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
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
offenders and this was the first appearance of justice in the World after which being to make Election of their Prince they did not so much respect the ability of his body as the qualifications of his mind choosing him that was most prudent and just but by degrees their Government coming to be Hereditary and not by Election according to their former way those which inherited degenerated from their Ancestors and neglecting all virtuous actions began to believe that Princes were exalted for no other end but to discriminate themselvcs from their subjects by their pomp luxury and all other effeminate qualities by which means they fell into the hatred of the people and by consequence became afraid of them and that fear encreasing they began to meditate revenge oppressing some and disobliging others till insensibly the Government altered and fell into Tyranny And these were the first grounds of ruine the first occasion of Conjuration and Conspiracy against Princes not so much in the pusillanimous and poor as in those whose generosity spirit and riches would not suffer them to submit to so dishonourable administrations The multitude following the authority of the Nobles took up Arms against their Prince and having conquered and extirpated that Government they subjected themselves to the Nobility which had freed them and detesting the name of a single person they took the Government upon themselves and at first reflecting upon the late Tyranny governed according to new Laws devised by themselves postponing particular profit to publick advantage so that both the one and the other were preserved and managed with great diligence and exactness But their authority afterwards descending upon their Sons who being ignorant of the variations of fortune as not having experimented her inconstancy and not contenting themselves with a civil equality but falling into rapine oppression ambition and adulteries they changed the Government again and brought it from an Optimacy to be governed by few without any respect or consideration of Justice or Civility so that in a short time it hapned to them as to the Tyrant for the multitude being weary of their Government were ready to assist any body that would attempt to remove it by which means in a short time it was extinguished And forasmuch as the tyranny of their Prince and the insolence of their Nobles were fresh in their memory they resolved to restore neither the one nor the other but conclude upon a popular State which was regulated so as neither Prince nor Noble should have any authority and there being no States but are reverenced at first this Populacy continued for some time but not long especially after its Founders for it fell immediately into an irresistible licentiousness contemning all authority both publick and private and every man living after his own mind a thousand injuries were daily committed so that forc'd by necessity by the suggestions of some good maâ— or for avoiding the like enormities they returned to their primitive Kingship and from thence by degrees relapsed again in the manner and upon the occasions aforesaid And this is the Sphear and Circle in which all Republicks have and do move but it seldom or never happens that they return to the same circumstances of Government again because it is scarce possible for any of them to be so long liv'd as to pass many times thorow the same mutations and remain upon its legs It sometimes comes to pass likewise that in the conflicts and troubles of a State being destitute both of counsel and force it becomes a prey to some neighbouring Commonwealth that is better governed than it but admitting that could not be Governments would fall from one to another and make an infinite circulation For these reasons all the foresaid forms of Government are in my judgment infirm and unstable the three good ones from the shortness of man's life and the three bad ones from their proper imperfections Whereupon the wisest Legislators finding this defect and avoiding every one of those kinds they fram'd a Government which should consist of them all believing it to be more permanent and stable because Prince Nobles and People living in the same City and Communicating in the same Government they would be all of them in sight of one another and more capable of correction The person which in this kind has merited most praise was Lycurgus who ordered his Laws in Sparta in such manner that giving King Nobility and People each of them their portion he erected a Government that continued for more than eight hundred years to his great honour and that Cities repose To Solon it hapned clear otherwise who was the Athenian Legislator whose aiming only at a popular Government was the cause it was so short lived that before he died he saw the tyranny of Pisistrates spring out of it and though forty years after the Tyrant's Heirs were expelled and Athens restored to its liberty yet resuming the old model which Solon had recommended it could not continue above an hundred years notwithstanding many new laws were super-added to restrain the insolence of the Nobility and the looseness of the Commons But there being no mixture and temperament of Principality and Optimacy with the other in respect of Sparta Athens was but of little duration But to return to Rome though it had not a Lycurgus to obstetricate at its birth and supply it with such Laws as might preserve its freedom so long Nevertheless the accidents which hapned upon the dissention betwixt the people and the Senate produced that in some measure which was defective at its foundation for though in its beginning its Laws and Orders were imperfect yet it did not altogether deflect from the right way which was to conduct it to perfection Romulus Numa and all the rest of its Kings making many good laws conformable to its freedom But their ultimate design being to perpetuate their Monarchy though that City remained free there were many things omitted by those Princes which were necessary for its conservation And though it fell out their Kings lost their Dominion upon the abovesaid occasions yet those who expulsed them creating two Consuls in their stead they rather drove the name than the authority of Kingship out of the City After which the Government residing in the Consuls and Senate it consisted only of two of the three sorts Monarchy and Aristocracy it remained now to give place only to a popular Government and the Roman Nobility being grown insolent upon occasions which shall be mentioned hereafter the people tumultuated took up Arms against them and prevailed so far that lest otherwise they might lose all it was consented the people should have their share and yet the Senate and Consuls on the other hand retain so much of their former authority as to keep up their degrees as before and this was the beginning of the Tribunes of the people after the creation of which that State became better established every one of the three sorts
grant it This was not according to the discretion of the Romans for the Duke being very strong and the Florentines but weak it had been more for their honour to have granted him passage when they could not obstruct it that what they could not resist might have been imputed to their courtesie But there is no remedy 't is the property of weak States to do every thing amiss and never to do well but in spight of their teeths for there is no such thing as prudence amongst them And this Florence has verified in two other cases In the year 1500. when Lewis XII had repossessed himself of Milan he had an inclination to restore Pisa to the Florentines upon the payment of 50000 Florens To this purpose he sent thither his Army under the Command of Mounsieur de Beaumont in whom though a French man the Florentines had great confidence Beaumont came up with his Army betwixt Cassina and Pisa and lodged it conveniently for the battering the Town having been two or three days before it and all things ready for the assault Commissioners came out and offered to surrender to the French upon condition that he would engage upon the honor of his Master that it should not in four months time be delivered to the Florentine to which the Florentines not consenting the Commissioners returned The cause why the Florentines refused it was their jealousie of the King though they had put themselves under his protection They did not consider that the King could better have put the Town into their hands when he was Master of it himself and if he had refused it it would have discover'd him than promise to do it when he was not in possession and yet they be forced to purchase that promise at a very great rate Two years after Arezzo revolted and the King sent Seigneur Iubalt with supplies to the Florentines who had besieged the Town Iubalt was no sooner arrived but the Inhabitants of Arezzo made him the same proffer and the Florentines could not be brought to consent Iubalt resented it and knowing it to be a great fault he practised privately with the Aretines without Communicating with the Florentine Commissaries An agreement was clap'd up betwixt them by virtue of which Iubalt entred the Town and reproached the Florentines by their indiscretion as people wholly inexperienced in the affairs of the world He told them if they desired to have it they should signifie it to the King who would be better able to gratifie them in the Town than without The Florentines were highly offended and spake very hardly of Iubalt till they considered that of Beaumont had done the same at Pisa they had both as well as one I say therefore that weak and irresolute States do seldom take good Counsels unless they be forced for their weakness suffers them not to deliberate where any thing is doubtful and if that doubt be not removed by a violent necessity they never come to a resolution but are always in suspence CHAP. XXXIX Divers People have many times the same Accidents WHoever compares past things with the present will find that in all Ages men have had the same humours and appetites as now So that 't is an easie matter by consulting what is pass'd not only in all common-wealths to see what will follow but to provide such remedies as their Predecessors did apply or if there be no Presidents to invent new remedies according to the similitude of the accidents But because these considerations are neglected History not read or not understood at least by him who governs it comes to pass that all Ages have their miscarriages and troubles The City of Florence after the Government had stood 94 years having lost a good part of its Territory as Pisa and other Towns was forced to make War upon those who possessed them and the Inhabitants being strong and unwilling to restore them much was spent in the War to very little purpose Their great expence occasioned great Taxes and their impositions upon the people made them mutinous and unquiet These affairs were administred by a Magistracy of ten Citizens who were called the Dieci della Guerra The people began to repine and to complain that the said Counsel was the cause of the War and that they embezled their Money That the best way would be to remove them from that Office or when their time was expired to choose no more but let the Government fall back into its old channel again These grave Persons who had the superintendancy of the War were no sooner discharged but things grew worse and worse and instead of recovering Pisa and the rest of the Towns in dispute they lost Arezzo and several other places The people finding their mistake and that their malady was rather from the Feaver than the Physitian they restored the ten Commissaries which before they had cashier'd The people of Rome had the same fancy against the Consuls and would not believe but they were the causes of all their distractions and that to settle all things and preserve themselves in peace the best way would be to remove them entirely and provide that there should never be any more or else to restrain and limit their authority in such manner that they should have no power over them either within the City or without They believed that all proceeded from the ambition of the Nobility who not being able to chastise the people in the City because they were protected by their Tribunes contrived to carry them out of Town under the command of their Consuls to correct them where they should not be capable of any redress The first man who had the confidence to propose it was Terentillus a Tribune who moved that it might be committed to five persons to consider the power of the Consuls and to appoint limitations The Nobility opposed it and it is probable employed all their interest against it for it was no less than to debase the Majesty of the Government and leave themselves no dignity in the commonwealth Nevertheless the obstinacy of the Tribunes was such that the Name of Consul was laid aside and after several experiments the people chose rather to create their Tribunes with Consular power than to create new Consuls again showing thereby that their quarrel was not so much against the authority as Name But they found their error at length and restored their Consuls as the Florentines did their Council of ten CHAP. XL. 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 BEfore we discourse of the troubles and commotions which hapned in Rome by means of the Decem-virat it will not be amiss to give a short history of its Creation in which there are many things well worthy our remark as well for the preservation as destruction of a State and this discourse will remonstrate the errors both of the
the Adriatick Sea which were not inhabited they escap'd after them themselves The Padouans seeing the fire so near them concluding when Aquilegia was taken his next visit would be to them sent away their Goods Wives Children and unserviceable people to a place in the same Sea call'd Rivo Alto leaving the young men and such as were able to bear Arms for the defence of the Town The Inhabitants of Montfelice and the Hills about it fearing the same destiny remov'd to the same Islands Aquilegia being taken and Padoua Montfelice Vicenza and Verona overcome and sack'd by Aâ—tila's Army those which remain'd of the Padouans and the most considerable of the rest setled their Habitations in certain Fenns and Marshes about the aforesaid Rivo Alto and all the people about that Province which was anciently call'd Venetia being driven out of their Countrey by the same Calamities joyn'd themselves with them changing by necessity their pleasant and plentiful Habitations for rude and barren places void of all Commodity and Convenience But their number being great and their Quarter but small in a short time they made it not only habitable but delightful framing such Laws and Orders to themselves as secur'd them against miseries of their Neighbours and in a short time made them considerable both for reputation and force So that besidâ—â— their first inhabitants many people resorting to them from the Cities of Lombardy upon occasion of the Cruelty of Clefi King of the Lombards they multiply'd so fast that when Pepin King of France at the solicitation of the Pope undertooke to drive the Lombards out of Italy in the Treaties betwixt him and the Emperour of Greece it was agreed that the Duke of Benevento and the Venetians should be subject neither to the one nor the other but injoy their Liberty to themselves Moreover Necessity having determin'd their Habitations among the Waters having no Land to supply them it forc'd them to look about which way they might live and applying to Navigation they began to trade about the World and not only furnish'd themselves with necessary Provisions but by degrees brought thither such variety of Merchandize that other people which had need of them came to them to be supply'd At first having no thoughts of Dominion they were wholly intent upon what might facilitate their Trade and in order thereunto they acquir'd several Ports both in Greece and Syria and in their passage into Asia the French making use of their Ships they gave them by way of Recompence the Island of Candia While they lived at this rate their Name was grown formidable at Sea and so venerable at Land that in most Controversies betwixt their Neighbours they were the only Arbitrators as it happen'd in the difference betwixt the Confederates upon the division of the Towns where the cause being referred to them they awarded Bergamo and Brescia to the Visconti But having afterwards in process of time conquer'd Padoua Vicenza Trivegi and after them Verona Bergamo and Brescia besides several Towns in Romagna and else where their power began to be so considerable that not only the Princes of Italy but the greatest and most remote Kings were afraid to provoke them Whereupon entring into a Conspiracy against them the Venetians lost all in one day that in so many Years and with so vast Expence they had been gaining and though in our times they may have recover'd it in part yet not having regain'd their Reputation and Power they live at the mercy of other people as indeed all the Princes of Italy do Benedict XII being Pope looking upon Italy as lost and fearing that Lodovic the Emperour should make himself Master of it he resolv'd to enter into strict Amity with all those who held any Lands that belong'd formerly to the Empire presuming their fear to be dispossess'd would make them faithful in the defence of Italy and zealous to keep him out accordingly he publish'd a Decree to confirm all the usurp'd Titles in Lombardy and to continue their Possession But that Pope died before his Promise could be made good and Clement VI. succeeded him The Emperour observing with what libâ—rality the Pope had dispos'd of the Lands belonging to the Empire that he might not be behind him in so generous a point he gave all Lands that had been usurp'd from the Church to such persons as had usurp'd them to hold them of the Empire as the other of the Pope By which Donation Galeotto Maletesti and his Brothers became Lords of Rimini Pesaro and Fano Antonio da Montefeltro of la Marca and Urbin Gentil da Varano of Camerino Giovanni Manfredi of Faenza Guido di Polenta of Ravenna Sinebaldo Or delaffi of Furli and Cesena Lodovico Aledosi of Imola besides many others in other places so that of all the Lands which belong'd to the Church there was scarce any left without an interloper by which means till the time of Alexander VI. the Church was very weak but he recover'd its Authority in our days with the destruction of most of their Posterity At the time of this Concession the Emperour was at Taranto where he gave out his Design was for Italy which was the occasion of great Wars in Lombardy in which the Visconti made themselves Lords of Parma About this time Robert King of Naples died and left two Grand Children by his Son Charles who died not long before leaving his eldest Daughter Giovanna Heir to the Crown with injunction to marry Andrâ—a Son to the King of Hungary who was his Nephew But they liv'd not long together before Andrea was poison'd by her and she married again to Lodovic Prince of Taranto her near Kins-man But Lewis King of Hungary Brother to Andrea to revenge his death came into Italy with an Army and drave Giovanna and her Husband out of the Kingdom About these times there happen'd a very memorable passage in Rome One Nicholas di Lorenzo Chancellor in the Capitol having forc'd the Senate out of Rome under the Title of Tribune made himself head of that Common-wealth reducing it into its ancient form with so much Justice and Virtue that not only the neighbouring Provinces but all Italy sent Embassadours to him The ancient Provinces seeing that City so strangely reviv'd began to lift up their Heads and pay it a respect some out of fear and some out of hopes But Nicholas notwithstanding the greatness of his Reputation not able to comport with so great an Authority deserted it himself for being overburthen'd with the weight of it he left it in the very beginning and without any constraint stole privately away to the King of Bohemia who by the Popes Order in affront to Lewis of Bavaria was made Emperour and to gratifie his Patron he secur'd Nicholas and Clapt him in prison Not long after as it had been in imitation of Nicholas one Francesco Baroncegli possest himself of the Tribuneship and turn'd the Senators out of Rome so that the Pope
House of Amidei The Lady much dissatisfy'd with her Omission hoping nevertheless her Daughters Beauty might be able to dissolve the Contract seeing him pass one day alone towards her House she took her Daughter along and went down to accost him and opening the Gate as he went by she saluted him and told him she could not but congratulate his Marriage though indeed she had kept her Daughter presenting her to him in hopes she should have been the Bride The young Gentleman beholding the Excellent Beauty of the Damotselle contemplating her Extraction and that her Fortune was not at all Inferiour to the persons he had chosen fell immediately into such a passion and desire to Marry her that not considering the promise he had made the injustice he should commit nor the ill consequences that might follow he reply'd Seeing Madam you have preserv'd her for me being not yet too late it would be ingratitude to refuse her and without more adoe he Married her The notice of his inconstancy was no sooner divulg'd but it was taken in great indignity by the Families of the Amidei and Uberti who at that time were nearly ally'd Having consulted among themselves and several others of their Relations it was concluded the affront was insupportable and not to be expiated but by the death of Messr Buondelmonte and though some remonstrated the evils which might follow Moscha Lamberti repli'd That to consider every thing was to resolve on nothing super-adding an old Adage That a thing once done is not capable of Remedy upon which the Fact being determin'd the perpetration was committed to the said Moscha Stiatta Uberti Lambertuccio Amidei and Oderigo Fifanti Upon Easter-day in the morning they address'd themselves to the work and being privately convey'd to a House belonging to the Amidei between the Old Bridge and St. Stephans Messr Buondelmonte passing the River upon a White Horse as if an injury could as easily have been forgotten as a Marriage have been broken they set upon him at the foot of the Bridge and slew him under a Statue of Mars which was placed thereby This Murder divided the whole City part of it siding with the Buondelmonti and part with the Uberti and both the Families being powerful in Houses Castles and Men the Quarrel continued many years before either could be ejected yet though the animosity could not be extinguish'd by a firm and stable peace yet things were palliated and compos'd sometimes for the present by certain Truces and Cessations by which means according to the variety of accidents they were sometimes at quiet and sometimes together by the Ears In this Condition Florence continued till the Reign of Frederick 11. who being King of Naples and desirous to strengthen himself against the Church to corroborate his interest in Tuscany joyn'd himself to the Uberti and their party by whose assistance the Buondelmonti were driven out of Florence and that City as all Italy had done before began to divide into the Factions of the Guelfs and the Ghibilins Nor will it be amiss to commemorate how each Family was ingag'd The Families therefore which sided with the Guelfs were the Buondelmonti Nerti Rossi Frescobaldi Mozzi Baldi Pulchi Gherardini Foraboschi Bagnesi Guidalotti Sacchetti Manieri Lucardesi Chiaramonti Compiobbesi Cavalcanti Giandonati Gianfiliazzi Scali Guallerotti Importuni Bostichi Tornaquinci Vecchietti Fosinghi Arrigucci Agli Silii Adimari Visdomini Donati Pazzi della Bella Ardinghi Theobaldi Cerchi With the Ghibilines there joyned the Uberti Manelli Ubriachi Fifanti Amidei Infanganti Malespini Scolari Guidi Galli Capprardi Lamberti Soldanieri Cipriani Toschi Amieri Palermini Migliorelli Pigli Barucci Cattani Agolanti Bruneleschi Caponsachi Elisei Abbati Fedaldini Guiocchi Galigai to which Families of the Nobility many of the populacy joyn'd themselves on each side as their interest or affections carried them so that in a manner the whole City was ingag'd either on one side or the other The Guelfs being driven out retir'd into the Vale upon the River Arnus mention'd before and the greatest part of their Garrisons being there they defended them as well as they could against the Attacks of their Enemies But when Frederick dyed those persons who were Neuters retaining great interest and reputation with the people thought it more serviceable to the City of Florence to reconcile their differences and unite them than by fomenting them to destroy it Whereupon endeavouring a Composure they prevail'd at length that the Guelfs should lay aside their indignation and return and the Ghibilines renounce their suspicion and receive them Being united in this manner it was thought seasonable to provide for their liberty and to contrive some Laws for their defence before the new Emperour should get the power into his hands In order thereunto they divided the City into six parts They chose twelve Citizens two for each part which under the title of Antiani they invested with the Government but chang'd them every year To prevent any animosity that might arise from the determination of the matters judicial they constituted two Forreign Judges one of them call'd the Captain of the people and the other the Podesta to decide all Civil and Criminal Causes which should occur And because Laws are but transient and of little duration where there is no power to defend them they establish'd XX Colours in the City and 76 in the Territory under which all the youth was listed and oblig'd to be ready in their Arms under their respective Colours as often and whenever the Captain or Antiani should require them Moreover as their Ensigns were distinct so were their Arms some of them consisted of Cross-bows some of them of Halbards Their Ensigns were chang'd at every Pentecost with great solemnity and dispos'd to new Men and new Captains put over their Companies Besides to add Majesty to their Army and provide a refuge for such as were wounded or disabled in Fight where they might refresh and recruit again to make head against the Enemy they order'd a large Charriot cover'd with Red and drawn by two white Oxen upon which their Standard of White and Red was to be placed Whenever their Army was to be drawn out this Charriot was to be drawn into the Market-place and with great formality consign'd to the Captains of the people For the greater magnificence and ostentation of their Enterprizes they had moreover a great Bell call'd Martinello which Rung cotinually a month before they march'd with their Army that the Enemy might have so much time to provide for his Defence So much Gallantry there was then amongst men and with so much Magnanimity they behav'd themselves that whereas now adays it is reputed policy and wisdom to surprize an Enemy and fall upon him while he is unprovided it was then thought treacherous and ignoble This Bell when they march'd was carried along with the Army and by it the Guards set and relieved and other Military Orders deriv'd By this Discipline in Civil and Martial
Lieutenant in Florence The King granted their request sent the Conte to them forthwith and the adverse party though the Signori also were Enemies to the King had not the Courage to oppose him But the Conte for all that had not much Authority confer'd because the Signori and Gonfalonieri of the Companies were favourers of Laudo and his accomplices During these troubles in Florence the daughter of Alberto coming out of Germany pass'd by the City in her way to her husband Charles Son to King Robert She was very honourably received by such as were friends to the King who complaining to her of the sad Condition of their City and the Tyranny of Laudo and his party she promis'd her assistance and by the help of her interposition and such as were sent thither from the King the Citizens were reconcil'd Laudo depos'd from his Authority and sent home to Agobbio full of treasure and blood Laudo being gone they fell to Reform and the Signoria was confirm'd by the King for three years longer and because before there were VII in the Senate of Laudo's party VI new were chosen of the Kings and they continu'd XIII for sometime but they were reduced afterwards to VII their old number About this time Ugucciene was driven out of Lucca and Pisa and Castruccio Castracani a Citizen of Lucca succeeded him in the Government and being a brave and Couragious young Gentleman and Fortunate in all his Undertakings in a short time he made himself Chief of the Ghibilin faction in Tuscany For this cause laying aside their private discords the Florentines for several years made it their business first to obstruct the growth of Castruccio's Power and afterwards in case he should grow powerful against their will to consider which way they were to defend themselves against him and that the Signori might deliberate with more Counsel and Execute with more Authority they Created XII Citizens which they call'd Buonhuomini without whose advice and concurrence the Signori were not to do any thing of importance In the mean time the Authority of King Robert expir'd the Government devolv'd once more upon the City which set up the old Rectori and Magistrates as formerly and their fear of Castruccio kept them Friends and united Castruccio after many brave things performed against the Lord's of Lunigiana sat down before Prato The Florentines alarm'd at the news resolv'd to relieve it and shutting up their Shops they got together in a confus'd and tumultuous manner about 20000 Foot and 1500 Horse and to lessen the force of Castruccio and add to their own Proclamation was made by the Signori that what ever Rebel of the Guelfs should come in to the relief of Prato should be restor'd afterwards to his Country upon which Proclamation more than 4000 of the Guelfs came in and joyned with them by which accession their Army being become formidable they march'd with all speed towards Prato but Castruccio having no mind to hazard a Battail against to considerable a force drew off and retreated to Lucca Upon his retreat great Controversie arose in the Army betwixt the Nobility and the people The people would have pursued and fought in hopes to have overcome and destroyed him the Nobility would return alledging they had done enough already in exposing Florence for the relief of Prato That there being a necessity for that it was well enough done but now no necessity being upon them little to be gotten and much to be lost fortune was not to be tempted nor the Enemy to be follow'd Not being able to accord among themselves the business was referred to the Signori which consisting of Nobility and Commons they fell into the same difference of opinion which being known to the City they assembled in great multitudes in the Piazza threatning the Nobility highly till at last they condescended But their resolution coming too late and many constrain'd to joyn in it against their persuasions the Enemy had time and drew safely off to Lucca This difference put the people into such a huff against the Nobility the Signori refus'd to perform the Promise they made to the Rebels which came in upon Proclamation which the Rebels perceiving they resolv'd to be before hand if possible and accordingly presented themselves at the Gates of the City to be admitted before the Army came up but their design being suspected miscarryed and they were beaten back by those who were left in the Town To try if they could obtain that by treaty which they could not compass by force they sent eight Embassadors to the Signori to commemorate to them the Faith they had given the dangers they had run thereupon and that it could not be unreasonable they should have their promised reward The Nobility thought themselves obliged having promis'd them particularly as well as the Signori and therefore imploy'd all their interest for the advantage of the Rebels but the Commons being inrag'd that the Enterprize against Castruccio was not prosecuted as it might have been would not consent which turn'd afterwards to the great shame and dishonour of the City The Nobility being many of them disgusted thereat endeavoured that by force which was denyed them upon applications and agreed with the Guelfs that if they would attempt their entrance without they would take up Arms in their assistance within but their Plot being discover'd the Day before it was to be Executed when the banish'd Guelfs came to make their attack they found the City in Arms and all things so well dispos'd to repell them without and suppress those within that none of them durst venture and so the Enterprize was given over without any effort The Rebels being departed it was thought fit those Persons should be punish'd who invited them thither nevertheless though every Body could point at the delinquents yet no Body durst Name them much more accuse them That the truth might impartially be known it was ordered that the Names of the Offendors should be written down and deliver'd privately to the Captain which being done the Persons accused were Amerigo Donati Teghiaio Frescobaldi and Loteringo Gherardini whose Judges being now more favourable than perhaps their crime deserv'd they were only condemn'd to pay a Sum of Money and came off The tumults in Florence upon the alarm by the Rebels demonstrated clearly that to the Company of the People one Captain was not sufficient and therefore it was ordered for the future that every Company should have three or four and every Gonfalonier two or three join'd to them which should be call'd Pennonieri that in case of necessity where the whole Company could not be drawn out part of it might appear under one of the said Officers And as it happens in all Common-wealths after any great accident some or other of the old Laws are abrogated and others reviv'd to supply them so the Signoria being at first but occasional and temporary the Senators and Collegi then in being having the
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
in those times had serv'd formerly under the Duke But then he was revolted from him and come over to the Venetian The Venetian was uncertain what to determine not daring to be too confident of Carmignuola because not sure whether his animosity to the Duke was real or pretended Whilst they remain'd in this suspence the Duke found a way by corrupting one of his Servants to cause him to be poison'd but the poison being too weak did not kill him out-right but brought him to great extremity The Venetians having notice of this laid their suspition aside and the Florentines continuing their solicitations they enter'd into League with them by which it was agreed the War should be prosecuted by both parties at the common expence that what ever should be taken in Lombardy should be deliver'd to the Venetians and what ever in Romagna and Tuscany should be put into the hands of the Florentines and Carmignuola was made General of the League By means of this alliance the War was transfer'd into Lombardy where it was manag'd by Carmignuola with that discretion and courage that in a few months time he took several Towns from the Duke and Brescia among the rest which last in those times and according to the method of those Wars was accounted a miracle This War continued five years and the Citizens of Florence were much impoverish'd by the Taxes which had been continued as long Hereupon a regulation was agreed upon and that all people might be charg'd according to their Estates it was propos'd the Personal Estate should be chargeable as well as the real and that who ever had to the value of a hundred Florens in goods should pay half a proportion But there being Law and Authority to levy this Tax but not men enough to compel them the Grandees were disgusted and oppos'd it before it was perfectly concluded only Giovanni de Medici promoted it so vigorously that he carried it against them all And because in the Books of assesment every man's goods were rated which the Florentines call Accatastare this imposition was call'd Catasto Moreover this Law restrain'd the Tyranny of the Nobles not permitting them to strike or terrifie such as were inferior to them in the Counsels as formerly they had presum'd This Tax therefore though accepted chearfully enough by the Commons went much against the minds of the Nobility But it being in the Nature of man never to be satisfi'd and as soon as possess'd of what with great vehemence he desir'd to wish as fiercely for another The people not content with the proportions set them by the Law demanded a retrospection and that it might be consider'd how much the Nobility had paid less in times past than was now allotted them by the Catasto and that they might be forc'd to pay it for the reinbursement of such as had sold their Estates to enable them to pay their Taxes before This proportion affrighted the Grandees much more than the Catasto so that to defend themselves against both they decry'd the Catasto as unjust and unequal in laying a Duty upon goods and houshold-stuff which are here to day and lost to morrow and exempting mony which many people kept privatly in their hands so as the Catasto could not discover it To which they added that it was not but reasonable those Persons who relinquish'd or neglected their own private affairs for the better management of the publick should be favour'd in the Taxes for devoting their whole labour to the benefit of the State there was no justice nor equity in the World that the City should have the profits of their Industry and Estate and from others receive only the contribution of their Estates Those who were for the Catasto reply'd that as their goods varied the Taxes might be varied too and to any inconvenience from that a remedy might be found As to the mony conceal'd that was not to be consider'd for making no profit of it there was no reason it should be paid for and when ever they imploy'd it it would be sure to be discover'd For the pains they took and their solicitude for their Country if it were troublesome to them they might have liberty to retire for there was no doubt but some well affected Citizens would be found who would not repine to serve the City both with their Counsel and Estates and that there were so many honors and other perquisits attending those great Offices as might suffice any reasonable Persons without abatement of their Taxes But their great discontent was from another cause the Nobility were offended that they could not make War at other peoples charge as they were us'd to do formerly but were oblig'd to bear their share as well as their Neighbours Had this way been found out before there would have been no War with King Ladisâ—ao then nor with Duke Philip now both which Wars were undertaken to fill the coffers of some particular Citizens more than for any general necessity but this commotion of humours was appeas'd by Giovanni de Medici who convinc'd the people it was not convenient to look backward That their business now was to provide carefully for the future and if the former impositions had been unequal and injust they were to thank God a way was found to relieve them and not make that a means to divide which was intended to unite the City as it would certainly do if the old assesments and the new were adjusted for it was better to be contented with half a victory than to venture all for an absolute many instances making it out that where more has been striv'd for all has been lost With these and such like discourses he pacified the people and the design of retrospection was quiâ—e laid aside However the War with the Duke being carried on for a while a peace at length was concluded at Ferrara by the mediation of a Legate from the Pope But the Duke not observing the conditions at first the League took Arms again and coming to an engagement with his Army at Maclovio they defeated him quite and forc'd the Duke to new propositions which were accepted by the League by the Florentines because they were grown jealous of the Venetian and sensible that the vast charge which their City was at was to make others more powerful than themselves by the Venetians because they observ'd Carmignuola after the Duke was overthrown to advance but slowly and make little or no advantage of his victory so as they could not place any further confidence in him In this manner the peace was concluded in the year 1428 by which the Florentines were restor'd to what they had lost in Romagna the Venetians had Brescia and the Duke gave them Bergamo and the Territory belonging to it over and above This War cost the Florentines 3 millions and five thousand Ducats the success of which was Grandeur and Authority to the Venetian but poverty and dissention to themselves Peace being
to purpose and recommend what is to be debated and resolved upon by the Magistrates in the Council In the same City there are many Noble Families so mighty and potent they are not without difficulty to be brought to any obedience to the Magistrate Of all those Families the Tregosi and Adorni are most powerful and wealthy and from them spring all the divisions of the City and all the contempt of the Laws for differing perpetually among themselves and pretending both to the Dogeship they are not contented to have it fairly decided but came many times to blows by which as one is set up the other is always depressed and sometimes it fals out that that party which is over-power'd and unable to carry that Office otherwise calls in foreign assistance and prostitutes that Government which they cannot enjoy themselves to the dominion of a stranger By this means it comes often to pass that they who have the Government in Lombardy have the command of Genoa likewise as it happened at the time when Alphonso was taken prisoner Among the principal Citizens of Genoa who caused that City to be delivered into the hands of the Duke Francisco Spinola was one who not long after he had been very active to enslave his Country became suspected to the Duke as it often happens in those cases Francisco being highly dissatisfied left the Town and by a kind of voluntary exile had his residence at Caietta being there at that time when the engagement was with Alphonso and having behav'd himself very well in it he presumed he had again merited so much favour from the Duke as to be permitted to live quietly in Genoa but finding the Duke's jealousie to continue as not believing he that had betrayed his Country could ever be true to him he resolved to try a new experiment to restore his Country to its liberty and himself to his honour and security at once believing no remedy could be administred so properly to his fellow Citzens as by the same hand which gave them their wound Observing therefore the general indignation against the Duke for having delivered the King he concluded it a convenient time to put his designs in execution and accordingly he communicated his resolutions with certain Persons which he had some confidence were of the same opinion and encouraged them to follow him It happened to be S. Iohn Baptist's day which is a great Festival in that City when Arismino a new Governor sent them from the Duke made his entry into Genoa Being entred into the Town in the Company of Opicino his predecessor in the Government and other considerable Citizens Francisco Spinola thought it no time to protract but running forth Armed into the streets with such as were before privy to his design he drew them up in the Piazza before his house and cryed out Liberty Liberty 'T is not to be imagined with what alacrity the people and Citizens ran to him at that very name insomuch that if any out of interest or other consideration retain'd an affection for the Duke they were so far from having time to arm and make defence they had scarce leisure to escape Arismino with some of the Genoeses of his party fled into the Castle which was kept for the Duke Opicino presuming he might get thither fled towards the Palace where he had 2000 men at his command with which he supposed he might not only be able to secure himself but to animate the people to a defence but he reckoned without his Host for before he could reach it he was knock'd on the head torn in pieces by the multitude and his members drag'd about the Streets After this the Genoeses having put themselves under new Magistrates and Officers of their own the Castle and all other posts which were kept for the Duke were reduced and the City perfectly freed from its dependance on the Duke these things thus managed though at first they gave the Princes of Italy occasion to apprehend the growing greatness of the Duke yet now observing their conclusion they did not despair of being able to curb him and therefore notwithstanding their late League with him the Florentines Venetians and Genoeses made a new one among themselves Whereupon Rinaldo de gli Albizi and the other chief Florentine Exiles seeing the face of affairs altered and all things tending to confusion they conceived hopes of persuading the Duke to a War against Florence and going upon that design to Milan Rinaldo accosted the Duke as followeth If we who have been formerly your Enemies do now with confidence supplicate your assistance for our return into our own Country neither your Highness nor any body else who considers the Progress of humane affairs and the volubility of fortune ought at all to be surprized seeing both of our pass'd and present actions of what we have done formerly to your self and of what we intend now to our Country we can give a clear and a reasonable account No good man will reproach another for defending his Country which way soever he defends it Nor was it ever our thoughts to injure you but to preserve our Country which will be evident if you consider how in the greatest stream of our victories and success we no sooner found your Highness dispos'd to a peace but we readily embraced it and pursued it with more eagerness than your self so that as yet we are not conscious to our selves of any thing that may make us doubt of your favour Neither can our Country in justice complain that we are now pressing and importuning your Highness to imploy those Arms against it when we have obstinately oppos'd them before in its defence for that Country ought equally to be beloved by all which is equally indulgent to all and not that which despising the rest advances and admires only a few No-body maintains it unlawful in all cases to bear Arms against ones Country Cities are mix'd bodies yet have they their resemblance with natural bodies and as in these many diseases grow which are not to be cur'd without violence so in the other many times such inconveniences arise that a charitable and good Citizen would be more criminal to leave it infirm than to cure it though with amputation and the loss of some of its members What greater distemper can befal a politick body than servitude And what more proper remedy can be applyed than that which will certainly remove it Wars are just when they are necessary and Arms are charitable when there is no other hopes left to obtain justice I know not what necessity can be greater than ours nor what act of charity more commendable than to wrest our Country out of the jaws of slavery Our cause then being both just and charitable ought not to be slighted either by us or your Highness though it were only in compassion But your Highness has your particular provocation besides the Florentines having had the confidence after a peace
solemnly concluded with you to enter into a new League with the Genoeses your Rebels so that if our prayers and condition should be unable your own just indignation and resentment should move you especially seeing the enterprize so easie Let not their pass'd carriage discourage you you have seen their power and resolution to defend themselves formerly and both of them were reasonably to be apprehended were they the same now as they have been But you will find them quite contrary for what strength what wealth can be expected in a City which has lately exploded the greatest part of its rich and industrious men What obstinacy or resolution can be apprehended in a people which are divided and at enmity among themselves Which enmity is the cause that that very treasure which is left cannot now be imployed so well as it formerly was for men do chearfully disburse when they see it is for the honour and security of their Country hoping that peace may reprize what the War has devour'd But when in War and Peace they find themselves equally oppressed and under a necessity in the one of enduring the outrages of their enemies and in the other of truckling to the insolencies of their friends No-body will supply our advance one farthing towards its relief and the people suffer more many times by the avarice of their friends than by the rapacity of their enemies for in this last case they have hopes some time or other to see an end of it but in the other they are desperate In your last War you took up Arms against an intire and united City in this you have to do only with a remnant Then you attempted upon the liberty of the City now you will endeavour to restore it and it is not to be feared that in such disparity of causes the effects should be the same Nay rather your Victory is certain and what advantage and corroboration that will be to your own State is easily judged having Tuscany obliged to you thereby and readier to serve you in any of your designs than Milan it self So that though formerly this acquest would have been look'd upon as usurpation and violence it will be now esteemed an high piece of justice and charity Suffer not therefore this opportunity to pass and be sure if your other enterprizes against this City have produced nothing but expence difficulty and dishonour this will make you amends and with great ease turn to your great honour and advantage The Duke needed not many words to excite him against the Florentines he had an hereditary quarel to them which besides the blindness of his ambition did always provoke him and now more than ordinarily upon occasion of their new League with the Genoeses However the expences and dangers he had formerly pass'd the memory of his late defeat and the vanity and ill-grounded hopes of the exiles discouraged him quite The Duke upon the first news of the Rebellion in Genoa sent Nicolo Piccinino with what Forces he had and could get together towards that City to recover it if possible before the Citizens should have compos'd themselves or put the Government into order presuming much upon the Castle which stood out for him And though Nicolo drove the Genoeses up into the Mountains and took from them the vale of Pozivori where they had fortified themselves yet he found so much difficulty afterwards though he had beat them into the Town that he was forc'd to draw off Whereupon at the instigation of the exiles he received orders from the Duke that he should attack them on the East-side of the River and make what devastations he could in their Country towards Pisa supposing that by the success of this expedition he should be able to judge from time to time what course he was to steer Upon the receit of these orders Nicolo assaulted Serezana and took it and then having done much mischief in those parts to alarm the Florentines he marched towards Lucca giving out he would pass that way into the Kingdom of Naples to assist the King of Aragon Pope Eugenius upon these new accidents departed from Florence to Bologna where he proposed and negotiated an accommodation betwixt the Duke and the League representing to the Duke that if he would not comply he would be forc'd to part with the Conte Francesco to the League for Francesco being his confederate was at that time under his pay But though his Holiness took much pains in the business that treaty came to nothing for the Duke would not consent unless Genoa were restored and the League were as obstinate to have it remain free so that all parties growing diffident of the peace each of them began to make provision for War Nicolo Pinccinino being arrived at Lucca the Florentines began to apprehend new troubles caused Neri di Gino to march with all speed into the Country of Pisa and obtained of the Pope that Conte Francesco might joyn with him and their united Forces take their Post before St. Gonda Piccinino being at Lucca desired a passport to go into the Kingdom of Naples and being denied he threatened to force it The Armies and Officers were of equal number and eminence so that neither side being over-forward to run the hazard of a Battel by reason of the extraordinary coldness of the weather it being in December they lay by one another several days without any action at all The first that moved was Nicolo Piccinino who was inform'd that if in the night he assaulted Vico Pisano he should easily carry it Nicolo attempted it but failing of his design he plundered the Country about it and burn'd the Town of S. Giovanni alla Venâ— This enterprize though for the most part ineffectual encouraged Nicolo to proceed nevertheless especially observing that the Conte and Neri stir'd not to molest him thereupon he assaulted St. Maria in Castello and Filetto and took them both nor did the Florentine Army move for all that not that the Conte was affraid to come forth but because the Magistrates in Florence out of respect to the Pope who was mediating a peace had not as yet resolved upon the War and that which was but prudence in the Florentines being interpreted fear by the enemy they took courage and with all the Forces they could make sate down before Barga The news of that siege caused the Florentines to lay aside all compliments and respect and to resolve not only to relieve Barga but to invade the Country of the Lucchesi Whereupon the Conte marching directly against Nicolo and giving Battel to force him from the Siege he worsted his Army and made him draw off the Venetians in the mean time perceiving the Duke had broke the League sent Giovan Francesco da Gonzague their General with an Army as far as Chiaradadda who spoyling the Duke's Country constrained him to call back Nicolo Piccinino out of Tuscany Which revocation with the Victory they had lately obtained against Nicolo
encouraged the Florentines to an expedition against Lucca and gave them great hopes of success in which they carried themselves without either fear or respect seeing the Duke who was the only person they apprehended imployed by the Venetians and the Lucchesi by having as it were received their enemies into their houses and given them cause to invade them had left themselves no grounds to complain In April therefore in the year 1437 the Conte march'd with his Army and before he would fall upon any thing of the enemies he addressed himself to the recovery of what had been lost and accordingly he reduced S. Maria de Castello and what-ever else had been taken by Piccinino Then advancing against the Lucchesi he sate down before Camajore whose Garison and inhabitants though well enough affected to their Lord being more influenced by the terror of an enemy at hand than their fidelity to their friends a far off surrendered immediately after which he took Massa and Serazan with the same dexterity and reputation and then turning his Army towards Lucca in the month of May he destroyed their Corn burn'd their Villages stubb'd up their Vines and their Fruit-trees drove away their Cattel and omitted nothing of outrage and hospitality that is or can be committed by Souldiers The Lucchesi seeing themselves abandoned by the Duke and unable to defend their Country retir'd into the Town where they intrench'd and fortified so well that they did not doubt by reason of their numbers within but to be able to Make it good for some time as they had formerly done Their only fear was of the unconstancy of the people who being weary of the siege would probably consider their own private danger before the liberty of their Country and force them to some ignominious accord Whereupon to encourage them to a vigorous defence they were called together into the Market-place and one of the wisest and gravest of the Citizens spake to them as followeth You have often heard and must needs understand that things done of necessity arâ— neither to be praised nor condemned If therefore you accuse us of having drawn this War upon you by entertaining the Duke's Forces and suffering them to assault you you are highly mistaken You cannot be ignorant of the ancient and inveterate hatred the Florentines bear you so that 't is not any injury in you nor any resentment in them but your weakness and their ambition which has provoked them the first giving them hopes the other impatience to oppress you Do not think that any kindness of yours can divert them from that desire nor any injury of yours provoke them to be worse 'T is their business therefore to rob you of your liberty 't is yours to defend it and what either of you do in pursuance of those ends may be lamented but cannot be wondred at by any body we may be sorry our Country is invaded our City besieged our Houses burned but who of us all is so weak as to admire it Seeing if our power were as great we would do the same to them and if possible worse If they pretend this War was occasioned by our admitting of Nicolo had he not been received they would have pretended another and perhaps had this invasion been deferred it might have proved more fatal and pernicious so that 't is not his coming is to be blamed but our ill fortune and the ambition of their nature for we could not refuse the Duke's Forces and when they were come it was not in our power to keep them from doing acts of Hostility you know very well that without the assistance of some considerable Prince we had not been able to defend our selves nor was any man more proper to relieve us both in respect of his fidelity and power than the Duke He restored us to our liberty and 't was but reasonable he should secure it He was always an enemy to those who would never be our friends if therefore we have provoked the Duke rather than we would disoblige the Florentines we have lost a true friend and made our enemy more able and more ready to offend us so that it is much better for us to have this War with the friendship of the Duke than to have peace with his displeasure and we have reason to hope he will rescue us from these dangers to which he has exposed us if we be not wanting to our selves You cannot forget with what fury the Florentines have many times assaulted us and with what honour and reputation we have repelled them even when we have had no hopes but in God and in time and how both of them have preserved us If we defended our selves then what reason now is there to despair Then we were deserted by all Italy and left as a prey to the Enemy now we have the Duke on our side and 't is not improbable the Venetians will be but slow in their motions against us seeing it can be no pleasure to them to see the power of the Florentines encrease Then the Florentines were more free and unengaged had more hopes of assistance and were stronger of themselves and we every way weaker for then we defended a Tyrant now we fight for our selves then the honour went to other people now it returns upon us then they were united and entire now they are divided and all Italy full of their Rebels But if we had none of these reasons nor none of these hopes to excite us extreme necessity would be sufficient to animate us to our defence Every enemy ought in reason to be apprehended by us because all of them seek their own glory and our destruction but above all the Florentines ought to be most dreadful who are not to be satisfied with our obedience tribute nor the government of our City but they must have our persons and Wealths to satiate their cruelty with our blood and their avarice with our estates so that there is no person nor condition among us so mean but ought justly to fear them Let No-body therefore be dismaid to see our Country wasted our Villages burn'd and our Lands possessed by the enemy if we preserve our City they of course will revert if we lose our City to what purpose will they be kept maintaining our liberty the enemy can hardly enjoy them but losing our liberty what comfort would it be to retain them Take arms therefore with courage and when you are engaged with your enemy remember the reward of your Victory is not only the safety of your Country but the preservation and security of your children and estates These last words were received by the people with such warmth and vigor of mind that unanimously they promised to die rather than to desert their City or entertain any treaty that might intrench upon their liberty so that immediately order was taken for all things necessary for the defence of the City In the mean time the Florentine Army was not
not content to make War against him in Romagna only designed to deprive him of Cremona and Pontremoli but Pontrâ—moli was defended for him by the Florentines and Cremona by the Venetians so that the War was received again in Lombardy and many troubles ensued in the Country of Cremona among which the Dukes General Francesco Piccinino was overthrown at Casale by Micheletto and the Venetian Army and the Venetians conceiving hopes thereupon of deposing the Duke sent their Commissary to Cremona assaulted Ghiaradadda and took all that Country except Cremona it self and then passing the Adda they made their excursions to the very walls of Milan the Duke not satisfied with his condition applied himself to Alfonso King of Aragon for succour representing the ill consequences which would follow upon his Dominions in Naples if Lombardy should fall into the hands of the Venetians Alfonso promised to send him supplies but their passage would be difficult without the permission of the Count upon which consideration Duke Philip addressed himself to the Count and begged of him that he would not abandon the Father-in-Law who was both aged and blind The Count was much offended with the Duke for having pulled those Wars upon him and on the other side the greatness of the Venetians did not please him at all besides his mony was gone and the League supplied him but coldly for the Florentines were now freed from their apprehensions of the Duke which was the great cause of their caressing the Count and the Venetians desired his ruine as the only person capable of carrying the whole state of Lombardy from them Nevertheless whilst Philip was seducing him to his side and promised him the Command of all his forces upon a condition he would leave the Venetians and restore La Marca to the Pope they sent Embassadors to him promising him Milan when it was taken and the Generalship of their Army in perpetuum so he would prosecute the War in La Marca and obstruct the supplies which were sending by Alfonso into Lombardy The Venetian proffers were great and his obligations to them considerable they having made that War on purpose to secure Cremona to the Count again the Dukes injuries were fresh and his promises not to be trusted Yet the Count remained doubtful which he should accept his obligation to the League his Faith given the late good offices which they had done him and their many promises for the future were great arguments on one side yet he was loth on the other side to deny the importunities of his Father-in-Law but that which swayed with him most of all was the poison which he suspected was hid under the promises of the Venetians to whose discretion he must leave himself if he succeeded in their Wars both for their performance and his own preservation which no wise Prince would ever do till necessity compelled him But this suspence and difficulty of resolution in the Count was taken away by the Venetians who having a design by some practices and intelligences in the Town to get it for themselves upon some other pretence they caused their forces to march into those parts but their plot was discovered by him that governed there for the Count and in stead of gaining Cremona they lost the Count who laid aside all respects and joyned with the Duke Pope Eugenius was dead Niolo V. created his successor and the Count advanced with his whole Army to Cotegnola in order to his passage in Lombardy when news was brought to him that Duke Philip was dead which happened in the year 1447. on the last of August These tidings much troubled the Count whose Army could not be in good order because they had not had their full pay The Venetians he feared as being in arms and his professed Enemies now upon his revolt to the Duke Alfonso had been always his Enemy and he was fearful of him he could have no confidence in either the Pope or the Florentines for the Florentines were in League with the Venetians and he was in possession of several Towns which he had taken from the Pope however he resolved to bear up bravely look his fortune in the face and comport himself according to the accidents which should occur for many times secrets are discovered in action which dejection and despondency would have concealed for ever It was no little support to him to believe that if the Milanesi were oppressed or that jealous of the ambition of the Venetian no Man was so proper for them to apply to for protection as himself So that taking courage thereupon he marched into the Country of Bologna and from thence passing by Modena and Reggio he encamped upon the Lenza and sent to the Milanesi to offer them his service the Milanesi after the Dukes death were divided into factions part of them had a mind to be free and part of them to live under a Prince and of those which were for a Prince part were for the Count and part for Alfonso but they which were for a Commonwealth being more unanimous prevailed and erected a republick according to their own model to which many of the Cities in that Dukedom refused to conform supposing they might make themselves free as well as Milan if they pleased and those who were not inclined to that Government would not submit to it in them Lodi and Piacenza therefore surrendered to the Venetian Pavia and Parma made themselves free upon which confusions the Count removed to Cremona where certain deputies of his to that purpose met with certain Commissioners from Milan and came to an agreement by which it was agreed that he should be General of their forces and all conditions performed to him which were concluded in his last treaty with the Duke to which was superadded that Brescia should be put into the Counts hands till he should be posses'd of Verona and that then keeping the last the first should be restored Before the death of the Duke Pope Nicolo upon his assumption to that Chair endeavoured to make a general peace betwixt all the Princes of Italy and to that purpose he negotiated with the Florentine Embassadors which were sent to his creation for a Diet to beheld at Ferrara to treat either of a long cessation or a firm peace and accordingly the Popes Legate was met there by Commissioners from the Venetians the Duke and the Florentines Alfonso sent none for he was at Tiboli with a great Army in favour of the Duke and believed as soon as the Count could be debauched from them he should have a fair opportunity to fall upon both the Venetian and Florentine In the mean time the Count lay still in Lombardy attending the consummation of the Peace to which Alfonso would not send but promised to ratifie what should be agreed by the Duke This peace was a long time in debate but at length it was concluded it should either be a cessation for five years or a
of his Towns But whilst the War was carried on in that Kingdom with such variety an accident happen'd which rob'd Giovanni of his opportunity of compleating that enterprize The Genoesi were extreamly dissatified with the insolent Government of the French had taken Arms against the Governor and forc'd him into the Castle in this action the Fregosi and Adorni concur'd and the Duke of Milan supplyed them both with mony and men King Rinato passed that way with a fleet towards the relief of his Son imagining by the help of the Castle he might recover the Town and landing his men in order thereunto he was beaten in such sort that he was forc'd back into Provence This news dismaid Giovanni not a little however he gave not his enterprize over but continued the War by the help of such Barons whose revolt from Ferrando had render'd them desperate of pardon at length after many occurencies both Armies came to a Battle near Troia in which Giovanni was routed but his defeat troubled him not so much as the loss of Piccinino who left his side and went back again to Ferrando His Army being broke he got off into Histria and from thence into France This War continued 4 years and miscarried by the negligence of the General when the Souldiers had many times overcome In this War however the Florentines were not publickly concern'd The truth is upon the death of Alfonso his Son Iohn of Aragon being come to that Crown sent his Embassadors to desire their assistance for his Nephew Ferrando according to their obligation by their late League with Alfonso but the Florentines returned that they did not think themselves oblig'd to assist the Son in a quarrel commenced by the Father and as it was begun without their consent or knowledg so without any assistance from them it might be continued or ended Whereupon in behalf of their King the Embassadors protested them guilty of the breach of the League and responsible for all the losses which should follow and having done that in a great huff they departed During the revolutions in this War the Florentines were at quiet abroad but at home it was otherwise as shall be shown more particularly in the following Book THE HISTORY OF FLORENCE BOOK VII IN the reading of the last Book it may appear possibly impertinent and a digression for a Writer of the Florentine History to have broke out and expatiated upon the affairs of Lombardy and Naples Yet I have done it and shall do it for the future for though I never profess'd to write the transactions of Italy yet I never bound my self up from giving a relation of such important and memorable passages as would make our History more grateful and intelligible especially seeing from the actions of other Princes and States wars and troubles did many times arise in which the Florentines were of necessity involved for example the War betwixt Giovanni d' Angio and King Ferrando proclaimed in them so great a hatred and animosity one towards the other that it was continued afterwards betwixt Ferrando and the Florentines and more particularly the House of Medici For King Ferrando complaining not only that they had refus'd him their assistance but given it to his Enemies that resentment of his was the occasion of much mischief as will be shown in our narration And because in my description of our Foreign affairs I am advanc'd to the year 1463. being return'd to our domestick it will be necessary to look back for several years But first by way of introduction as my custom I shall say that they who imagine a Commonwealth may be continued united are egregiously mistaken True it is dissention does many times hurt but sometimes it advantages a State It hurts when it is accompanied with parties and factions it helps when it has none Seeing therefore it is impossible for any Legislator or founder of a republick to provide there should be no piques nor unkindnesses betwixt Men it is his business what he can to secure them against growing into parties and Clans It is then to be consider'd that there are two ways for Citizens to advance themselves to reputation among their Neighbours and they are either publickly or privatly The Publick way is by gaining some battle surprizing and distressing some Town performing some Embassy carefully and prudently or counselling their State wisely and with success the private way is by being kind to their fellow Citizens by defending them from the Magistrats supplying them with mony promoting them to honors and with plays and publick exhibitions to ingratiate with the People This last way produces parties and factions and as the reputation acquir'd that way is dangerous and fatal so the other way it is beneficial if it sides with no party as extending to the publick And although among Citizens of such qualification there must needs be emulations and jealousies yet wanting partisans and People which for their advantage will follow them they are rather a convenience than otherwise to a Government for to make themselves more eminent and conspicuous than their Competitors they imploy all their faculties for its advancement prying and observing one anothers actions so strictly that neither dares venture to transgress The emulations in Florence were always with faction and for that reason always were dangerous nor was any party unanimous any longer than it had an adverse party in being for that being overcome and the predominant party having no fear nor order to restrain it subdivided on course Cosimo de Medici's party prevail'd in the year 1434 but the depress'd party being great and many powerful Men amongst them for a while they continued unanimous and supportable committing no exorbitance among themselves nor injustice to the People which might beget them their hatred Insomuch as when ever they had use of the People for their readvancement to any place of authority they found them always ready to confer it upon the chief of that party whether it was the Balia or any other power which they desir'd and so from the year 1434 to 55 which was 21 years they were six times created of the Balia by the Counsels of the People There were in Florence as we have many times hinted two principal Citizens Cosimo de Medici and Neri Capponi Neri had gain'd his reputation in the publick way and had many friends but few partisans Cosimo on the other side had advanc'd himself both ways and had friends and partisans both and these two continuing friends whilst they lived together they could ask nothing of the People but it was readily granted because unanimity went along with the Power But Neri dying in the year 1455 and the adverse party being extinct the Government found great difficulty to recover its authority and Cosimo's great friends were the cause of it who were willing to detract from his authority now his adversaries were suppress'd This was the beginning of the divisions in 1466 in which year in
Nevertheless they could not but prefer his safety and the good of his State before their own because whilst he was safe they could not be capable of fear and if lost they should be incapable of comfort They could not therefore discharge themselves nor express the respect they had for him better then by remembring him that besides the danger where he was it could not be secure for him to be any longer at that distance from Milan for being but young in the Government and his Enemies powerful and industrious who knew what mischief they might meditate and how easily execute it when they had done so that they made it their request to him for the safety of his own person and the preservation of his State that he would leave only part of his forces with them and return himself with the rest Galeazzo was as well pleased with their Counsel as they were to give it and without more ado returned from whence he came The Florentine Generals being rid of this incombrance and that it might appear to the World who was the impediment before advanced against the Enemy so that they came presently to a battle which continued half a day without any disadvantage for there was not one Man killed a few Horse hurt and but a few Men taken prisoners When Winter was come and the time that their Armies were accustomed to go into quarters Bartolomeo rereated towards Ravenna the Florentines into Tuscany and the forces of the King and the Duke into their several Countries but finding no tumult nor commotion in Florence as they were promised by the Rebels and the Souldiers which were hired not being punctually payed the Venetians thought fit to treat and in a short time a peace was concluded this peace having deprived the rebels of all hopes they divided and went to several parts Diotisalvi went to Ferrara where he was entertained and relieved by the Marquess Borso Nicolo Soderini removed to Ravenna where he lived long with a small pension from the Venetians and at last died this Nicolo was accounted a just and couragious Man but slow and irresolute which was the cause that he slipped an oportunity when he was Gonfaloniere that he could never afterwards retrieve Grown insolent upon their success those of the Florentines who were in power as if they fansied they had not prevailed unless their cruelty did testify it plagued and tormented not only their Enemies but how ever else they thought good to suspect and obtained of Bardo Altovili to divest several Citizens of their honors and that others should be banished which was so great a strengthening to that party and depression to the other that they exercised the power which they had usurped as if God and fortune had given them that City for a prey These practices Piero understood not and if he had his ilness would not have permitted him to redress them for he was so stiff and contracted with the Gout he had the use of nothing but his tounge with which he could only admonish and advise them to live civilly and enjoy their Country in peace and not be accessary to its destruction To please and entertain the People he resolved to celebrate the Marriage of his Son Lorenzo to whom he had contracted Claricia a Daughter of the house of Ursina which wedding was performed with a Pomp and magnificence answerable to the persons by whom and for whom it was made several days were spent in Balls in Banquets and Shows and to demonstrate the Grandure of the House of the Medici two martial spectacles were exhibited one representing Horse and Men charging as in a field fight the other the siege and expugnation of a Town both of them contrived and discharged with the greatest glory and gallantry imaginable Whilst affairs were in this posture in Florence all Italy was at peace but under great apprehensions of the Turk who advancing in his designs had taken Negropont to the great scandal and detriment of all Christendom Borgo Marquess of Ferrara died about this time and was succeeded by his Brother Hercules Gismondo da Rimini died a perpetual Enemy to the Church and left the Dominion to his Son Roberto who was reckoned afterwards among the best Commanders of that age Pope Paul died likewise in whose place was created likewise Sextus called first Francesco da Savona a Person of mean or rather base extraction but for his courage made General of the order of S. Francis and after that Cardinal This Pope was the first which shewed to the World what the Papacy could do and that many things called errors before might not only be excused but hid and obtected by the Papal Authority He had in his Family two persons Piero and Girolamo who as was Generally believed were his natural Sons though they passed under more specious and honorable appellations Piero being a Frier was by degrees promoted to the Cardinalship with the Title of SanSesio To Girolamo he gave the Government of Furli which he had taken by violence from Antonio Ordelaffi whose predecessors had a long time been Princes of that City this secular and ambitious way of proceeding procured his Holiness great estimation among the Princes of Italy insomuch as all of them desiring his friendship the Duke of Milan gave to Girolamo his natural Daughter Catharine in Marriage and in Dower with her he gave him the City of Imola which by the like violence he had taken from Taddeo Alidossi Betwixt this Duke and Ferrando the King a new alliance was contracted for Elizabeth the Daughter of Alfonfo the Kings eldest Son was Married to Giovan Geleazzo eldest Son to the Duke In the mean time Italy was full of tranquillity no care incumbant upon those Princes but to pay their respects one to the other and by mutual matches new obligations and leagues to fortifie and secure one another Yet in the midst of this Peace Florence was not without its convulsions the ambition and dissention of the Citizens distracting their affairs and Piero being interrupted by his own distempers could not apply any remedy to theirs However to discharge his Conscience endeavour what he was able and try whether he could shame them into a reformation he called them all to his House and saluted them in this manner I never imagined the time could come in which the carriage of my friends should have made me inclinable to my Enemies or the consequences of my Victory have made me wish I had been beaten I thought my party had consisted of Men whose appetites might have been bounded and circumscribed and such as would have been satisfied to have lived quietly and honorably in their own Country especially after their Enemies were expelled But I find now I was mistaken ignorant of the natural ambition of the World and more particularly yours It is not enough it seems for you to be chief and Principal in so illustrious a City and though but a few to have the honors
to atcheive they are applauded at least not upbraided thereby but when they are unable to compass it and yet will be doing then they are condemned and indeed not unworthily If France then with its own forces alone had been able to have enterpriz'd upon Naples it ought to have been done but if her own private strength was too weak it ought not to have been divided and if the division of Lombardy to which she consented with the Venetian was excusable it was because done to get footing in Italy But this partition of Naples with the King of Spain is extreamly to be condemned because not press'd or quicken'd by such necessity as the former Lewis therefore committed five faults in this Expedition He ruin'd the inferior Lords He augmented the Dominion of a Neighbour Prince He call'd in a Forreigner as puissant as himself He neglected to continue there in person and planted no Colonies All which errors might have been no inconvenience whil'st he had lived had he not been guilty of a sixt and that was depressing the power of the Venetian If indeed he had not sided with the Church nor brought the Spaniards into Italy it had been but reasonable for him to have taken down the pride of the Venetian but persuing his first resolutions he ought not to have suffer'd them to be ruin'd because whil'st the Venetian strength was intire they would have kept off other people from attempting upon Lombardy to which the Venetians would never have consented unless upon condition it might have been deliver'd to them and the others would not in probability have forced it from France to have given it to them and to have contended with them both no body would have had the courage If it be urg'd that King Lewis gave up Romagna to the Pope and the Kingdom of Naples to the King of Spain to evade a War I answer as before That a present mischief is not to be suffer'd to prevent a War for the War is not averted but protracted and will follow with greater disadvantage If the Kings faith and engagements to the Pope to undertake this enterprize for him be objected and that he did it to recompence the dissolution of his Marriage and the Cap which at his intercession his Holiness had confer'd upon the Legate of Amboise I refer them for an answer to what I shall say hereafter about the faith of a Prince how far it obliges So then King Lewis lost Lombardy because he did not observe one of those rules which others have followed with success in the Conquest of Provinces and in their desire to keep them Nor is it an extraordinary thing but what happens every day and not without reason To this purpose I remember I was once in discourse with the Cardinal d' Amboise at Nantes at the time when Valentino for so Caesar Borgia Pope Alezander's Son was commonly call'd possess'd himself of Romagna In the heat of our Conference the Cardinal telling me that the Italians were ignorant of the art of War I replyed that the French had as little skill in matters of State for if they had had the least policy in the world they would never have suffer'd the Church to have come to that height and Elevation And it has been found since by experience that the Grandeur of the Church and the Spaniard in Italy is derived from France and that they in requital have been the ruine and expulsion of the French From hence a general rule may be deduc'd and such a one as seldom or never is subject to Exception Viz. That whoever is the occasion of anothers advancement is the cause of his own diminution because that advancement is founded either upon the conduct or power of the Donor either of which become suspicious at length to the person prefer'd CHAP. IV. Why the Kingdom of Darius usurped by Alexander did not rebel against his Successors after Alexander was dead THE difficulties encountred in the keeping of a new Conquest being consider'd it may well be admired how it came to pass that Alexander the Great having in a few years made himself Master of Asia and died as soon as he had done That state could be kept from Rebellion Yet his Successors enjoy'd it a long time peaceably without any troubles or concussions but what sprung from their own avarice and ambition I answer That all Monarchies of which we have any record were govern'd after two several manners Either by a Prince and his Servants whom he vouchsafes out of his meer grace to constitute his Ministers and admits of their Assistance in the Government of his Kingdom or else by a Prince and his Barons who were persons advanc'd to that quality not by favour or concession of the Prince but by the ancientness and Nobility of their Extraction These Barons have their proper jurisdictions and subjects who own their Authority and pay them a natural respect Those States which are govern'd by the Prince and his Servants have their Prince more Arbitrary and absolute because his Supremacy is acknowledged by every body and if another be obeyed it is only as his Minister and Substitute without any affection to the Man Examples of these different Governments we may find in our time in the persons of the Grand Signore and the King of France The whole Turkish Monarchy is governed by a single person the rest are but his Servants and Slaves for distinguishing his whole Monarchy into Provinces and Governments which they call Sangiacchi he sends when and what Officers he thinks fit and changes them as he pleases But the King of France is established in the middle as it were of several great Lords whose Soveraignty having been owned and families beloved a long time by their Subjects they keep their preheminence nor is it in the King's power to deprive them without inevitable danger to himself He therefore who considers the one with the other will find the Turkish Empire harder to be subdued but when once conquered more easie to be kept The reason of the difficulty is because the Usurper cannot be call'd in by the Grandees of the Empire nor hope any assistance from the great Officers to facilitate his Enterprize which proceeds from the reasons abovesaid for being all slaves and under obligation they are not easily corrupted and if they could little good was to be expected from them being unable for the aforesaid reasons to bring them any party So that whoever invades the Turk must expect to â—ind him entire and united and is to depend more upon his own proper force than any disorders among them but having once conquered them and beaten their Army beyond the possibility of a recruit the danger is at an end for there is no body remaining to be afraid of but the Family of the Emperor which being once extinguished no body else has any interest with the people and they are as little to be apprehended after the Victory as they were to be
which he had disobliged were among others the Cardinals of St. Peter ad Vincula Collonno St. George and Ascanius The rest if any of them were advanced to the Papacy might well be afraid of him except the Spanish Cardinals and the Cardinal of Roan The Spaniards by reason of their obligations and alliance and the other by reason of his interest in the Kingdom of France Wherefore above all things the Duke should have made a Spanish Cardinal Pope and if that could not have been done he should rather have consented to the Election of Roan than St. Peter ad Vincula for 't is weakness to believe that among great persons new obligations can obliterate old injuries and disgusts So that in the Election of this Iulius XI Duke Valentine committed and Error that was the cause of his utter destruction CHAP. VIII Of such as have arriv'd at their Dominion by wicked and injustifiable means NOw because there are two ways from a private person to become a Prince which ways are not altogether to be attributed either to fortune or management I think it not convenient to pretermit them though of one of them I may speak more largely where occasion is offered to treat more particularly of Republicks One of the ways is when one is advanced to the Soveraignty by any illegal nefarious means The other when a Citizen by the favour and partiality of his Fellow-Citizens is made Prince of his Country I shall speak of the first in this Chapter and justifie what I say by two Examples one Ancient the other Modern without entring farther into the merits of the cause as judging them sufficient for any man who is necessitated to follow them Agathocles the Sicilian not only from a private but from a vile and abject Condition was made King of Syracuse and being but the Son of a Potter he continued the dissoluteness of his life thorow all the degrees of his fortune Nevertheless his vices were accompanied with such courage and activity that he applyed himself to the Wars by which and his great industry he came at length to the Pretor of Syracuse Being settled in that Dignity and having concluded to make himself Prince and hold that by violence without obligation to any body which was conferred upon him by consent he settled an intelligence with Amilcar the Carthaginian who was then at the head of an Army in Sicily and calling the People and Senate of Syracuse together one morning as if he had been to consult them in some matter of importance to the State upon a signal appointed he caus'd his Soldiers to kill all the Senators and the most wealthy of the People after whose death he usurped and possessed the Dominion of that City without any obstruction and though afterwards he lost two great Battels to the Carthaginians and at length was besieg'd yet he was not only able to defend that City but leaving part of his forces for the security of that with the rest he transported into Africk and ordered things so that in a short time he reliev'd Syracuse and reduced the Carthaginians into such extream necessity that they were glad to make peace with him and contenting themselves with Africk leave Sicily to Agathocles He then who examines the Exploits and Conduct of Agathocles will find little or nothing that may be attributed to fortune seeing he rose not as is said before by the favour of any man but by the steps and gradations of War with a thousand difficulties and dangers having gotten that Government which he maintained afterwards with as many noble Atchievements Nevertheless it cannot be called Virtue in him to kill his fellow-Citizens betray his Friends to be without faith without pity or Religion these are ways may get a Man Empire but no glory nor reputation Yet if the Wisdom of Agathocles be considered his dexterity in encountring and overcoming of dangers his Courage in supporting and surmounting his misfortunes I do not see why he should be held inferiour to the best Captains of his time But his unbounded cruelty and barbarous inhumanity added to a million of other Vices will not permit that he be numbred amongst the most Fxcellent Men. So then that which he performed cannot justly be attributed to either Fortune or Virtue for he did all himself without either the one or the other In our days under the Papacy of Alexander VI. Oliverotto da Fermo being left young many years since by his Parents was brought up by his Unckle by the Mothers side call'd Iohn Togliani and in his youth listed a Soldier under Paulo Vitelli that having improved himself by his Discipline he might be capable of some Eminent Command Paulo being dead he served under Vitellezzo his Brother and in short time by the acuteness of his parts and the briskness of his Courage became one of the best Officers in his Army But thinking it beneath him to continue in any Man's Service he conspir'd with some of his fellow-Citizens of Fermo to whom the servitude of their Country was more agreeable than its liberty by the help of Vitellesco to seize upon Fermo In order to which he writ a Letter to his Unckle Iohn Fogliano importing That having been absent many years he had thoughts of visiting him and Fermo and taking some little diversion in the place where he was born and because the design of his Service had been only the gaining of Honour That his fellow-Citizens might see his time had not been ill spent he desired admission for a hundred Horse of his Friends and his Equipage and beg'd of him that he would take care they might be honourably received which would redound not only to his Honour but his Unckles who had had the bringing him up Iohn was not wanting in any Office to his Nephew and having caus'd him to be nobly received he lodged him in his own House where he continued some days preparing in the mean time what was necessary to the Execution of his wicked design he made a great Entertainment to which he invited Iohn Fogliani and all the chief Citizens in the Town About the end of the treatment when they were entertaining one another as is usual at such times Oliverotto very subtilly promoted certain grave discourses about the greatness of Pope Alexander and Cesar his Son and of their Designs Iohn and the rest replying freely to what was said Oliverotto smil'd and told them those were points to be argued more privately and thereupon removing into a chamber his Unckle and the rest of his fellow-Citizens followed They were scarce sate down before Soldiers which were conceal'd about the room came forth and kill'd all of them and the Unckle among the rest After the Murder was committed Oliverotto mounted on Horseback rode about and rummaged the whole Town having besieged the chief Magistrate in his Palace so that for fear all people submitted and he establish'd a Government of which he made himself Head Having put such to death
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
that Prince who founds the duration of his Government upon his Mercenary forces shall never be firm nor secure for they are divided ambitious undisciplin'd unfaithful insolent to their friends abject to their Enemies without fear of God or faith to Men so the ruine of that person who trusts to them is no longer protracted than the attempt is deferred in time of peace they divorce you in time of War they desert you and the reason is because it is not love nor any principle of honor that keeps them in the field 't is only their pay and that is not a consideration strong enough to prevail with them to die for you whilst you have more service to imploy them in they are excellent Souldiers but tell them of an engagement and they will either disband before or run away in the battel And to evince this would require no great pains seeing the ruine of Italy proceeded from no other cause than that for several years together it had repos'd it self upon Mercenary Arms which forces 't is possible may have formerly done service to some particular person and behav'd themselves well enough among one another but no sooner were they attackt by a powerful foreigner but they discovered themselves and shewed what they were to the World hence it was that Charles 8 chaulk'd out his own way into Italy and that person was in the right who affirmed our own faults were the cause of our miseries but it was not those faults he believed but those I have mention'd which being committed most eminently by Princes they suffered most remarkably in the punishment But to come closer to the point and give you a clearer prospect of the imperfection and infelicity of those forces The great officers of these mercenaries are Men of great courage or otherwise if the first you can never be safe for they always aspire to make themselves great either by supplanting of you who is their Master or oppressing of other People whom you desir'd to have preserved and on the other side if the Commanders be not couragious you are ruined again if it should be urged that all Generals will do the same whether mercenaries or others I would answer that all War is managed either by a Prince or Republick the Prince is obliged to go in person and perform the office of General himself the Republick must depute some one of her choice Citizens who is to be changed if he carries himself ill If he behaves himself well he is to be continued but so straitned and circumscrib'd by his commission that he may not transgress and indeed experience tells us that Princes alone and Common wealths alone with their own private forces have performed great things whereas mercenaries do nothing but hurt Besides a martial Commonwealth that stands upon its own legs and maintains it self by its own prowess is not easily usurp'd and falls not so readily under the obedience of one of their fellow Citizens as where all the forces are foreign Rome and Sparta maintained their own liberty for many years together by their own forces and Arms the Swisses are more material than their Neighbours and by consequency more free Of the danger of Mercenary forces we have an ancient example in the Carthaginians who after the end of their first War with the Romans had like to have been ruin'd and overrun by their own Mercenaries though their own Citizens commanded them After the death of Epaminondas the Thebans made Philip of Macedon their General who defeated their Enemies and enslaved themselves Upon the death of Duke Philip the Milanesi entertained Francesco Sforza against the Venetians and Francesco having worsted the Enemy at Caravaggio joyned himself with him with design to have master'd his Masters Francesco's Father was formerly in the service of Ioan Queen of Naples and on a sudden marched away from her with his Army and left her utterly destitute so that she was constrain'd to throw her self under the protection of the King of Aragon and though the Venetians and Florentines both have lately enlarged their Dominion by employing these forces and their Generals have rather advanced than enslav'd them I answer that the Florentines may impute it to their good fortune because of such of their Generals as they might have rationally feared some had no Victories to encourage them others were obstructed and others turned their ambition another way he that was not Victorious was Giovanni Acuto whose fidelity could not be known because he had no opportunity to break it but every body knows had he succeeded the Florentines had been all at his mercy Sforza had always the Bracceschi in opposition and they were reciprocally an impediment the one to the other Francesco turned his ambition upon Lombardy Braccio upon the Church and the Kingdom of Naples But to speak of more modern occurrences The Florentines made Paul Vitelli their General a wise Man and one who from a private fortune had raised himself to a great reputation had Paul taken Pisa no body can be insensible how the Florentines must have comported with him for should he have quitted their service and taken pay of their Enemy they had been lost without remedy and to have continued him in that power had been in time to have made him their Master If the progress of the Venetians be considered they will be found to have acted securely and honorably whilst their affairs were managed by their own forces which was before they attempted any thing upon the terra firma then all was done by the Gentlemen and Common People of that City and they did very great things but when they began to enterprize at land they began to abate of their old reputation and discipline and to degenerate into the customs of Italy and when they began to conquer first upon the Continent having no great territory and their reputation being formidable abroad there was no occasion that they should be much afraid of their officers but afterwards when they began to extend their Empire under the command of Carmignola then it was they became sensible of their error for having found him to be a great Captain by their Victories under his conduct against the Duke of Milan perceiving him afterwards grow cool and remiss in their service they concluded no more great things were to be expected from him and being neither willing nor indeed able to take away his commission for fear of losing what they had got they were constrain'd for their own security to put him to Death Their Generals after him were Bartolomeo da Bergamo Roberto da San. Severino and the Conte de Pitigliano and such as they under whose conduct the Venetians were more like to lose than to gain as it hapned not long after at Vaila where in one Battel they lost as much as they had been gaining eight hundred years with incredible labour and difficulty which is not strange if it be considered that by those kind of forces
the head of his Army and has a multitude of Soldiers to govern then it is absolutely necessary not to value the Epithet of cruel for without that no Army can be kept in unity nor in disposition for any great act Among the several instances of Hannibal's great Conduct it is one That having a vast Army constituted out of several Nations and conducted to make War in an Enemies Country there never hapned any Sedition among them or any Mutiny against their General either in his adversity or prosperity Which can proceed from nothing so probably as his great cruelty which added to his infinite Virtues rendered him both aweful and terrible to his Soldiers and without that all his Virtues would have signified nothing Some Writers there are but of little consideration who admire his great Exploits and condemn the true causes of them But to prove that his other Virtues would never have carried him thorow let us reflect upon Scipio a person Honorable not only in his own time but in all History whatever nevertheless his Army mutined in Spain and the true cause of it was his too much gentleness and lenity which gave his Soldiers more liberty than was sutable or consistant with Military Discipline Fabius Maximus upbraided him by it in the Senate and call'd him Corrupter of the Roman Militia The inhabitants of Locrus having been plundered and destroyed by one of Scipio's Lieutenants they were never redressed nor the Legat's insolence corrected all proceeding from the mildness of Scipio's Nature which was so eminent in him that a person undertaking to excuse him in the Senate declared that there were many who knew better how to avoid doing ill themselves than to punish it in other people Which temper would doubtless in time have eclipsed the glory and reputation of Scipio had that authority been continued in him but receiving Orders and living under the direction of the Senate that ill quality was not only not discovered in him but turned to his renown I conclude therefore according to what I have said about being feared or beloved That forasmuch as men do love at their own discretion but fear at their Princes a wise Prince is obliged to lay his foundation upon that which is in his own power not what which depends on other people but as I said before with great caution that he does not make himself odious CHAP. XVIII How far a Prince is obliged by his promise HOw Honorable it is for a Prince to keep his word and act rather with integrity than collusion I suppose every body understands Nevertheless Experience has shown in out times That those Princes who have not pinn'd themselves up to that punctuality and preciseness have done great things and by their cunning and subtilty not only circumvented and darted the brains of those with whom they had to deal but have overcome and been too hard for those who have been so superstitiously exact For further explanation you must understand there are two ways of contending by Law and by force The first is proper to Men the second to Beasts but because many times the first is insufficient recourse must be had to the second It belongs therefore to a Prince to understand both when to make use of the rational and when of the brutal way and this is recommended to Princes though abstrusely by ancient Writers who tell them how Achilles and several other Princes were committed to the Education of Chiron the Centaur who was to keep them under his Discipline choosing them a Master half Man and half Beast for no other reason but to show how necessary it is for a Prince to be acquainted with both for that one without the other will be of little duration Seeing therefore it is of such importance to a Prince to take upon him the Nature and disposition of a Beast of all the whole flock he ought to imitate the Lyon and the Fox for the Lyon is in danger of toils and snares and the Fox of the Wolf So that he must be a Fox to find out the snares and a Lyon to fright away the Wolves but they who keep wholly to the Lyon have no true notion of themselves A Prince therefore that is wise and prudent cannot nor ought not to keep his pâ—â—ole when the keeping of it is to his prejudice and the causes for which he promised removed Were men all good this Doctrine was not to be taught but because they are wicked and not likely to be punctual with you you are not obliged to any such strictness with them Nor was their ever any Prince that wanted lawful pretence to justifie his breach of promise I might instance in many modern Examples and shew how many Confederations and Peaces and Promises have been broken by the infidelity of Princes and how he that best personated the Fox had the better success Nevertheless it is of great consequence to disguise your inclination and to play the Hypocrite well and men are so simple in their temper and so submissive to their present necessities that he that is neat and cleanly in his collusions shall never want people to practise them upon I cannot forbear one Example which is still fresh in our memory Alexander VI. never did nor thought of any thing but cheating and never wanted matter to work upon though no man promised a thing with greater asseveration nor confirmed it with more oaths and imprecations and observ'd them less yet understanding the world well he never miscarried A Prince therefore is not obliged to have all the forementioned good qualities in reality but it is necessary he have them in appearance nay I will be bold to affirm that having them actually and employing them upon all occasions they are extreamly prejudicial whereas having then only in appearance they turn to better accompt it is honorable to seem mild and merciful and courteous and religious and sincere and indeed to be so provided your mind be so rectified and prepared that you can act quite contrary upon occasion And this must be premised that a Prince especially if come but lately to the throne cannot observe all those things exactly which make men be esteemed virtuous being oftentimes necessitated for the preservation of his State to do things in humane uncharitable and irreligious and therefore it is convenient his mind be at his command and flexible to all the puffs and variations of his fortune Not forbearing to be good whil'st it is in his choice but knowing how to be evil when there is a necessity A Prince then is to have particular care that nothing falls from his mouth but what is full of the five qualities aforesaid and that to see and to hear him he appears all goodness integrity humanity and religion which last he ought to pretend to more than ordinarily because more men do judge by the eye then by the touch for every body sees but few understand every body sees how you appear
Lombardy the great objection by those who were against the Expedition was That the Swizzers would obstruct his passage over the Mountains which argument was found idle afterwards for the Kings of France waving two or three places which they had guarded passed by a private and unknown way and was upon their backs in Italy before they perceiv'd him so that being mightily surprized the Enemy quitted his Posts and retired into Italy and all the Lombards submitted to the French they being deceived in their opinion who thought the French were with more Ease and Convenience to be obstructed in the Mountains CHAP. XXIV 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 THE merits of Horatius were very great having by his own single valor and conduct overcome the Curiatii after which he committed a most abominable act in killing his own Sister which Murther was so hainous in the Eyes of the Romans that he was brought to a Trial for his life though his deserts were so fresh and considerable which at first sight seem ingrateful in the people but he who examins it strictly and weighs how necessary and sacred a thing Justice ought to be in every Common-wealth will find them more blameable for discharging than they would have been for condemning him and the reason is because in a well constituted State no man's good actions should indemnisie him for doing ill for punishment being as due to ill actions as rewards are to good having rewarded in a man for doing well he is satisfied for what he did and the obligation discharged so as if afterwards he commits a Crime he is to be punished severely according to the Nature of his offence by the observation of which Orders a City may continue free a long time which otherwise will quickly go to ruine For if a Citizen having perform'd any great Exploit for his Country should expect not only honor and reward for what he has done but priviledge and impunity for any mischief he should do afterwards his insolence would in a short time grow insupportable and inconsistent with Civil Government So then it is very necessary for discouragement from ill actions to recompense good which was the practice in Rome and though where a Common-wealth is poor her tâ—wards cannot be great yet even out of that small stock she is to be punctually grateful for a thing how little soever given in acknowledgment of ones good Service let it be never so great is look'd upon as Honorable and received as a Magnificent reward The Stories of Horatius Cocles and Mutius Scaevola are generally famous Coles with incompâ—rable courage maintained fight against a great body of the Enemy upon the Bridge over Tiber till it was cut behind him and their passage obstructed The other designing against the life of Porsenna King of Tuscany and killing his Secretary by mistake being apprehended and brought before the King to show the courage and constancy of the Romans he thrust his own hand into the fire and burnt it off before his face and how were they gratified marry each of them had two Staiora's which is as much ground as can be sown with two Bushels of Corn. The History of Manlius Capitolinus is no less remarkable Having relieved the Capitol which the French had surprized in the night and beaten them out again his Comerades in requital gave him a certain measure of Flower which as times went then was a mighty reward and esteemed so adequate to the Service that Manlius afterwards either out of ambition or ill nature causing a tumult in Rome and endeavouring to debauch the people his former exploits being as they thought amply rewarded without farther regard to him they threw him headlong down that Capitol which he had so gloriously preserved CHAP. XXV 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 HE who desires to set up a new form of Government in a Common-wealth that shall be lasting and acceptable to the people is with great caution to preserve at least some shadow and resemblance of the old That the people may if possible be insensible of the innovation for the generality of Mankind do not penetrate so far into things but that outward appearance is as acceptable to them as verity it self For this cause the Romans at the beginning of their liberty when their Kings were expelled thought it expedient to create two Consuls instead of one King assigning them only XII Lictors that their number might not exceed what attended upon the King Besides this there was an anniversary Sacrifice in Rome in which the Ministry of the King was of necessity required To salve that defect the Romans created a chief of the said Sacrifice with the Title of Royal Priest but with subordination to the High Priest by which Artifice the people were satisfied with their Sacrifice and took no occasion to complain for the expulsion of their King He therefore who desires to reform the policy of a State and to introduce a new is to disguise it to the people by the retention at least in appearance of some part of the ancient Customs that may keep them from discerning it and if at any time by accident there be a necessity of changing the power the number and duration of the Magistrates it will be convenient to continue the Name This as I said before is to be observed by any one who would establish an absolute power either in a Republick or Monarchical way but he who would erect such an absolute power as by Authors is called Tyrannies must unravel the whole bottom and innovate all CHAP. XXVI A new Prince in a new Conquest is to make every thing new WHoever makes himself Lord of a City or State and especially if he finds himself weak and suspects his ability to keep it if he intends not to continue the Government in the old way either by Kingship or Common-wealth the best course he can take is to subvert all to turn every thing topsie turvy and make all things as new as himself To alter the Magistracy create new Titles elect new persons confer new Authorities advance the Poor and impoverish the Rich that what is said of David may be said of him Esurientes implevit bonis divites dimisit inanes He filled the hungry with good things and the rich he sent empty away Besides it is his interest to build new Cities to erect new Corporations to demolish and uncharter the old to shift the Inhabitants from one place to another in a word so to toss and transpose every thing that there be no honor nor wealth nor preferment in the whole Province but what is ownable to him And for this he need go no farther than Philip of Macedon Father to Alexander the
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
Romans because the multitude will think themselves more obliged to the enemy than to him and believe that when the necessity is over they shall be as bad as before The reason why this way succeeded so happily to the Romans was because their State was but new and scarce setled and the People were sensible that several Laws were made before for their advantage and reputation as particularly the Law of appeal to the people so as they were able to satisfy themselves that the benefits which were confer'd upon them by the Senate proceeded rather from a disposition in the Senate to do them good than from any apprehension of the enemy besides the injuries and outrages of their Kings lay fresh and heavy upon their memories But these cases hapning very seldom 't is but very seldom that such remedies succeed wherefore it is better for any Commonwealth or Prince to consider the worst before-hand and what people he is most like to have need of in time of adversity and to live so with them in time of prosperity as that they may be encouraged to relieve him upon any distress And he who acts otherwise whether Prince or Commonwealth but especially a Prince and presumes when the danger is hanging over his head that it is time enough to favour the people will find himself mistaken and the people readier to contribute to his ruine than defence CHAP. XXXIII If an inconvenience increases either within a State or against it it is better to temporize and comply than to endeavour to remove it by violence THe Roman Commonwealth increasing in Empire Reputation and Force their neighbours not having considered it nor what damage that greatness might pull down upon them began now when too late to discover their error and being willing to do that now which had been more easie before forty little States of them confederated against Rome The Romans among their usual provisions in case of imminent danger created a Dictator who without any mans advice might resolve as he pleased and execute his resolutions without being called to an account This Magistrate was not only the occasion of overcoming their enemies at that time but was very useful upon all accidents afterwards when their dominion increased Which may teach us that when either at home within or abroad against a Commonwealth an inconvenience arises whether from an inward or an outward cause it is not material 't is better counsel to comply and temporize than to endeavour furiously to suppress it for to resist is to augment it and to pull down upon our heads what we were but afraid of before And these kind of accidents fall out in a Commonwealth oftner from intrinsick than extrinsick causes where the power and authority of some Citizen is permitted to increase too fast and more than is convenient for the honour or benefit of the State or when such Laws are abrogated or neglected as were most for the interest of their State which error if suffered to run on will be more dangerous to oppose than to comply with for it is so much the harder to find out these inconveniencies in the beginning by how much 't is natural for all people to favour every thing that is new especially if introduced by a young man with the least shew or pretence of advantage for if a young Gentleman appears in a Commonwealth endued with more than ordinary qualities the eyes of the whole City are immediately upon him they run unanimously to respect him and pay him all the honour that can be imagined so that if he has the least spark of ambition or vain-glory he is presently puffed up and inflamed with the contemplation of his own worth and the affection of the people and when he is arrived at such an height as to be as visible as their error then 't is too late there are but few remedies in the case and when most of them are applyed they do but magnifie his power Many examples might be brought to this purpose but I shall only instance in one Cosimo di Medicis from whom the famous Family of the Medici in our City had their first grandeur was in such reputation for his wisdom and his fellow Citizens were so ignorant that he began to be formidable to the State and the Magistrates began to think it difficult to take him down but destructive to let him stand There was at that time in Florence a person of great experience in matters of State called Nicolo da Uzano who being well advised of the first fault which he had committed in not considering in time the inconveniencies which might follow upon Cosimo's reputation resolved to obviate the second that is that no force should be used to oppress him as knowing that course would be the ruine of the State and so it proved not long after his death For the Citizens which remained not following his counsel began to combine and fortifie against Cosimo and indeed forc'd him out of Rome Whereupon his party being increased in a short time called him home again and made him their Prince to which dignity he could never have arrived but by the opposition of his enemies The same hapned to Iulius Caesar whose great virtue and excellent qualifications recommended him so highly to the favour of Pompey and the people that by degrees he became terrible and their favour was turned into fear of which Cicero complains when he says that Pompey began to fear him too late for when his fear prompted him to look out for a remedy that remedy hastned the ruine of the State I say then when this case happens it is incomparably better to temporize than to endeavour to repel the mischief which threatens by violence and force For many times by that means it passes as it came and goes out of it self or else the damage it brings is the longer a coming In these cases Princes ought to be very vigilant lest going about to retrench and lessen the great power of a neighbour they give him opportunity to increase it and bring themselves into greater danger you are therefore to compare your own strength and your enemies and if you find your self the stronger to attaque him couragiously but if weaker you had better be quiet lest it happens to you as it did to those little States who confederated against Rome to whom as appeared by the event it had been much better to have sate still and endeavoured their friendship than to have irritated the great power of the Romans and forc'd them to a war for the Romans had never got to that height if that confederacy had not given them occasion of trying all experiments for their defence and put them among the rest upon the creation of Dictators by which new invention they not only mastered all dangers that threatned them but prevented a thousand mischiefs into which without that remedy the Commonwealth would most certainly have fallen CHAP. XXXIV The Dictatorship was useful not
people they were denyed that liberty and could not have the benefit of that Law which was greater diminution to the reputation of the Frier than any thing that had ever hapned before For if that Law was of such importance as he had pretended it ought to have been observed if nor why was it solicited so earnestly And it was the more remarkable in the Frier because in his many Sermons and Discourses afterwards to the people he neither blamed the breaking of that Law nor went about to excuse it for being to his purpose he would not condemn it and excuse it he could not having nothing to say which action having discovered the ambition and partiality of his mind took much off from his repute and loaded him with scandal It is of great inconvenience likewise in a State to revive and ferment the humours in the minds of the Citizens by a daily renovation of their injuries upon one person or other as it hapned in Rome after the Decem-virat was dissolved and the Tribunitial authority re-established by the people For all the Decem-viri and several other considerable Citizens were Accused and Condemned in so much as there was a General consternation among the Nobility who thought there would be no end of their condemnation till they were utterly extinct Which proceeding and apprehension would doubtless have produced great troubles in the State had not they been prevented by Marcus Duellius the Tribune who published an Edict That for a twelve-month it should not be lawful either to cite or accuse any man that was Citizen of Rome by which act of Moderation he secured the Nobility From whence we may discern how unsafe it is for any Prince or Commonwealth to keep the minds of their Subjects in perpetual fear and suspence and without doubt nothing can be more pernicious for men being insecure and jealous of being questioned for some Capital offence will look out for protection and not only so but are provoked to more boldness and become less scrupulous of doing great mischiefs If therefore such Commotions happen it is better if possible to compose them without blood but if Example must be made it is to be done at once that afterwards the people may be reassured and recover their old security and tranquility of mind CHAP. XLVI 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 AFter the people of Rome had recovered their liberty and had by so much improved their former condition by how much they had made many new Laws to fortifie their power one would have expected they should have been quiet and after so much trouble and embroilment enjoyed some time of repose but it fell out quite contrary they were more perplexed than before every day producing some new Sedition or Disturbance Of which Livy giving the reasons so clearly I do not think it amiss to insert them in this place These two Orders says he were in perpetual opposition when the people were humble the Nobility was proud when the populace was quiet and content with their bounds the young Nobility took their time to be insolent and when the Tribunes interposed in their behalf they made little progress at first and at length were as much injur'd themselves The graver sort of the Nobility on the other side though they thought their own youth to be too furious and insolent yet they had rather if one side must transgress that it should be their own than the peoples So that their immoderate desire of preserving their priviledge was the cause that when either party was prevalent it employed its whole power in oppressing the other It is common among men when they would secure themselves to injure other people they begin first to do mischief to revile or to beat or what other outrage they are able as if the injury they would avoid themselves was to be thrown upon their Neighbour and there was no Medium betwixt doing and suffering of wrong From hence we may see after what manner among other things Commonwealths are dissolved and how suddenly men pass from one ambition to another according to that true saying which Salust put into the mouth of Caesar. Omnia mala exempla bonis initiis Orta sunt All disorders and abuses are good in their beginnings The first thing an ambitious Citizen endeavours is so to fortifie that he may defend himself not only against his private adversary but against the publick Magistrate if at any time he would offend him to which end he makes what friends he can by furnishing them with Mony or supporting them against their Oppressors and this seeming very honest in appearance people are easily deluded and no body goes about to prevent it so that no obstacle being given he grows insensibly so great that not only the private Citizens but the Magistrate begins to apprehend him and then there is no resisting him without manifest danger for the reasons which I have mention'd before of the dangerous contending with inconvenience that has got that growth and maturity in a City What is then to be done Let him alone in his prosperity and he enslaves you for ever unless death or some other kind accident delivers you If you think to remove him on a sudden you do but add to his power and hasten your own ruine for finding himself in such a posture that his Friends his Enemies the Magistrates and all people are afraid of him he will then begin to domineer and dispose of all things according to his own judgment and pleasure If there be any way to prevent it it is by watching in time by having a diligent eye over your Citizens that under colour of doing good they may not be able to do mischief and that they may have as much reputation as may serve not ruine their liberty but of this more hereafter CHAP. XLVII Though the people in things that are discours'd in general are many times mistaken yet when they are reduced to particulars they are more sensible and judicious THe Name of consul as we said before being grown odious to the people of Rome they resolved to have them created for the future out of the Populace or else to limit and circumscribe their authority with such rulers as they should think fit The Nobility to prevent both inconveniences took a way betwixt both and was contented that they should create four Tribunes with consular authority to be chosen indifferently out of the people and Senate The people were well enough satisfied as thinking by that means the Consulship would extinguish and that they should have a share of the supream dignity themselves But observe what followed when they came to the creation of their Tribunes and it was not only in their power but expected that they should have been all made out of the people they chose them all out of the Nobility which gave
taken away without manifest danger It was but equitable therefore that the people should be capable of the Consulship that being nourished a while with only the hopes they might at length be so happy as to have it in effect A City that employs not its people in any great affair may order them as it pleases but if it designs to extend its Empire and do as the Romans did there must be no distinction And that no regard ought to be had of any man's age appears by this That in the election of a young man to a degree in which the wisdom of an old man is requisite the multitude being to elect it is necessary that the young man be recommended by some extraordinary Exploit and when a young man is so happy as to have made himself conspicuous in the City by some honourable Atchievement it were not only hard but inconvenient if the said City might not receive the benefit of his virtue immediately but be forced to attend till his mind as well as body was super-annuated and all that vigour and promptitude lost which at that time might have been so serviceable to his Country at which age Valerius Corvinus Scipio Pompey and many others did great things and were permitted to triumph for their pains THE DISCOURSES OF Nicholas Machiavel CITIZEN and SECRETARY OF FLORENCE Upon The First Decade of LIVY TO ZANOBI BVONDELMONTI AND COSIMO RVCELLAI LIBER II. The Preface IT is the common practice of Mankind to commend the ancient and condemn the present times but in my judgment not always with reason for so studiously are they devoted to things of antiquity that they do not only admire what is transmitted by old Authors but applaud and cry up when they are old the passages and occurrences in their youth But my opinion is This their way of computation is many times false and that upon several accompts First because of such very ancient things we can have no absolute knowledge for most commonly in the Narrative of affairs what is infamous or ill done is pretermitted in silence whilst what is well done and honourable is related with all the Arts and amplifications of Rhetorick for so much are Historians accustomed to attribute to the fortune of the Conqueror that to encrease his praise they do not only exspatiate upon his Conduct and Exploits but they do likewise so magnifie and illustrate the very actions of the Enemy That they who come after beholding things at a great distance have reason to admire those times and those men and by consequence to love them Besides it being envy or fear which disposes people to hatred neither of those passions extending to what cannot possibly hurt them two great causes are wanting of finding fault with Antiquity for as things so long passed cannot any way prejudice so they cannot provoke to envy or discontent But present things which are obvious to our own sence are universally known and no circumstance that passes whether good or bad that can be totally conceal'd from whence it proceeds that observing with the excellence and virtue of our present affairs whatever is concomitant of imprudence or vice we are in a manner compelled to postpone them to things of antiquity where the good only is displayed and the bad passed by though perhaps the present things are more worthily glorious I do not intend any thing hereby of the Arts and Sciences of our predecessors so highly improved and illustrated that 't is not in the power of time either to add any thing or substract I only speak of the manners and civil conversations of men in which indeed we have not so many virtuous examples as were to be found among our Ancestors So that it is not altogether unjustly if antiquity be prefer'd yet are not our present transactions to be always condemn'd as worse than the former as if antiquity had no errors at all Humane affairs are in perpetual fluctuation and have their times of decrease as well as advancement A City or Province founded by some excellent person upon good Principles and Laws not only stands but flourishes and increases a long time in honour authority and wealth and those persons whose happiness it is to be born under those governments whilst they are glorious and powerful are apt to prefer their old Customs to the disparagement of the new yet they are in an error and for the reasons abovesaid But those who are born when the State is in its declension do not so much transgress when they commend what is pass'd and decry what is present which things having seriously considered with my self I conceive to be caused because the world has been always the same and made up promiscuously of good things and bad yet these good and bad things have varied sometimes and as it were transmigrated from one City and one Province to another so that in those places where virtue has been a long time predominant vice has stoln in by degrees and supplanted it which is evident by the revolutions of Kingdoms and Empires where virtue and justice has had its time and been transfused afterwards into other Countries However the world was the same though its virtue and magnanimity was unstable removing and shifting from the Assyrians first to the Medes from the Medes to the Persians and from them to the Romans and if after the Roman Empire there has been no government so great as to comprehend and ingross the virtue of the whole world yet the same virtue that was of old among the Romans is not extinct but dispersed and branched out into several Kingdoms and Provinces as the Kingdom of France the Kingdom of the Turks the Kingdom of the Soldan the Empire of the Germans and the Sect of the Saracins which conquered so many Provinces and committed such devastations as were the ruine of the Empire of the East In these Kingdoms rent and divided from the Empire of the Romans the old Roman virtue is diffused and retains still something of its pristine lustre so that it may without injustice be admired in some places Which being so he who is born in those Provinces where the Roman virtue and discipline is still in being but declining if he applauds his old Country-men and blames his Contemporaries his error is not great But he that is born in Italy and is not in his heart a Tramontan or in Greece and is not a Turk must needs bewail his own times and cry up his Predecessors in which he will find many things well worthy his admiration whereas in these there is nothing but wickedness and obloquy no Religion no Laws no Discipline but all things impure and brutish and they are the more detestable and deplorable by how much the same persons who would be imitated and are set aloft to command all and correct those that are vitious are most dissolute and most vitious themselves But to return to our discourse I say That though humane judgment is frail
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
it that had not rather procreate and have children where he may marry and enrich himself freely than where there is danger that what he gets painfully and lays up carefully for his children may be ravished from them by a Tyrant In a free State you may be sure your children shall be no slaves and that if they behave themselves virtuously they shall be sure of preferment and perhaps come to be Princes riches encrease there faster and that not only by tillage and agriculture but by traffick and arts and people do naturally throng to those places where they may get what they lawfully can and keep securely what they have got The quite contrary happens in Countries that are servile and their condition is worse as their servitude is greater but there is no servitude so severe as to depend upon a Commonwealth and that for two reasons first because it is more durable and less hopes of recovering their liberty and secondly because it is the practise of all Commonwealths to impoverish and weaken what-ever they conquer to fortifie themselves which with Princes is not the way unless they be very barbarous indeed and like the Eastern Princes who not only ruine whole Countries but destroy all human conversation but where Princes are well instituted they know better things and do many times indulge their new Conquests as much as their own Territories leaving them the exercise of their Arts and the enjoyment of their Laws so that though they cannot encrease their wealth as where they are free yet they are not so subject to be ruined as where they are slaves I speak now of servitude to a foreign Prince for the usurpation of a Citizen I have spoken before All which being considered no wonder if the Samnites whilst they enjoyed their liberty were so couragious and strong and when it was once lost grew so abject and contemptible Titus Livius tells us in his History of the Punick War that the Samnites were so overlaid and cowed by one single Legion of the Romans at Nola that they sent Embassadors to Hanibal to beg his assistance and that the said Ambassadors in their Oration to Hanibal the better to move his compassion had this expression We are the People who for an hundred years together waged War with the Romans with our own private Forces and bore up many times against two Armies and two Consuls at once but now our misery is so great and our spirits so low we are unable to defend our selves against one pitiful Legion CHAP. III. 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 priviledges CRescit interea Roma Albae ruinis The ruine of Alba was the rise of the Romans 'T was the saying of Livy and 't is true for who-ever would make any City great and apt for dominion must endeavour with all industry to throng it with inhabitants otherwise it will be impossible to bring it to any great perfection And this is done two ways by love and by force the first by giving passage and security to all persons that will come and inhabit there that every man shall be free the second by destroying the neighbour Cities and forcing the people to come and dwell in yours The Romans observed both ways and grew so numerous upon it that in the time of their sixth King they had 80000 men in the Town able to bear Arms proceeding in some respects like the Country-man who to make his plant larger and more fruitful cuts off its first shoots that the juyce and virtue which otherwise would dilate into the branches being kept close to the trunk might break out with more vigor afterwards and make it more beautiful and fertile And that this way is necessary for the propagation of the strength and authority of a City appears by the example of Athens and Sparta which Cities though they were both free numerous in Men and happy in their Laws yet they could never arrive at the grandeur of the Romans though Rome seemed more tumultuous and not so well governed as they and all for the reason abovesaid for Rome having by both those ways encreased the number of their Citizens was able to set out an Army at one time of 280000 men whereas Sparta and Athens could never exceed 20000. which is not to be attributed to the excellence of the situation of Rome but to the diversity of their Conduct for Lycurgus the Founder of the Spartan Commonwealth conceiving nothing could be more pernitious to it nor more easily abrogate his Laws than intermixing with new inhabitants he provided with all possible industry that his Citizens should have no commerce or conversation with strangers To that end he not only prohibited the admission of foreigners and their marrying with them but that there might be no encouragement or occasion of entercourse betwixt them he put out a certain Mony of Leather so pitifully inconsiderable that he presumed no Merchants would trouble themselves to import any foreign Commodities for it by which means that City was never in a capacity of being very populous And because all human affairs do hold some proportion and analogy with Nature and it is impossible that a slender trunk should bear vast and ponderous branches it is not to be expected that a small Commonwealth consisting of a small number of Citizens should subdue or at least keep and maintain greater and more populous States than themselves and if it should happen that they should conquer them at any time upon every slight accident they would be subject to lose them like the tree it would be too weak for its boughs and every puff of wind apt to blow it down And thus it fell out with Sparta though it had conquered all Greece made it self absolute thorow that whole Province yet Thebes no sooner rebelled but all the rest of the Cities revolted and having lost its great Empire in a moment it remained like a Tree destitute of its Branches But with Rome it was otherwise its Root and Trunk was strong enough to support its Branches how heavy and spacious soever and this was the great cause of the greatness of the Roman Empire which Livy expressed in two words when he said Crescit interea Roma Alvae ruinis CHAP. IV. There are three ways which Commonwealths have taken to enlarge their Territories HE who has read and observed the History of our Ancestors must find That Common-wealths had generally three ways of enlarging their Empire One is that which was observed of the Tuscans of old who entred into a League of Confederacy with several other Commonwealths with condition of Equality that no particular should have any degree or authority above the rest and that comprehension should be left for all their new Conquests to come in not much unlike the practice of the Swizzers in our times and the Achaians and Aetolians of old And because the
refuse to defend them they should discourage all others that had an inclination to do the like which would have been contrary to the great design of the Romans to propagate their Glory and Empire The same accidental cause gave occasion to their first War with the Carthaginians upon the Romans protecting the Massinenses in Sicily But their second war with the Carthaginians was designed for Hanibal the Carthaginian General fell upon the Saguntins in Spain who were in alliance with the Romans not so much out of malice to the Saguntins but that the Romans being provoked to their defence should give the Carthaginians occasion to transport the war into Italy This way of provoking and hedging in a War has been always practised among Potentates especially where they had any faith or respect for other people for that the peace which has been a long time betwixt them upon articles of alliance may seem firm and inviolate they will not meddle with him against whom they do principally design but turn their arms upon some of his friends and confederates that he is most particularly obliged to receive into his protection knowing that if he appears in their defence they must have occasion to fight him if he does not but disowns his allies they publish his weakness and infidelity to the World and by either of those ways they do their business This example of the Campani is of singular importance as well to those who would make war upon any body as those that are in distress for when you are unable to defend your self and unwilling to fall into their hands that invade you the best and most safe way is to put your self in subjection to some neighbouring Prince as the Campani did then and the Florentines afterward when they found themselves too weak to support against the power of Castruccio of Lucca for finding that Robert King of Naples would not protect them as friends they threw themselves into his arms to be defended as his subjects CHAP. X. That according to the common opinion mony is not the sinews of War BEcause it is easie to begin war as a man pleases but harder to end it every Prince before he undertakes an enterprize is obliged to consider his own strength well and to regulate by it But then he must be so wise too as not to make a wrong judgment and that he will certainly do as oft as he computes it by his Bags by the situation of his Towns or the affection of his Friends rather than by his own proper Power and Arms. Mony and Towns and Friends are all good when in conjunction with a strong Army of your own but without it they do nothing without Men to what purpose is either Mony or Towns and the affection of your subjects will hold no longer than you are able to defend them There is no mountain no lake no streight inaccessible where there is no force to defend it Vast sums of mony are not only incapable of protecting you but they expose you to more danger nor can any thing be more false than that old and common saying That mony is the sinews of the war Quintus Curtius was the first author of it in the war betwixt Antipater of Macedon and the King of Sparta where he tells us that for want of monies the Spartans were forced to fight and were beaten whereas could they have protracted but some few days they had had the news of Alexander's death and got the victory without fighting a blow but wanting mony and apprehending their Army would moulder they were constrained to come to a Battel and were defeated which was the occasion of that Apophthegm That mony is the sinews of war which saying is now a-days in every Princes mouth but improperly in my judgment for relying wholly upon that Maxim they think their treasure is sufficient to defend them not considering that if that would have done it Darius would have conquered Alexander the Grecians the Romans Duke Charles the Swizzers and of late the Pope and Florentines united would not have found it so hard to have mastered Francesco Maria Nephew to Iulius 2d at the Battel of Urbin But these whom I have mentioned presuming more upon the multitude of their bags than the goodness of their men were all beaten and overcome Craesus the King of Lydia carrying Solon into his Treasury and shewing him an immense quantity of riches ask'd him what he thought of his power to which Solon replyed I think it never the greater for this for War is carried on and Battels are fought more with iron than gold and it might happen for ought he knew that some body might come with his iron and take it all from him Again when after the death of Alexander the Great a great Army of Gauls transplanted into Greece from whence they passed afterwards into Asia before they began their march the Gauls sent Embassadors to the King of Macedon to treat an accord which being almost concluded to make the Embassadors more plyable the said King shews them his treasure which consisted of a vast quantity of silver and gold which the Embassadors had no sooner seen but longing impatiently to be at it they broke of the treaty and brought their Army into his Country so that that very thing in which he had reposed his great confidence and security proved his ruine and destruction The Venetians not long since had their Coffers well stor'd yet they lost all and their wealth was not able to defend them So that I do affirm 't is not mony as the common opinion will have it but good Souldiers that is the sinews of war for mony cannot find good Souldiers but good Souldiers will be sure to find mony had not the Romans done more in their wars with their iron than their gold the treasure of the whole World would not have been sufficient for them considering their great enterprizes abroad and their no less difficulties at home but fighting with iron they had no want of gold for those who were afraid of their Armies supplyed them And if the King of Sparta was forced to run the hazard of a Battel and was beaten for want of monies it was no more than what has hapned to others and might have hapned to him upon other occasions for it falls out of many times that for want of provisions an Army is forc'd either to fight or to starve in which case there is no General so weak but he will choose that which is most honourable where fortune has some power to befriend him Again a General having news of supplies that are coming to the enemy considers with himself whether he had not better engage them as they are than attend till their recruits come up and then fight them with more disadvantage sometimes likewise it falls out as it did to Asdrubal in the Country of the Piseni when he was surprized by Claudius Nero and the other Roman Consul that a
for others unless they be mad men or fools will never attempt it because people that are weak remote from the Court are destitute of all those hopes and conveniences that are requisite for the execution of such a design First men of slender fortune or interest cannot impart themselves freely no body will be true them because no man can concur with them upon any of those hopes which do usually encourage men to the undertaking of any great danger so that they can hardly communicate to two or three persons but one of them is an informer and the other are ruined But if they should be so happy as not to be betrayed the execution is attended with so many difficulties by reason of the difficulty of their access that it is impossible but they must miscarry and if great persons and such as are very conversant with their Prince are subject to such hazards those doubtless must be much more who are under none of those qualifications Wherefore when men of mean fortune or little access at Court consider their own weakness and inability they are discouraged from any such designs and if at any time they be offended and would do their Prince a mischief they content themselves with libelling and railing and expect when persons of greater access and capacity should revenge them upon his person and if any of these persons are so far transported as to attempt any thing of this nature their good will is more to be commended than their discretion We see then where any great Conspiracy has been made it has been by great persons and such as have been familiar with their Prince and that as often upon the score of benefits as injuries received so it was in the Conspiracy of Perennius against Commodus Plautianus against Severus Sejanus against Tiberius all of them preferred by their several Emperors and advanced to such Honours Authority and Estates that their power seem'd to want nothing of perfection but the Imperial Ensigns and that they might have them as well as the rest they conspired every one of them against their Prince and their Conspiracies had such ends as their ingratitude deserved However in the memory of our Fathers the Conspiracy of Giacopo d' Apiano against Messer Piero Gambacorti Prince of Pisa had a better end for the said Giacopo having been brought up and caressed and advanced by the said Piero deposed his Benefactor and took away his Government for his pains Another of the same nature was that of Coppola in our days against Ferdinand of Arragon though it had not the same success for Coppolâ— being arrived at that height of Authority that there was nothing but the bare name wanting to make him King he attempted for that and lost his life in the business And certainly if any Conspiracy might have succeeded it was his being a person as powerful as the King himself and seconded with all the conveniences he could desire but the same greediness of dominion that blinded him in the undertaking blinded him in the prosecution of his design for had it been managed with the least prudence it would have been impossible to have miscarried A Prince therefore who would preserve himself against Conspiracy is to have an eye rather upon those he has obliged than those he has offended for they that are offended have not those frequent opportunities that the other have and for the disposition it is much alike the desire of dominion being as great if not greater than the desire of revenge so then authority is to be given to his friends with that caution that there be always some space or interval left betwixt the preferment of the Favourite and the sovereignty of the Prince lest if his ambition should not be satisfied he should aspire immediately at the Crown But to return to our design I say that Conspiratours being to be great men and such as have easie access to the Prince we are now to enquire into the successes of their Plots and see what have been the causes of their prosperity or miscarriage And because as I said before the danger is considerable in the management execution and afterwards for that reason there are very few of them that arrive at their proposed end In their contrivances and consultations there is such extraordinary danger that unless they be carried on with singular caution and prudence they will be easily discovered and they are discovered two ways either by down-right impeachment or by conjecture and presumption Impeachment proceeds either from infidelity or folly in those persons with whom you have communicated infidelity is easily found for you cannot communicate in that nature but with such of your Confidents as you suppose will venture their lives for you or else with such persons as are dissatisfied with the Government of such kind of Confidents one or two may possibly be found but when you begin to multiply them and commit your secret to more you must necessarily be betrayed for their affection to you must be very great if the apprehension of the danger and the fear of the punishment do not deter them besides men are many times mistaken in the affection of their friends for they can never be assured of them till they have made experiment and to make experiment in such ways as this is exceedingly dangerous and if perchance you have had trial of them in some other matters of importance in which they have behaved themselves faithfully and well yet you can take no true measures from that because this surpasses all other dangers whatsoever If you presume upon his discontent animosity to his Prince you may be casily deceived for as soon as you have discovered your design you have given him a power to reconcile himself and his rancour must be very great or your influence extraordinary to keep him faithful hence it is that many Conspiracies are discovered and as it were nipp'd in the Bud and when any of them are kept private where many persons are privy 't is look'd upon as a miracle as that of Piso against Nero and in our times that of the Pazzi against Lorenzo and Giuliano de Medici in which though fifty were concerned it was never discovered till it came to execution for discoveries by indiscretion they happen when one of the Conspirators talks carelesly so as some servant or third person picks it out as it hapned to the Sons of Brutus who in their Negotiations with Tarquin's Embassadors were over-heard and accused by one of the Servants another way is when out of levity you communicate with some Child or Woman that you love or such other incontinent person as Dinus did who being with Philotas entred into a Conspiracy against Alexander the Great imparted it to a Boy that he loved called Ficomachus who told it to his Brother Cibalinus and Cibalinus discovered it to the King As to discoveries by circumstances and conjecture we have an example in the Pisonian Conspiracy against
door that is opened to their ambition sets them agog and abolishes all that love which they ow'd to their Prince for his humanity towards them as in this example of the Friends and Army of Scipio wherefore Scipio was constrained to make use of that severity in some measure which he had always declined As to Hanibal there is not any particular example where his cruelty or infidelity did him hurt only it may be supposed that they were the occasion why Naples and several other Towns stood so firm to the Romans It is plain likewise that his bloodiness and impiety made him more odious to the people of Rome than all the Enemies that ever that City had for whereas when Pyrrhus was with a great Army in Italy they gave him notice of a design on foot to have poisoned him they were so inveterate against Hanibal that they never forgave him but when they had defeated and disarm'd him they pursued him to the death And these sad inconveniences hapned to Hanibal from no other causes but because he was impious unfaithful and cruel but then on the other side he had the advantage of being admired of all Writers for keeping his Army without any mutiny or dissention either against him or among themselves though it consisted of so many different Nations which could be derived from nothing but the awe and terror of his person which terror was so great considered with the reputation and authority that he received from his valour that thereby he kept his Souldiers united and quiet I conclude therefore it imports not much which way a General takes so there be any great excellence in him to recommend it for as is said before both in the one and the other there is danger and defect if there be not some extraordinary virtue to balance it And if Hanibal and Scipio one by laudable and the other by ignominous and detestable ways arrived at the same end and had the same effects I think it convenient in my next Chapter to discourse of two Roman Citizens who by divers ways but both honourable arrived at the same pitch of glory and renown CHAP. II. How the austerity of Manlius Torquatus and the humanity of Valerius Corvinus gain'd each of them the same honour and reputation THere were two famous Captains contemporary in Rome Manlius Torquatus and Valerius Corvinus both of them equal in courage equal in their triumphs and each of them as to the enemy acquir'd all with equal virtue and terror but as to their own Armies and manner of discipline it was quite different Manlius commanded with all kind of severity excused his Souldiers from no labour nor no punishment Valerius on the other side used them with as much gentleness and familiarity Manlius to keep his Souldiers strictly to their discipline executed his own son which Valerius was so far from imitating that he never offended any man yet in this great diversity of conduct the effects were the same both as to the Enemy the Commonwealth and themselves for none of their Souldiers ever declin'd fighting none of them rebelled or so much as disputed their commands though the discipline of Manlius was so severe that afterwards all excessive and extravagant commands were called Manliana imperia in which place it is not amiss to enquire how it came to pass that Manlius was constrained to so rigorous a method what it was that made Valerius comport himself so mildly how it was that this different way of proceeding should have the same effect and last of all which of the two is most worthy thy to be imitated If Manlius be considered as he is represented by the Historian he will be found to be very valiant carrying himself with great piety to his Father and Country and with great reverence to his Superiors which appeared by his defence of his Father with the hazard of his own life against a Tribune who accused him and by his fighting with the Gaul in the behalf of his Country which notwithstanding he would not undertake without orders from the Consul for when he saw a vast man of a prodigious proportion marching forth upon the Bridge and challenging any of the Romans he went modestly to the Consul for leave and told him Injussa tuo adversus hostem nunquam pugnabo non si certain victoriam videam Without your permission I will never engage with the enemy though I was sure to overcome and the Consul giving him leave he conquered his enemy When therefore a man of his constitution arrives at such a command he desires all men may be as punctual as himself and being naturally brave he commands brave things and when they are once commanded requires that they be executed exactly and this is a certain rule when great things are commanded strict obedience must be expected otherwise your enterprize must fail That therefore those under your command may be the more obedient to your commands it is necessary that you command aright and he commands right who compares his own quality and condition with the quality and condition of those they command if he finds them proportionable then he may command if otherwise he is to forbear and therefore that saying was not amiss that to keep a Common-wealth in subjection by violence it was convenient that there should be a proportion betwixt the persons forced and forcing and whilst that proportion lasted the violence might last too but when that proportion was dissolved and he that was forced grew stronger than he that offered it it was to be doubted much his authority would not hold long But to return great things therefore and magnificent are not to be commanded but by a man that is great and magnificent himself and he who is so constituted having once commanded them cannot expect that mildness or gentleness will prevail with his subjects to execute them but he that is not of this greatness and magnificence of mind is by no means to command extraordinary things and if his commands be but ordinary his humanity may do well enough for ordinary punishments are not imputed to the Prince but to the Laws and Customs of the place so that we may conclude Manlius was constrained to that severity by his natural temper and complexion and such persons are many times of great importance to a Commonwealth because by the exactness of their own lives and the strictness of their discipline they revive the old Laws and reduce every thing towards its first principles And if a State could be so happy to have such persons succeeding one another in any reasonable time as by their examples would not only renew the laws restrain vice and remove every thing that tended to its ruine or corruption that State would be immortal So then Manlius was a severe man and kept up the Roman discipline exactly prompted first by his own nature and then by a strong desire to have that obeyed which his own inclination had constrained him to
convenient and particularly for the State for it never does hurt if the hatred which follows your severity be not encreased by a jealousie of your great virtue and reputation as it happen'd to Camillus CHAP. XXIII Vpon what occasion Camillus was banished from Rome WE have concluded in the Chapter before that to imitate Valerius may prejudice your Country and your self and that to imitate Manlius may be convenient for your self and prejudicial to your Country which opinion is much confirmed by the case of Camillus whose proceedings were more like Manlius than Valerius for which reason Livy speaking of him tells us Ejus virtutem milites oderantâ— Mirabantur His virtue was both odious and admirable to his Soldiers That which made him admired was his Diligence Prudence Magnanimity and Conduct That which made him hated was that he was more severe in punishing than liberal in rewarding And of this hatred Livy gives these following reasons First because he caused the Money which was made of the goods of the Vejentes to be applyed to publick use and not distributed with the rest of the prey Next because in his Triumphal Chariot he caused himself to be drawn by four white Horses which was accounted so great a piece of arrogance that it was thought he did it to equalize the Sun A third was that he had devoted a tenth part of the spoils of the Vejentes to Apollo which to keep his Vow was to be taken back again from the Soldiers who had got it in their clutches From whence it may be observed that nothing makes a Prince more odious to the people than to deprive them of their possessions which is a thing of so great importance that it is never forgotten because upon every little want it comes fresh into their Memories and men being daily subject to those wants will daily remember it and next to this is being insolent and proud which is likewise extreamly odious to the people especially if they be free And although perhaps no detriment accrews to them from his pride yet they are observed always to detest him that uses it So that a great person is to avoid it as a rock because it begets hatred and that without any advantage which makes it a very rash and imprudent thing CHAP. XXIV The prolongation of Commissions brought Rome first into servitude IF the dissolution of the Roman Commonwealth be accurately considered it will be found to proceed partly from the differences about the Agrarian Law and partly from the prorogation of their Magistrates which errors had they been known in time and due remedies applyed would not have been so pernicious but Rome might have enjoyed her freedom longer and perhaps with more quiet For though from the prolongation of Offices there were no tumults noâ— seditions to be seen in that City yet it was clear that those Magistrates which were continued took much upon them and by degrees their power and authority became a great prejudice to the liberty of the State Had all the Citizens who were continued been wise and honest like L. Quintius they would not have incurred this inconvenience The goodness of Quintius appeared in one thing very remarkably a meeting being appointed for accommodation of the differences betwixt the Nobility and the People the people continued their authority to their Tribunes another year as believing them very proper to resist the ambition of the Nobles The Senate to retaliate upon the people and show themselves as considerable as they continued the Consulship to Quintius But Quintius refused it absolutely alledging that ill examples were to be stifled and not encreased by others that were worse and therefore pressed them to the election of new Consuls and prevailed with much importunity and contention Had the rest of the Roman Citizens imitated this person they had never admitted that custom of proroguing of Magistrates and then the prolongation of their Commands in the Army had never been introduced which very thing was at length the ruine of that Commonwealth The first person whose Commission was continued in Rome was P. Philo who having besieged Pale-polis and by the time his Consulship was to expire reduced it to such extremity that the victory seemed already in his hands The Senate would not send another to succeed him but continued his authority with the Title of Proconsul which thing though done then upon grave consideration and for the benefit of the publick proved afterwards of such ill consequence that it brought that City in servitude and slavery For by how much their Wars were more remote by so much they thought these prorogations convenient from whence it hapned that fewer of the Romans were prepared for Military Commands and the glory of their Victories redounded but to few and besides he whose Commission was renew'd and had been a long time accustomed to the Army might insinuate so and gain such an interest in it as might make it disclaim the Senate and acknowledg no Head but their General This it was that enabled Marius and Sylla to debauch the Army this was it that enabled Caesar to conquer his native Country which miseries had never hapned had not that custom of continuing Magistrates and Commanders been introduced If it be objected that their great affairs could not have been managed as so great a distance without that prorogation of commands I answer That 't is possible their Empire might have been longer before it came to that height but then it would have been more lasting for the adversary would never have been able to have erected a Monarchy and destroyed their liberty so soon CHAP. XXV Of the Poverty of Cincinnatus and several other Citizens of Rome WE have said elsewhere that nothing is of more importance to the conservation of the liberty of a State than to keep the Citizens low and from being too wealthy Whether there was any Law to that purpose or what that Law was I must acknowledge my ignorance especially when I consider with what zealand passion the Agrarian was opposed yet 't is clear by experience that for 400 years after the building of Rome that City was in very great poverty And it is probable the great cause of it was that poverty was no impediment to preferment Virtue was the only thing required in the Election of Magistrates and the distribution of Offices and wherever it was found let the person or family be never so poor it was sure to be advanced which manner of living made riches contemptible And this is manifest by the following example Minutius the Consul being circumvented and he and his whole Army as it were block'd up by the Aequi the Romans were so possess'd with the danger of their Army that they betook themselves to the creation of a Dictator which is their last remedy in their greatest afflictions They concluded upon L. Quintius Cincinnatus who was then when they sent for him in a little Country farm at Plough which Livy magnifies exceedingly
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
of them do their office according to the intent of their establishment First your Capidieci or File-leaders if they answer the end for which they were established are to have their men a-part lodge with them charge with them and be always in the same file with them for being kept to their due places the File-leaders are a rule and temper to the rest keeping them firm and straight in their files so as it is impossible almost that they be disordered and if they be they are quickly reduced But in our days we make no otherwise of them but to give them greater pay and enable them to make particular factions 'T is the same with our Ensigns for they are used more for pomp and parade than any military service whereas formerly the Captains employed them as guides and directions in case of disorder for every man as soon as the Ensign was fix'd knew his place immediately and immediately return'd to it They knew likewise thereby how they were to move or to halt it is necessary therefore in an Army that there be several of these small Bodies that every Body has its Colours and Ensign and Guide for where there are many Bodies there ought to be many Arms and many Officers The Souldiers then are to follow the motion of their Colours and their Colours the direction of their Drum which being well ordered commands the Army and advertizes how they are to march with a motion suitable to the time which it beats which is a great preservation to their order For this cause the ancients had their flutes and pipes which made an excellent harmony and as he that dances keeps himself exactly to the time of the musick and whilst he does so is not capable of erring so an Army that in its motions observes the beating and direction of its Drums cannot be easily disordered For this reason they varied their sounds when they would excite or asswage or continue the courage of their men And as their ways of beating were various so they gave them several names The Dorick way provoked to constancy and fâ—rmness the Phrygian inflam'd the Souldiers into a martial fury and violence It is repoâ—â—ed that Alexander being one day at dinner and hearing a Drum beating suddenly the Phrygian way was transported with so great a vehemence and commotion that he clap'd his hand upon his Sword and drew it as if he had been going to fight So that in my judgment it would be very convenient to revive the ancient dialects of the Drum and practices of our Ancestors and if that should prove too difficult yet those persons should not be despised and laid aside who would teach and instruct the Souldier how to obey them yet those ways may be changed and varied as every man pleases provided he ensures his Souldiers ears to understand the variety but now a-days the greatest use of the Drum is to make a great noise Cosimo I would fain know of you if you have ever considered it with your self how it comes to pass that such military exercises are in our times grown so low and contemptible Fabr. I shall tell you freely what I think may be the cause CHAP. XIII A discourse of the Author about military Virtue and how it is become so despicable in our days Fabr. YOu know Europe according to the testimony of several Authors has afforded many excellent Captains Africk has had some and Asia fewer and the reason as I conceive is because those two quarters of the World have had but one or two Monarchies among them and very few Commonwealths but Europe has had several Kingdoms and more Commonwealths and men are industrious and by consequence excellent as they are employed and preferred by their Prince or their State Where therefore there are many Princes there are many brave men where there are but few of the first there are fewer of the other We find in Asia there was Ninus Cyrus Artaxerxes Mithridates and some few others of that rank In Africa besides the Aegyptian antiquity there were Massinissa Iugurtha and those great Captains which were trained up in the Carthaginian Wars which notwithstanding in respect of the numbers which have been produced in Europe were very few for in Europe their brave Generals are innumerable in History or at least they would have been had the Historians with those they have already recorded made mention of such as are now forgotten by the malignity of time For there people are more virtuous where there have been frequent revolutions of State and where the Governments have favoured virtue either out of necessity or compassion As for Asia it has not produced many extraordinary men because that Province was wholly under a Monarchy which by reason of its greatness the greatest part of it being always at peace could not produce such excellent men as where there was action and war In Africa it was the same yet there they were more numerous by reason of the Carthaginian Republick for Commonwealths do furnish the World with more brave men than Kingdoms because in States virtue is many times honoured and advanced in Monarchies and Kingdoms it is suspected from whence it proceeds that in the one it is encouraged in the other exploded He then who shall consider Europe shall find it full of Commonwealths and Principalities which in respect of the jealousies and animosities betwixt them were constrained to keep up the old military discipline and advance those who in it were any ways eminent for in Greece besides the Macedonians there were manay Republicks and in each of them several excellent men The Romans the Samnites the Tuscans Cisalpine Gauls France and Germany were full of Republicks and Principalities and Spain was the same And though in respect of the Romans the numbers which are mentioned of them in History are but small that proceeds from the emulation and partiality of the Historians who following fortune content themselves with commending the Conqueror but ' its unreasonable to imagine that among the Samnites and Tuscans who waged war with the Romans 150 years together before they were totally subdued there were not many brave men and so in France and in Spain but the virtue which Authors do not celebrate in particular men they impute generally to the whole people whom they exalt to the skies for their constancy and adherence to their liberty It being true then that where there are most Principalities and Governments there are more excellent men it follows that when those Governments and Principalities extinguish their brave men and virtue extinguish with them there being loss occasion to exert it After the Roman Empire had dilated in self so strangely and subverted all the Common-wealths and Principalities in Europe and Africa and the greatest part of those in Asia virtue declined in all places but in Rome Whereupon virtuous men began to grow thinner in Europe and Asia and by degrees came afterwards to a total declination for the virtue of
In your description of the Fight you have caused me to remember how Scipio in the Engagement caused not his Hastati to retire into the ranks of the Principes but divided them and caused them to retire into the Wings of the Army to give place to the Principes when they were to advance against the Enemy I would know therefore for what reason he differed from the ordinary custom Fabritio I will tell you Hanibal had placed the strength of his Army in the second division so that Scipio to oppose them with equal courage united the Principes and the Triarii together insomuch as the intervals of the Principes being filled up by the Triarii there was no spaces left for the reception of the Hastati wherefore he caused the Hastati to open to the right and left and fall in with the Wings of the Army But you must observe that this way of dividing the first Squadron is not to be used but when the other is Superior for then you may do it conveniently as Scipio did but being inferior or under any repulse it is not to be done without manifest danger and therefore it is necessary that you have spaces behind in your other Squadrons that may be ready to receive you But to return to our discourse The ancient Asians among other contrivances to mischief their Enemy made use of certain Chariots with Sythes fastned to the Sides of them which served not only to open the Squadrons of the Enemy with their force but to cut and kill them with their Sythes Against these Chariots they had three ways to defend themselves either by the closeness of their ranks or by receiving them into their ranks as they did the Elephants or by some other vigorous resistance as Silla the Roman did against Archelaus who had store of those Chariots to repel them Silla caused several stakes to be pitched into the ground before his first Squadron which putting a stop to the carreer of the said Chariots prevented the execution which they would otherwise have done And it is observable the new method that Silla used in ranging his Army for placing his Velites and light Horse behind and all his compleat arm'd Soldiers before he left intervals sufficient to receive them which were behind when they had occasion to march up so that the Fight being begun by the assistance of the Horse who had room to pass thorow the first Squadron to the charge he obtained the Victory CHAP. II. The Arts which are to be used during the Fight Fabr. TO disturb the Army of the enemy when the Battel is joyned it is necessary to invent some way or other to affright them either by spreading a report of supplies that are hard by or counterfeiting some representation of them that may dismay the enemy and facilitate their defeat Minutius Ruffus and Acillus Glabrio two of the Roman Consuls were skilful in this art Caius Sulpitius caused all the boys and refuse of his Army to mount upon mules and other beasts that were unserviceable in fight and placed them at a distance upon a hill and drawn up in such order that they appeared like a compleat body of horse when he was engaged with the French and the enemies apprehension of that body got Sulpitius the Victory Marius made use of the same stratagem when he fought against the Germans if then these false alarms and representations are of such use and advantage in time of Battel true ones must needs be more efficacious especially if they fall upon the enemies flank or rear whilst the battel is joyned which indeed is not easy to be done unless the nature of the Country contributes for if it be open and plain you cannot conceal any part of your Forces as is necessary to be done in those cases but in woody or mountainous Countries you may conceal some of your Troops in such manner as they may fall suddenly and unexpectedly upon the enemy which will give you a certain Victory It is many times of great importance to spread a rumour abroad during the Fight that the enemies General is slain or that he is beaten in another part of the Army which as the other has many times been the cause of a Victory The enemies horse are often disordered by the representation of strange figures or the making of some unusual noise as Croesus did who opposed camels against horse and Pyrrhus when he confronted their Cavalry with his Elephants the strangeness of which sight affrighted them so that nothing was strong enough to keep them from disorder In our days the Turk defeated the Sophi of Persia and the Soldan of Syria only with the noise of this Guns which being unusual to their horse disordered them in such manner that the Turk got the Victory without any great trouble The Spaniards to distract the Army of Amilcar placed in the front of their Army certain Chariots filled with flax and drawn by oxen to which flax when the enemy came up to charge they put fire and the oxen running from the fire rush'd furiously into the Army of Arailcar and put it to the rout It is an unusual practice as we have said before to surprize and disturb the enemy with ambuscades where the Country is convenient but where it is open and large many have made great holes in the ground and covered them with straw and earth lightly leaving certain spaces solid and firm for their own retreat over which having retired cunningly in the heat of the fight the enemy pursuing has fallen in and been ruined If during the fight any ill accident happens that may discourage your Souldiers 't is prudence to dissemble it and turn it to advantage as Tullus Hostilius did and Lucius Sylla who observing in the heat of the Battel a party of his Troops go over to the enemy to the great disheartening of the rest caused it to be published quite thorow his Army that it was done by his order which not only dispelled the apprehension that was among them but encouraged them in such manner that it got him the Victory Sylla having commanded out a party upon some enterprize and all of them being killed in fight of his Army that the rest might not be terrified told them he sent them on purpose because he had found them unfaithful Sertorius fighting a battel in Spain flew one of his own men who brought him news that one of his great Officers was killed and the reason was lest telling it to the rest it might possibly have discouraged them It is no easy matter to detain and Army if it be once tottering and inclining to run and to bring it to fight again but you must consider it with this distinction either it is wholly disordered and then it is impossible to recover it or else it is disordered but in part and there is some remedy Many of the Roman Generals have stop'd the flight of their Armies by putting themselves at the head of
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