but told them Quod Romani si vincuntur non minuuntur animis nec si vincunt insolescere solent That 〈◊〉 mans were never dejected by ill forâ—une nor elated by good The Venetians acted quite the other way who having got a little good fortune ascribing it to a wrong cause as if it had proceeded from their own power and virtue had the insolence to call the King of France Son of St. Mark and taking a fancy that they should bring their Commonwealth to as great a condition of grandeur and power as the Romans they despis'd the Church and all the Princes of Italy besides Afterwards when their fortune began to change and they received a small defeat at Vaila by the French they lost their whole Empire in a day part revolted and part they gave up themselves to the Pope and King of Spain and so much had they abandoned themselves to fear and consternation that they sent Embassadors to the Emperor to make themselves his Tributaries and writ poor and mean Letters to the Pope to move him to compassion and to this extremity of dejection they were brought in four days time by the loss but of one half of their Army for the other of their Proveditory retreated and came off safe to Verona with more than 25000 horse and foot so that had there been any courage either in the Citizens or Senate they might quickly have recruited and shewn their force again and if they could not have conquered they might at least have lost all with more reputation or possibly have brought the enemy to some honourable accord but the poorness of their spirit and the illness of their military discipline took from them at one time both their courage and state and so it will be with whosoever follows the example of the Venetians for this insolence in good fortune and dejection in bad proceeds from their manner of education which if vain and idle will make you so too whereas if it be otherwise it will give you a better notion of the World and teach you in both fortunes to behave your self with more moderation and as this is true in single persons so it is in Commonwealths which are good or bad according to their manner of living We have often said it before and think it not amiss to repeat it again that the foundation of all Governments consists in their Military discipline and that where that is defective neither their Laws nor any thing else can be good for thorow the whole tract of this History it appears that there is a necessity your Militia should be good and that cannot be good but by continual exercise which you cannot be sure of unless it consists of your own Subjects and because you are not always in War and it is impossible you shall be therefore it is necessary that they be exercised in times of Peace which is not to be done by any but your own Subjects in respect of the charge Camillus as is said before marched out with his Army against the Tuscans but his Soldiers having had a sight of the Enemy found their Army so great that they were discouraged and dismay'd and thought themselves so much inferior that they were not able to fight theâ— Camillus understanding this terror in his Camp went up and down among the Soldiers and having reprehended their fear and said many things to encourage them and drive that fancy out of their heads at last without further directions Come said he Courage Quod quisque didicit aut consuevit faciat Do what you have been taught and accustomed I desire no more From whence it may be collected that he would not have used those words had not his Army been exercised before and that in times of Peace as well as War For no good is to be expected nor no General to trust himself to an unexperienced or undisciplined Army which will certainly be his ruine though he were as good a Commander as Hanibal himself And the reason is because when an Army is engaged the General cannot be present in all places to supply all defects and remedy all errors so that he must necessarily miscarry unless he has such persons disposed up and down in the Army as are capable of understanding his mind and executing his Orders Which being so the Roman discipline is to be followed and the Citizens of every City are to be inured to their Arms in times of Peace as well as war that when they are brought to fight they may not be at a loss or meet with any thing new or unaccustomed to them by which means it will come to pass that they will not be surprized or terrified in any condition but retain still the same courage and sence of their dignity But where the Citizens are undisciplin'd and rely more upon their fortune than experience their hearts will change with their fortune and they will give the same testimony of themselves as the Venetians have done CHAP. XXXII The ways which some people have taken to prevent a Peace THe Circei and the Velitrae two of the Roman Colonies revolted in hopes the Latine would have been able to defend them The Latines being defeated and they frustrated of their hopes it was the advice of several Citizens that they should send Embassadors to Rome to reconcile themselves to the Senate But those who had been ring-leaders in the defection apprehending the punishment would fall heavy upon their heads perverted that design and to run things beyond all possibility of Terms they incited the people to arm and invade the Frontiers of the Romans And doubtless when Prince or Commonwealth are desirous to prevent an agreement there is no safer nor surer way than by running the people into some unpardonable offence that the fear of being punish'd may keep them averse from all overtures of Peace After the first War betwixt the Carthaginians and Romans those Soldiers which had been employed by the Carthaginians in Sicily and Sardigna as soon as the Peace was concluded went over into Africa where being denyed or delayed in the demands of their pay they took Arms and putting themselves under the command of two of their Officers Matho and Spendio they plundered several of the Carthaginian Towns and possessed themselves of others The Carthaginians to try all ways before they came to extremity sent Asdrubal on of their Principal Citizens Embassador to them who having been formerly their General it was probable might have some Authority among them Asdrubal being arrived and Matho and Spendio desirous to put the Soldiers beyond all possibility of pardon persuaded them that the best and most secure way would be for them to kill all the Carthaginians that were Prisoners with them and Asdrubal among the rest Whereupon they killed them all with a thousand circumstances of cruelty and torture to which piece of wickedness they added another by publishing an Edict importing That all the Carthaginians which should be taken for the
of the Nobles and judging it convenient to have them bridled and restrained and knowing on the other side the hatred of the people against the Nobility and that it proceeded from fear being willing to secure them to exempt the King from the displeasure of the Nobles if he sided with the Commons or from the malice of the commons if he inclined to the Nobles he erected a third judge which without any reflexion upon the King should keep the Nobility under and protect the people nor could there be a better order wiser nor of greater security to the King and the Kingdom from whence we may deduce another observation That Princes are to leave things of injustice and envy to the Ministery and Execution of others but acts of favour and grace are to be perform'd by themselves To conclude a Prince is to value his Grandees but so as not to make the people hate him Contemplating the lifes and deaths of several of the Roman Emperors it is possible many would think to find plenty of Examples quite contrary to my opinion forasmuch as some of them whose Conduct was remarkable and Magnanimity obvious to every body were turn'd out of their Authority or murthered by the Conspiracy of their subjects To give a punctual answer I should inquire into the qualities and conversations of the said Emperors and in so doing I should find the reason of their ruine to be the same or very consonant to what I have opposed And in part I will represent such things as are most notable to the consideration of him that reads the actions of our times and I shall content my self with the examples of all the Emperors which succeeded in the Empire from Marcus the Philosopher to Maximinus and they were Marcus his Son Commodus Pertinax Iulian Severus Antoninus his Son Caracalla Macrinus Heligabalus Alexander and Maximinus It is first to be considered That whereas in other Governments there was nothing to contend with but the ambition of the Nobles and the insolence of the people the Roman Emperors had a third inconvenience to support against the avarice and cruelty of the Soldiers which was a thing of such difficult practice that it was the occasion of the destruction of many of them it being very uneasie to please the Subject and the Soldier together for the Subject loves Peace and chooses therefore a Prince that is gentle and mild whereas the Soldier prefers a Martial Prince and one that is haughty and rigid aâ—d rapacious which good qualities they are desirous he should exercise upon the people that their pay might be encreased and their covetousness and cruelty satiated upon them Hence it is That those Emperors who neither by Art nor Nature are endued with that address and reputation as is necessary for the restraining both of the one and the other do always miscarry and of them the greatest part especially if but lately advanced to the Empire understanding the inconsistancy of their two humors incline to satisfie the Soldiers without regarding how far the people are disobliged Which Council is no more than is necessary for seeing it cannot be avoided but Princes must fall under the hatred of somebody they ought diligently to contend that it be not of the multitude If that be not to be obtain'd their next great care is to be that they incur not the odium of such as are most potent among them And therefore those Emperors who were new and had need of extraordinary support adhered more readily to the Soldiers than to the people which turn'd to their detriment or advantage as the Prince knew how to preserve his reputation with them From the causes aforesaid it hapned that Marcus Aurelius Pertinax and Alexander being Princes of more than ordinary Modesty lovers of Justice Enemies of cruelty courteous and bountiful came all of them except Marcus to unfortunate ends Marcus indeed lived and died in great honour because he came to the Empire by way of inheritance and succession without being beholden either to Soldiers or people and being afterwards indued with many good qualities which recommended him and made him venerable among them he kept them both in such order whil'st he liv'd and held them so exactly to their bounds that he was never either hated or despised But Pertinax was chosen Emperor against the will of the Soldiers who being used to live licentiously under Commodus they could not brook that regularity to which Pertinax endeavoured to bring them so that having contracted the Odium of the Soldiers and a certain disrespect and neglect by reason of his Age he was ruined in the very beginning of his reign from whence it is observable that hatred is obtained two ways by good works and bad and therefore a Prince as I said before being willing to retain his jurisdiction is oftentimes compelled to be bad For if the chief party whether it be people or army or Nobility which you think most useful and of most consequence to you for the conservation of your dignity be corrupt you must follow their humour and indulge them and in that case honesty and virtue are pernicious But let us come to Alexander who was a Prince of such great equity and goodness it is reckoned among his praises that in the fourteen years of his Empire there was no man put to death without a fair Tryal Nevertheless being accounted effeminate and one that suffered himself to be managed by his Mother and falling by that means into disgrace the Army conspired and killed him Examining on the other side the Conduct of Commodus Severus Antoninus Caracalla and Maziminus you will find them cruel and rapacious and such as to satisfie the Soldiers omitted no kind of injury that could be exercised against the people and all of them but Severus were unfortunate in their ends for Severus was a Prince of so great courage and magnanimity that preserving the friendship of the Army though the people were oppressed he made his whole Reign happy his virtues having represented him so admirable both to the Soldiers and people that these remained in a manner stupid and astonished and the other obedient and contented And because the actions of Severus were great in a new Prince I shall shew in brief how he personated of the Fox and the Lyon whose Natures and properties are as I said before necessary for the imitation of a Prince Severus therefore knowing the laziness and inactivity of Iulian the Emperor persuaded the Army under his Command in Sclavonia to go to Rome and revenge the death of Pertinax who was murthered by the Imperial Guards and under that colour without the least pretence to the Empire he marched his Army towards Rome and was in Italy before any thing of his motion was known being arrived at Rome the Senate were afraid of him killed Iulian and elected Severus After which beginning there remained two difficulties to be removed before he could be Master of the whole Empire
how worthy and honest soever left he should have occasion to suspect them afterwards Nor can he make those Cities which he subdues dependant or tributary to that where he is absolute for 't is not the interest of a Tyrant to make his Subjects powerful or united but to keep them low and divided that every Town every Province may depend wholly upon himself so that the Conquests of an Usurper may turn to his own profit but never to the publick to which purpose many things are very handsomely written by Xenophon in his Treatise of Tyranny and things being thus no body is to admire if our Ancestors had so great a zeal for their liberty and the very name of a Tyrant was so odious to them that when long since news was brought to the Army of the assassination of Hieronymo the Nephew of Hiero of Syracuse and the whole Camp was in an uproar against the Conspirators yet when it was told them that they had proclaimed Liberty and a free Government they laid by their indignation against the Tyrannicids and being pacified with the very name of Liberty fell into consultation how it was to be preserved Nor is it to be wondred at then if their revenge be so violent and extraordinary upon those who would violate it of which though there be many examples I shall instance only in one but that most remarkable and horrid and hapning in Corcirca a City in Greece for all Greece being divided and consisting of two Factions one of them under the protection of the Athenians and the other of the Spartans and in Corcirca the Nobility prevailing and having usurped upon the liberty of the people it hapned that the people being reinforced by the assistance of the Athenians overpowred the Nobility and conquered them again Having restored their liberty and shaked off their servitude they clap'd up all the Nobility in a large prison and bringing them forth by ten at a time as if they were to be banished they put them to death with most exquisite torments which severity coming by degrees to the ears of the remainder they resolved to do what was possible to defend themselves against it upon which they stood upon their guard and would suffer none of the Officers to come in whereupon in a great fury the people ran thither pull'd off the covering of the house where they were and throwing down the walls buried them all in the ruines and of this sort of cruelty there were many other examples in that Province for the people are usually more impetuous in revenging the loss of their Liberty than in defending it But it may not unfitly be admir'd in this place what should be the cause that the ancients should be more zealous for publick liberty than we in our days if my opinion may pass I think it is for the same reason that in those times men were more robust and stronger than now which proceedeth much from the diversity betwixt their Education their Religion and ours for whereas our Religion gives us a just prospect and contemplation of things and teaches us to despise the magnificence and pomp of the World the Ethnicks valued them so highly and believing them their chiefest happiness it made them more fierce and busie to defend them and this may be collected from several of their customs for if the sacrifices in their days be compared with the sacrifices in ours theirs will be found magnificent and horrid ours delicate and neat but neither so magnificent nor cruel They wanted not pomp nor formality in those ceremonies and yet to make them the more venerable and solemn they added blood and slaughter to them offering up infinite numbers of beasts which being slain before the people made them more hard-hearted and cruel Moreover the Religion of the Gentiles did not place their beatitude any where but upon such as were full of worldly glory and had done some great action for the benefit of their Country In our Religion the meek and humble and such as devote themselves to the contemplation of divine things are esteemed more happy than the greatest Tyrant and the greatest Conquerer upon Earth and the summum bonum which the others placed in the greatness of the mind the strength of the body and what-ever else contributed to make men active we have determined to consist in humility abjection and contempt of the World and if our Religion requires any fortitude it is rather to enable us to suffer than to act So that it seems to me this way of living so contrary to the ancients has rendred the Christians more weak and effeminate and left them as a prey to those who are more wicked and may order them as they please the most part of them thinking more of Paradise than Preferment and of enduring than revenging of injuries as if Heaven was to be won rather by idleness than arms but that explication of our Religion is erroneous and they who made it were poor and pusillanimous and more given to their case than any thing that was great for if the Christian Religion allows us to defend and exalt our Country it allows us certainly to love it and honour it and prepare our selves so as we may be able to defend it But that lazy and unactive way of education and interpreting things falsly has been the cause that there are not so many Commonwealths as formerly in the World nor so many Lovers and Champions for their Liberty and yet I believe the greatness of the Roman Empire contributed something by reducing all the free States and Republicks under their Dominion Nevertheless when that great Empire was broken and dissolved very few of those poor States could recover their liberty but when it began first to encrease and extend it self no Country was without them and where-ever the Romans carried their Arms they found little Commonwealths banding and confederating against them and defending their liberties with all imaginable constancy which shews that the Romans were a people of more than ordinary courage or they could never have subdued them The Samnites alone will be example sufficient who as Livy reports were so powerful and so hearty defenders of their liberty that for 46 years together they maintained War with the Romans and though they had received many losses and such devastations had been committed in their Country yet they could never be wholly reduc'd before the Consulship of Papyrius Cursor the Son of the first Papyrius But 't is a spectacle worthy of any mans pity to see a Country so full formerly of brave Cities and brave men and all of them free now desolate and uninhabited and scarce any body left to which condition it could have never been reduced but by the discipline and diligence and courage of the Romans but all this proceeded from diversity of Constitution for all Cities and free States whatsoever encrease not only in riches and authority but in the numbers of their men for who is
THE WORKS OF THE FAMOUS Nicholas Machiavel CITIZEN and SECRETARY OF FLORENCE WRITTEN Originally in ITALIAN and from thence newly and faithfully Translated into ENGLISH LONDON Printed for Iohn Starkey Charles Harper and Iohn Amery at the Miter the Flower-de-Luce and the Peacock in Fleetstreet 1680. LICENSED Febr. 2. 1674. THE SEVERAL TREATISES Contained in this BOOK 1. THe History of Florence 2. The Prince 3. The Original of the Guelf and Ghibilin Factions 4. The Life of Castruccio Castracani 5. The Murther of Vitelli c. by Duke Valentino 6. The State of France 7. The State of Germany 8. The Discourses on Titus Livius 9. The Art of War 10. The Marriage of Belphegor a Novel 11. Nicholas Machiavel's Letter in Vindication of Himself and his Writings THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER Concerning the following LETTER Courteous Reader IT hath been usual with most of those who have Translated this Author into any Language to spend much of their time and paper in taxing his impieties and confuting his errors and false principles as they are pleased to call them if upon perusal of his Writings I had found him guilty of any thing that could deceive the simple or prejudice the rest of Mankind I should not have put thee to the hazard of reading him in thy own Language but rather have suffered him still to sleep in the obscurity of his own than endanger the world but being very well assured of the contrary and that the Age will rather receive advantage than damage by this Publication I did yet think that it was fit to say something in a Preface to vindicate our Author from those Slanders which Priests and other byass'd Pens have laid upon him but still I thought that it might prove a bold and presumptuous undertaking and might excite laughter for a person of my small parts and abilities to Apologize for one of the greatest Wits and profoundest Judgments that ever lived amongst the Moderns In this perplexity I had the good fortune to meet with this Letter of his own writing which hath delivered me from those scruples and furnished me with an opportunity of justifying this great person by his own Pen. Receive then this choice Piece with benignity it hath never before been published in any Language but lurk'd for above 80 years in the private Cabinets of his own Kindred and the Descendents of his own admirers in Florence till in the beginning of the Pontisicat of Vrbane the 8th it was procured by the Jesuits and other busie-bodies and brought to Rome with an intention to divert that wise Pope from his design of making one of Nicholas Machiavel's Name and Family Cardinal as notwithstanding all their opposition he did not long after When it was gotten into that City it wanted not those who had the judgment and curiosity to copy it and so at length came to enjoy that priviledge which all rare Pieces even the sharpest Libels and Pasquils challenge in that Court which is to be sold to Strangers one of which being a Gentleman of this Country brought it over with him at his return from thence in the year 1645. and having translated it into English did communicate it to divers of his friends and by means of some of them it hath been my good fortune to be capable of making thee a present of it and let it serve as an Apology for our Author and his Writings if thou thinkest he need any I must confess I believe his Works require little but rather praise and admiration yet I wish I could as well justifie one undertaking of his not long after the writing of this Letter for we find in the Story of those times that in the Month of August following in the same year 1537. this Nicolo Machiavelli except there were another of that name was committed Prisoner to the Bargello amongst those who were taken in Arms against Cosimo at the Castle of Montemurli notwithstanding all his Compliments in this Letter to that Prince and profess'd Obligations to him if this be so we must impute it to his too great zeal to concur with the desires of the universality at that time in restoring the liberty of their Country which hath so far dazel'd the judgments even of great and wise men that thou â—eest many grave Authors amongst the Ancients have even commended and deified the ingratitude and Treachery of Brutus and Cassius But certainly this crime of his would have been much more unpardonable if he had lived to see his own Prophesie fulfilled in the Persons and Descendents of this great Cosimo for there was never any succession of Princes since the world began in which all the Royal vertues and other qualities necessary to those who rule over men were more eminently perspicuous than in every individual of this line so that those people have as little cause as ever any had to lament the change of their Government their great Dukes having been truly Fathers of their Country and treated their Subjects like Children though their power be above all limitation above all fundamental Laws but they having no Law are a Law to themselves I cannot chuse but instance in some few of their benefits to their people first the making the River Arno Navigable from Pisa to Florence in a year of Dearth that so the Poor might be set on work and have Bread and the Traffick of both Cities infinitely facilitated their making at their own charge a Canal from Livorne to Pisa their erecting at Pisa a famous University paying the Professors who are eminent for Learning and discharging all other incidencies out of their own Revenue besides the raising stately Buildings for Schools and Libraries their founding a renowned Order of Knighthood and keeping the Chapter in the same City and ordering a considerable number of Knights constantly to reside there both which were intended and performed by them to encrease the concourse and restore the wealth to the once opulent Inhabitants of that place Their new Building fortifying and enfranchizing Livorne that even by the abolishing their own Customs they might enrich their Subjects and make that Port as it now is the Magazine of all the Levant Trade And lastly Their not having in 140 years ever levyed any new Tax upon their people excepting in the year 1642. to defend the Liberties of Italy against the Barbarini These things would merit a Panegyrick if either my parts or this short Advertisement would admit it I shall conclude then after I have born a just and dutiful testimony to the merits of the Prince who now governs that State in whom if all the Princely vertues and endowments should be lost they might be found and restored again to the world As some ingenious Artists in the last Age retrieved the Art of Sculpture by certain bas relievos remaining on some Pillars and Walls at Rome The Prudence Magnanimity Charity Liberality and above all the Humanity Courtesie and Affability of this Prince though they exceed my
alledged against them and this is inflicted upon these poor Creatures by those who profess to believe the Scripture which tells us that faith is the gift of God without whose special illumination no man can obtain it and therefore is not in reason or humanity to be punished for wanting it And Christ himself hath so clearly decided that point in bidding us let the tares and the wheat grow together till the Harvest that I shall never make any difficulty to call him Antichrist who shall use the least persecution whatsoever against any diâ—â—ering in matters of faith from himself whether the person so dissenting be Heretick Iew Gentile or Mahometan Next I beseech you to observe in reading that Holy Book though Christian fasts are doubtless of Divine right what ground there is for enjoying fish to be eaten at least flesh to be abstained from for one third part of the year by which they put the poor to great hardship who not having purses to buy wholsom fish are sujected to all the miseries and diseases incident to a bad and unhealthfull dyet whilst the rich and chiefly themselves and their Cardinals exceed Lucullus in their Luxury of Oysters Turbats tender Crabs and Carpioni brought some hundreds of miles to feed their gluttony upon these penitential days of abstinence from Beef and Pork It may be it will lye in the way of those who observe this to enquire what St. Paul means when he says That in the latter days some shall depart from the faith forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from meats which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving but all these things and many other abuses brought in by these Perverters of Christianity will I hope e're long be enquired into by some of the Disciples of that bold Fryer who the very same year in which I prophecyed that the scourge of the Church was not far off began to thunder against their Indulgencies and since hath questioned many tenets long received and imposed upon the world I shall conclude this discourse after I have said a word of the most Hellish of all the innovations brought in by the Popes which is the Clergy these are a sort of men under pretence of ministring to the people in holy things set a part and seperated from the rest of mankind from whom they have a very distinct and a very opposite interest by a humane Ceremony called by a divine namé viz. Ordination these wherever they are found with the whole body of the Monks and Fryers who are called the regular Clergy make a Band which may be called the Ianizaries of the Papacy these have been the causers of all the Soloecisms and immortalities in Government and of all the impieties and abominations in Religion and by consequence of all the disorder villany and coruption we suffer under in this detestable Age these men by the Bishop of Rome's help have crept into all the Governments in Christendom where there is any mixture of Monarchy and made themselves a third estate that is have by their temporalitiâ—s which are almost a third part of all the Lands in Europe given them by the blind zeal or rather folly of the Northern people who over-ran this part of the world stept into the throne and what they cannot perform by these secular helps and by the dependancy their vassals have upon them they fail not to claim and to usurp by the power they pretend to have from God and his Vicegerent at Rome They exempt themselves their Lands and goods from all secular jurisdiction that is from all Courts of Justice and Magistracy and will be Judges in their own Causes as in matters of tithe c. and not content with this will appoint Courts of their own to decide Soveraignly in testamentary matters and many other causes and take upon them to be sole Punishers of many great Crimes as Witchcraft Sorcery Adultery and all uncleanness to say nothing of the fore-mentioned judicatory of the Inquisition in these last cases they turn the offenders over to be punish'd when they have given Sentence by the secular arm so they call the Magistrate who is blindly to execute their decrees under pain of Hell fire as if Christian Princes and Governours were appointed only by God to be their Bravo's or Hangmen They give Protection and Sanctuary to all execrable offenders even to Murderers themselves whom God commanded to be indispensably punish'd with death if they come within their Churches Cloysters or any other place which they will please to call Holy ground and if the ordinary justice nay the Soveraign power do proceed against such offender they thunder out their Excommunication that is cut off from the body of Christ not the Prince only but the whole Nation and People shutting the Church doors and commanding divine offices to cease and sometimes even authorizing the people to rise up in Arms and constrain their Governours to a submission as happened to this poor City in the time of our Ancestors when for but forbidding the servant of a poor Carmelite Fryer who had vowed poverty and should have kept none to gâ— arm'd and punishing his disobedience with imprisonment our whole Senate with their Gonfalonier were constrained to go to Avignon for absolution and in case of refusal had been massacred by the people It would almost astonish a wise man to imagine how these folks should acquire an Empire so distructive to Christian Religion and so pernicious to the interests of men but it will not seem so miraculous to them who shall seriously consider that the Clergy hath been for more than this thousand years upon the catch and a form'd united corporation against the purity of Religion and the interest of mankind and have not only wrested the Holy Scriptures to their own advantage which they have kept from the laity in unknown languages and by prohibiting the reading thereof but made use likewise first of the blind devotion and ignorance of the Goths Vandals Huns c. and since of the ambition and avarice of Christian Princes stirring them up one against another and sending them upon foolish errands to the Holy Land to lose their lives and to leave their Dominions in the mean time exposed to themselves and their Complices They have besides kept Learning and Knowledge among themselves stifling the light of the Gospel crying down Moral virtues as splendid sins defacing humane policy destroying the purity of the Chistian faith and profession and all that was vertuous prudent regular and orderly upon earth so that whoever would do good and good men service get himself immortal honour in this life and eternal glory in the next would restore the good policy I had almost said with my Author Livy the sanctity too of the Heathens with all their valour and other glorious endowments I say whoever would do this must make himself powerful enough to extirpate this cursed and apostate race out of the world and that you
our force and that for that reason the keeping of passes is many times dangerous ib. Chap. 24. In well ordered Governments offence and desert are never set one against the other but he who does well is rewarded and he who does otherwise is punished 295 Chap. 25. Though it is many times convenient to reform the old Fundamental Customs of a free City yet it is convenient still to retain some shadow and appearance of their ancient ways 296 Chap. 26. A new Prince in a new Conquest is to make every thing new ib. Chap. 27. Men are as seldom perfectly bad as they are perfectly good 297 Chap. 28. For what reasons the Romans were less ingrateful to their Citizens than the Athenians ib. Chap. 29. Whether the Prince or the People is most subject to be ingrateful 298 Chap. 30. What rules aâ—e to be observed by a Prince or Commonwealth to avoid this vice of ingratitude and how a General or great Citizen is to demean himself to elude it 299 Chap. 31. That the Romans used no extraordinary punishments towards their great Captains when they committed an error of ignorance or malice prâ—vided the Government was not damnified by it 300 Chap. 32. A Commonwealth or Prince is not to defer his beneficence till the necessity of the object requires it 301 Chap. 33. If an inconvenience encreases either within a State or against it it is better to temporize and comply than to endeavour to remove it by violence 302 Chap. 34. The Dictatorship was useful not hurtful to the Commonwealth of Rome and how that Power which is usurp'd and illegally assumed is pernitious to a State not that which is conferred legally by the suffrage of the people 303 Chap. 35. How it came to pass that the creation of the Decem-virat was prejudicial to the liberty of that State though it was done freely and by publick suffrage 304 Chap. 36. Citizens who have executed the greatest Offices ought not afterwards to disdain or scruple the less 305 Chap. 37. What troubles and offence was created in Rome by the Agrarian Law and how dangerous it is to make a new Law opposite to an old Custom with too much retro-spection ib. Chap. 38. Weak Commonwealths are generally irresolute and ill advised as taking their measures more from Necessity than Election 307 Chap. 39. Divers people have many times the same Accidents 308 Chap. 40. The creation of the Decem-virat in Rome what things are most remarkable in it and how far such a Constitution may be useful or pernicious to a Common-wealth 309 Chap. 41. For a mean man to grow immediately insolent or a meek man immmediatly cruel without just steps of gradation is both imprudent and unprofitable 311 Chap. 42. How easily mens manners are corrupted ib. Chap. 43. Those Souldiers which fight for their own honour are the best and most to be trusted 312 Chap. 44. A multitude without an Head is altogether unserviceable nor is any man to threaten that has any thing to desire ib. Chap. 45. 'T is a thing of ill example to break a new Law especially for the Maker and 't is no less dangerous to the Governor of a State to multiply injuries and repeat them every day 313 Chap. 46. How men leap from one passion to another and how they who at first aim at nothing but self-preservation when secured of that grow oppressors of other people 314 Chap. 47. Though the people in things that are discussed in general are many times mistaken yet when they are reduced to particulars they are more sensible and judicious 317 Chap. 48. To prevent the advancement of mean people to the Magistracy it is particularly to be contrived that the competition be betwixt the best and most noble and the wickedist and most abject 318 Chap. 49. If those Cities which have been free from their foundation as Rome have found it difficult to contrive such Laws as might maintain them so Those which have been always servile will find it almost impossible 319 Chap. 50. No Magistrate or Council ought to have power to check or controul the publick acts of the City 320 Chap. 51. A Prince or Commonwealth that is constrained to do a thing is to seem to do it frankly and without any compulsion ib. Chap. 52. The best and most secure way to repress the insolence of an ambitious and powerful State is to preclude and stop up those ways by which he would come to his greatness 321 Chap. 53. The people deceived with a false appearance of good do many times desire that which turns to their destruction and how great hopes and large promises do easily debauch them 322 Chap. 54. How great the authority of a grave man is to asswage the tumultuousness of the people 323 Chap. 55. How easily things are managed in a City where the Commons are incorrupt how hard it is to erect a principality where there is not an equality and where it is not a Commonwealth is impossible 324 Chap. 56. Great accidents before they happen to any City or Province are commonly prognosticated by some sign or predicted by some men 326 Chap. 57. The multitude united is fornidable and strong but separated is weak and inconsiderable ib. Chap. 58. That the multitude is wiser and more constant than a Prince 327 Chap. 59. What Leagues or Confederacies are most to be trusted those which are made with Princes or those which are made with free States 329 Chap. 60. How the Consulship and other Dignities in Rome were conferred without respect of age 330 Book II. CHap. 1. Whether the virtue or fortune of the Romans was the occasion of the greatness of their Empire 333 Chap. 2. With what Nations the Romans contended and with what obstinacy those Nations resisted 335 Chap. 3. It contributed much to the grandeur of the City of Rome that they ruined the neighbouring Cities and admitted strangers to their own dignities and priviledge 337 Chap. 4. There are three ways which Commonwealths have taken to enlarge their Territories 338 Chap. 5. The variation of Religion and Languages with the accidents of Deluges and Plagues have been the cause that many great things have been forgotten 340 Chap. 6. How the Romans proceeded in making of War 341 Chap. 7. What proportion of Land the Romans allowed to every man in their Colonies 342 Chap. 8. What it is that disposes some people to leave their native Countries to dispossess other people ib. Chap. 9. What those occasions are which do most commonly create War among Princes 344 Chap. 10. That according to the common opinion mony is not the sinews of War ib. Chap. 11. 'T is not discretion to enter into strict amity with a Prince whose reputation is greater than his strength 346 Chap. 12. Upon an apprehension of being invaded whether it be better to make War or expect it ib. Chap. 13. That from mean to great fortune people rise rather by fraud than by force 348 Chap. 13. Many people are mistaken
took up Arms against the Emperours Governour and to restrain the Gbibilines and correct the insolence of their Nobility put the City under a new form of Government It was in the year 1282. when the Corporation of the Arts having been invested with the Magistracy and Militia had gain'd great reputation whereupon by their own Authority they order'd that instead of the XIV Three Citizens should be created with the Title of Priori who should Govern the Common-wealth for two Months and be chosen indifferently out of Commons or Nobility provided they were Merchants or professed any Art Afterwards the chief Magistracy was reduc'd to Six persons one for each Ward where it continued to the year 1342. in which the City was reduc'd into Quarters and the Priori to Nine they having been advanc'd to 12. by some accident in the mean time This Constitution was the occasion as shall be shew'd in its place of the Nobilities ruine who upon sundry provocations were excluded and afterwards without any respect oppress'd by the people At first the Nobility consented to its Erection as an expedient to unite and accommodate all differences but afterwards incroaching and interfering for the Government all of them lost it There was likewise a Palace assign'd for the constant Residence of this Councel in which the Magistrates were formerly accustom'd to confer with the Commissioners of the Church and Serjeants and other necessary Officers for their greater honour appointed to attend Which Councel though at first it had only the Title of Priori yet afterwards for Magnificence sake it had the addition of Segnori For a while the Florentines continued quiet within themselves though they had Wars abroad with the Aretines whohad driven out the Guelfs with whom they ingag'd successfully in Compaldino and overcame them Upon which the City increasing both in Wealth and number of Inhabitants it was thought good to inlarge their Walls which they did to its present Circumference whereas before its Diameter was only from the Old Bridge to S. Lorenzo The Wars abroad and Peace at home had almost exterminated both the Ghibilines and Guelfs in that City there remain'd only those sparks of animosity which are unavoidable in all Cities betwixt the Nobles and the People for the one solicitous of their freedom according to their Laws and the other impatient to Command them it is not possible they should agree Whil'st they were apprehensive of the Ghibilines this humour did not show it self in the Nobility but when the Ghibilines were low and depress'd it began to exert and the people were injur'd daily beyond the Vindication either of the Magistrates or Laws every Nobleman making good his insolence by the multitude of his Friends and Relations both against the Priori and the Captain The Heads therefore of the Arts by way of remedy against so great inconvenience provided that in the beginning of its Office every Councel of the Priori should create an Ensign or Gonfaloniere di justicia out of the people assigning him 1000 men in 20 Companies which were to be ready with their Arms and their Gonfaloniere to see Justice administer'd whenever the Court or their Captain requir'd them The first in this Office was Ubaldo Ruffoli who drawing out his Bands demolish'd the Houses of the Galetti because one of that Family had slain one of his Fellow-Citizens in France The establishment of this Order by the Arts was not difficult by reason of the jealousies and emulations amongst the Nobility who were not in the least sensible it was intended against them till they felt the smart of it when 't was put in Execution This Constitution was terrible to them at first but afterwards they return'd to their old insolence again for having insinuated themselves into the Councel of the Priori they found means to hinder the Gonfaloniere from executing his Office Besides Witness being always required upon any accsation the Plaintiff could hardly find any body that would give Testimony against the Nobility So that in a short time Florence was involved in its own distraction and the people exposed to their former oppression Justice being grown dilatory and tedious and Sentence though given seldom or never executed The Populace not knowing what resolution to take in this Case Giano della Bella a person of Noble extraction but a Lover of the Liberty of the City incourag'd the Heads of the Arts to reform the City and by his persusion it was Ordain'd that the Gonfaloniere should reside with the Priori and have 4000 men under his Command they likewise excluded the Nobility out of the Councel of the Segnori They made a Law that all Accessaries or Abettors should be liable to the same punishment with those who were actually Guilty and decreed that Common report should be sufficient to convict them By these Laws which were called Ordinamenti della Giustitia the people gain'd great reputation but Giano della Bella being look'd upon as the contriver of their Destruction became odious to the Nobility and not to them only but to the wealthiest of the Populace who began to suspect his Authority and not without reason as appear'd afterwards upon the first occasion was given him to abuse it It happened one of the Commons was killed in a fray where several of the Nobility were present Corso Donati being one amongst the rest the Murder was laid to his Charge as the most furicus and desperate He was taken into Custody by the Captain but however causes went whether he was innocent of the Crime or the Captain fearful to condemn him he was presently discharg'd The people offended at his discharge betook themselves to their Arms ran to the House of Giano della Bella and beg'd of him that he would be the means that the Laws he had invented might be put in Execution Giano had privately a desire that Corso should be punish'd and therefore advis'd not the people to lay down their Arms as many coâ—ceived he ought but incouraged them to address to the Segnori with their Complaints and desire their Vindication The people full of rage thinking themselves abused by the Captain and abandon'd by Giano went not to the Segnori as directed but away they ran to the Captain 's Palace and plunder'd it which action displeased the whole City and was laid upon Giano by such as meditated his ruine whereupon some of his Enemies happening afterwards to be of the Segnori he was accused to the Captain as an Incendiary and Debaucher of the people Whil'st his Cause was in agitation the people took Arms again flocked in great numbers to his House and offer'd to defend him against the Segnori his Enemies Giano had no mind to experiment the popular favour or trust his life in the hands of the Magistrates as fearing the Malignity of the one no less than the unconstancy of the other but to secure himself against the malice of his Enemies and his
of opposition it sub-divides of necessity and falls out with it self and then all goes to wrack the people not being able to defend themselves with those private Laws wâ—ich were made at first for their preservation That these things are true the ancient and modern dissentions in our own City can sadly demonstrate When the Ghibilins were destroyed it was every mans judgment the Guelfs would have lived honourably and quietly a long time after and yet it was not long before they divided into the Factions of the Neri and Bianchi when the Bianchi were over-powred new parties arose and new troubles attended them sometimes fighting in behalf of the Exiles and sometimes quarrelling betwixt the Nobility and the People and to give that to others which either we could not or would not possess quietly our selves committing our liberty sometimes to King Robert sometimes to his brother and at last to the Duke of Athens never fixing or reposing in any Government as not being agreed to live free nor contented to be servile Nay so much was our State dispos'd to division that rather than acquiesce in the administration of a King it prostituted it self to the regiment of an Agobbian of mean and ignominious Extraction The late Duke of Athens cannot be mentioned with any honour to this City yet his insolence and Tyranny may make us wiser for the future Being in Arms at his expulsion we fell to it among our selves and fought with more fury one against another than we had ever done before till at length the Nobility was overcome and at the mercy of the people and it was the general opinion their insupportable pride and ambition being taken down there could be no more faction or troubles in Florence but we have found to our cost how false and fallacious mans judgment is The pride and ambition of the Nobility was not extinct but transmigrated into the people who by degrees grew as impatient for authority as they and having no other way to attain it but by domâ—stick dissention they reviv'd the obsolete names of Guelfs and of Ghibilins which it had been happy for this City never to have known And that nothing which is humane may be perpetual and stable it is the pleasure of the Heavens that in all States or Governments whatsoever some fatal Families should spring up for their ruine and destruction Of this our City can afford as many and as lamentable instances as any of her neighbours as owing its miseries not only to one or two but several of those Families as first the Buondelmonti and Uberti next the Donati and the Cerchi and now the Ricci and Albizi a shameful and ridiculous thing We have not enumerated our divisions nor deduc'd our ill customs so high to upbraid or to discourage you by them but rather as a memorial of their causes to shew that they are in our memory as well as yours and to exhort you by their example not to be diffident or timerous in correcting them For in those days the power of the Nobility was so great and their alliances so considerable the Laws and Civil Magistrates were too weak to restrain them but now the Emperor having no power the Pope no influence all Italy and particularly this City reduc'd to such a parity as to be able to Govern our selves where is the difficulty What impediment remains why this Common-wealth in spight of all examples to the contrary may not only be united but reform'd and improv'd by new Laws and Constitutions were your Lordships disposed to create them To which good work we do most humbly importune you not out of private passion so much as publick compassion for our Country Our corruption is great and t is you only can correct the rage and expel the contagion that spreads and luxuriates among us The disorders of our Ancestors are not imputable to the nature of the men but to the iniquity of those times which being now altered gives this City fair hopes by the institution of better Laws to better its fortune whose malignity is easily to be overcome by a prudent restraint of ambition a seasonable inhibition of such customs as propagate Faction and a discreet election and adherence to such things as are compatible with our freedom And better it is you do it now legally of your selves than by deferring it to divert that office upon the people and make them do it by force The Signori mov'd then by these arguments which they had fram'd to themselves before and by authority and encouragement afterwards commissionated 56 Citizens to superintend for the safety of the Common-wealth True it is many men are more proper to preserve good Laws than to make them and these Citizens imploy'd themselves more in extirpating the present Factions than providing against new by which means they succeeded in neither for not taking away the occasion of the new and one of the present Factions being more potent than the other it could not be done without great danger to the Common-wealth However they depriv'd three of the Family of the Albizi and as many of the Ricci of all Magistracy unless of the Guelfish party for three years in which number Piero de gli Albizi and Uguccione de Ricci were two They prohibited all Citizens for the coming into the Palace unless the Senate was sitting They decreed that in case of batterry or unjust interruption in the possession of their Estates it should be lawful to accuse any man though of the Nobility to the Council and to make them answer to their Charge These Laws had greater reflection upon the Ricci than the Albizi for though they were equally intended the Ricci suffered most by them Piero indeed was shut out of the Palace of the Signori but at the Palace of the Guelfs where his authority was great his entrance was free and though he and his Comrades were forward enough in their admonitions before they were much forwarder now and new accidents occurr'd to make them yet worse Gregory XI was Pope at that time whose residence being at Avignon he governed Italy by Legates as his Predecessors had done before him These Legates being proud and rapacious had brought great calamity upon several of the Cities One of these Legates being at that time in Bologna took the advantage of a scarcity which was in Florence and resolved to make himself Lord of Tuscany to which end he not only omitted to supply the Florentines with provisions but to deprive them utterly of all other relief as soon as the spring appeared and gave opportunity for his motion he invaded them with a great Army hoping they would be easily conquered because they were both famished and disarm'd and possibly his design might have taken had not his Army been mercenary and corrupt for the Florentines having no other weapons to defend themselves betook themselves to their bags and paid his Army 130000 Florins to draw off To begin a War is in any
and created eight Commissioners with their Ministers and dependants to gain themselves reverence and reputation so as at that time the City had two Tribunals and were governed by two distinct Administrations Among the Commissioners it was resolv'd that eight persons to be chosen by the body of the Arts should be always resident in the Palace with the Senators to give Sanction to what-ever the Signori resolv'd upon They took from Salvestro de Medici and Michaele de Lando what-ever in their former Counsels they had conferred upon them assigning several Offices and pensions to many of their friends to support the Dignity of their imployments Having concluded in this manner among themselves to make all the more valid they sent two of their Members to the Senate to demand their confirmation otherwise to let them know that what they could not obtain by civil application they were able to do by force These two Commissioners delivered their message to the Senate with great confidence and presumption upbraiding the Gonfaloniere by his Office and other honours which he had received from them and that in return he had most ungratefully behav'd himself towards them and coming at the end of their objurgation to threaten him Michaele unable to indure so great insolence more sutably to the Majesty of his Place than the meaness of his Birth resolved by some extraordinary way to correct such extraordinary impudence and drawing his sword he cut them very much and caused them afterwards to be manacled and imprisoned This action of the Gonfaloniere was no sooner known but it put all the multitude in a flame and believing they should be able to gain that by violence which they could not compass without they immediately to their Arms and march'd round about the Palace to find where with most advantage they might fall on Michaele on the otherside suspecting the worst resolved to be before-hand as judging it more honourable to fall upon them abroad than to expect them within the walls till they fell upon him and forced him out of the Palace as they had done his Predecessors with great shame and dishonour Gathering therefore together a great number of Citizens who having found their error were resorted to him he marched out as strong as he could on horse-back and advanced to fight them as far as new S. Maries The people as I said before were as forward as he and marching about towards the Palace to take their advantage it happened Michaele made his sally at the same time and they missed one another Michaele returning found the people had possessed themselves of the Piazza and were storming the Palace whereupon he charged them so smartly on the rear that he brake them immediately some of them he chaced out of the City and forced the rest to throw down their Arms and hide themselves This victory being obtained the tumult dissolved and the City became quiet and all by the single valour of the Gonfaloniere who for Courage Generosity and Prudence was superiour to any Citizen of his time and deserves to be numbered among the few Benefactors to their Country for had he been ambitious or ill-disposed the City had lost its liberty and relapsed into greater tyranny than that in the time of the Duke of Athens But his goodness would not admit a thought against the good of the publick and his prudence managed things so that many submitted to him and the rest he was able to subdue These passages amazed the common people and put the better sort of Artificers into an admiration of their own stupidity who could not endure the grandeur of the Nobility were now forced to truckle to the very skum of the people When Michaele had this good fortune against the people at the same time new Senators were drawn two of which were of so vile and abject condition every body desired to quit themselves of so infamous a Magistracy Whereupon the first day of September when the Signori made the first entrance upon their Office the people being so thick that the Palaci was full of arm'd men there was a cry sent forth from among them that no Senator should be made out of the meaner sort of the people and in satisfaction to them the Senate degraded the other two one of which was called Tira and the other Boraccio and in their places Georgio Scali and Francesco di Michaele were elected Afterwards they dissolved the Corporations of the meaner Trades and of all their dependants only Michaele di Lando Ludovico di Puccio and some few other were excepted They divided the Magistracy into two parts one for the greater the other for the lesser sort of Arts. Only it was concluded the Senate should contain five of the lesser Arts and four of the greater the Gonfaloniere to be chosen sometimes out of one and sometimes out of the other This Constitution and Establishment setled the City for a while and although the Government was taken out of the hands of the people yet the Artificers of the meanest quality had more power than the popular Nobility who were forced to comply to satisfie the Arts and divide them from the baser sort of people This was much approved by those who desired the faction of the Guelfs which had handled several of the Citizens with so great violence might be depressed among the rest which were advanced by this new model Giorgio Scali Benedetto Alberti Salvestro de Medici and Tomaso Strozzi were made as it were Princes of the City These proceedings exasperated the jealousies betwixt the popular Nobility and the meaner sort of people by the instigation of the Ricci and Albizi of which two parties because we shall have frequent occasion to discourse many sad and great actions happening afterwards betwixt them we shall for better distinction call one of them the Popular and the other the Plebeian Party for the future This Government continued three years with frequent examples both of banishment and death for those who were at the helm knowing there were many male-contents both within the City and without lived in perpetual fear They who were discontented within attempted or conspired every day something or other against the State Those without having no restraint upon them by means sometimes of this Prince sometimes of this Common-wealth raised several scandals both of the one side and the other At that time Giannozzo da Salerno General for Carlo Durazzo who was descended from the King of Naples happened to be at Bologna attending a design which they said Durazzo had undertaken against Queen Giovanna at the instigation of the Pope who was her mortal enemy There were in Bologna at the same time several Exiles from Florence who held strict intelligence both with Pope Urban and Carle which was the cause that those who governed in Florence living in great jealousie gave credit easily to the calumniations of all those Citizens that were suspected During this general apprehension news was brought
four days time begin to be cool and consider things soberly they will find there is no remedy and joyn more cordially with the Prince looking upon him as under an obligation to them for having sacrificed their Houses and Estates in his defence And the nature of Man is such to take as much pleasure in having obliged another as in being obliged himself Wherefore all things fairly considered it is no such hard matter for a Prince not only to gain but to retain the affection of his Subjects and make them patient of a long Siege if he be wise and provident and takes care they want nothing either for their livelyhood or defence CHAP. XI Of Ecclesiastical Principalities THere remains nothing of this Nature to be discoursed but of Ecclesiastical Principalities about which the greatest difficulty is to get into possession because they are gained either by Fortune or Virtue but kept without either being supported by ancient Statutes universally received in the Christian Church which are of such power and authority they do keep their Prince in his dignity let his conversation or conduct be what it will These are the only persons who have lands do not defend them Subjects do not govern them and yet their lands are not taken from them though they never defend them nor their Subjects dissatisfied though they never regard them so that these Principalities are the happiest and most secure in the world but being managed by a supernatural power above the wisdom and contrivance of man I shall speak no more of them for being set up and continued by God himself it would be great presumption in any man who should undertake to dispute them Nevertheless if it should be questioned how it came to pass that in Temporal things the Church is arrived at that height seeing that before Alexander's time the Italian Ptinces not only such as were Soveraigns but every Baron and Lord how inconsiderable soever in Temporal affairs esteemed of them but little yet since it has been able not only to startle and confront the King of France but to drive him out of Italy and to ruine the Venetians the reason of which though already well known I think it not superfluous to revive in some measure Before Charles King of France passed himself into Italy that Province was under the Empire of the Pope the Venetians the King of Naples Duke of Milan and the Florentines It was the interest of these Potentates to have a care some of them that no foreign Prince should come with an Army into Italy and some that none among themselves should usurp upon the other Those of whom the rest were concern'd to be most jealous were the Pope and the Venetian to restrain the Venetians all the rest were us'd to confederate as in the defence of Ferrara To keep under the Pope the Roman Barons contributed much who being divided into two factions the Ursini and Colonnessi in perpetual contention with their Arms constantly in their hands under the very nose of the Pope they kept the Pontifical power very low and infirm and although now and then there happened a couragious Pope as Sextus yet neither his courage wisdom nor fortune was able to disintangle him from those incommodities and the shortness of their reign was the reason thereof for ten years time which was as much as any of them reign'd was scarce sufficient for the suppression of either of the parties and when the Colonnesi as a man may say were almost extinct a new Enemy sprang up against the Ursini which revived the Colonnesi and reestablished them again This emulation and animosity at home was the cause the Pope was no more formidable in Italy after this Alexander VI. was advanc'd to the Papacy who more than all that had ever been before him demonstrated what a Pope with mony and power was able to do having taken advantage of the French invasion by the Ministry and conduct of Duke Valentine he performed all that I have mentioned else where among the Actions of the said Duke And though his design was not so much to advantage the Church as to aggrandize the Duke yet what he did for the one turned afterwards to the benefit of the other for the Pope being dead and Valentine extinct what both of them had got devolv'd upon the Church after him Iulius succeeded and found the Church in a flourishing condition Romagna was wholly in its possession the Barons of Rome exterminated and gone and their factions suppressed by Pope Alexander and besides a way opened for raising and hoarding of mony never practised before which way Iulius improving rather than otherwise he began to entertain thoughts not only of conquering Bologna but mastering the Venetians and forcing the French out of Italy All which great enterprizes succeeding it added much to his honor that he impropriated nothing but gave all to the Church He maintained also the Colonnesi and Ursini in the same condition as he found them and though in case of sedition there were those ready on both sides to have headed them yet there were two considerations which kept them at Peace One was the greatness of the Church which kept them in awe the other was their want of Cardinals which indeed was the Original of their discontents and will never cease till some of them be advanced to that dignity for by them the Parties in Rome and without are maintained aud the Barons oblig'd to defend them so that the ambition of the prelates is the cause of all the dissention and tumults among the Barons His present Holiness Pope Leo had the happiness to be elected at a time when it was most powerful and it is hop'd if they made the Church great by their Arms he by the integrity of his conversation and a thousand other virtues will enlarge it much more and make it more venerable and august CHAP. XII How many forms there are of Military Discipline and of those Souldiers which are called Mercenary HAving spoken particularly of the several sorts of Principalities as I proposed in the beginning considered in part the reasons of their constitution and their evil and the ways which many have taken to acquire and preserve them it remains that I proceed now in a general way upon such things as may conduce to the offence or defence of either of them We have declared before that it is not only expedient but necessary for a Prince to take care his foundations be good otherwise his fabrick will be sure to fail The principal foundations of all States new old or mixt are good Laws and good Arms and because there cannot be good Laws where there are not good arms and where the Arms are good there must be good Laws I shall pass by the Laws and discourse of the Arms. I say the Arms then with which a Prince defends his State are his own Mercenary Auxiliary or mixt The Mercenary and Auxiliary are unprofitable and dangerous and
the management of War in the administration of Justice in the enlargement and propagation of Empire there is not to be found either Prince Republick great Captain or Citizen which repairs to Antiquity for example which persuaded me it proceeded not so much from niceness and effeminacy our present Education has introduced upon the world nor from the mischief which turbulent and seditious idleness has brought forth in many Provinces and Cities in Christendom as from our ignorance or inadvertency in History not taking the sense of what we read or not minding the relish and poinancy with which it is many times impregnated from whence it comes to pass that many who read are much pleased and delighted with the variety of accidents contained in History but never think them intended for their imitation that being a thing in their judgments not only difficult but impossible as if the Heaven the Sun the Elements and Mankind were altered and dispossessed of the motion order and power with which they were primitively invested Being desirous to reduce such as shall fall into this error I have Judged it necessary to write upon all those Books of Titus Livius which by the malignity of time have not been intercepted what I according to ancient and modern opinion shall think useful for their further explanation to the end that they which shall peruse these my discourses may extract such advantage and document as is necessary for their proficiency and improvement by History and though my enterprize appears to be difficult yet by the assistance of those who put me upon it I do not despair but to discharge my self so as to leave the way much more easie and short to any man that shall desire to come after me CHAP. I. What have been generally the principles of all Cities and particularly of Rome THose who shall read the Original of the City of Rome by what Legislators advanced and by what Government ordered will not wonder it shall remain firm and entire for so many ages afterwards so vast an Empire spring out of it as that Common-wealth arrived to Being to discourse first of its Original it is convenient to premise that all Cities are built either by natives born in the Country where they were erected or by strangers The first happens when to the Inhabitants dispersed in many and little parties it appears their habitation is insecure not being able apart by reason of their distance or smalness of their numbers to resist an invasion if any Enemy should fall upon them or to unite suddenly for their defence without leaving their Houses and Families exposed which by consequence would be certain prey to the enemy Whereupon to evade those dangers moved either by their own impulse or the suggestions of some person among them of more than ordinary authority they oblige themselves to live together in some place to be chosen by them for convenience of provision and easiness of defence Of this sort among many others Athens and Venice were two the first that built under the authority of Theseus upon occasion of the like distance and dispersion of the natives The other there being many people driven together into certain little Islands in that point of the Adriatick Sea to avoid the War which every day by the access and irruption of new Armies of Barbarians after the declension of the Roman Empire grew intolerable in Italy began by degrees among themselves without the assistance or encouragement of any Prince to treat and submit to such Laws as appeared most likely to preserve them and it succeeded to their desire by the long respite and tranquillity their situation afforded them that Sea having no passage at that end and the Barbarians no ships to disturb them so that the least beginning imaginable was sufficient to exalt them to their present authority and grandeur The second case when a City is raised by strangers it is done by people that are free or depending as Colonies or else by some Prince or Republick to ease and disburthen themselves of their exuberance or to defend some Territory which being newly acquir'd they desire with more safety and less expence to maintain of which sort several were by the people of Rome all over their Empire otherwise they are sometimes erected by some Prince not for his residence so much as for his glory and renown as Alexandria by Alexander the great But these Cities not being free in their Original do seldom arise to any extraordinary height more than to be reckoned the heads or chief of some Kingdom Of this sort was Florence for whether built by the Souldiers of Silla or perchance by the Inhabitants of the Mountain di Fiesole who presuming upon and being encouraged by the long Peace under the Reign of Augustus descended from their Mountain to inhabit the plain upon the River Arms it was built under the Roman Empire and could not upon those principles exalt it self higher than the courtesie of the Prince would permit The Founders of Cities are free when by themselves or the Command of their Soveraign they are constrained upon occasion of sickness famine or war to abandon their own inquest of new Countries and these do either possess themselves of such Towns as they find ready built in their Conquests as Moses did or they build them de novo as Aeneas In this case the power of the builder and the fortune of the building is conspicuous and honourable according as the cause from whence it derives its Original is more or less eminent His virtue and prudence is discernible two ways by the election of the Seat and institution of the Laws and because men build as often by necessity as choice and the judgment and wisdom of the builder is greater where there is less room and latitude for his election it is worthy our consideration whether it is more advantagious building in barren and unfruitful places to the end that the people being constrained to be industrious and less obnoxious to idleness might live in more unity the poverty of the soil giving them less opportunity of dissention Thus it fell out in Raugia and several other Cities built in such places and that kind of election would doubtless be most prudent and profitable if men could be content to live quietly of what they had without an ambitious desire of Command But there being no security against that but power it is necessary to avoid that sterility and build in the fruitfullest places can be found where their numbers encreasing by the plentifulness of the soil they may be able not only to defend themselves against an assault but repel any opposition shall be made to their grandeur and as to that idleness to which the richness of the situation disposes it may be provided against by Laws and convenient exercise enjoyn'd according to the example of several wise men who having inhabited Countries pleasant fruitful and apt to produce such lazy people improper for service
they think credible and to be belived So that it is an obligation upon us to judge more moderately of the Roman Government and to consider that so many good effects as proceeded from that Republick could not have been produced but from sutable causes and if their tumults were the occasion of the creation of the Tribunes they were more laudable than otherwise for besides that they secured a share of the Government to the people they were constituted as Guardians and Conservators of the Roman liberty as shall be shewn in the Chapter ensuing CHAP V. Where the Guardianship of liberty may be most securely deposited whether among the people or Nobility and which has greater occasion to tumultuate he that would acquire more or he that would defend and keep what he has THey who have given us the wisest and most judicious scheme of a Commonwealth have laid down the conservation of liberty as a necessary fundamental and according as that is more or less secured the Government is like to be more or less durable But forasmuch as all Commonwealths consist of Nobility and Populacy the question arises In whose hands that liberty is deposited most safely In old times among the Lacedemonians and in our times among the Venetians it was intrusted with the Nobility but among the Romans with the common people for which reason it is to be examined which of them made the better elections If we look back to their Originals there are arguments on both sides but if we regard only their fate and conclusion the Nobility must carry it in respect that the liberty of the Spartans and Venetians have been much longer lived But on the other side to justifie the Romans freedom is I conceive most properly committed to their custody who have least appetite to usurp And doubtless if the ends and designs both of the Nobility and Commons be considered it will be found the Nobility are ambitious of Dominion while the Commons have no other thoughts but to defend themselves against it and by consequence having less hopes to usurp they have more inclination to live free so that the conservation of their liberty being committed to the people it is but reasonable to believe they will be more careful to preserve it and by how much they are less likely to usurp upon it themselves with the more vigilance will they secure it against the incroachments of others On the other side he that defends the Spartan and Venetian constitution alledges that by putting that power into the hands of the Nobility two excellent things are performed One is that thereby they satisfie their ambition who have the greatest interest in the Common-wealth The other that they take from the people all opportunity of exerting their natural turbulency and unquietness which has not only been the occasion of infinite dissentions but is apt likewise to enforce the Nobility upon such desperate courses as may in time produce unremediable effects Of this Rome it self is proposed as an example where the Tribunes being invested with that authority it was not sufficient to have one Plebeian Consul but the people must have both and not content with that neither they would have the Censor Praetor and the other great Magistrates of the City chosen out of the people Nor was this enough but carried on with the same exorbitant fury they began by degrees to adore such men as they saw likely to confront and beard the Nobility which humour was the rise of Marius his greatness and his greatness the destruction of Rome All this considered it is no easie matter upon impartial deliberation on both sides to pronounce which of the two is most safely to be trusted with the liberty because it is no less difficult to determine which is most pernicious to a Commonwealth he that not satisfied with what he has is ambitious of more or he that is content and would secure what he has got He that shall examine it critically will conclude thus Either you argue for a Republick whose aim is to extend and propagate its Empire as Rome Or one whose designs reach no further than to preserve what they have got In the first case 't is necessary in all things to follow the example of Rome in the second Venice and Sparta are rather to be imitated for the reasons aforesaid which shall be reinforc'd in the following Chapter But to return from whence we have stragled and discourse of what men are most nocent in a Commonwealth they that are impatient to get or they that are only fearful to lose I say that when Marcus Menenius was made Dictator and Marcus Fulvius Master of the Horse both of them Plebeians to inquire into certain Conspiracies that were entred into at Capua against the City of Rome authority was given them at the same time to examine and take cognisance of such persons as by bribery or any other unlawful means design'd upon the Consulship or any other of the great offices in Rome by which the Nobility being highly provoked as suspecting it to be done in opposition to them caused it to be spread abroad that the Nobility did not by any ambitious or irregular ways affect or design upon those great places but the Commons who not daring to trust their preferment to their extraction or virtue took all extraordinary courses to advance themselves to them In particular they accused the Dictator and that with so much vehemence and success he was glad to call a Council and having complained very much of the calumniations of the Nobility to lay down his Dictatorship and submit himself to the judgment of the people by whom the Cause being heard he was fairly acquitted There it was disputed very hard which was most ambitious He that would get or He that would preserve for a violent appetite either in the one or the other may be the occasion of great disturbances which in my judgment are oftner caused by them that are in possession because the apprehension of losing what they have got produces the same eagerness and passion as desire of acquisition does in the other forasmuch as they seldom think themselves safe in what they have but by new accumulation besides the more wealth or Territory they have the more power or capacity they have to Usurp as they see occasion to which may be added that their incorrigible and ambitious deportments do provoke and kindle a desire in such as have not those dignities to compass them if they can and that for two reasons to revenge themselves upon them by stripping them of all and to enrich themselves into the bargain by the wealth and honour which they see others manage so ill CHAP. VI. Whether in Rome such a form of Government could be established as should take away the animosities betwixt the Senate and the People WHat the continued jealousies betwixt the Senate and the People did produce we have already discoursed but because the effects of them remained
considered that Prince certainly which aims at glory and reputation in the world should desire a Government where the manners of his Subjects are corrupted and depraved not to subvert and destroy it like Caesar but to rectifie and restore it like Romulus than which the Heavens cannot confer nor man propose to himself greater honour And if a Prince who would regulate and reform a City cannot do it without depositing his Authority In that case he is excusable in some measure if he dispenses but where he can retain the one and accomplish the other he is altogether unpardonable they therefore to whom the Heavens are so propitious as to present such an opportunity are to consider that they have two ways before them one leading to security whil'st they live and an honourable memory when they are dead the other to continual troubles here and perpetual infamy hereafter CHAP. XI Of the Religion and Ceremonies of the Romans THough Rome should have been founded by Romulus and owe him as his Daughter for her Birth and Education yet the Heavens foreseeing that the Constitutions of Romulus would not be sufficient for so great an Empire put it into the heart of the Roman Senate to create Numa Pompilius for his Successor to the end that what was left defective by the first might be compleated by the latter Numa finding the people martial and fierce and being desirous by the Arts of Peace to reduce them to civil obedience he betook himself to Religion as a thing absolutely necessary to the maintenance of civil policy and he ordered things so that for many ages together never was the fear of God so eminently conspicuous as in that Commonwealth which was a great promotion to whatever was designed either by the Senate or Princes And he who shall peruse the infinite actions of that City collectively or of several Romans in particular will find those Citizens more tender of falsifying an Oath than of violating the Laws judging an offence against God more hainous than an offence against Men and God more able to punish it Of this we have manifest Evidence in the Examples of Scipio and Manlius Torquatus for after the defeat which Hanibal had given the Romans at Cannas the people tumultuating and many of them assembling in great fear to consider of their condition They resolved among themselves to leave Italy and transplant into Sicily Scipio having notice repaired to them immediately and coming in suddenly among them with his Sword drawn he forced them to recant and take a peremptory Oath not to abandon their Country Lucius Manlius Father to Titus Manlius who was afterwards called Torquatus was impeached by Marcus Pomponius a Tribune of the people Before the day arrived for the hearing of the Father the Son coming to the Tribune and threatning to kill him unless he would swear to withdraw his accusation he forced him to his Oath and he performed as he had sworn and so those Citizens who could not be retained by either the love of their Country or Laws were kept at home by an Oath which they took upon force and the Tribune laid by his hatred to the Father passed by the insolence of the Son and neglected the reflection it would have upon his own honour to be punctual in his Oath which proceeded from nothing but those principles of Religion which Nama had distused And surely it will be found by whoever considers the Roman History how useful a thing Religion was to the governing of Armies to the uniting of the people to the keeping men good and to the deterring them from being bad so that should it fall into dispute whether Rome was most obliged to Romulus or Numa I am of opinion Numa would have the preheminence because where Religion is fixed Military Discipline is easily introduced but where Religion is wanting Discipline may be brought in with difficulty but never in perfection It is to be seen likewise that for the constituting a Senate and establishing of Laws both Military and Civil Romulus had no need to pretend Divine Authority but with Numa it was otherwise he was of necessity to pretend to it and thereupon gave out that he had private Conference with a Nymph who dictated to him what he was to prescribe to the people and all was because he had a mind to introduce new Laws and Customs into that City which he thought his own private authority would never effect And certainly never any man brought in new Laws or set up any Doctrine extraordinary but with pretence of Religion because otherwise they would never have been admitted for a man may be wise and know many things are good and yet want reasons and arguments to convince other people wherefore to remove that difficulty prudent men do make that always their pretence and Solon Lycurgus and several others who had the same design practised the same The people then admiring the goodness and wisdom of Numa submitted in all things True it is the devotion of the age and ignorance of the people contributed much for thereby he was able to impress them with what new form he thought good and questionless he that would establish a Commonwealth at this day would find it more easie among the rude people of the Mountains who have not been acquainted with Civility than among such as have been educated in Cities where their civility was corrupted like rude unpolished Marble which is more readily carv'd into a Statue than what has been mangled already by some bungling workman So that all things considered I conclude That the Religion introduced by Numa was one of the first causes of that Cities felicity because Religion produced good Laws good Laws good Fortune and good Fortune a good End in whatever they undertook And as strictness in Divine Worship and Conscience of Oaths are great helps to the advancement of a State so contempt of the one and neglect of the other are great means of its destruction Take away Religion and take away the foundation of Government for though perhaps the goodness and fear of their Prince may sustain it for some time and supply the want of Religion in his subjects yet because he is mortal and possibly but very short lived that Kingdom can hardly out-live the virtue of its Governor Wherefore those States which depend only upon the piety of their Princes are of little duration for commonly one dyes with the other and the virtue of the Father seldom revives in the Son as Dante has said very wisely Rade volte discende per li rami L' tunn ana probitate et questo vuole Quel che la da perche da lai si chiami Virtue 's but seldom to the branches spread He who bestows't has in his wisdom said Let him that wants come to the fountain-head Things being thus it is not sufficient for a Commonweal thor Kingdom to have a Prince who Governs it wisely whil'st he lives but he must lay his foundation so
down his Commission and to present it to his Master before he has occasion to demand it using great care that none of his actions discover him to be either insolent or ambitious that his Prince having no cause to suspect him may have the greater obligation to reward him If this way does not please the other is quite contrary and that is to declare himself boldly and try always to set up for himself cajoling and sweetning his Soldiers and Subjects making new alliances with his Neighbours seizing upon the strong Towns corrupting the Officers and where they will not be corrupted securing them some other way and by doing thus he shall be even with his Lord for his ingratitude designed And besides these two ways there is none that I know But as I said before because men can neither be good nor bad in extremity it happens that great men are unwilling to quit their Commands and retire after the gaining of a Victory behave themselves modestly they cannot and to use rigour in an honourable way is impossible So that whil'st they are in suspence and uncertain which course to steer they are many times destroyed As to a Commonwealth that would preserve and exempt it self from this detestable vice of ingratitude the same remedy cannot be prescribed as was prescribed to a Prince for not being able to manage its Wars in Person as a Prince may do the command of their Forces must of necessity be committed to some of their Subjects The best way they can take is to follow the Example of Rome and that will render them less ingrateful than their Neighbors In the wars of the Romans by ancient Custom all people were employed as well Nobles as others and from thence it came that they were always well furnished with Generals and Officers of all sorts which kept them from being jealous of any one having so many of equal merit to oppose him Besides which there were express Laws against ambition and all people so narrowly observed that no man durst discover the least design or inclination that way and in the creation of Dictators he was commonly prefer'd who debas'd himself most or discovered least desire to obtain it by which means preventing the occasion of suspicion they prevented the ingratitude That State therefore which would avoid the guilt of ingratitude is to imitate Rome and that person who would avoid the effects must observe how the Romans defended themselves CHAP. XXXI That the Romans used no extraordinary punishments towards their great Captains when they committed an Error of ignorance or malice provided the Government was not damnified by it THe Romans as I said before were not only less unthankful than their Neighbors but they were more human and gentle in the punishment of their Generals than any other State if their miscarriage was malicious they punished it not severely but if it was by ignorance or mistake instead of revenging they did many times reward it and this they did upon very grave consideration for the Romans understood the charge of an Army to be so great a care and of such transcendant importance that whoever undertook it ought to have his mind free and indisturbed by any other respects or troubles whatsoever for his thoughts being with his troubles he would never mind his Army nor take any advantage For Example an Army is sent into Greece against Philip of Macedon or into Italy against Hanibal or those people upon the Frontiers which had been conquered before and the Captain who has the General Command is loaden with all the cares which do commonly attend great and extraordinary Enterprizes Now if to those necessary cares for his Army there should be superadded a fear and apprehension of being punished at his return if things went otherwise than well and perpetual reflexion upon those who have been abused and put to death upon the same score it must needs disturb the tranquillity of his mind and make him unfit for any great action The wise Romans thought the infamy and dishonour of losing a Battel punishment enough without heaping one affliction upon another And as to those whose errors proceed rather from malice than ignorance we have another Example Sargius and Virginius had each of them an Army and were encamped before Veii Sargius was posted against the Tuscans and Virginius on the other side against any body else It hapned the Falisci having joyned with several of their neighbors came to fall upon Sergius Sergius had notice and found himself too weak yet rather than send to his Companion for supplies he chose to be routed and Virginius on the other side though he knew his distress would by no means relieve him unless he desired it so that that Roman Army was cut off by the ambition and emulation of their Generals a thing of very ill example had it been suffered to pass without punishment Nevertheless whereas other States would have punished them with death Rome inflicted only a pecuniary mulct but their crime deserved sharper correction but the Romans were unwilling to do any thing against custom which as is said before is very sacred with them As to the errors of ignorance we have another example in Varro by whose folly and rashness the Romans having lost the Battel of Cannas against Hanibal and brought their whole Government in danger had Hanibal known how to use as well as gain a Victory yet his offence having in it more of ignorance than malice when he came back the Senate went out to meet him in their Formalities and not being able to congratulate his success they gave him thanks for his return and that De salute reipublicae non desperasset That he did not despair of their affairs When Papirius Cursor the Dictator would needs put Fabius to death because contrary to orders he had fought with the Samnites among other reasons which the Father of Fabius urged against that sentence this was one that the people of Rome had till that time never been so severe upon any of their Commanders for the loss of a Battel as Papirius would now be upon the Victor for gaining one CHAP. XXXII A Commonwealth or Prince is not to defer his beneficence till the necessity of the object requires it THE liberality of the Romans to the people succeeded very well when Prosenna invaded Rome in behalf of the Tarquins for the Senate apprehending the people might be brought to restore the Kings rather than endure the war to oblige them releast their gabels upon salt and all their other duties declaring the people were sufficent benefactors to the publick in providing and bringing up their children all which was done to cajole them into such an humour as might make them endure the siege and swallow the calamities of the War but let no man rely upon this example and defer his indulgence to the people till the enemy be upon his back for it shall never succeed so well to him as it did to the
the Virgin was willing to defend the chastity of his Daughter and knowing no other way to secure it he got Appius to be imprisoned whereupon great tumults succeeding in Rome and in the Army the Souldiers returned and joyning with the people they encamped upon the holy Mountain where they resolved to continue till the Ten had resigned Tribunes and Consuls were restored and the Commonwealth had recovered its old liberty and freedom This is the story of the Decem-virat as shortly related as could be in which it may be observed that the people of Rome fell into subjection and servitude upon the same causes as other Commonwealths very frequently do that is by the too great desire of the people to be free and the too great ambition in the Nobility of Command when these two Factions cannot agree they are forced to refer all to some third person in whom they confide and then begins the Tyranny The Decem-virat was erected in Rome by consent both of the Nobility and People and invested with so much power out of a hatred which the Nobility bare to the Tribunitial and the people to the Consular authority as soon as the Decem-viri were chosen Appius pretended highly for the people and promised to be their Champion whereupon they favoured him exceedingly And be it in what City it will whenever the people are brought to extol and applaud a person for no other reason but because it is in his power to punish their enemies if that person be cunning and industrious their liberty is lost and he can usurp when he pleases for by the assistance of the people he may master the Nobility and when they are down it will be no hard matter to subdue the people who will have no body to fly to nor no body to support them but before the Nobility be suppressed he is by no means to meddle with the people And this has been the method of all those who have laid the foundation of Tyranny in any Commonwealth which if Appius had followed he had not lost his ill-got authority so soon but he went quite contrary and with as much imprudence as was possible ran himself into the displeasure of the same persons which advanced him and ingratiated with those who were against his preferment and were no way able to sustain him whereby he lost his old friends who were powerful and endeavoured to get new that could do him no good For though the Nobility have naturally no aversion to Tyranny yet that part of the Nobility which shares not in the profits is always an enemy to the Tyrant and their ambition and avarice is so great all the riches and honours in the Tyrants disposal are too little to take them off Hence it is that the aggressor in any enterprize is of necessity to be stronger than his adversary and he who in the establishment of a Tyranny makes the people rather than the Nobility his friends will be stronger and more secure than he who goes the other way cajoles with the Nobility and disobliges the People for the people being always stronger in the City by their friendship a Tyrant may subsist without any foreign supplies This was visible in the case of Nabis the Tyrant of Sparta who having the affections of the people and secured himself of some of the Nobility defended himself against all Greece and the whole power of the Romans which without the hearts of the people he could never have done But he who makes his interest with the Nobility cannot maintain himself without foreign assistance for he will want Guards for thâ— security of his person Souldiers to do the Office of the Militia in the Country and Confederates and Allies to succour him in his distress whereas if he could be supplyed in these three defects it might be possible for him to subsist without the friendship of the people But Appius failing in these miscarried in the very beginning of his Tyranny In the creation of the Decem-virat the Senate and the People were guilty of very great error for though in our discourse of Dictators we have said before that those Magistrates only are pernitious to the publick liberty who set up themselves by force not they who are legally chosen and by the suffrage of the people yet the people are to take special care in the election of their Magistrates that they may not easily usurp But the Romans instead of placing Guards about their Decem-viri that might have kept them in order they not only took their Guards away but displaced all the rest of their Magistrates and made them absolute for that year and all out of a design to countermine one another the Nobility to suppress the Tribunes and the people the Consuls So that it hapned to them as Ferdinand King of Arragon was wont to say it hapned to men that hated one another that is that they acted like birds of prey all of them pursuing the quarry with equal rapacity but the little birds not regarding the greater over their heads are easily interrupted and made prey themselves But we have said enough to demonstrate the ill Counsel of the Romans in thinking to preserve their liberty by the creation of the Decem-virat and the errors of Appius in driving at the Soveraignty and miscarrying so soon CHAP. XLI For a mean man to grow immediately insolent or a meek man immediately cruel without just steps of gradation is both imprudent and unprofitable AMong the rest of Appius his faults in the management of his Tyranny it was of no little ill consequence that he changed his humour so suddenly his cunning in cajoling the people and pretending to be of their party was good his invention to renew the creation of the Ten was no worse his boldness in presenting himself contrary to the expectation of the Nobility was well enough and his creating Collegues for his turn was not amiss But having gone thus far as is said before to change his nature in a moment of a friend to become an enemy to the people of an humble and affable man to shew himself proud of a mild man to become difficult and perverse and all this with so little circumstance that the whole World might see it was either the falsness or levity of his temper was high indiscretion for he that has ever pretended to be good and is willing for his advantage to become otherwise must not do it at a leap but by degrees and upon occasion that before the diversity of his deportment deprives him of his old friends he may have gained himself new without diminution to his authority otherwise being discovered and deserted he is certainly ruined CHAP. XLII How easily mens manners are corrupted IT is remarkable likewise in the passages of the Decem-viri that men are easily corrupted and become wicked be their education never so good The youth which Appius debauched and took for his Guards is sufficient to prove it who though of honourable
violence and the Sword From whence we may judge and distinguish betwixt the inconvenience of the one and the other The people are appeased with gentleness and good words and the Prince not to be prevailed upon but by violence and force and if it be so who is it that will deny That the Disease is more dangerous where the Cure is most difficult Moreover when the people tumultuate there is not so much fear of any present mischief that they are likely to commit as of the consequences of it and that it may end in a tyranny But with ill Princes it is quite contrary the present misery is the most dreadful because they hope when he dyes their liberty may be recovered You see then the difference betwixt them one is more dangerous at present and the other for the future the cruelty of the people extends only to such as in their opinion conspire against the common good The severity of the Prince is more against them who design against his particular interest But this opinion of the people goes daily down the wind for every man has liberty to speak what he pleases against them though even the Government be popular But against a Prince no man can talk without a thousand apprehensions and dangers Nor will it seem to me incongruous the matter having drawn me thus far in my next Chapter to discourse what Confederacies are most safe those which are made with Princes or those which are made with Commonwealths CHAP. LIX What Leagues or Confederacies are most to be trusted Those which are made with Princes or those which are made with free States BEcause Princes with Princes and free States among themselves and many times with Princes do enter into leagues of friendship and confederacy I thought it not amiss to enquire in this place whose faith is the most firm and in whose amity the greatest confidence is to be reposed Having considered it diligently with my self it seems to me that in many cases they are alike and in some they differ And first when necessity of State requires and there is any visible danger of losing the Government neither the one nor the other are so precise but they will make bold with their engagements and behave themselves ingratefully Demetrius Poliorcetes had obliged the Athenians by many good Offices but his Army being aftewards defeated and himself flying to them for refuge as to his Confederates and Friends he was repulsed and not admitted into the City which troubled him more than the loss of his Army Pompey being beaten in Thessalia by Caesar fled likewise into Egypt to Ptolomy whom he had formerly restored to his Kingdom and was murthered by him for his confidence In both these Examples the ingratitude seems to be the same yet the inhumanity was greater on the Princes side than on the Common-wealths but be it as it will when the State is in danger they are neither of them scrupulous And if there be any Prince or Commonwealth so punctual as to preserve their league though with destruction to themselves it may proceed from the same causes It may very well happen that a Prince may confederate with some other great Potentate who though unable to defend him at that time may give him hopes notwithstanding of restoring him some other and persevere in his Confederacy as thinking that by having made himself of that Princes party he has rendered his accommodation with the adversary imposible This was the case of all the Neopolitan Princes who sided with the French in their Expedition unto those parts And as to the free States they suffered of old something in this Nature as Saguntum in Spain which City chose rather to expose its self to direption and all the Calamities of War than forsake its confederacy with the Romans and in the year 1512. Florence did almost the same to continue its amity with the French So that computing every thing and considering what both parties have done upon such imminent and irresistable danger I believe there is more constancy and firm friendship to be found among Commonwealths than among Princes for though perhaps they may have the same sentiments and inclinations as Princes yet their motions and resolutions being slower they are longer before they violate their faith But when their leagues and confederacies are to be broken upon the bare prospect of advantage in that case your Commonwealths are much more religious and severe and examples may be brought where a small gain has tempted a Prince when a great one could not move a Common-wealth Themistocles in an Oration to the Athenians told them That he had something to advise that would be infinitely to their advantage but durst not communicate it in publick because to publish it would hinder the Execution whereupon the people deputed Aristides to receive it and act in it afterwards as he should think convenient Themistocles acquainted him That the whole Grecian Fleet though under their passport and parole were in a place where they might be all taken or destroyed which would make the Athenians absolute Masters in those Seas and Aristides reported to the people That the Council of Themistocles was profitable but would be a great dishonour to their State upon which it was unanimously rejected But had the same occasion been offered to Philip of Macedon or some other Princes they would not have been so tender for it was a practice among them and especially with Philip who got more by breaking his faith than by all his other designs As to the breaches upon the non-observance of Articles they are ordinary things and I have nothing to say of them I speak only of extraordinary occasions and am of opinion from what I have said That the people do transgress less in that Nature than Princes and may therefore with more confidence be trusted CHAP. LX. How the Consulship and other Dignities in Rome were conferred without respect of age IT is manifest in the History of the Roman Commonwealth that after the people were made capable of the Consulship the Citizens were promiscuously prefer'd without respect either of age or extraction but any man was advanced for his Virtue whether he was a young man or an old and this was evident in Valerius Corvinus who was created Consul in the 23 year of his age upon which consideration in one of his Speeches to the Army he told them that the Consulship was Praemium Virtutis non Sanguinis The reward not of Nobility but Virtue Whether this was prudently done or not may admit of dispute But as to the receiving all sorts of persons to that dignity without consideration of their blood there was a necessity of that and the same necessity that was in Rome may happen in any other City that desires to do the same great things which were done in Rome of which we have spoken elsewhere For men are not to be persuaded to suffer but in hopes of reward and that hope cannot be
most to be admired for there is no example of any body that made use of it before them nor has any body imitated them since and as to the practice of the Tuscans and Aetolians in their Confederations there is no body follows it now a days but the Swizzers and the Suevians Which being so and so many brave things performed by the people of Rome as well for the conservation as the augmentation of their Empire it is not strange our affairs succeeded no better and that we have been a prey to whoever would invade us for to say nothing of the rest it has doubtless becom'd the Tuscans if they could not have imitated the Roman Discipline nor followed their measures in extending their Empire at least to have follow'd the example of their own Ancestors who though they brought not their Empire to that Grandeur and immensity as the Romans yet they enlarged it as far as they thought good and as far as consisted with the Nature of their Government and by doing so they kept it a long time with immortal honour to their memory till they were first shaken by the Gauls and afterwards so totally ruined by the Romans that there is scarce the lest token left that there was ever any such thing which having brought it into my mind to consider what may be the causes of this oblivion of things I shall discourse of them in the following Chapter CHAP. V. The variation of Religions and Languages with the accidents of Deluges and Plagues have been the cause that many great things have been forgotten IN my judgment it may be objected to those Philosophers who hold the world to be Eternal that if so long a course of antiquity was true it would be but reasonable that the memory of some of their affairs should have lasted above five thousand years yet there may be some reasons given for that oblivion of things and they seem twofold partly from the Nature of Man and partly from the influence of the Heavens the memory of great things are abolished from the nature of Man by the variation of their Religion or Language for when a new Religion is introduced the first care of him that would propagate it is to explode and extinguish whatever was memorable in the old to give the greater credit to his new innovation and if it fall out that the introducers of this new Sect be of a different language all goes to wreck and whatever was before is easily forgotten And that this is so appears by the institution of the Christian Religion whose first establishers did principally intend the cancelling and extirpation of all old Ethnick Customs Ceremonies and Theology and if there remained any memory of their affairs it was because there was no new language introduced with it the Christians being constrain'd to explain themselves in Latine whereas could they have done it in a new tongue considering their other persecutions we may conclude there would have been no memory left of their Religion or Worship For so diligent and zealous was Saint Gregory and other Moderators of the Christian Religion in abolishing the superstitions of the Gentiles that they caused the works of all the Poets and Historians to be burn'd which made any mention of them they threw down their Images and Idols and destroy'd all that might afford the least memory of Paganism to which diligence of theirs if a new language had been added in a short time all would have been utterly forgotton what therefore was done by the Christians for the extirpation of Gentilism it is not improbable but the Gentiles might have done of old for the extirpation of the Religion before And because in five or six thousand years Religion may be twice or thrice changed no wonder if what was before be so entirely lost that if there remains any thing of it it is looked upon as fabulous and incredible as it hapned to the Histories of Diodorus Siculus which gives an account of 40 or 50000 years and are not unworthily accounted false As to the Coelestial causes from the influence of the Heavens they are such as destroy mankind in general or reduce it to a very small number as great Mortalities Famines and inundations of Water but especially the last because the mischief is more universal and if any be saved it is only the Mountaneers which being commonly barbarous have no knowledge of antiquity and by consequence can convey nothing of it to their posterity and if it so happens that among them which are preserved some one man may be more learned than ordinary and have some knowledge of affairs to give himself a name and reputation afterwards he conceals preverts and transmits them as he pleases so that there remains to posterity no more than he thought fit to communicate Nor do I believe it is doubted but these accidents happen and Famine and Pestilence do sometimes rage in the world seeing all Histories mention them and this oblivion of things is a certain effect of them Nor is it unreasonable to think that the great Universe has its way of evacuation as well as the Microcosm for as in that when the humours are redundant and the body unable to digest them Nature exerts and finds out some way to throw them off without which the person must certainly miscarry so it is in the other when all Countries are repleat and no room left for those that are to come when the Cunning and Malignity of mankind is at the height there is a necessity the world should be purged by some of those three ways that men being reduced in their numbers and humbled under the consideration of their Mortality may if possible become better which being so no wonder if the Tuscans formerly so famous for their administration both in War and in Peace so eminent for their Courage and so venerable for their Religion should be oppressed by the Romans and so totally abolished that as is said before there remains nothing of them but the name CHAP. VI. How the Romans proceeded in making of War WE have already discoursed of the way of the Romans in extending their Empire we shall now speak of their Customs in the management of their Wars by which it will appear with what wisdom they deviated from the common ways of the world and by what easie methods they arrived at that Supremacy and Grandeur He who makes War at his own choice and is under no constraint or else by ambition has doubtless this end To get what he is able and to keep it whilst he can and rather to enrich than impoverish his own Country for such a one it is necessary to have regard to his charge and to see that neither the conquering nor maintaining are more expensive to him than will consist with his revenue This the Romans observed very strictly by coming strong and suddenly into the field for by that one practice all their Wars with the Latini Samnites and Tuscans were
Pistoia which 15 years since as it is now was divided into the Panciatichi and Cancellieri only then they were at open defyance which now they are not After many contests and disputes among themselves they proceeded to blood to the plundering and demolishing one anothers houses and committing all other hostilities imaginable The Florentines whose business it was to unite them used this third way which rather encreased than mitigated their tumults so that weary of that way and grown wiser by experience they made use of the second banished some of the Ring-leaders and imprisoned the rest whereby they not only quieted their differences then but have kept them so ever since But doubtless the safest way had been to cut them off at first and if those executions were forborn then by us or have been since by any other Commonwealth it is for no other cause but that they require a certain generosity and greatness of spirit that in weak Commonwealths is hardly to be found And these are the errors which as I said in the beginning are committed by the Princes of our times when they are to determine in such great controversies for they should inform themselves how others have comported in the same cases before them but they are so weak by reason of the slightness of our present education and their unexperience in History that they look upon the examples of the ancients as inhumane or impossible So that our modern opinions are as remote from the truth as that saying of our wise men was upon a time Che bisognavatener Pistoiacon le parti Pisacon le fortezze That Pistoia was to be kept under by factions and Pisa by a Citadel but they were mistaken in both What my judgment is about Citadels and such kind of Fortresses I have delivered elsewhere so as in this place I shall only demonstrate how unpracticable it is to keep Towns in subjection by fomenting their differences and factions and first it is impossible to keep both parties true to you be you Prince or Commonwealth or whatever for men are naturally so inconstant it cannot be that those parties which favour you to day should be affected to you always for they will still look out for some new Patron and Protector so that by degrees one of the parties taking some disgust against you the next War that happens you run a great hazard of losing your Town If it be under the Government of a State the City is in more danger than in the other case because each party looks out for friends among the great ones and will spare no pains nor mony to corrupt them From whence two great inconveniences do arise One is you can never make them love you because by reason of the frequent alteration of Governors and putting in sometimes a person of one humour and sometimes another of another they can never be well govern'd And then the other is by this fomenting of Factions your State must be necessarily divided Blondus speaking of the passages betwixt the Florentines and Pistoians confirms what we have said in these words Mentreche i Florentini disâ—gnavano de riunir Pistoia divisono se Medesimi Whilst the Florentines thought to have united the Pistoians they divided themselves In the year 1501. Arezzo revolted from the Florentines and the Valleys di Tenere and Chiana were entirely over-run by the Vitelli and Duke Valentine Whereupon Monsieur de Lant was sent from the King of France to see all that they had lost restored to the Florentines Wherever Monsieur de Lant came observing the persons that came to visit him did still profess themselves of the party of Morzocco he was much dissatisfied with their factions and more that they should declare themselves so freely for said he if in France any man should pronounce himself of the King's party he would be sure to be punished because it would imply that there was a party against the King and it was his Masters desire that his Kingdom and Cities should be all of a mind If therefore a Prince believes there is no way for him to keep his Towns in obedience but by keeping up Factions it is a certain argument of his weakness for being unable by force and courage to keep them under he betakes himself to these pernicious arts which in peaceable times may palliate a little but when troubles and adversity come will assuredly deceive him CHAP. XXVIII A strict eye is to be kept upon the Citizens for many times under pretence of Officiousness and Piety there is hid a principle of Tyranny The City of Rome being distressed for want of provisions and the publick stores being unable to supply it it came into the thoughts of Spurius Melius a rich Citizen of those times to furnish the Common people gratis out of his own private stock whereby he wrought himself so far into the favour of the people that the Senate suspecting the ill consequences of his bounty began to conspire his destruction before his interest became too great to which purpose they created a Dictator who put him to death from whence it may be observed that many times those actions which seem charitable and pious at first sight and are not reasonable to be condemned are notwithstanding cruel and dangerous for a State if not corrected in time To make this more clear I say a Commonwealth cannot be well governed nor indeed subsist without the assistance and ministry of powerful and great men and yet on the other side that power and reputation of particular Citizens is the occasion of tyranny To regulate this inconvenience it is necessary that seeing there must be great men things should be so ordered that they may have praise and reputation by such things as are rather useful than prejudicial to the State Wherefore it is carefully to be observed what ways they take to acquire their reputation and they are usually two either publick or private The publick way is when they arrive at their reputation by some good counsel or some great exploit which they have atchieved for the benefit of the publick and this way of reputation is not only not to be precluded to the Citizens but to be opened by such promises of reward for their good counsels or actions as may both dignify and inrich them and when a reputation is gained by these plain and sincere ways it is never to be feared But when their courses are private which is the other of the two ways they are dangerous nay totally pernitious Those private ways are by obliging particular persons by lending them mony by marrying their relations by defending them against the Magistrates and doing several other particular favours which may encourage their Clients to violate the Laws and vitiate the Commonwealth for which cause it ought to be so well fortified with good Laws that the endeavors of such ambitious men may be either discouraged or defeated and on the other side rewards proposed to such as
future should be treated the same way And thus they prevented all propositions of Peace and rendered their Soldiers obstinate and implacable to the Carthaginians CHAP. XXXIII To the obtaining a Victory it is necessary your Army has a confidence not only in one another but in their General TO win a Battel and overcome an Enemy it is necessary to give your Army such a confidence as may make them believe that nothing is able to withstanâ— them and the way of infusing this confidence is by Arming and exercising them well and giving them a knowledge and acquaintance one with the other which confidence and acquaintance is not to be expected but where your Soldiers are your own Subjects and have been brought up together The General is to be so qualified that the Soldiers may have confidence in his Wisdom and Conduct and they will always have such a confidence if they see him careful and regular and couragious and one who preserves the majesty of his command with discretion and reputation which he will do if he punishes strictly and put his Soldiers upon no over-hard and impertinent duty keeps his promises represent victory easie either by concealing or extenuating the dangers or by encouraging them bravely against them and these things rightly observed are of great consequence both to the Authority of the General and the obtaining the Victory The way which the Romans took to give this assurance to their Armies was by pretence of Religion for which cause before the creation of their Consuls the raising or marching or engaging of their Armies their Augures and Auspices were consulted and without some of these no wise General would undertake any great Enterprize believing they should certainly miscarry unless the Soldiers were thorowly convinced that the Gods were on their side And when any of their Consuls or other Commanders fought in defiance of these Auspices he was punished as Claudius Pulcher for despising the Omen of the Chickens And although this is obvious in every part of the Roman History yet it is better prov'd by the complaint of Appius Claudius to the people against the insolence of their Tribunes where he tells them that by their means the Auspices and other religious Customs were neglected or corrupted His words are these Eludant nunc licet Religionem quid enim interest si pulli non pascentur si ex cavea tardirts exierint succinuerit avis Parvasunt haec sed parvaista non contemnendo Majores nostri maximam hanc Rempublicam fecerunt Let them laugh at Religion as they please and cry what are we concerned if the Pullets won't eat if they come lazily out of their Penns or if a bird be disposed to sing 'T is true they are but trifles yet by not dispising those trifles our Ancestors brought this Commonwealth to the Grandeur it is at And it was true for those little things were sufficient to keep the Soldiers confident and united which are two things go very far in a Victory though without virture and valour they are not always successful The Prenestini being in the Field with their Army against the Romans they went and lodged themselves upon the River Allia in a place where the Romans had been beaten by the French that the consideration of the place might be an encouragement to their own men and a terror to the Romans And though this design was not improbable for the reason abovesaid yet it apeared by the success that true courage is not disturbed by every little accident as was well expressed by the Dictator to his Master of the House Vides tu fortuna illos fretos ad Alliam consedisse at tu fretus armis animisque invade mediam acien You see by their posting themselves upon the Allia they rely wholly upon Fortune do you trust to your Arms end your courage and attack their main Battel And he was in the right for true courage good discipline and a confidence arising from so many Victories cannot be discomposed by such frivolous stratagems light things will not dismay them nor every disorder distract them For even in the absence of their Officers Soldiers that are expert and accustomed to Arms are not easily beaten As appeared by the two Manlii both Consuls and making War upon the Volsci who having indiscreetly sent part of their Army to forrage it fell out that both the commanded party and those which were left behind were encompassed by the Enemy and as it were besieged both at a time out of which danger the Soldiers were delivered more by their own courage than any conduct in the Consuls whereupon Livy tells us Militum etiam sine Rectore stabilis virtus tutata est The stedfast courage of the Soldiers defended them without any help from their General Fabius had likewise an excellent way to confirm his Soldiers and possess them with a confidence which I cannot omit Having invaded Tuscany with a new Army supposing the novelty of the Country and their inexperience of that Enemy might have some influence among them to give them a confidence he called them together before the Battel and having in a grave Oration given several reasons why they might hope for the Victory he told them That he had another reason behind more certain than all of them but in that he must be private for to discover it would be to defeat it A wise way and deserves well to be imitated CHAP. XXXIV What vogue fame or opinion disposes the people first to favour some particular Citizen and whether they or a Prince distributes their Offices with most prudence and judgment WE have shown before how Titus Manlius called afterwards Torquatus preserved his Father L. Manlius from an accusation which Pomponius the Tribune had exhibited against him to the people And although the way which he took to preserve him was violent and irregular yet his filial affection to his Father was so grateful to the people that they not only not reprehended him for what he had done but advanced him to honour for being not long after to choose Tribunes for their Legions T. Manlius was the second that was made And here I think it not amiss to consider the way which the the people of Rome took in the distribution of their honours and election of Magistrates and to inquire into the truth of what I asserted before That the distributions of the people are better and more exact than the distributions of a Prince for the people follow the common and publick character of every man unless by some particular notion of his actions they presume or believe otherwise There are three ways by which a man may gain esteem and reputation with the people The first is by extraction when the Parents having been great men and serviceable to the Commonwealth the people take a fancy that their Children must of necessity be the same until by some ill act they convince them of the contrary The second way is to associate with grave
Xenophon in the Life of Cyrus tells us that when Cyrus went to invade the King of Armenia assigning several offices and places to the several parts of his Army he told them that Questa non era altro ch'una di quelle caccie le quali molte volte havenano fatte seco That this expedition was no more than one of those Chaces which they had taken frequently with him Those whom he placed as Scouts upon the Mountains he resembled to them who set their nets upon the hills and those who were to make excursions upon the plain were like them who were employed to rouse the Deer and force them into the Toyls And this is said by Xenophon to shew the resemblance and similitude betwixt hunting and war for which cause those kind of exercises are not only honourable but necessary for great persons and the rather because nothing gives a man so true a knowledg of the Country or imprints it more deeply and particularly in the memory and when a man has acquainted himself thorowly with one Country he may arrive more easily at the knowledg of other because all Countries and Coasts have some kind of proportion and conformity betwixt them so that the knowledg of the one contributes much to the understanding of the other But if before you have acquainted your self with your own you seek out new Regions you will hardly without great labour and long time come to the knowledg of either Whereas he that is well vers'd and practised in one shall at the first cast of his eye give you an account how that plain lies how that mountain rises and how far that valley extends and all by his former knowledg in that kind To confirm all this Titus Livius gives us an example in Publius Decius who being a military Tribune in the Army which the Consul Cornelius commanded against the Samnites and finding the said Consul and Army fallen by accident into a Vale where they might have been encompassed by the enemy and cut off Vides tu Aule Corneli said Decius to the Consul cacumâ—n illud supra hostem Arx illa est spei salutisque nostrae si eam quoniam caeci reliquere Samnites impigre capimus Do you see Sir that hill which hangs over the enemies Camp there lies our hope the blind Samnites haue neglected it and our safety depends upon the seizing of it quickly For said Livy before Publius Decius Tribunus militum unum editum in saltu Collem imminentem hostium Castris aditu arduum impedito agmini expeditis hand difficilem Publius Decius the military Tribune observed a hill over the enemies Camp not easily to be ascended by those who were compleatly arm'd but to those who were lightly arm'd accessible enough Whereupon being commanded to possess it by the Consul with 3000 men he obeyed his orders secur'd the Roman Army and designing to march away in the night and save both himself and his party Livy brings him in speaking these words to some of his Comrades Ite mecum ut dum lucis aliquid superest quibus locis hostes praesidia ponant qua pateat hinc exitus exploremus Haec omnia sagulo militari amictus ne Ducem circuire hostes notarent perlustravit Come along with me that whilst we have yet light we may explore where the enemy keeps his Guards and which way we may make our retreat and this he did in the habit of a private Souldier that the enemy might not suspect him for an Officer He then who considers what has been said will find how useful and necessary it is for a General to be acquainted with the nature of the Country for had not Decius understood those things very well he could not so suddenly have discerned the advantage of that hill and of what importance it would be to the preservation of the Roman Army neither could he have judged at that distance whether it was accessible or not and when he had possessed himself of it and was to draw off afterwards and follow the Consul being so environed by the Samnites he could never have found out the best way for his retreat nor have guessed so well where the enemy kept his Guards So that it must necessarily be that Decius had a perfect knowledg of the Country which knowledg made him secure that hill and the securing of that hill was the security of the Army After which by the same knowledg though he was as it were besieged by the enemy he found a way to make his own retreat and bring off his whole party CHAP. XL. How fraud in the management of War is honourable and glorious THough fraud in all other actions is abominable yet in matters of War it is laudable and glorious and he who overcomes his enemies by stratagem is as much to be praised as he who overcomes him by force This is to be seen by the judgment of those who write the Lives of great Persons especially of great Commanders for they command and applaud Hanibal and the rest in all their inventions of that nature There are many examples in them to this purpose which I shall not repeat here only this I must advertize that I do not intend that fraud which consists in betraying a trust or breaking an agreement to be honourable for though by them you may acquire Power and 't is possible a Kingdom yet as I said before it cannot be with honour but by fraud I mean that artifice which is shewn in stratagems and circumventions against an enemy that is not only in hostility but a state of defiance for where he reposes any confidence in you it alters the case and such as I mean was the artifice of Hanibal when he pretended to fly only to possess himself of some passes and so block up the Consul and his Army as also when to clear himself of Fabius Maximus he found out the invention of binding fire-brands and other combustible matter about the horns of the Cattel and turning them out upon the enemy And much of this nature was that of Pontius General for the Samnites which he used to circumvent the Roman Army ad Tureas Caudinas Pontius having disposed his Army privately upon the mountains sent several of his Souldiers habited like Shepherds with several herds of Cattel thorow the plain being all taken and examined by the Romans where the Army of the Samnites was they unanimously concurred in the story which Pontius had put into their mouths that it was gone to besiege Nocera which being credited by the Consul he brake up from his post and marching thorow the plain for the relief of Nocera he ran himself into the trap and was no sooner entred but he was block'd up by the enemy This exploit was fraudulently performed yet it would have been very honourable to Pontius had he followed his Father's advice who would have had him either dismissed the Romans frankly that they might have been obliged by their usage or else have put
the whole with death would be too severe and to punish one part and excuse another would be injust to those who were punish'd and encourage the other to commit the same offence again But where all are alike guilty to execute every tenth man by lots gives him who is to be punished occasion to complain only of his fortune and makes him who escapes afraid against the next time The good Women then who would have poyson'd their Husbands and the Priests of Bacchus were punished as they deserv'd and though these maladies in a Commonwealth have many times very ill Symptoms yet they are not mortal because there is still time enough for the cure But where the State is concern'd it is otherwise and time may be wanting and therefore if they be not seasonably and prudently redressed the whole Government may miscarry And this may be clear'd to us by what hapned in Rome The Romans having been very free in bestowing the freedom and priviledges of their City upon strangers the strangers grew so numerous by degrees and to have so great a Vote in the Councils that the whole Government began to totter and decline from its old to its new Inhabitants which being observed by Quiâ—â—us Fabius the Censor he applyed a remedy in time by reducing all the new Citizens into four Tribes that being contracted into so narrow a space they might not have so malignant an influence upon the City and this so timely and so useful expedient was taken so thankfully from him by the people that they gave him the addition of Maximus and he was called Fabius Maximus ever after THE ART OF WAR IN SEVEN BOOKS By NICHOLAS MACHIAVEL Newly Translated into ENGLISH and for the benefit of the Reader divided into CHAPTERS LONDON Printed for Iohn Starkey Charles Harper and Iohn Amery in Fleetstreet 1680. THE TRANSLATOR TO THE READER Kind Reader IT may seem strange to you at first that I have divided the Books of Machiavel and disposed them into Chapters contrary to the order of his Dialogues but I am assured when you consider my intention you will rather applaud than condemn me I was always sensible that no man could blame me if I kept exactly to my Author nevertheless I thought this way more beneficial the length of a Discourse being commonly tiresome to any man who affects brevity besides that in all sorts of Books these kind of breaches and sections are very helpful to the memory For this reason the Works of Aristotle Vitruvius and Pliny which were originally in another method have been reduc'd since into this manner of division I have presum'd to do the same in this my Translation having had more regard to the ease and advantage of the Reader than to the exact order of the Author whom I have not followed verbatim by reason of the diversity of the Languages yet his sense I have observed as strictly as would consist with the propriety of our own Language assuring my self that your bounty will dispence with some faults seeing nothing can be done so accurately but will be subject to many THE PREFACE OF NICOLO MACHIAVELLI TO Lorenzo the Son of Philippo Strozzi Gentleman of FLORENCE MAny have been and are still of opinion that in the whole world no two things are more incongruous and dissimilar than a Civil and a Military life insomuch that many times when a man designs himself for a Soldier he not only takes upon him a new habit but he changes his Customs his Company his manner of Discourse and leaves off all ways of civil conversation for he who would be light and nimble and ready for the execution of all sort of violence looks upon a civil habit as improper and cumbersome civil customs are unsuitable to him who thinks them soft and effeminate and inconsistant with the life he proposes and indeed it would be undecent if a man whose business it is to look big and Hector and fright the whole world with his Oaths and his Blasphemies should carry himself demurely and behave himself with the usual gentleness and complacency of other men and this is it which in our days makes this opinion true But if we consider the condition and method of old times we shall find no two things more united more conformable nor more necessarily amicable than they For all the Arts which are contrived in a City for the common good all the courses invented to keep men in fear of God and the Laws would be useless and vain were not force provided for their defence which force if well ordered will be able to make them good though perhaps the Laws are not so exact in themselves for this is most certain good Orders without Military coertion will quickly moulder to nothing and run to decay like a Noble and Princely Palace that is uncovered at the top and has nothing but the splendor and richness of its furniture to defend it from the weather And if anciently Kingdoms and States imploy'd great industry to keep people in peace and in the faith and fear of God certainly in the regulation of their Military Discipline they employed much more for where can ones Country repose greater confidence than in him who has promised to die for it Where can there be greater inclination to Peace than in him who is not capable of molestation or injury but by War Where can there be more fear of God than in him who being obnoxious to hourly dangers has more need of his divine assistance This necessity being well considered by those who gave Laws to Kingdoms and those who had the Command of their Armies was the cause that the life of a Souldier was in great reputation with all people and much imitated and follow'd But Military discipline being now totally deprav'd and degenerated from the practice of the ancients that depravity hath been the occasion of several ill opinions which have brought that Discipline into contempt and made all people hate and avoid the conversation of a Souldier But considering with my self both from what I have seen and read that it is not impossible to revive the discipline of our Ancestors and reduce it to its primitive excellence I resolved to keep my self from idleness to write what I thought might be to the satisfaction of such persons as were studious of the art of War and lovers of Antiquity 't is true 't is more than ordinary boldness to treat of this Subject where others have been so scrupulous and wary yet I cannot think it an error to write of what others have professed and exercised with much more audacity and presumption For my faults in writing may be corrected without prejudice to any body but those faults which they commit in the execution cannot be repair'd but by the destruction and ruine of several people consider then Sir the quality of my labours and according to your judgment let them be approved or rejected as you think they deserve I send them to you as
numbers were written upon their Helmets in great Characters calling them the first second third and fourth c. And not content with this every Soldier had the number of his File and the number of his place in that File engraven upon his Buckler Your Companies being in this manner made distinguishable by their Colours and accustomed to their Ranks and Files by practice and experience it is no hard matter though they be disordered to rally and reduce them suddenly again for as soon as the Colours are stuck down in the ground they are immediately visible and the Captains and Officers knowing which are their own repair themselves and dispose their Soldiers immediately to their places and when those on the left have placed themselves on the left hand and those which belong to the right hand on the right the Soldiers directed by their rules and the difference of their Colours fall immediately into their Ranks as easily as we put together the Staffes of a Barrel when we have marked them before These things if learned with diligence and exercise at first are quickly attained and hardly forgot for your raw men are directed by the old and in time a Province by these exercises might be made very fit for the War It is necessary therefore to teach them how to turn all together when to face about in the Rear or the Flanks and make Rear and Flank of the first Ranks when occasion is offered And this is no hard matter to do seeing it is sufficient that every man faces to that side he is commanded and where they turn their faces that is the Front True it is when they face to the Flank their Ranks do not hold their proportion because the distance betwixt the Front and the Rear is thereby much lessened and the distance betwixt the extremity of the Flanks is much encreased which is quite contrary to the genuine order of a Battalia for which cause great practice and discretion is required to rectifie it and yet this may be remedied by themselves But that which is of greater consequence and which requires more practice is when an Officer would turn his whole Company together as if it were a single man or a solid and massy body of it self And this requires longer experience than the other For if you would have it turn to the left the left corner must stand still and they who are next them march so leisurely that they in the right may not be put to run if they be it will breed confusion But because it always happens that when an Army marches from place to place that the Companies which are not in the Front are forced to fight in the Flanks or Rear so that one and the same Company is many times compelled to face about to the Flanks and Rear at one and the same time that these Companies therefore may in this exigence hold their old proportion according to what is said before it is necessary that they have Pikes in that Flank which is most likely to be attacked and Capidieci Captains and other Officers in their proper places CHAP. X. To range a Company in such order that it may be ready to face the Enemy on which side soever he comes Fabr. WHen you have marshalled your fourscore Files five in a File you are to put all your Pikes into the first twenty Files and place five of your Corporals in the head of them and five in the Rear The other 60 Files which follow are Bucklers all and consist of 300 men So then the first and last File of every Company are to be Corporals The Captain with his Ensign and Drum is to stand in the midst of the first hundred of Bucklers and every Centurion at the head of his Division When they are in this order if you desire to have your Pikes on the left hand you are to double them Company by Company from the right Flank if you would have them on the right you are to double from the left and this is the way by which a Company turns with the Pikes upon one Flank with their Officers at the Head and the Rear of them and their Captain in the midst and it is the form which is observed in a march But upon the approach of an Enemy when they would make a Front of a Flank they have no more to do but to command that all of them face about to that Flank where the Pikes are and in so doing the whole Battalia turns with its Files and Officers at the same time in the manner aforesaid for unless it be the Centurions they are all in their old places and the Centurions can quickly be there But when a Battalia marches in the Front and is in danger to be engaged in the Rear the Files are to be so ordered that the Pikes may be readily behind and to do this there needs no more but whereas usually in every Battalia every Century has five Files of Pikes in the Front those five Files may be placed in the Rear and in all other places the same order to be observed as before Cosimo If my memory fails not you said that this way of exercise is in order to the uniting these Battalia's into an Army and that this practice is sufficient to direct them in that But if it should happen this Squadron of 450 Foot should be to fight singly and by its self how would you order it then Fabritio He who commands them is to judge where his Pikes are to be disposed and place them as he thinks fit which is not at all consistant with what I have prescribed before for though that be a way to be observed in Battel upon an union or conjunction of several Squadrons yet it may serve as a rule in what ever condition you fall into But in showing you the two other ways which I recommended for the ordering of a Battalia I will satisfie you farther CHAP. XI To draw up a Company with two horns or another with a Piazza or vacuity in the middle TO come to the way of drawing up a Battalia or Squadron with two horns or points I say you must order your 80 Files five in a File after this manner In the midst you must place a Centurion with 25 Files two of Pikes to the left and three of Bucklers to the right when those five are disposed bring up the other twenty with twenty Files and File-leaders all of them to be placed betwixt the Pikes and the Bucklers only those who carry Pikes are to stand with the Pikes After these twenty five Files are so placed draw up another Centurion with fifteen Files of Bucklers after which the Constable or Captain is to draw into the middle with his Drum and his Colours with other fifteen Files of Bucklers This being performed the next to march up is the third Centurion who is to be at the head of 25 Files of 5 in a File three Bucklers to the left
advance than others Nevertheless in making a front of your right flank your Velites are to enter into the intervals betwixt the wings of the Army and the horse should approach to the left flank into whose place the two Companies of Pikes extraordinary which were placed in the middle should succeed but the carriages should remove and the unarm'd people by the great space and overture that is made and retire behind the left flank which is now become the rear of the whole Army and the other Velites who were placed in the rear at first are not to budge in this case because that place should not remain open being of the rear become the flanks all other things are to be done as in my first directions for the making of a front What is said before of making a front of the right flank will serve for making a front of the left flank for the same order is to be used if the Enemy comes upon you so strong that he is able to attack you on both sides you must fortify the places where you suspect he will charge by doubling your ranks from the place where he does not appear to fall on by dividing your Artillery your Velites and your Horse distributing them equally in both places If he assaults you in three or four sides at once you or he must be very imprudent for had you been wise you would never have put your self into a place where an enemy could have come at you on so many sides especially with a form'd and well ordered Army For to ruine you securely it is necessary the Enemy be strong enough to attack you on all sides and with as many men in every place almost as in your whole Army and if you be so indiscreet to march into his Country or put your self into the power of an enemy whose men are three times as many and as well experienced as yours if you miscarry you can blame no body but your self but if misfortune happens not by your fault but by accident of war no body will condemn you and it will fair with you as it did with Scipio in Spain and Asdrubal in Italy But if the Enemy be not much stronger than you and yet ventures to assault you in several places the rashness will be on his side and the success in all probability on yours for of necessity he must so weaken himself that you may receive him in one place and charge him briskly in another and then you will easily ruine him This way of ordering an Army against an enemy that is not in sight but is hourly expected is very necessary and it is very useful to accustom your Souldiers to close and change and march in this order and in their march to shew them how to fight according to my first front and then falling into their march again upon a new alarm in the rear to turn that into a front and then each of the flanks and so in their first posture again and these exercises are very necessary if you would have your Army ready and well disciplin'd For which cause I would recommend it to all Princes and great Captains to restore these practices of the ancients for what is military discipline but to know how to command and execute these things well what is a well disciplin'd Army but an Army train'd up well in these kind of exercises and he who in our times would but frame his discipline to this I am confident could never be worsted But to continue our discourse if this square figure be difficult it is not to be laid aside for that for that difficulty is necessary nevertheless exercise will make it easy for having learn'd how to draw your self up and preserve your figure you will easily understand afterwards how to maintain other figures in which there is not so much difficulty Zanobi I am of your mind that those orders are necessary and cannot tell as to my self what can be added or substracted Yet I would willingly be satisfied in two things One is when you would make a front of your rear or one of your flanks and would have your men face about how you do signify your commands whether by word of mouth or sound of trumpet The other is whether those you send before to plain the ways and make them passable for your Army are to be Souldiers drawn out of your Battalia's or other Country people designed on purpose for that work CHAP. IV. Of Commands derived by word of mouth by Drums and Trumpets and of the nature of Pioneers Fabr. YOur first demand is of very great importance for many Armies have been ruined when the Captain 's orders have been mistaken or not heard for which reason the words of Command in such great dangers ought to be clear and intelligible and if you would signify your commands by the sound of your Trumpets or Drums great care is to be taken that the sounds be so different and distinguishable one from the other that they cannot be mistaken If your commands are by word of mouth you must use particular and be sure to avoid general terms and in your particular words you must be cautious to use none that may be liable to an ill interpretation Many times the crying back back has been the loss of an Army wherefore that word is to be avoided and instead of it you are to say retreat If you would change your front and make it either in the flank or the rear you must not say turn but face about to the right or the left to the front or the rear and in like manner all the words of command are to be plain and intelligible as march on stand firm advance retreat and what ever may be done by word of mouth clearly and distinctly is to be signified that way what cannot be done that way is to be done by the Trumpet and Drum As to the Pioneers which is your second demand I would have that office performed by my own Souldiers as well because it was the practice of ancient times as because thereby I should have fewer idle persons in my Army and by consequence fewer impediments I would command out of every Battalia what number I thought necessary I would furnish them with Pickaxes and Spades and cause them to leave their arms with their next ranks who should carry them for them so that when the enemy appeared they should have no more to do but to fall back to their ranks and take them again Zanobi But who should carry their Pickaxes and Spades Fabr. There should be Waggons on purpose Zanobi I fear you would never prevail with your Souldiers to work Fabr. We will talk of that in its proper place at present I shall lay it aside and discourse of the way how they are to be supplyed with provisions for having tired them thus long 't is but reasonable to refresh them with victuals CHAP. V. Of the Provisions that are
performed but it was recompensed by the Consul and applauded publickly by the rest and those who received any of these prizes for any generous act besides the glory and fame which they acquired among their fellow Soldiers when they returned home into their Country they exhibited them to the view of their Relations and Friends and were received with great acclamation It is not then to be admired if that people extended its Empire so far being so far in their discipline and in the observation of their punishments and rewards towards such as by the generosity of their actions had merited the one or by their offences the other of which things I am of opinion the greatest part should be observed now I think it not amiss to mention one of their punishments and it was this The Criminal being convict before the Tribune or Consul was by him strook gently over the shoulders with a rod after which the Malefactor had liberty to run but as he had liberty to run so the rest of the Soldiers had liberty to kill him if they could so that immediately some threw stones at him some darts some stroke him with their Swords some with one thing some with another so that his life was but short for seldom any escaped and those who did escape could not return to their houses but with so much ignominy and scandal that they had much better have died This sort of punishment is in some measure used still by the Swissers who cause those who are condemned to pass thorow the Pikes which is a punishment well contrived and most commonly well executed for he who would order things so that a man should not side or defend a Malefactor cannot do better than to make him an instrument of his punishment because with another respect he favours and with another appetite he desires his punishment when he is Executioner himself than when the execution is committed to another To the end then that a Malefactor may not be favoured by the people nor upheld in his offence the best remedy is to refer him to their judgment To confirm this the example of Manlius Capitolinus may be brought who being accused by the Senate was defended by the people till they were made his Judges but when his case fell once into their Cognizance and they were made Arbitrators in the business they condemn'd him to death This then is the true way of punishing to prevent Seditions and execute Justice But because neither fear of the Laws nor reverence to men was sufficient to keep Soldiers to their duties and to a just observation of their discipline the Ancients added the fear and authority of God For this cause they made their Soldiers to swear with great Ceremony and Solemnity to preserve their discipline that if they transgress'd they might be in danger not only of humane Laws but divine Justice endeavouring by all industry to possess them with principles of Religion however they were false Battist I pray satisfie me whether the Romans permitted any Women in their Armies and whether they suffered their Soldiers to game as we do now adays in ours CHAP. VI. The Ancients had neither Women nor Gaming in their Armies and of the manner how they discamp'd Fabr. THe Romans allowed neither the one nor the other and indeed it required no great difficulty to prevent them for to speak truth the exercises to which they kept the Soldier constantly either in parties or together were so many that they had no time either for dalliance or play nor for any thing else that could make them mutinous or unserviceable Battista What you say pleases me very well But pray tell me when your Army Discamps what orders do you observe Fabritio The General 's Trumpet sounds three times The first sound they take down the Tents and the Pavillions and pack them up The second sound they load their Sumpters and the third they march in the same order as I said before with their Baggage and Train behind every Battalia and the Legions in the midst Then the Auxiliary Battalion moves and it's Baggage and Train after it and a fourth part of the common Baggage and Train which should consist of all those who were lodged in either of the quarters which I have shown before in the description of my Camp Wherefore it was convenient that each of the said quarters should be assigned to a Battalion that upon the motion of the Army every man might know in what place he was to march So that every Battalion was to march with its own Baggage and a fourth part of the common Baggage behind it and this was the manner which the Roman Army observed in its march as you may understand by what we have said Battista Tell us I beseech you in the placing of their Camps did the Romans use any other customs besides what you have related CHAP. VII The safety and health of a Camp is to be regarded and it is by no means to be besieged Fabr. I Must tell you again that the Romans in their Encampments were so constant to their old method that to retain that they applyed themselves with incredible diligence not regarding what pains or what trouble it required But two things they observed with a curiosity more than ordinary one was to place their Camp in an Air that was healthful and fresh And the other was to place it where the Enemy might not easily besiege them or cut off their provisions To avoid the unhealthfulness of the place they avoided all fenny and boggish places or where the wind was cold and unwholsom which unwholsomness they did not so much compute from the situation of the place as from the complexion of the Inhabitants and when they found them swarthy or blowsy they never encamped there As to the other thing never to be besieged or streightned by an Enemy you must consider the nature of the place both where your Friends are placed and where your Enemies and then to make your conjecture whether you can be besieged or no. It is necessary therefore a General be very skilful in the situation of the Country and that he have those about him who understand it as well as he Besides this there is another way of preventing diseases and that is by providing that no disorder be used in your Army for to keep it sound and in health the way is that your Army sleep in Tents That they be lodged as often as may be under Trees that are shady where they may have firring to dress their meat that they may not be obliged to march in the heat So that in the Summer time you must dislodge them before day and have a care in the Winter that they march not in the snow nor upon the ice without the convenience of fires That they want not necessary cloths nor be constrained to drink ill water you must command the Physitians of the Army to have a particular care of those
might have opportunity to clap between with their Army and get into the Town Again they are sometimes deluded by pretending to raise the Siege as Formio the Athenian did who having plundered and harrassed the Country of Calcidon received their Embassadors afterwards with propositions of Peace He gave them very good words and sent them back full of security and fair promises upon which the poor people presuming too much Formio fell suddenly upon them and overcame them Those who are shut up in a Town are to keep a strict eye upon such as they have any reason to suspect but they are sometimes to be secured and obliged to you by preferment as well as by punishment Marcellus knew that Lucius Baucius the Nolan was a great favourer of Hanibal yet he carried himself to him with so much kindness and generosity that of an Enemy he made him his intimate Friend CHAP. VIII Good Guard is to be kept in all places and times Fabr. THose who are in any fear of being besieged are to keep diligent guard as well when the Enemy is at a distance as at hand and they are to have most care of those places where they think themselves most secure for many Towns have been lost by being assaulted on that side where they thought themselves impregnable and this miscarriage arises from two causes either because the place is really strong and believed inaccessible or else because of the policy of the Enemy who with great clamour and noise pretend to storm it on one side whilst on the other he does it as vigorously but with all the silence imaginable And therefore it concerns the besieged to be very careful and keep good Guards upon the Walls especially in the night and that as well with Dogs as with Men for if they be fierce and watchful they will give an alarm if the Enemy approaches as soon as any thing And not only Dogs but Birds have been known to have preserved a Town as it happen'd to the Romans when the French besieged the Capitol when the Spartans lay before Athens Alcibiades to discover how his watches were kept commanded that in the night when ever he held up a light each of the Guards should hold up another and great punishment was to be inflicted upon any that neglected it Isâ—crates killed a Centinal that he found a-sleep with this expression I leave him as I found him CHAP. IX Ways to write privately to ones Friends Fabr. THose who have been besieged have contrived several ways of conveying intelligence to their friends not daring to trust their affairs to the tongue of a messenger they write in cyphers many times and conceal them several ways The cyphers are made according to every mans fancy and the ways of concealing them are divers some have writ on the in-side of a scabard of a Sword others have put their Letters up in Paste baked it and then given it for sustenance to the messenger that is to carry it some have hid them in their privities some in the collar of the messenger's dog There is another very useful and ingenious way and that is by writing an ordinary Letter about your private affairs and afterwards betwixt every two lines to write your intrigues with a certain kind of water that will never be discovered but by dipping it into other water or by holding it to the fire and by so doing the Letters will be visible And this trick has been very subtilly practised in our times in which a certain person having a desire to signifie a secret to some of his friends and not daring to trust it to a messenger he sent out Letters of Excommunication written very formerly but interlined as abovesaid and caused them to be fixed to the doors of the Churches which being known to his friends by some private marks they understood the whole business and this is a very good way for he who carries it may be deceived and he that writes it is in no great danger There are a thousand other ways invented according to every mans fancy and wit But it is much easier to write to those who are block'd up in a Town than for those who are besieged to write to their friends abroad because these Letters cannot be conveyed but by somebody who must pretend to run away out of the Town which is a hard and a dangerous thing if the enemy be any thing careful But 't is otherwise with Letters to be sent into a Town for a man has a thousand occasions to come into a Leaguer where he may watch his opportunity and slip into the Town CHAP. X. How to repair a breach and the way to defend it Fabr. BUt let us come now to the present way of beleaguering of Towns I say that if you be assaulted in a Town that is not fortified with ditches on the in-side as I have mentioned before that your enemy may not enter at the breaches which the Artillery make for against other breaches there is no remedy it is necessary whilst the Artillery is playing to cut a new ditch behind the breach of at least thirty yards wide and to throw all the earth that comes out of it towards the Town that it may make a good Rampart and add to the depth of the ditch and this work is to be carried on with such diligence that when the wall falls the ditch may be at least five or six yards deep and whilst they are at work to make this ditch it is necessary that they be secured with two Caseniats that may flank the Enemy in case he should endeavour to disturb them and if the wall be so strong as to give you time to make your ditch and your casemats that part which is battered will be the strongest part about the Town for that Rampart will be of the same form and model which we proposed for the ditch within But where the wall is so weak as to allow you no time then you must show your courage and present yourself bravely at the breach your Souldiers well arm'd and with as much chearfulness as is possible This way of throwing up new works was observed by the Pisans when you besieged it and they might do it well enough for their walls were strong which gave them time and the earth good and proper for Ramparts whereas had they wanted either of those conveniences they must of necessity have been lost It is wisdom therefore to make these ditches round about the Town before there be any necessity as we said before for in that case you may expect the enemy without fear CHAP. XI Of Mines Fabr. THe ancients took several Towns by mining under ground and that two ways either by carrying their mines under ground into the Town and entring thereby as the Romans did when they took the City of Vejentum or by undermining only the walls and so tumbling them down At present this latter way is more used than the other and
any thing of Virtue to require that their words should be like Oracles and of as much authority as if spoken by God himself to employ such as had no knowledge in affairs to commit great things to those who durst attempt nothing to believe every thing immediately without pondering and debating either their words or arguments that spoke them and several other imperfections which hindered them from seeing that at last they must become a prey to any that would attack them These things in the year 1494. were the occasion of those flights and fears and depredations by which three of the most potent States in Italy were frequently destroyed But the worst is they which remain continue in the same errors and live in the same disorder without any consideration that those who formerly desired to preserve their Dominions did all that I have prescribed this day and that their whole study was to accustom themselves both minds and bodies to labour to trouble and dispising of danger And this was the cause that Caesar and Alexander and all the valiant and brave Princes were always at the head of their Armies compleatly arm'd and on foot and rather than lose their states they would lose their lives so as they lived and dyed with a great deal of honour And though perhaps some of them might be condemned for their ambition and exorbitant desire to Reign yet they could never be accused of effeminacy or doing any thing that might render them delicate and unmanly Which passages if they were read and believed by the Princes of our times it would be impossible but they must alter their course of life and their Provinces their fortune But because in the beginning of our discourse you complained of your Militia I tell you that if you have ordered it according to my abovesaid direction and it has not answered your expectation you have reason to complain but if it be not ordered and exercised according to my rules the complaint lyes more properly against you who has made it rather an abortion than a perfect production The Venetians and the Duke of Ferrara began very well but they did not persevere and it was imputable rather to themselves than their Soldiers And let me affirm this to you for a truth and among all the present Princes of Italy he who takes his way first and observes these rules and these orders shall make himself greater than any Prince in that Country and it shall happen to his Subjects as to the Kingdom of Macedon which falling under the Dominion of King Philip was improved to that height by this order and exercise whilst the rest of Greece were idle and if employed at all it was in following Plays and Balls and such effeminat entertainments that in a few years time he was able to conquer the whole Country and leave a foundation to his Son to make himself Monarch of the whole world He then who despises this Doctrine if he be a Prince despises his own Principality and if a Citizen his own City And in this I cannot but complain of Nature who should either have not suffered me to have known these things or have given me power to have executed them which is a thing I can never hope for now as growing old and towards the end of my days For this reason I have discoursed the more frankly with you who are young and so qualified that you may be able if you be satisfied with what is said to give the same Council to your own Princes when occasion shall be offered and I hope with success and of this I beg you would not dispond for this Province seems to have a peculiar faculty of reviving things that are dead as it has done Poetry and Painting and Sculpture though for my own part I cannot expect to see it as having one foot already in the grave Certainly had fortune indulged me in my young days so far as to have afforded so much Territory as such an enterprise required I believe in a short time I would have demonstrated to the world the power and efficacy of the orders of the Ancients by means of which I should have enlarged my Dominions with honour or lost them without shame THE MARRIAGE OF BELPHEGOR BY Nicholas Machiavel IT is recorded in the ancient Chronicles of Florence that a certain holy Person whose life was the admiration of that age falling one day into a Trance had a very strange apparition it seemed to him that the souls of married men that came trooping in great numbers to Hell cried out all of them as they passed that their Marriage was the cause of their misery and their Wives the occasion of their coming thither Minos Radamanth and the whole infernal Privy-Council were amazed at the clamour at first they could not believe there was any thing in the business but at last observing the same complaints continually multiplyed they thought it fit to make Pluto acquainted Pluto understanding the report without imparting any thing to his wife who had taken Physick that week and kept her Chamber resolved the matter should be accurately examined and such course be taken as was likeliest to make the speediest discovery of the truth he issued out his Writs immediately and assembled his Courts his Princes Dukes Counts and Barons were all present never was Senate so full nor never was affair of that importance before it the holy Father that beheld all affirms positively that Pluto delivered himself in this manner Right Trusty and well-Beloved Though our Kingdom was assigned us from Heaven and the fatal decree has anciently determined our Dominion though that sentence be irrevocable and above the cognisance of any humane Power yet seeing his prudence is most safe that is dictated by Laws and his judgment most solid that is fortified with others we are resolved to take your counsels along with us which way we are to steer in an affair that otherwise may prove in time of great dishonour to our Government The souls of married men that are continually flocking into our Dominions do unanimously exclaim against their Wives as the only persons that send them tumbling hither to us it seems impossible yet forasmuch as a peremptory and determinate sentence upon their bare allegations would not suite with our Satanical mercy so a careless pretermission on the other side could not be without reflexion on our Iustice that matters of such importance therefore may have their due disquisition and our administration be defended from obloquy or scandal that no inconveniency may follow for want of deliberation and that some better expedient may be found out than ourselves have happily thought on we have thought good to call you together being confident and assured by the assistance of your counsels the honour and reputation of our Empire will be continued as unquestionable for the future as it has been preserved hitherto by our own proper care and solicitude There was not one present but