So leaving aside things people have dreamed up about rulers and concentrating instead on reality, let’s say that when we talk about anyone, but especially about leaders, who are more exposed than others to the public eye, what we point are the qualities that prompt praise or blame. One man is thought generous and another miserly; one is seen as benevolent, another as grasping; one cruel, the other kind; one treacherous, another loyal; one effeminate and fearful, another bold and brave; one considerate, another arrogant; one promiscuous, another chaste; one straightforward, another devious; one stubborn, another accommodating; one solemn, another superficial; one religious, another unbelieving, and so on.
And I’m sure we’d all agree that it would be an excellent thing if a ruler were to have all the good qualities mentioned above and none of the bad; but since it’s in the nature of life that you can’t have or practise all those qualities all of the time, a ruler must take care to avoid the disgrace that goes with the kind of failings that could lose him his position. As for failings that wouldn’t lead to his losing power, he should avoid them if he can; but if he can’t, he needn’t worry too much. In the same way, he mustn’t be concerned about the bad reputation that comes with those negative qualities that are almost essential if he is to hold on to power. If you think about it, there’ll always be something that looks morally right but would actually lead a ruler to disaster, and something else that looks wrong but will bring security and success.
16
Generosity and meanness
If we take the first of the qualities listed above, we can say that it would be nice to be seen as generous. All the same, being generous just to be seen to be so will damage you. Generosity practised out of real good will, as it should be, risks passing unnoticed and you won’t escape a reputation for meanness. Hence, if you’re determined to have people think of you as generous, you’ll have to be lavish in every possible way; naturally, a ruler who follows this policy will soon use up all his wealth to the point that, if he wants to keep up his reputation, he’ll have to impose special taxes and do everything a ruler can to raise cash. His people will start to hate him and no one will respect him now he has no money. Since his generosity will have damaged the majority and benefited only a few, he’ll be vulnerable to the first bad news, and the first real danger may well topple him. When he realizes this and tries to change his ways, he’ll immediately be accused of meanness.
Since a ruler can’t be generous and show it without putting himself at risk, if he’s sensible he won’t mind getting a reputation for meanness. With time, when people see that his penny-pinching means he doesn’t need to raise taxes and can defend the country against attack and embark on campaigns without putting a burden on his people, he’ll increasingly be seen as generous - generous to those he takes nothing from, which is to say almost everybody, and mean to those who get nothing from him, which is to say very few. In our own times the only leaders we’ve seen doing great things were all reckoned mean. The others were failures. Pope Julius II exploited his reputation for generosity to get the papacy, then gladly let it go to finance his wars. The present King of France has fought many wars without resorting to new taxes, something he can do because his constant cost-cutting has provided for the extra expenditure. The present King of Spain would not have won all the wars he has if he had had a reputation for generosity.
So, if as a result he has the resources to defend his country, isn’t obliged to steal from his subjects or prey on others, and is in no danger of falling into poverty, a ruler need hardly worry about a reputation for meanness; it is one of the negative qualities that keep him in power. And if someone protests: But it was generosity that won Caesar the empire and many others have risen to the highest positions because they were and were seen to be generous, my response is: A ruler in power and a man seeking power are two different things. For the ruler already in power generosity is dangerous; for the man seeking power it is essential. Caesar was one of a number of men who wanted to become emperor of Rome; but if he’d survived as emperor and gone on spending in the same way, he would have destroyed the empire. And if someone were to object: Many rulers who scored great military victories were considered extremely generous, I’d reply: Either a ruler is spending his own and his subjects’ money, or someone else’s. When the money is his own or his subjects’, he should go easy; when it’s someone else’s, he should be as lavish as he can.
A ruler leading his armies and living on plunder, pillage and extortion is using other people’s money and had better be generous with it, otherwise his soldiers won’t follow him. What’s not your own or your subjects’ can be given away freely: Cyrus did this; so did Caesar and Alexander. Spending other people’s money doesn’t lower your standing - it raises it. It’s only spending your own money that puts you at risk. Nothing consumes itself so much as generosity, because while you practise it you’re losing the wherewithal to go on practising it. Either you fall into poverty and are despised for it, or, to avoid poverty, you become grasping and hateful. Above all else a king must guard against being despised and hated. Generosity leads to both. It’s far more sensible to keep a reputation for meanness, which carries a stigma but doesn’t rouse people’s hatred, than to strive to be seen as generous and find at the end of the day that you’re thought of as grasping, something that carries a stigma and gets you hated too.
17
Cruelty and compassion. Whether it’s better to be feared or loved
Continuing with our list of qualities, I’m sure every leader would wish to be seen as compassionate rather than cruel. All the same he must be careful not to use his compassion unwisely. Cesare Borgia was thought to be cruel, yet his cruelty restored order to Romagna and united it, making the region peaceful and loyal. When you think about it, he was much more compassionate than the Florentines whose reluctance to be thought cruel led to disaster in Pistoia. A ruler mustn’t worry about being labelled cruel when it’s a question of keeping his subjects loyal and united; using a little exemplary severity, he will prove more compassionate than the leader whose excessive compassion leads to public disorder, muggings and murder. That kind of trouble tends to harm everyone, while the death sentences that a ruler hands out affect only the individuals involved. But of all rulers, a man new to power simply cannot avoid a reputation for cruelty, since a newly conquered state is a very dangerous place. Virgil puts these words in Queen Dido’s mouth:
The difficult situation and the newness of my kingdom
Force me to do these things, and guard my borders everywhere.3
All the same, a leader must think carefully before believing and responding to certain allegations and not get frightened over nothing. He should go about things coolly, cautiously and humanely: if he’s too trusting, he’ll get careless, and if he trusts no one he’ll make himself unbearable.
These reflections prompt the question: is it better to be loved rather than feared, or vice versa? The answer is that one would prefer to be both but, since they don’t go together easily, if you have to choose, it’s much safer to be feared than loved. We can say this of most people: that they are ungrateful and unreliable; they lie, they fake, they’re greedy for cash and they melt away in the face of danger. So long as you’re generous and, as I said before, not in immediate danger, they’re all on your side: they’d shed their blood for you, they’d give you their belongings, their lives, their children. But when you need them they turn their backs on you. The ruler who has relied entirely on their promises and taken no other precautions is lost. Friendship that comes at a price, and not because people admire your spirit and achievements, may indeed have been paid for, but that doesn’t mean you really possess it and you certainly won’t be able to count on it when you need it. Men are less worried about letting down someone who has made himself loved than someone who makes himself feared. Love binds when someone recognizes he should be grateful to you, but, since men are a sad lot, gratitude is forgotten the moment it’s inconvenient. Fear means
fear of punishment, and that’s something people never forget.
All the same, while a ruler can’t expect to inspire love when making himself feared, he must avoid arousing hatred. Actually, being feared is perfectly compatible with not being hated. And a ruler won’t be hated if he keeps his hands off his subjects’ property and their women. If he really has to have someone executed, he should only do it when he has proper justification and manifest cause. Above all, he mustn’t seize other people’s property. A man will sooner forget the death of his father than the loss of his inheritance. Of course there are always reasons for taking people’s property and a ruler who has started to live that way will never be short of pretexts for grabbing more. On the other hand, reasons for executing a man come more rarely and pass more quickly.
But when a ruler is leading his army and commanding large numbers of soldiers, then above all he must have no qualms about getting a reputation for cruelty; otherwise it will be quite impossible to keep the army united and fit for combat. One of Hannibal’s most admirable achievements was that despite leading a huge and decidedly multiracial army far from home there was never any dissent among the men or rebellion against their leader whether in victory or defeat. The only possible explanation for this was Hannibal’s tremendous cruelty, which, together with his countless positive qualities, meant that his soldiers always looked up to him with respect and terror. The positive qualities without the cruelty wouldn’t have produced the same effect. Historians are just not thinking when they praise him for this achievement and then condemn him for the cruelty that made it possible.
To show that Hannibal’s other qualities wouldn’t have done the job alone we can take the case of Scipio, whose army mutinied in Spain. Scipio was an extremely rare commander not only in his own times but in the whole of recorded history, but he was too easy-going and as a result gave his troops a freedom that was hardly conducive to military discipline. Fabius Maximus condemned him for this in the Senate, claiming that he had corrupted the Roman army. When one of his officers sacked the town of Locri, Scipio again showed leniency; he didn’t carry out reprisals on behalf of the towns-folk and failed to punish the officer’s presumption, so much so that someone defending Scipio in the Senate remarked that he was one of those many men who don’t make mistakes themselves, but find it hard to punish others who do. If Scipio had gone on leading his armies like this, with time his temperament would have undermined his fame and diminished his glory, but since he took his orders from the Senate, not only was the failing covered up but it actually enhanced his reputation.
Going back, then, to the question of being feared or loved, my conclusion is that since people decide for themselves whether to love a ruler or not, while it’s the ruler who decides whether they’re going to fear him, a sensible man will base his power on what he controls, not on what others have freedom to choose. But he must take care, as I said, that people don’t come to hate him.
18
A ruler and his promises
Everyone will appreciate how admirable it is for a ruler to keep his word and be honest rather than deceitful. However, in our own times we’ve had examples of leaders who’ve done great things without worrying too much about keeping their word. Outwitting opponents with their cunning, these men achieved more than leaders who behaved honestly.
The reader should bear in mind that there are two ways of doing battle: using the law and using force. Typically, humans use laws and animals force. But since playing by the law often proves inadequate, it makes sense to resort to force as well. Hence a ruler must be able to exploit both the man and the beast in himself to the full. In ancient times writers used fables to teach their leaders this lesson: they tell how Achilles and many other leaders were sent to the centaur Chiron to be fed and brought up under his discipline. This story of having a teacher who was half-man and half-beast obviously meant that a ruler had to be able to draw on both natures. If he had only one, he wouldn’t survive.
Since a ruler has to be able to act the beast, he should take on the traits of the fox and the lion; the lion can’t defend itself against snares and the fox can’t defend itself from wolves. So you have to play the fox to see the snares and the lion to scare off the wolves. A ruler who just plays the lion and forgets the fox doesn’t know what he’s doing. Hence a sensible leader cannot and must not keep his word if by doing so he puts himself at risk, and if the reasons that made him give his word in the first place are no longer valid. If all men were good, this would be bad advice, but since they are a sad lot and won’t be keeping their promises to you, you hardly need to keep yours to them. Anyway, a ruler will never be short of good reasons to explain away a broken promise. It would be easy to cite any number of examples from modern times to show just how many peace treaties and other commitments have been rendered null and void by rulers not keeping their word. Those best at playing the fox have done better than the others. But you have to know how to disguise your slyness, how to pretend one thing and cover up another. People are so gullible and so caught up with immediate concerns that a con man will always find someone ready to be conned.
There’s one recent example that really should be mentioned. Pope Alexander VI never did anything but con people. That was all he ever thought about. And he always found people he could con. No one ever gave more convincing promises than Alexander, or swore greater oaths to back them up, and no one ever kept his promises less; yet his deceptions always worked, because he knew this side of human nature so well.
So, a leader doesn’t have to possess all the virtuous qualities I’ve mentioned, but it’s absolutely imperative that he seem to possess them. I’ll go so far as to say this: if he had those qualities and observed them all the time, he’d be putting himself at risk. It’s seeming to be virtuous that helps; as, for example, seeming to be compassionate, loyal, humane, honest and religious. And you can even be those things, so long as you’re always mentally prepared to change as soon as your interests are threatened. What you have to understand is that a ruler, especially a ruler new to power, can’t always behave in ways that would make people think a man good, because to stay in power he’s frequently obliged to act against loyalty, against charity, against humanity and against religion. What matters is that he has the sort of character that can change tack as luck and circumstances demand, and, as I’ve already said, stick to the good if he can but know how to be bad when the occasion demands.
So a ruler must be extremely careful not to say anything that doesn’t appear to be inspired by the five virtues listed above; he must seem and sound wholly compassionate, wholly loyal, wholly humane, wholly honest and wholly religious. There is nothing more important than appearing to be religious. In general people judge more by appearances than first-hand experience, because everyone gets to see you but hardly anyone deals with you directly. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few have experience of who you really are, and those few won’t have the courage to stand up to majority opinion underwritten by the authority of state. When they’re weighing up what someone has achieved - and this is particularly true with rulers, who can’t be held to account - people look at the end result. So if a leader does what it takes to win power and keep it, his methods will always be reckoned honourable and widely praised. The crowd is won over by appearances and final results. And the world is all crowd: the dissenting few find no space so long as the majority have any grounds at all for their opinions. There’s a certain king today4 - I’d better not call him by name - who never stops preaching peace and trust and is actually sworn enemy to both; and if he had ever practised either he would have lost his authority or his kingdom many times over.
19
Avoiding contempt and hatred
Now that I’ve discussed the most important of the qualities I listed I’d like to look at the others more briefly in relation to the principle, already mentioned, that a ruler must avoid any behaviour that will lead to his being hated or held in contempt; every time he manages this he’s done
what a ruler should and can indulge other bad habits without worrying about the consequences. As I’ve already said, what most leads to a ruler being hated is seizing and stealing his subjects’ property and women; that he must not do. As long as you don’t deprive them of property or honour most men will be happy enough and you’ll only have to watch out for the ambitious few who can easily be reined back in various ways. You’ll be held in contempt, on the other hand, if you’re seen as changeable, superficial, effeminate, fearful or indecisive. So a ruler must avoid those qualities like so many stumbling blocks and act in such a way that everything he does gives an impression of greatness, spirit, seriousness and strength; when presiding over disputes between citizens he should insist that his decision is final and make sure no one imagines they can trick or outwit him.
The ruler who projects this impression of himself will be highly thought of and it’s hard to conspire against a man who is well thought of. Then so long as he has a reputation for excellence and is respected by his people it will be hard for outside enemies to attack him either. A ruler must guard against two kinds of danger: one internal, coming from his own people; the other external, coming from foreign powers. To defend yourself against foreign powers you need a good army and good allies. And if you have a good army you’ll always have good allies, and when you’re secure against foreign powers you’ll always be secure internally too, assuming there wasn’t already a conspiracy under way. Then even when a foreign power does move against you, if you’ve lived and organized yourself as I’ve suggested, you only have to keep your nerve and you’ll survive any and every attack, like the Spartan ruler Nabis in the example I gave earlier.