and by surveying these sacrifices to Empire the state Augurs and prudent Greeks did form a judgement how bloody and cruel would be the process of his Government For Soveraignty must be maintained by the same arts by which it is acquired and an Empire wickedly gotten by crimes was never exercised by vertue and honesty And as no good man will seek to be a Prince by wicked practices so no debauched Spirit that by impiety hath invaded a Principality will ever think to use it justly For either by his wicked practices to attain to it his Soul will be habituated to mischief or his desires to keep what he hath usurped will present to him a necessity to continue as he did begin Because Vices when once they have debauched the souls of men leave no place for moderation and he that in his projects for Greatness hath a long time meditated violence and cruelty will be like those ravenous beasts that having once tasted blood will become unsatiable and as Lions that having fed upon carcasses are still searching after the like And this appetite when it is once armed with the supremest power will sometimes when there is no necessity for preservation frolick with the lives of men and in a capricious humour or boast of Greatness drink humane blood and sport with mischief If Habits restrain not an Usurper from just courses yet the Necessities of State will and if he were desirous to abound with those acts which adorn men with the titles of Good yet the injustice of his entrance upon Government will make it exceeding difficult if not impossible for that will alwaies give him occasions of fear fear will seek for security security cannot be had by the affections of those to whom he hath given just cause of hate therefore he must make himself safe by more injuries and hence arises increase of hatred it being impossible that the Injurer and the Injured should ever be cemented by a solid faith which is the surest basis for a moderate Empire and lasting obedience and that Government will be alwaies odious and never good that must be maintained by violence Besides Tyrants meet with obstructions to a vertuous use of their power by those that assisted them in the acquisition the instruments of their Greatness will be their obstacles to Goodness for they being vitious by whom they did arise they must be no other to gratifie them and must neglect those ingaging Vertues that become Princes because they are obliged to such that are not fit to be Subjects His Vices render him not more hateful to the good then his Vertues doe to those that have been the ministers of his Tyranny to whom as well as to his own lusts he must be ready to prostitute the lives honours and goods of the best Citizens and sometimes his choicest friends as to the authors of his fortune So that the observation of Tacitus is very true Imperium flagitio acquisitum nemo unquam bonis artibus exercuit and it is apparent in the Life of Agathocles and verified in every Usurper Agathocles having laid his foundation by rude cruelty builds the Superstructures w th dissimulation an art thought so necessary for those whom Ambition makes thirsty or tenacious of Greatness that Tiberius who was well skilled in it esteemed it among his choicest Vertues alwaies appearing a modest refuser of what he passionately desired and when all things else died in him he strove to keep his dissimulation alive Andronicus by this onely Art arrived to the Greek Empire and had found it so prosperous that he made use of it when the enraged Multitude were in actual revenge of that Imperial and Patrician blood which he had spilt and as he was led to Execution continued his feigned Piety crying out Break not a bruised reed as if he thought dissimulation so powerful a charm that it would calm a tumult and that anger and fury had left a place for credulity Lewis the Eleventh of France a Prince of such an impatient Ambition that he could not bear with a private condition though in reversion to the Crown while his Father lived nor defer the jealousies of his own Son till his age might make him more aspiring and capable of Dominion had made such use of this artifice and was so successful in it as by it onely he ruined his too powerful enemy Charles Duke of Burgundy and therefore commended it to the Tutors of his Son as the onely lesson he should learn in Latine Qui nescit dissimulare nescit * Or regnare vivere Agathocles was as great an Artist in this as any man it being as necessary for him as for all those who project wicked designs and whose abject condition or hainous crimes have set them at a great distance from glorious hopes For noble actions and just titles have no need of dissimulation and generous spirits will scorn to use it because it is an evidence of baseness and a conviction of fear But Tyrants are never nice in any thing that is advantageous Therefore Agathocles that feared a present and immediate exercise of rule would too soon discover the cheat he had put upon the people and so make his settlement more difficult intended so to delude them that they should even force him to take that which he so eagerly thirsted for and bind the yoke of Slavery on their necks by their own Suffrages and by their own Law give him such a power that should force their obedience For though the multitude may be easily perswaded to any thing yet it is difficult to keep them constant in that perswasion without a power over them Nothing is more unstable then Greatness founded onely upon anothers pleasure nor are the favours of any more uncertain then those of the Vulgar therefore though he would be raised by them yet would he not be built upon them To bring this about he veils his designs with a dissembled Modesty A Vertue which when real is an ornament to the greatest fortunes but most lovely in those who pretend the publick good for nothing is more acceptable to men then those that break anothers Tyranny and modestly abstain from the same attempts To this purpose he assembles the People and his Souldiers to whom he remonstrates the miscarriages in Government of the Senate and objected to them all those Crimes which use to be charged upon those that have been in power To deliver therefore saith he the Commonwealth the publick grievances and not any private wrongs have called me forth and I could not but compassionate the Good people though I did not feel their miseries In the prosecution of which I confess we have used extraordinary and unusual means but yet such which Necessity and their own arrogancies do justifie for we could not crave helps from the Laws when their power and partisans had obstructed the ordinary course of Judicature And indeed the Safety of the people is the Supreme Lawâ— nor doth Justice
Qualities are more requisite then to contemn God vilify Mankind and hate all Religion and Justice He must know and dare to be exactly wicked and never intend any good beyond the appearance He must pretend an affection to Religion but it must be onely that he may deflower it not by it to contract a friendship and league with Heaven but that he may more easily cheat and execute his malice upon men Faithfulness and Truth must be esteemed by him as the most dangerous Rocks on which his Power would shipwrack therefore his Oathes and Promises are like those monstrous Chymaera's whose upper and more visible parts have an humane and beautiful aspect but in their extremities become most noxious Prodigies He permits the pleasures and lovely names of Mercy and Pity to soft souls and just Princes but neither time supplications or satiety which use to soften others can mitigate a Tyrants fury which is raised by his own jealousies for he must punish Suspicions as manifest Crimes and circumvent the Innocency of others to cover his own Guilt He must injure all he fears and hate all he hath injured To those unhappy people whom he hath enslaved he must endeavour to leave no more then the names and shapes of men and that their humane bodies be but false harbours for brutish Souls If it be possible he must rase out those principles of Liberty Vertue and Reason which Nature hath impressed on the Spirits of men For to be Vertuous under a Tyrant is to undermine his Empire because good Examples upbraid his Weakness and rebel against the Customes of his Lusts which he would have as a Law And Reason hath more light in it then will suffer a Tyrants arts to be undiscovered therefore he will murder all those whom he cannot corrupt lest they should be guides and lights for the recovery of Freedome and secure himself in the next Generation by introducing a barbarous Ignorance which shall obstruct the waies to Prudence and by vexing Vertue with ignominy and danger as the Romans punish'd criminal Virgins first deflouring them by the hangman and afterwards strangling them he extirpates the love of it out of the breasts of men He interprets Friendship and Love among his vassals as a dangerous Combination and therefore breaks all the ligaments of a Community which Religion or Nature have formed in it that he may twist the cords of Bondage stronger Religion which is the most binding cement of humane affections he renders weak by its variety and when the People cannot agree about their Gods they seldome conspire to any publick benefit or against a Common Enemy as a Tyrant is Or else he embases it with the alloy of wicked and abject Principles Men being seldome more generous then the Deities they worship and their spirits are but level to their Devotions From the Courts of Usurping Tyrants crept those monstrous Idolatries of Calves Dogs Cats and Crocodiles Their civil and natural unions must be broken also Publick conventions where converse creates a familiarity and that a mutual confidence as also publick Feasts which are the sinews of acquaintance are either wholly forbidden or made dangerous by his Spyes who are to gather up the loose speeches of men made free by wine and excess and form the simplicity of Table-talk into compacts of Treason so that by such treacheries an universal diffidence is created and members of the same City become as strange to each other as if they dwelt under the opposite Poles Nor can a Tyrant be safe unless he dissolve the private as well as the publick unions Therefore Wives are bribed with their own dishonour a licence for a wandering Lust and assurance of Alimonie to betray their Husbands Sons by too early hopes of Patrimony are sollicited to rifle their Fathers cabinets unlock their secrets and expose them to the Tyrants bloudie fury And Servants have a liberty beyond manumission to make their Masters bondmen For while every house flames with contention the Usurper may like Nero securely sing and play Their Fortunes must be no better then their Souls for he must make them poor and needy that all their cares being employed for necessary subsistence they may have no leisure to contrive their Liberty While his Gabels waste their goods he must make Warres to consume their multitude lest the contemplation of their Number produce a confidence in their strength to break that power which doth oppress them For Tyrants measure not their power by their own force but by the weakness of their miserable Vassals His Instruments of slavery must be such that either have no Reason to dispute or no Conscience to scruple the most impious Commands whose Fortunes are made by his spoiles of villany and whose safety onely depends upon his service Yet when they have performed his work he uses them as the Roman Aediles did beasts and malefactors in the Theatres when they would recreate the People in their Spectacula make them accuse and destroy one the other so they fall with the publick applause whom before he had objected to the publick hate For their obsequiousness to his lusts cannot secure them from his fury Because instruments of great crimes do even with their sight upbraid him that emploied them Or else he fearing that what they have done for him they may practise against him therefore he will serve them as those that killed the Post-horses by which they fled lest others should use them in their pursuit These are the Institutes of Tyrannie which the practices and dictates of former Usurpers have transmitted as Oracles religiously to be observed by such whose blinded Souls prefer Power to Vertue and an ignominious Greatness to the Innocency of a Private life And under such a Magistrate that shall conceive these as the Reiglements of Empire and Mysteries of State what can the People expect but the greatest miseries a Societie can be subject to To which kind of punishment incensed Heaven most commonly condemns an unquiet people who corrupted with Plenty and grown wanton by a long Peace become impatient of Laws and discontent with lawful Governours that when they know not how moderately to use a just Liberty they might be made sensible of the heaviest Slavery Usurpers proving to be the most insupportable Tyrants For although a lawful Prince may possibly degenerate into Tyranny yet hath he no necessity nor incentives to it because when his own Vertues or the happy memory of his Ancestors have commended him to the People's Love and he enters upon his Dignity with their Consent he cannot imagine unless infatuated to destruction any surer basis for his Power then what He first stood upon the Affections of his Subjects and the Justice of his Title But an Usurper that either by force or deceit hath imposed upon them doth in his very entrance create causes of Hatred in the People and of Fears in himself thence flow the contrary desires of Revenge and Security in each other which are not
to be satisfied but by mutual Injuries And he that wrestles with the People's hate will find himself as born under the Starre of Hercules who when he had cut off one of the Hydra's heads had his labours renewed by the sudden production of many more and while a Tyrant seeks to secure himself by injuring one of his suspected Enemies he will provoke a multitude more eager for his ruine So that he shall find himself necessitated if he will keep what he hath wickedly got to repeat his Crimes and increase their miseries till they become uncapable of Liberty stupid under their calamities and neither desirous nor able to take revenge Of the barbarous effects of this kind of Tyrannie no place was evermore sensible then the Island of Sicily a Country continually teeming with these Monsters who endeavouring to enslave their Cities and perpetuate their Dominion made that Island the Theatre of Misery and Villany And among all those plagues of mankind and disturbers of Society whose acts Antiquity hath transmitted to posterity none have their memories branded with more eternal marks of Infamy then Agathocles whose bloody Artifices and execrable practices to raise himself from an abject and base condition to an absolute Soveraignty and from being the most contemptible part of a Community to arrive at such a power as to trample upon the Liberties of his City made the Ancient Historians never mention him without the Title of The most Impious And Machiavel the modern Criuck of Policy and grand Instructor of Tyranny singles him out of the whole Herd of antique Monsters as the singular Patern of Tyranny and Example of such that by Injustice and Impiety will acquire Principality in whose ascent to Greatness he acknowledgeth no advantage by Vertue nor any favourable assistance from Fortune but that all his Power was the sole product of a monstrous Wickedness which will appear in this History of his Life AGATHOCLES the Syracusan Tyrant was the son of Carcinus a native of Rhegium a City in Italy who being banish'd from thence had seated himself at Thermae one of the Cities in Sicily that were then under the Dominion of the Carthaginians Where taking to Wife one of the Citizens daughters and she having conceived by him he was continually disquieted in his sleep with horrid dreams concerning the child his Wife was then pregnant with To put an end to these terrors and to be assured from the Gods what the issue should be of what his Dreams did but confusedly and imperfectly represent there was presented to him this opportunity The Carthaginian Commander in Sicily was at that time dispatching some Embassadors to the Oracle at Delphos to enquire of the Event of some publick design These men Carcinus acquaints with his present inquietudes and desires them to consult the Oracle concerning his expected Issue They satisfied his desire and received from the Oracle this answer That he which should be born should be a cause of exceeding great miseries both to the Carthaginians and all Sicily Which answer allaied not but increased the disquiets of Carcinus for he was now tortured betwixt the fear of the Punick wrath if he should foster their future Enemy and his Paternal affection which disswaded him from sacrificing his own Child whom the Gods had designed to some great emploiments or otherwise he could not cause such troubles that he might secure the Carthaginian fears that were but his imperious Oppressors and for the quiet of Sicily which was but his stepdame But at last his fears as is usual prevailed over his other affections and therefore left the breeding of his Child should be the cause of both their deaths he exposed it to perish in publick and some were appointed to watch its end But it being impossible to reverse the Decrees of Fate which though foreknown are not to be avoided his life out-lasted the patience of the Watchers who being tired in their expectation became more negligent in their charge which afforded his Mother an opportunity to steal him away by night But not daring to bring him home lest she should renew his danger or consulting the safety of her Husband she commits him to the care of her Brother Heraclidas and calls him after her Fathers name Agathocles This is the relation of Agathocles's first coming into the world a Birth proper for a Tyrant wherein he proved terrible and dangerous to those that were the Authors of his life But such Prodigies and Predictions as these are of a dubious credit and uncertain Original For although the Longanimity of Heaven that unwillingly punishes the sins of men may and doth sometimes by means that seem most proper to its infinite Wisdome before it strikes warn the World of those plagues that shall come upon them yet most of these Oracles which we meet with in History are post-nate and after the fact invented and published and that from various beginnings For sometimes the Vulgar who are more Superstitious then Religious will either find or frame a Prediction for every great Event Because they being ignorant of the true Causes of things and not able to observe the progress of Effects but considering the Event in its full product cannot but admire it and therefore attribute it to that power which onely can work wonders and so seek or make a Decree of Heaven that should convey the Issues through so many seeming difficulties Hence also it came to pass that when men of obscure births have performed great actions in the World their descent not fully appearing when their actions were full of splendour they have imagined their Vertue was to be their Herald and so did derive their pedegree from the Gods as Hercules from Jupiter and Romulus from Mars And because the Divine Providence willing to shew that its sole power and not the prudence of Men doth make them great doth often expose such in their Infancy to great dangers whom in their riper years it intends to advance to mighty Honours thereby beginning to demonstrate its force when Prudence cannot pretend to their preservation the Vulgar likewise fits by their fancies for those whom with admiration they behold raised from low beginnings to unexpected Greatness such entertainments in the World as must require the care of the Gods for their preservation Thus the Romans formed the beginnings of their Romulus and the Persians for their Cyrus and the Inhabitants of Spain for their King Habis Nor are the rude Multitude the onely authors of such fabulous Miracles but Tyrants themselves which accommodate their designs to the Vulgar fancies are frequently the very Oracles that frame Predictions concerning their own grandeur For these either designing the change of their Republicks or being already seized of power do labour to make the world believe that Heaven is of the Plot and concerned in their preservation nothing being more prevalent upon the minds of men then Religion which Tyrants by these Oracles make use of to produce an awe in their
is that which doth adjust the proceedings of this Commonwealth against our Old Enemy the faithless and barbarous Carthaginians a people made for the plague of the World and with whom Peace is more dangerous then War For their Religion is Cruelty and by a cursed emulation they are more bloody then the Gods they worship being inhumane to their own Children and barbaronsly ingrateful to their most faithful Commanders How miserable then must it needs be to be their Slaves These when Africk had nothing left but Sands and Desarts which had not submitted to their violent and perfidious arts to recreate their wanton thirst of blood and treasure have invaded Sicily pretending no other cause of war but our generous love of Liberty and their boundless desire of Tyranny To whose attempts had the Gods been pleased to favour our just arms we had put an issue at the Battel of Himera and forced them to bound their Insolencies with the Sea But Fortune not their Valour snatched the Victory frrm us there and hath now brought them to our Walls where unless we behave our selves as persons worthy of Liberty we must endure the heaviest Slavery and in chains be the abject spectators of the Rapes of our Wives the Murders of our Children aged Parents see them wanton with that Wealth which hath been the price of our sweat blood For how can we expect a tolerable Peace from them who make War not for Glory but for Wealth and Lust And in vain should we expect Faith from them that are the Examples of Perfidy to the whole world So that the continuance of the War as well as the beginnings are not matter of our choice but necessity If any shall imprudently condemn us that we rather provoked then expected the Punick Arms they are forgetful of the duty of a wise Prince who ought to foresee dangers and not decline a present Hazard to prevent a future Ruine Nor can that people escape the censure of being imprudent which is so in love with a present Peace that they will sit still untill their Enemie hath by inslaving all their less potent Neighbours made himself too strong for their resistance Such resolutions therefore that are necessary are not subject to blame or praise neither are they to be measured by the Event for many times sage Counsels want that desired Success which often attends those that are indiscreet And if the approbation of either should depend upon the Issue men would be incouraged to erre and disheartned from giving their Country those safe advices which are the resolves of Prudence Since therefore it was neither in our power nor should it have been our choice to have avoided the War and that the Gods would not give Victory as the Merit of our Cause if we will retain our Liberty which should be more precious then our Lives there remains nothing now to doe but stoutly to wait for the return of our Fortune and with patience endure the miseries of a Siege which I doubt will be very great yet I that have learned to be unhappy can easily endure for it is some alleviation of misery to know the greatness of our Misfortune but my spirit is grieved for those of the Good people that must be shut up with me and must be necessitated to endure those unaccustomed dangers and continual fears Therefore I require all such as think themselves unequal to so adverse a fortune to forsake the Town and secure themselves and their goods where they can hope for most Peace and Safety All those that were Rich whose abundance made them soft and who feared to hazard their Wealth to maintain the Tyrants Greatness and such whose Hate of him made them willing to leave the den of such a Monster were credulous of what he said and accepted of this profer'd Liberty But they soon learnt that a Tyrant is never to be believed even in his most melting expressions or lowest condition for he had appointed his Mercenaries to kill them as they offered to depart and to seize their goods Thus by a compendious Villany he delivered himself of sixteen hundred men which he did not dare to trust in the Town and inriched himself with their Goods which they were removing farther from him Having by these wicked arts provided all things necessary for his purpose the rest that he could not order he permits to Fate knowing that something must be ventured and that many things which exceed the providence of man are often by Fortune disposed for the best These his provisions and Souldiers together with himself and his Son Archagathus he brings a shipboard so waiting for an opportunity to get out of the Haven resolving to take his counsels for that from the accidents of Fortune for many times such counsels do discover themselves in working which in a bare expectation had been for ever lost The concealment of his Design was no less wonderful then the boldness of it for he had communicated his intentions to none either through his natural Pride or fear of discovery and disappointment or doubting the contradiction of his Friends and Counsellors which is the common bane of Counsels For men commonly through opiniastrete dislike and labour to overthrow those designs which though never so noble proceeded not from themselves Or fearing the discouragement of his Army For Vulgar spirits are alwaies enemies to difficult undertakings Therefore for some or all these reasons he suppressed his Intentions onely giving forth that he had found out a new and safe way of Victory This great concealment caused several discourses among the Speculativi Some conceived that this way was to sail into Italy and there gather up such whom great necessities made hazardous and with them to attempt the fortune of a second Battel Others that his intent was to land his little party in some other places of that Island that were under the African Empire and so divert the Enemy from the Siege of Syracuse But all concluded those unhappy men as lost and devoted to destruction that were forced to follow the Rashness of such a Commander that seemed infatuated to ruine So they wept over their Friends and Kindred whose miserable departure from among the living seemed to be respited onely by the Carthaginian Fleet that then lay in the mouth of the Haven This Obstruction had so long delaied Agathocles that he grew almost mad to get forth he saw it was impossible and to stand still was dangerous Therefore when his restless Mind had presented many plots and upon the rejecting of one had suggested another and none would attain his end at length Fortune administred such an advantage as his own Reason or Power could never have invented or made For some of the Victualling vessels that had been sent forth to bring Provisions to the City were now returning and being come somewhat near the shore were discovered by the Enemy who presently with their whole Fleet made up to take them and