the usual course of affairs is that, as soon as a powerful foreigner
enters a country, all the subject states are drawn to him, moved by
the hatred which they feel against the ruling power. So that in
respect to those subject states he has not to take any trouble to gain
them over to himself, for the whole of them quickly rally to the state
which he has acquired there. He has only to take care that they do not
get hold of too much power and too much authority, and then with his
own forces, and with their goodwill, he can easily keep down the more
powerful of them, so as to remain entirely master in the country. And
he who does not properly manage this business will soon lose what he
has acquired, and whilst he does hold it he will have endless
difficulties and troubles.
The Romans, in the countries which they annexed, observed closely
these measures; they sent colonies and maintained friendly relations
with[*] the minor powers, without increasing their strength; they kept
down the greater, and did not allow any strong foreign powers to gain
authority. Greece appears to me sufficient for an example. The
Achaeans and Aetolians were kept friendly by them, the kingdom of
Macedonia was humbled, Antiochus was driven out; yet the merits of the
Achaeans and Aetolians never secured for them permission to increase
their power, nor did the persuasions of Philip ever induce the Romans
to be his friends without first humbling him, nor did the influence of
Antiochus make them agree that he should retain any lordship over the
country. Because the Romans did in these instances what all prudent
princes ought to do, who have to regard not only present troubles, but
also future ones, for which they must prepare with every energy,
because, when foreseen, it is easy to remedy them; but if you wait
until they approach, the medicine is no longer in time because the
malady has become incurable; for it happens in this, as the physicians
say it happens in hectic fever, that in the beginning of the malady it
is easy to cure but difficult to detect, but in the course of time,
not having been either detected or treated in the beginning, it
becomes easy to detect but difficult to cure. This it happens in
affairs of state, for when the evils that arise have been foreseen
(which it is only given to a wise man to see), they can be quickly
redressed, but when, through not having been foreseen, they have been
permitted to grow in a way that every one can see them, there is no
longer a remedy. Therefore, the Romans, foreseeing troubles, dealt
with them at once, and, even to avoid a war, would not let them come
to a head, for they knew that war is not to be avoided, but is only to
be put off to the advantage of others; moreover they wished to fight
with Philip and Antiochus in Greece so as not to have to do it in
Italy; they could have avoided both, but this they did not wish; nor
did that ever please them which is for ever in the mouths of the wise
ones of our time:--Let us enjoy the benefits of the time--but rather
the benefits of their own valour and prudence, for time drives
everything before it, and is able to bring with it good as well as
evil, and evil as well as good.
[*] See remark in the introduction on the word "intrattenere."
But let us turn to France and inquire whether she has done any of the
things mentioned. I will speak of Louis[*] (and not of Charles[+]) as
the one whose conduct is the better to be observed, he having held
possession of Italy for the longest period; and you will see that he
has done the opposite to those things which ought to be done to retain
a state composed of divers elements.
[*] Louis XII, King of France, "The Father of the People," born 1462,
died 1515.
[+] Charles VIII, King of France, born 1470, died 1498.
King Louis was brought into Italy by the ambition of the Venetians,
who desired to obtain half the state of Lombardy by his intervention.
I will not blame the course taken by the king, because, wishing to get
a foothold in Italy, and having no friends there--seeing rather that
every door was shut to him owing to the conduct of Charles--he was
forced to accept those friendships which he could get, and he would
have succeeded very quickly in his design if in other matters he had
not made some mistakes. The king, however, having acquired Lombardy,
regained at once the authority which Charles had lost: Genoa yielded;
the Florentines became his friends; the Marquess of Mantua, the Duke
of Ferrara, the Bentivogli, my lady of Forli, the Lords of Faenza, of
Pesaro, of Rimini, of Camerino, of Piombino, the Lucchese, the Pisans,
the Sienese--everybody made advances to him to become his friend. Then
could the Venetians realize the rashness of the course taken by them,
which, in order that they might secure two towns in Lombardy, had made
the king master of two-thirds of Italy.
Let any one now consider with that little difficulty the king could
have maintained his position in Italy had he observed the rules above
laid down, and kept all his friends secure and protected; for although
they were numerous they were both weak and timid, some afraid of the
Church, some of the Venetians, and thus they would always have been
forced to stand in with him, and by their means he could easily have
made himself secure against those who remained powerful. But he was no
sooner in Milan than he did the contrary by assisting Pope Alexander
to occupy the Romagna. It never occurred to him that by this action he
was weakening himself, depriving himself of friends and of those who
had thrown themselves into his lap, whilst he aggrandized the Church
by adding much temporal power to the spiritual, thus giving it greater
authority. And having committed this prime error, he was obliged to
follow it up, so much so that, to put an end to the ambition of
Alexander, and to prevent his becoming the master of Tuscany, he was
himself forced to come into Italy.
And as if it were not enough to have aggrandized the Church, and
deprived himself of friends, he, wishing to have the kingdom of
Naples, divides it with the King of Spain, and where he was the prime
arbiter in Italy he takes an associate, so that the ambitious of that
country and the malcontents of his own should have somewhere to
shelter; and whereas he could have left in the kingdom his own
pensioner as king, he drove him out, to put one there who was able to
drive him, Louis, out in turn.
The wish to acquire is in truth very natural and common, and men
always do so when they can, and for this they will be praised not
blamed; but when they cannot do so, yet wish to do so by any means,
then there is folly and blame. Therefore, if France could have
attacked Naples with her own forces she ought to have done so; if she
could not, then she ought not to have divided it. And if the partition
which she made with the Venetians in Lombardy was justified by the
excuse that by it she got a foothold in Italy, this other partition
merited bla
me, for it had not the excuse of that necessity.
Therefore Louis made these five errors: he destroyed the minor powers,
he increased the strength of one of the greater powers in Italy, he
brought in a foreign power, he did not settle in the country, he did
not send colonies. Which errors, had he lived, were not enough to
injure him had he not made a sixth by taking away their dominions from
the Venetians; because, had he not aggrandized the Church, nor brought
Spain into Italy, it would have been very reasonable and necessary to
humble them; but having first taken these steps, he ought never to
have consented to their ruin, for they, being powerful, would always
have kept off others from designs on Lombardy, to which the Venetians
would never have consented except to become masters themselves there;
also because the others would not wish to take Lombardy from France in
order to give it to the Venetians, and to run counter to both they
would not have had the courage.
And if any one should say: "King Louis yielded the Romagna to
Alexander and the kingdom to Spain to avoid war, I answer for the
reasons given above that a blunder ought never to be perpetrated to
avoid war, because it is not to be avoided, but is only deferred to
your disadvantage. And if another should allege the pledge which the
king had given to the Pope that he would assist him in the enterprise,
in exchange for the dissolution of his marriage[*] and for the cap to
Rouen,[+] to that I reply what I shall write later on concerning the
faith of princes, and how it ought to be kept.
[*] Louis XII divorced his wife, Jeanne, daughter of Louis XI, and
married in 1499 Anne of Brittany, widow of Charles VIII, in order
to retain the Duchy of Brittany for the crown.
[+] The Archbishop of Rouen. He was Georges d'Amboise, created a
cardinal by Alexander VI. Born 1460, died 1510.
Thus King Louis lost Lombardy by not having followed any of the
conditions observed by those who have taken possession of countries
and wished to retain them. Nor is there any miracle in this, but much
that is reasonable and quite natural. And on these matters I spoke at
Nantes with Rouen, when Valentino, as Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope
Alexander, was usually called, occupied the Romagna, and on Cardinal
Rouen observing to me that the Italians did not understand war, I
replied to him that the French did not understand statecraft, meaning
that otherwise they would not have allowed the Church to reach such
greatness. And in fact is has been seen that the greatness of the
Church and of Spain in Italy has been caused by France, and her ruin
may be attributed to them. From this a general rule is drawn which
never or rarely fails: that he who is the cause of another becoming
powerful is ruined; because that predominancy has been brought about
either by astuteness or else by force, and both are distrusted by him
who has been raised to power.
CHAPTER IV
WHY THE KINGDOM OF DARIUS, CONQUERED BY ALEXANDER, DID NOT REBEL
AGAINST THE SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER AT HIS DEATH
Considering the difficulties which men have had to hold to a newly
acquired state, some might wonder how, seeing that Alexander the Great
became the master of Asia in a few years, and died whilst it was
scarcely settled (whence it might appear reasonable that the whole
empire would have rebelled), nevertheless his successors maintained
themselves, and had to meet no other difficulty than that which arose
among themselves from their own ambitions.
I answer that the principalities of which one has record are found to
be governed in two different ways; either by a prince, with a body of
servants, who assist him to govern the kingdom as ministers by his
favour and permission; or by a prince and barons, who hold that
dignity by antiquity of blood and not by the grace of the prince. Such
barons have states and their own subjects, who recognize them as lords
and hold them in natural affection. Those states that are governed by
a prince and his servants hold their prince in more consideration,
because in all the country there is no one who is recognized as
superior to him, and if they yield obedience to another they do it as
to a minister and official, and they do not bear him any particular
affection.
The examples of these two governments in our time are the Turk and the
King of France. The entire monarchy of the Turk is governed by one
lord, the others are his servants; and, dividing his kingdom into
sanjaks, he sends there different administrators, and shifts and
changes them as he chooses. But the King of France is placed in the
midst of an ancient body of lords, acknowledged by their own subjects,
and beloved by them; they have their own prerogatives, nor can the
king take these away except at his peril. Therefore, he who considers
both of these states will recognize great difficulties in seizing the
state of the Turk, but, once it is conquered, great ease in holding
it. The causes of the difficulties in seizing the kingdom of the Turk
are that the usurper cannot be called in by the princes of the
kingdom, nor can he hope to be assisted in his designs by the revolt
of those whom the lord has around him. This arises from the reasons
given above; for his ministers, being all slaves and bondmen, can only
be corrupted with great difficulty, and one can expect little
advantage from them when they have been corrupted, as they cannot
carry the people with them, for the reasons assigned. Hence, he who
attacks the Turk must bear in mind that he will find him united, and
he will have to rely more on his own strength than on the revolt of
others; but, if once the Turk has been conquered, and routed in the
field in such a way that he cannot replace his armies, there is
nothing to fear but the family of this prince, and, this being
exterminated, there remains no one to fear, the others having no
credit with the people; and as the conqueror did not rely on them
before his victory, so he ought not to fear them after it.
The contrary happens in kingdoms governed like that of France, because
one can easily enter there by gaining over some baron of the kingdom,
for one always finds malcontents and such as desire a change. Such
men, for the reasons given, can open the way into the state and render
the victory easy; but if you wish to hold it afterwards, you meet with
infinite difficulties, both from those who have assisted you and from
those you have crushed. Nor is it enough for you to have exterminated
the family of the prince, because the lords that remain make
themselves the heads of fresh movements against you, and as you are
unable either to satisfy or exterminate them, that state is lost
whenever time brings the opportunity.
Now if you will consider what was the nature of the government of
Darius, you will find it similar to the kingdom of the Turk, and
therefore it was only necessary for Alexander, first to overthrow him
in the field, and then to take the
country from him. After which
victory, Darius being killed, the state remained secure to Alexander,
for the above reasons. And if his successors had been united they
would have enjoyed it securely and at their ease, for there were no
tumults raised in the kingdom except those they provoked themselves.
But it is impossible to hold with such tranquillity states constituted
like that of France. Hence arose those frequent rebellions against the
Romans in Spain, France, and Greece, owing to the many principalities
there were in these states, of which, as long as the memory of them
endured, the Romans always held an insecure possession; but with the
power and long continuance of the empire the memory of them passed
away, and the Romans then became secure possessors. And when fighting
afterwards amongst themselves, each one was able to attach to himself
his own parts of the country, according to the authority he had
assumed there; and the family of the former lord being exterminated,
none other than the Romans were acknowledged.
When these things are remembered no one will marvel at the ease with
which Alexander held the Empire of Asia, or at the difficulties which
others have had to keep an acquisition, such as Pyrrhus and many more;
this is not occasioned by the little or abundance of ability in the
conqueror, but by the want of uniformity in the subject state.
CHAPTER V
CONCERNING THE WAY TO GOVERN CITIES OR PRINCIPALITIES WHICH
LIVED UNDER THEIR OWN LAWS BEFORE THEY WERE ANNEXED
Whenever those states which have been acquired as stated have been
accustomed to live under their own laws and in freedom, there are
three courses for those who wish to hold them: the first is to ruin
them, the next is to reside there in person, the third is to permit
them to live under their own laws, drawing a tribute, and establishing
within it an oligarchy which will keep it friendly to you. Because
such a government, being created by the prince, knows that it cannot
stand without his friendship and interest, and does it utmost to
support him; and therefore he who would keep a city accustomed to
freedom will hold it more easily by the means of its own citizens than
in any other way.
There are, for example, the Spartans and the Romans. The Spartans held
Athens and Thebes, establishing there an oligarchy, nevertheless they
lost them. The Romans, in order to hold Capua, Carthage, and Numantia,
dismantled them, and did not lose them. They wished to hold Greece as
the Spartans held it, making it free and permitting its laws, and did
not succeed. So to hold it they were compelled to dismantle many
cities in the country, for in truth there is no safe way to retain
them otherwise than by ruining them. And he who becomes master of a
city accustomed to freedom and does not destroy it, may expect to be
destroyed by it, for in rebellion it has always the watchword of
liberty and its ancient privileges as a rallying point, which neither
time nor benefits will ever cause it to forget. And whatever you may
do or provide against, they never forget that name or their privileges
unless they are disunited or dispersed, but at every chance they
immediately rally to them, as Pisa after the hundred years she had
been held in bondage by the Florentines.
But when cities or countries are accustomed to live under a prince,
and his family is exterminated, they, being on the one hand accustomed
to obey and on the other hand not having the old prince, cannot agree
in making one from amongst themselves, and they do not know how to
govern themselves. For this reason they are very slow to take up arms,
and a prince can gain them to himself and secure them much more
easily. But in republics there is more vitality, greater hatred, and
more desire for vengeance, which will never permit them to allow the
memory of their former liberty to rest; so that the safest way is to