
| some of their tributary towns so as to keep possession of them the |
| more easily. This may have been well enough in those times when |
| Italy was in a way balanced, but I do not believe that it can be |
| accepted as a precept for to-day, because I do not believe that |
| factions can ever be of use; rather it is certain that when the |
| enemy comes upon you in divided cities you are quickly lost, because |
| the weakest party will always assist the outside forces and the |
| other will not be able to resist. The Venetians, moved, as I |
| believe, by the above reasons, fostered the Guelph and Ghibelline |
| factions in their tributary cities; and although they never allowed |
| them to come to bloodshed, yet they nursed these disputes amongst |
| them, so that the citizens, distracted by their differences, should |
| not unite against them. Which, as we saw, did not afterwards turn |
| out as expected, because, after the rout at Vaila, one party at once |
| took courage and seized the state. Such methods argue, therefore, |
| weakness in the prince, because these factions will never be permitted |
| in a vigorous principality; such methods for enabling one the more |
| easily to manage subjects are only useful in times of peace, but if |
| war comes this policy proves fallacious. |
| 4. Without doubt princes become great when they overcome the |
| difficulties and obstacles by which they are confronted, and therefore |
| fortune, especially when she desires to make a new prince great, who |
| has a greater necessity to earn renown than an hereditary one, |
| causes enemies to arise and form designs against him, in order that he |
| may have the opportunity of overcoming them, and by them to mount |
| higher, as by a ladder which his enemies have raised. For this |
| reason many consider that a wise prince, when he has the |
| opportunity, ought with craft to foster some animosity against |
| himself, so that, having crushed it, his renown may rise higher. |
| 5. Princes, especially new ones, have found more fidelity and |
| assistance in those men who in the beginning of their rule were |
| distrusted than among those who in the beginning were trusted. |
| Pandolfo Petrucci, Prince of Siena, ruled his state more by those |
| who had been distrusted than by others. But on this question one |
| cannot speak generally, for it varies so much with the individual; I |
| will only say this, that those men who at the commencement of a |
| princedom have been hostile, if they are of a description to need |
| assistance to support themselves, can always be gained over with the |
| greatest ease, and they will be tightly held to serve the prince |
| with fidelity, inasmuch as they know it to be very necessary for |
| them to cancel by deeds the bad impression which he had formed of |
| them; and thus the prince always extracts more profit from them than |
| from those who, serving him in too much security, may neglect his |
| affairs. And since the matter demands it, I must not fail to warn a |
| prince, who by means of secret favours has acquired a new state, |
| that he must well consider the reasons which induced those to favour |
| him who did so; and if it be not a natural affection towards him, |
| but only discontent with their government, then he will only keep them |
| friendly with great trouble and difficulty, for it will be |
| impossible to satisfy them. And weighing well the reasons for this |
| in those examples which can be taken from ancient and modern |
| affairs, we shall find that it is easier for the prince to make |
| friends of those men who were contented under the former government, |
| and are therefore his enemies, than of those who, being discontented |
| with it, were favourable to him and encouraged him to seize it. |
| 6. It has been a custom with princes, in order to hold their |
| states more securely, to build fortresses that may serve as a bridle |
| and bit to those who might design to work against them, and as a place |
| of refuge from a first attack. I praise this system because it has |
| been made use of formerly. Notwithstanding that, Messer Nicolo Vitelli |
| in our times has been seen to demolish two fortresses in Citta di |
| Castello so that he might keep that state; Guidubaldo, Duke of Urbino, |
| on returning to his dominion, whence he had been driven by Cesare |
| Borgia, razed to the foundations all the fortresses in that |
| province, and considered that without them it would be more |
| difficult to lose it; the Bentivoglio returning to Bologna came to a |
| similar decision. Fortresses, therefore, are useful or not according |
| to circumstances; if they do you good in one way they injure you in |
| another. And this question can be reasoned thus: the prince who has |
| more to fear from the people than from foreigners ought to build |
| fortresses, but he who has more to fear from foreigners than from |
| the people ought to leave them alone. The castle of Milan, built by |
| Francesco Sforza, has made, and will make, more trouble for the |
| house of Sforza than any other disorder in the state. For this |
| reason the best possible fortress is- not to be hated by the people, |
| because, although you may hold the fortresses, yet they will not |
| save you if the people hate you, for there will never be wanting |
| foreigners to assist a people who have taken arms against you. It |
| has not been seen in our times that such fortresses have been of use |
| to any prince, unless to the Countess of Forli, when the Count |
| Girolamo, her consort, was killed; for by that means she was able to |
| withstand the popular attack and wait for assistance from Milan, and |
| thus recover her state; and the posture of affairs was such at that |
| time that the foreigners could not assist the people. But fortresses |
| were of little value to her afterwards when Cesare Borgia attacked |
| her, and when the people, her enemy, were allied with foreigners. |
| Therefore it would have been safer for her, both then and before, |
| not to have been hated by the people than to have had the fortresses. |
| All these things considered then, I shall praise him who builds |
| fortresses as well as him who does not, and I shall blame whoever, |
| trusting in them, cares little about being hated by the people. |
| CHAPTER XXI |
| HOW A PRINCE SHOULD CONDUCT HIMSELF |
| SO AS TO GAIN RENOWN |
| |
| NOTHING makes a prince so much esteemed as great enterprises and |
| setting a fine example. We have in our time Ferdinand of Aragon, the |
| present King of Spain. He can almost be called a new prince, because |
| he has risen, by fame and glory, from being an insignificant king to |
| be the foremost king in Christendom; and if you will consider his |
| deeds you will find them all great and some of them extraordinary. |
| In the beginning of his reign he attacked Granada, and this enterprise |
| was the foundation of his dominions. He did this quietly at first |
| and without any fear of hindrance, for he held the minds of the barons |
| of Castile occupied in thinking of the war and not anticipating any |
| innovations; thus they did not perceive that by these means he was |
| acquiring power and authority over them. He was able with the money of |
| the Church and of the people to sustain his armies, and by that long |
| war to lay the foundation for the military skill which has since |
| distinguished him. Further, always using religion as a plea, so as |
| to undertake greater schemes, he devoted himself with a pious |
| cruelty to driving out and clearing his kingdom of the Moors; nor |
| could there be a more admirable example, nor one more rare. Under this |
| same cloak he assailed Africa, he came down on Italy, he has finally |
| attacked France; and thus his achievements and designs have always |
| been great, and have kept the minds of his people in suspense and |
| admiration and occupied with the issue of them. And his actions have |
| arisen in such a way, one out of the other, that men have never been |
| given time to work steadily against him. |
| Again, it much assists a prince to set unusual examples in |
| internal affairs, similar to those which are related of Messer Bernabo |
| da Milano, who, when he had the opportunity, by any one in civil |
| life doing some extraordinary thing, either good or bad, would take |
| some method of rewarding or punishing him, which would be much |
| spoken about. And a prince ought, above all things, always to |
| endeavour in every action to gain for himself the reputation of |
| being a great and remarkable man. |
| A prince is also respected when he is either a true friend or a |
| downright enemy, that to say, when, without any reservation, he |
| declares himself in favour of one party against the other; which |
| course will always be more advantageous than standing neutral; because |
| if two of your powerful neighbours come to blows, they are of such a |
| character that, if one of them conquers, you have either to fear him |
| or not. In either case it will always be more advantageous for you |
| to declare yourself and to make war strenuously; because, in the first |
| case, if you do not declare yourself, you will invariably fall a |
| prey to the conqueror, to the pleasure and satisfaction of him who has |
| been conquered, and you will have no reasons to offer, nor anything to |
| protect or to shelter you. Because he who conquers does not want |
| doubtful friends who will not aid him in the time of trial; and he who |
| loses will not harbour you because you did not willingly, sword in |
| hand, court his fate. |
| Antiochus went into Greece, being sent for by the Aetolians to drive |
| out the Romans. He sent envoys to the Achaeans, who were friends of |
| the Romans, exhorting them to remain neutral; and on the other hand |
| the Romans urged them to take up arms. This question came to be |
| discussed in the council of the Achaeans, where the legate of |
| Antiochus urged them to stand neutral. To this the Roman legate |
| answered: "As for that which has been said, that it is better and more |
| advantageous for your state not to interfere in our war, nothing can |
| be more erroneous; because by not interfering you will be left, |
| without favour or consideration, the guerdon of the conqueror." Thus |
| it will always happen that he who is not your friend will demand |
| your neutrality, whilst he who is your friend will entreat you to |
| declare yourself with arms. And irresolute princes, to avoid present |
| dangers, generally follow the neutral path, and are generally |
| ruined. But when a prince declares himself gallantly in favour of |
| one side, if the party with whom he allies himself conquers, |
| although the victor may be powerful and may have him at his mercy, yet |
| he is indebted to him, and there is established a bond of amity; and |
| men are never so shameless as to become a monument of ingratitude by |
| oppressing you. Victories after all are never so complete that the |
| victor must not show some regard, especially to justice. But if he |
| with whom you ally yourself loses, you may be sheltered by him, and |
| whilst he is able he may aid you, and you become companions in a |
| fortune that may rise again. |
| In the second case, when those who fight are of such a character |
| that you have no anxiety as to who may conquer, so much the more is it |
| greater prudence to be allied, because you assist at the destruction |
| of one by the aid of another who, if he had been wise, would have |
| saved him; and conquering, as it is impossible that he should not with |
| your assistance, he remains at your discretion. And here it is to be |
| noted that a prince ought to take care never to make an alliance |
| with one more powerful than himself for the purpose of attacking |
| others, unless necessity compels him, as is said above; because if |
| he conquers you are at his discretion, and princes ought to avoid as |
| much as possible being at the discretion of any one. The Venetians |
| joined with France against the Duke of Milan, and this alliance, which |
| caused their ruin, could have been avoided. But when it cannot be |
| avoided, as happened to the Florentines when the Pope and Spain sent |
| armies to attack Lombardy, then in such a case, for the above reasons, |
| the prince ought to favour one of the parties. |
| Never let any Government imagine that it can choose perfectly safe |
| courses; rather let it expect to have to take very doubtful ones, |
| because it is found in ordinary affairs that one never seeks to |
| avoid one trouble without running into another; but prudence |
| consists in knowing how to distinguish the character of troubles, |
| and for choice to take the lesser evil. |
| A prince ought also to show himself a patron of ability, and to |
| honour the proficient in every art. At the same time he should |
| encourage his citizens to practise their callings peaceably, both in |
| commerce and agriculture, and in every other following, so that the |
| one should not be deterred from improving his possessions for fear |
| lest they be taken away from him or another from opening up trade |
| for fear of taxes; but the prince ought to offer rewards to whoever |
| wishes to do these things and designs in any way to honour his city or |
| state. |
| Further, he ought to entertain the people with festivals and |
| spectacles at convenient seasons of the year; and as every city is |
| divided into guilds or into societies, he ought to hold such bodies in |
| esteem, and associate with them sometimes, and show himself an example |
| of courtesy and liberality; nevertheless, always maintaining the |
| majesty of his rank, for this he must never consent to abate in |
| anything. |
| CHAPTER XXII |
| CONCERNING THE SECRETARIES OF PRINCES |
| |
| THE choice of servants is of no little importance to a prince, and |
| they are good or not according to the discrimination of the prince. |
| And the first opinion which one forms of a prince, and of his |
| understanding, is by observing the men he has around him; and when |
| they are capable and faithful he may always be considered wise, |
| because he has known how to recognize the capable and to keep them |
| faithful. But when they are otherwise one cannot form a good opinion |
| of him, for the prime error which he made was in choosing them. |
| There were none who knew Messer Antonio da Venafro as the servant of |
| Pandolfo Petrucci, Prince of Siena, who would not consider Pandolfo to |
| be a very clever man in having Venafro for his servant. Because |
| there are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by |
| itself; another which appreciates what others comprehend; and a |
| third which neither comprehends by itself nor by the showing of |
| others; the first is the most excellent, the second is good, the third |
| is useless. Therefore, it follows necessarily that, if Pandolfo was |
| not in the first rank, he was in the second, for whenever one has |
| judgment to know good or bad when it is said and done, although he |
| himself may not have the initiative, yet he can recognize the good and |
| the bad in his servant, and the one he can praise and the other |
| correct; thus the servant cannot hope to deceive him, and is kept |
| honest. |
| But to enable a prince to form an opinion of his servant there is |
| one test which never falls; when you see the servant thinking more |
| of his own interests than of yours, and seeking inwardly his own |
| profit in everything, such a man will never make a good servant, nor |
| will you ever be able to trust him; because he who has the state of |
| another in his hands ought never to think of himself, but always of |
| his prince, and never pay any attention to matters in which the prince |
| is not concerned. |
| On the other to keep his servant honest the prince ought to study |
| him, honouring him, enriching him, doing him kindnesses, sharing |
| with him the honours and cares; and at the same time let him see |
| that he cannot stand alone, so that many honours not make him desire |
| more, many riches make him wish for more, and that many cares may make |
| him dread changes. When, therefore, servants, and princes towards |
| servants, are thus disposed, they can trust each other, but when it is |
| otherwise, the end will always be disastrous for either one or the |
| other. |
| CHAPTER XXIII |
| HOW FLATTERERS SHOULD BE AVOIDED |
| |
| I DO NOT wish to leave out an important branch of this subject, |
| for it is a danger from which princes are with difficulty preserved, |
| unless they are very careful and discriminating. It is that of |
| flatterers, of whom courts arc full, because men are so |
| self-complacent in their own affairs, and in a way so deceived in |
| them, that they are preserved with difficulty from this pest, and if |
| they wish to defend themselves they run the danger of falling into |
| contempt. Because there is no other way of guarding oneself from |
| flatterers except letting men understand that to tell you the truth |
| does not offend you; but when every one may tell you the truth, |
| respect for you abates. |
| Therefore a wise prince ought to hold a third course by choosing the |
| wise men in his state, and giving to them only the liberty of speaking |
| the truth to him, and then only of those things of which he |
| inquires, and of none others; but he ought to question them upon |
| everything, and listen to their opinions, and afterwards form his |
| own conclusions. With these councillors, separately and |
| collectively, he ought to carry himself in such a way that each of |
| them should know that, the more freely he shall speak, the more he |
| shall be preferred; outside of these, he should listen to no one, |
| pursue the thing resolved on, and be steadfast in his resolutions. |
| He who does otherwise is either overthrown by flatterers, or is so |
| often changed by varying opinions that he falls into contempt. |
| I wish on this subject to adduce a modern example. Fra Luca, the man |
| of affairs to Maximilian, the present emperor, speaking of his |
| majesty, said: He consulted with no one, yet never got his own way |
| in anything. This arose because of his following a practice the |
| opposite to the above; for the emperor is a secretive man- he does not |
| communicate his designs to any one, nor does he receive opinions on |
| them. But as in carrying them into effect they become revealed and |
| known, they are at once obstructed by those men whom he has around |
| him, and he, being pliant, is diverted from them. Hence it follows |
| that those things he does one day he undoes the next, and no one |
| ever understands what he wishes or intends to do, and no one can |
| rely on his resolutions. |
| A prince, therefore, ought always to take counsel, but only when |
| he wishes and not when others wish; he ought rather to discourage |
| every one from offering advice unless he asks it; but, however, he |
| ought to be a constant inquirer, and afterwards a patient listener |
| concerning the things of which he inquired; also, on learning that any |
| one, on any consideration, has not told him the truth, he should let |
| his anger be felt. |
| And if there are some who think that a prince who conveys an |
| impression of his wisdom is not so through his own ability, but |
| through the good advisers that he has around him, beyond doubt they |
| are deceived, because this is an axiom which never fails: that a |
| prince who is not wise himself will never take good advice, unless |
| by chance he has yielded his affairs entirely to one person who |
| happens to be a very prudent man. In this case indeed he may be well |
| governed, but it would not be for long, because such a governor |
| would in a short time take away his state from him. |
| But if a prince who is not experienced should take counsel from more |
| than one he will never get united counsels, nor will he know how to |
| unite them. Each of the counsellors will think of his own interests, |
| and the prince will not know how to control them or to see through |
| them. And they are not to be found otherwise, because men will |
| always prove untrue to you unless they are kept honest by |
| constraint. Therefore it must be inferred that good counsels, |
| whencesoever they come, are born of the wisdom of the prince, and |
| not the wisdom of the prince from good counsels. |
| CHAPTER XXIV |
| THE PRINCES OF ITALY HAVE LOST THEIR STATES |
| |
| THE previous suggestions, carefully observed, will enable a new |
| prince to appear well established, and render him at once more |
| secure and fixed in the state than if he had been long seated there. |
| For the actions of a new prince are more narrowly observed than |
| those of an hereditary one, and when they are seen to be able they |
| gain more men and bind far tighter than ancient blood; because men are |
| attracted more by the present than by the past, and when they find the |
| present good they enjoy it and seek no further; they will also make |
| the utmost defence for a prince if he fails them not in other |
| things. Thus it will be a double glory to him to have established a |
| new principality, and adorned and strengthened it with good laws, good |
| arms, good allies, and with a good example; so will it be a double |
| disgrace to him who, born a prince, shall lose his state by want of |
| wisdom. |
| And if those seigniors are considered who have lost their states |
| in Italy in our times, such as the King of Naples, the Duke of |
| Milan, and others, there will be found in them, firstly, one common |
| defect in regard to arms from the causes which have been discussed |
| at length; in the next place, some one of them will be seen, either to |
| have had the people hostile, or if he has had the people friendly, |
| he has not known how to secure the nobles. In the absence of these |
| defects states that have power enough to keep an army in the field |
| cannot be lost. |
| Philip of Macedon, not the father of Alexander the Great, but he who |
| was conquered by Titus Quintius, had not much territory compared to |
| the greatness of the Romans and of Greece who attacked him, yet |
| being a warlike man who knew how to attract the people and secure |
| the nobles, he sustained the war against his enemies for many years, |
| and if in the end he lost the dominion of some cities, nevertheless he |
| retained the kingdom. |
| Therefore, do not let our princes accuse fortune for the loss of |
| their principalities after so many years' possession, but rather their |
| own sloth, because in quiet times they never thought there could be |
| a change (it is a common defect in man not to make any provision in |
| the calm against the tempest), and when afterwards the bad times |
| came they thought of flight and not of defending themselves, and |
| they hoped that the people, disgusted with the insolence of the |
| conquerors, would recall them. This course, when others fail, may be |
| good, but it is very bad to have neglected all other expedients for |
| that, since you would never wish to fall because you trusted to be |
| able to find someone later on to restore you. This again either does |
| not happen, or, if it does, it will not be for your security, |
| because that deliverance is of no avail which does not depend upon |
| yourself; those only are reliable, certain, and durable that depend on |
| yourself and your valour. |
| CHAPTER XXV |
| WHAT FORTUNE CAN EFFECT IN HUMAN AFFAIRS, |
| AND HOW TO WITHSTAND HER |
| |
| IT is not unknown to me how many men have had, and still have, the |
| opinion that the affairs of the world are in such wise governed by |
| fortune and by God that men with their wisdom cannot direct them and |
| that no one can even help them; and because of this they would have us |
| believe that it is not necessary to labour much in affairs, but to let |
| chance govern them. This opinion has been more credited in our times |
| because of the great changes in affairs which have been seen, and |
| may still be seen, every day, beyond all human conjecture. Sometimes |
| pondering over this, I am in some degree inclined to their opinion. |
| Nevertheless, not to extinguish our free will, I hold it to be true |
| that Fortune is the arbiter of one-half of our actions, but that she |
| still leaves us to direct the other half, or perhaps a little less. |
| I compare her to one of those raging rivers, which when in flood |
| overflows the plains, sweeping away trees and buildings, bearing |
| away the soil from place to place; everything flies before it, all |
| yield to its violence, without being able in any way to withstand |
| it; and yet, though its nature be such, it does not follow therefore |
| that men, when the weather becomes fair, shall not make provision, |
| both with defences and barriers, in such a manner that, rising |
| again, the waters may pass away by canal, and their force be neither |
| so unrestrained nor so dangerous. So it happens with fortune, who |
| shows her power where valour has not prepared to resist her, and |
| thither she turns her forces where she knows that barriers and |
| defences have not been raised to constrain her. |
| And if you will consider Italy, which is the seat of these |
| changes, and which has given to them their impulse, you will see it to |
| be an open country without barriers and without any defence. For if it |
| had been defended by proper valour, as are Germany, Spain, and France, |
| either this invasion would not have made the great changes it has made |
| or it would not have come at all. And this I consider enough to say |
| concerning resistance to fortune in general. |
| But confining myself more to the particular, I say that a prince may |
| be seen happy to-day and ruined to-morrow without having shown any |
| change of disposition or character. This, I believe, arises firstly |
| from causes that have already been discussed at length, namely, that |
| the prince who relies entirely upon fortune is lost when it changes. I |
| believe also that he will be successful who directs his actions |
| according to the spirit of the times, and that he whose actions do not |
| accord with the times will not be successful. Because men are seen, in |
| affairs that lead to the end which every man has before him, namely, |
| glory and riches, to get there by various methods; one with caution, |
| another with haste; one by force, another by skill; one by patience, |
| another by its opposite; and each one succeeds in reaching the goal by |
| a different method. One can also see of two cautious men the one |
| attain his end, the other fail; and similarly, two men by different |
| observances are equally successful, the one being cautious, the |
| other impetuous; all this arises from nothing else than whether or not |
| they conform in their methods to the spirit of the times. This follows |
| from what I have said, that two men working differently bring about |
| the same effect, and of two working similarly, one attains his |
| object and the other does not. |
| Changes in estate also issue from this, for if, to one who governs |
| himself with caution and patience, times and affairs converge in |
| such a way that his administration is successful, his fortune is made; |
| but if times and affairs change, he is ruined if he does not change |
| his course of action. But a man is not often found sufficiently |
| circumspect to know how to accommodate himself to the change, both |
| because he cannot deviate from what nature inclines him to, and also |
| because, having always prospered by acting in one way, he cannot be |
| persuaded that it is well to leave it; and, therefore, the cautious |
| man, when it is time to turn adventurous, does not know how to do |
| it, hence he is ruined; but had he changed his conduct with the |
| times fortune would not have changed. |
| Pope Julius II went to work impetuously in all his affairs, and |
| found the times and circumstances conform so well to that line of |
| action that he always met with success. Consider his first |
| enterprise against Bologna, Messer Giovanni Bentivogli being still |
| alive. The Venetians were not agreeable to it, nor was the King of |
| Spain, and he had the enterprise still under discussion with the |
| King of France; nevertheless he personally entered upon the expedition |
| with his accustomed boldness and energy, a move which made Spain and |
| the Venetians stand irresolute and passive, the latter from fear, |
| the former from desire to recover all the kingdom of Naples; on the |
| other hand, he drew after him the King of France, because that king, |
| having observed the movement, and desiring to make the Pope his friend |
| so as to humble the Venetians, found it impossible to refuse him |
| soldiers without manifestly offending him. Therefore Julius with his |
| impetuous action accomplished what no other pontiff with simple |
| human wisdom could have done; for if he had waited in Rome until he |
| could get away, with his plans arranged and everything fixed, as any |
| other pontiff would have done, he would never have succeeded. |
| Because the King of France would have made a thousand excuses, and the |
| others would have raised a thousand fears. |
| I will leave his other actions alone, as they were all alike, and |
| they all succeeded, for the shortness of his life did not let him |
| experience the contrary; but if circumstances had arisen which |
| required him to go cautiously, his ruin would have followed, because |
| he would never have deviated from those ways to which nature |
| inclined him. |
| I conclude therefore that, fortune being changeful and mankind |
| steadfast in their ways, so long as the two are in agreement men are |
| successful, but unsuccessful when they fall out. For my part I |
| consider that it is better to be adventurous than cautious, because |
| fortune is a woman, and if you wish to keep her under it is |
| necessary to beat and ill-use her; and it is seen that she allows |
| herself to be mastered by the adventurous rather than by those who |
| go to work more coldly. She is, therefore, always, woman-like, a lover |
| of young men, because they are less cautious, more violent, and with |
| more audacity command her. |
| CHAPTER XXVI |
| AN EXHORTATION TO LIBERATE ITALY FROM THE BARBARIANS |
| |
| HAVING carefully considered the subject of the above discourses, and |
| wondering within myself whether the present times were propitious to a |
| new prince, and whether there were the elements that would give an |
| opportunity to a wise and virtuous one to introduce a new order of |
| things which would do honour to him and good to the people of this |
| country, it appears to me that so many things concur to favour a new |
| prince that I never knew a time more fit than the present. |
| And if, as I said, it was necessary that the people of Israel should |
| be captive so as to make manifest the ability of Moses; that the |
| Persians should be oppressed by the Medes so as to discover the |
| greatness of the soul of Cyrus; and that the Athenians should be |
| dispersed to illustrate the capabilities of Theseus: then at the |
| present time, in order to discover the virtue of an Italian spirit, it |
| was necessary that Italy should be reduced to the extremity she is now |
| in, that she should be more enslaved than the Hebrews, more |
| oppressed than the Persians, more scattered than the Athenians; |
| without head, without order, beaten, despoiled, torn, overrun; and |
| to have endured every kind of desolation. |
| Although lately some spark may have been shown by one, which made us |
| think he was ordained by God for our redemption, nevertheless it was |
| afterwards seen, in the height of his career, that fortune rejected |
| him; so that Italy, left as without life, waits for him who shall |
| yet heal her wounds and put an end to the ravaging and plundering of |
| Lombardy, to the swindling and taxing of the kingdom and of Tuscany, |
| and cleanse those sores that for long have festered. It is seen how |
| she entreats God to send someone who shall deliver her from these |
| wrongs and barbarous insolencies. It is seen also that she is ready |
| and willing to follow a banner if only someone will raise it. |
| Nor is there to be seen at present one in whom she can place more |
| hope than in your illustrious house, with its valour and fortune, |
| favoured by God and by the Church of which it is now the chief, and |
| which could be made the head of this redemption. This will not be |
| difficult if you will recall to yourself the actions and lives of |
| the men I have named. And although they were great and wonderful |
| men, yet they were men, and each one of them had no more opportunity |
| than the present offers, for their enterprises were neither more |
| just nor easier than this, nor was God more their friend than He is |
| yours. |
| With us there is great justice, because that war is just which is |
| necessary, and arms are hallowed when there is no other hope but in |
| them. Here there is the greatest willingness, and where the |
| willingness is great the difficulties cannot be great if you will only |
| follow those men to whom I have directed your attention. Further |
| than this, how extraordinarily the ways of God have been manifested |
| beyond example: the sea is divided, a cloud has led the way, the |
| rock has poured forth water, it has rained manna, everything has |
| contributed to your greatness; you ought to do the rest. God is not |
| willing to do everything, and thus take away our free will and that |
| share of glory which belongs to us. |
| And it is not to be wondered at if none of the above-named |
| Italians have been able to accomplish all that is expected from your |
| illustrious house; and if in so many revolutions in Italy, and in so |
| many campaigns, it has always appeared as if military virtue were |
| exhausted, this has happened because the old order of things was not |
| good, and none of us have known how to find a new one. And nothing |
| honours a man more than to establish new laws and new ordinances |
| when he himself was newly risen. Such things when they are well |
| founded and dignified will make him revered and admired, and in |
| Italy there are not wanting opportunities to bring such into use in |
| every form. |
| Here there is great valour in the limbs whilst it fails in the head. |
| Look attentively at the duels and the hand-to-hand combats, how |
| superior the Italians are in strength, dexterity, and subtlety. But |
| when it comes to armies they do not bear comparison, and this |
| springs entirely from the insufficiency of the leaders, since those |
| who are capable are not obedient, and each one seems to himself to |
| know, there having never been any one so distinguished above the rest, |
| either by valour or fortune, that others would yield to him. Hence |
| it is that for so long a time, and during so much fighting in the past |
| twenty years, whenever there has been an army wholly Italian, it has |
| always given a poor account of itself; as witness Taro, Alessandria, |
| Capua, Genoa, Vaila, Bologna, Mestre. |
| If, therefore, your illustrious house wishes to follow those |
| remarkable men who have redeemed their country, it is necessary before |
| all things, as a true foundation for every enterprise, to be |
| provided with your own forces, because there can be no more |
| faithful, truer, or better soldiers. And although singly they are |
| good, altogether they will be much better when they find themselves |
| commanded by their prince, honoured by him, and maintained at his |
| expense. Therefore it is necessary to be prepared with such arms, so |
| that you can be defended against foreigners by Italian valour. |
| And although Swiss and Spanish infantry may be considered very |
| formidable, nevertheless there is a defect in both, by reason of which |
| a third order would not only be able to oppose them, but might be |
| relied upon to overthrow them. For the Spaniards cannot resist |
| cavalry, and the Switzers are afraid of infantry whenever they |
| encounter them in close combat. Owing to this, as has been and may |
| again be seen, the Spaniards are unable to resist French cavalry, |
| and the Switzers are overthrown by infantry. And although a complete |
| proof of this latter cannot be shown, nevertheless there was some |
| evidence of it at the battle of Ravenna, when the Spanish infantry |
| were confronted by German battalions, who follow the same tactics as |
| the Swiss; when the Spaniards, by agility of body and with the aid |
| of their shields, got in under the pikes of the Germans and stood |
| out of danger, able to attack, while the Germans stood helpless, |
| and, if the cavalry had not dashed up, all would have been over with |
| them. It is possible, therefore, knowing the defects of both these |
| infantries, to invent a new one, which will resist cavalry and not |
| be afraid of infantry; this need not create a new order of arms, but a |
| variation upon the old. And these are the kind of improvements which |
| confer reputation and power upon a new prince. |
| This opportunity, therefore, ought not to be allowed to pass for |
| letting Italy at last see her liberator appear. Nor can one express |
| the love with which he would be received in all those provinces |
| which have suffered so much from these foreign scourings, with what |
| thirst for revenge, with what stubborn faith, with what devotion, with |
| what tears. What door would be closed to him? Who would refuse |
| obedience to him? What envy would hinder him? What Italian would |
| refuse him homage? To all of us this barbarous dominion stinks. Let, |
| therefore, your illustrious house take up this charge with that |
| courage and hope with which all just enterprises are undertaken, so |
| that under its standard our native country may be ennobled, and |
| under its auspices may be verified that saying of Petrarch: |
| |
| Virtu contro al Furore |
| Prendera l'arme, e fia il combatter corto: |
| Che l'antico valore |
| Negli italici cuor non e ancor morto.* |
| |
| * Virtue against fury shall advance the fight, |
| And it i' th' combat soon shall put to flight; |
| For the old Roman, valour is not dead, |
| Nor in th' Italians' breasts extinguished. |
| |
| |
| THE END |
| |
| |