The Prince

by Niccolo Machiavelli

  And though this gift is no doubt unworthy of you, I feel sure the experience it contains will make it welcome, especially when you think that I could hardly offer anything better than the chance to grasp in a few hours what I have discovered and assimilated over many years of danger and discomfort. I haven’t prettified the book or padded it out with long sentences or pompous, pretentious words, or any of the irrelevant flourishes and attractions so many writers use; I didn’t want it to please for anything but the range and seriousness of its subject matter. Nor, I hope, will you think it presumptuous that a man of low, really the lowest, station should set out to discuss the way princes ought to govern their peoples. Just as artists who draw landscapes get down in the valley to study the mountains and go up to the mountains to look down on the valley, so one has to be a prince to get to know the character of a people and a man of the people to know the character of a prince.

  Your Highness, please take this small gift in the spirit in which it is given. Study it carefully and you will find that my most earnest wish is that you should achieve the greatness that your status and qualities promise. Then if, from the high peak of your position, you ever look down on those far below, you will see how very ungenerously and unfairly life continues to treat me.

  1

  Different kinds of states and how to conquer them

  All states and governments that ever ruled over men have been either republics or monarchies. Monarchies may be hereditary, if the ruler’s family has governed for generations, or new. New monarchies can either be entirely new, as when Francesco Sforza captured Milan, or they could be territories a ruler has added to his existing hereditary state by conquest, as when the King of Spain took Naples. An additional territory won by conquest will be accustomed either to living under a monarch or to the freedom of self-government and may be conquered by the new ruler’s own army or that of a third party, by luck or deservedly.

  2

  Hereditary monarchies

  I won’t be considering republics since I’ve written about them at length elsewhere. Instead I’ll concentrate on monarchies, taking the situations mentioned above and discussing how each kind of state can best be governed and held.

  So I’ll begin by noting that hereditary monarchies where people have long been used to the ruler’s family are far easier to hold than new ones; all a monarch need do is avoid upsetting the order established by his predecessors, trim policies to circumstances when there is trouble, and, assuming he is of average ability, he will keep his kingdom for life. Only extraordinary and overwhelming force will be able to take it off him and even then he’ll win it back as soon as the occupying power runs into trouble.

  An example of this situation in Italy is the Duchy of Ferrara. In 1484 and 1510 the Duchy was briefly conquered by foreign powers, first the Venetians, then Pope Julius, but these defeats had nothing to do with the territory’s having a well-established ruling family. A ruler who inherits power has less reason or need to upset his subjects than a new one and as a result is better loved. If he doesn’t go out of his way to get himself hated, it’s reasonable to suppose his people will wish him well. When a dynasty survives for generations memories fade and likewise motives for change; upheaval, on the contrary, always leaves the scaffolding for building further change.

  3

  Mixed monarchies

  When a monarchy is new, things are harder. If it’s not entirely new but a territory added to an existing monarchy (let’s call this overall situation ‘mixed’) instabilities are caused first and foremost by what is an inevitable problem for all new regimes: that men are quick to change ruler when they imagine they can improve their lot - it is this conviction that prompts them to take up arms and rebel - then later they discover they were wrong and that things have got worse rather than better. Again this is in the normal, natural way of things: a ruler is bound to upset the people in his new territories, first with his occupying army and then with all the endless injustices consequent on any invasion. So not only do you make enemies of those whose interests you damaged when you occupied the territory, but you can’t even keep the friendship of the people who helped you to take power, this for the simple reason that you can’t give them as much as they expected. And you can’t get tough with them either, since you still need them; because however strong your armies, you’ll always need local support to occupy a new territory. This is why Louis XII, King of France, took Milan so quickly and equally quickly lost it. The first time this happened Duke Ludovico was able to retake the city with his own forces, because the people who had previously opened the gates to Louis saw their mistake, realized they wouldn’t be getting the benefits they’d hoped for and didn’t want to submit to the harsh conditions imposed by the new king.

  Of course, when a king returns to win back a territory that has rebelled like this, he is less likely to lose it a second time. Having learned from the rebellion, he’ll have fewer scruples when it comes to punishing troublemakers, interrogating suspects and strengthening any weak points in his defences. So while the first time Louis invaded Milan it took no more than a little sword-rattling along the borders from Ludovico to force a retreat, the second time it would take the whole world to defeat his armies and drive them out of Italy. This for the reasons listed above. All the same, they were driven out both times.

  The general reasons behind the first French defeat have been discussed. It remains to explain why Louis lost Milan the second time and to see what counter-measures he could have taken and what options a ruler has in a situation like this if he wants to hold on to his conquest.

  Needless to say, any territory annexed to the realm of a conquering ruler may or may not be in the same geographical region and share the same language. If it is and the language is shared, the territory will be much easier to hold on to, especially if its people are not used to the freedom of self-government. In that case all you have to do is eliminate the family of the previous ruler and your hold on power is guaranteed. Everything else in the territory can then be left as it was and, given that there are no profound differences in customs, people will accept the situation quietly enough. Certainly this has proved true in Burgundy, Brittany, Gascony and Normandy, all of which have now been under French rule for many years. Even where there is some difference in language, the customs of these territories are similar and people can get along with each other. So a ruler who has taken territories in these circumstances must have two priorities: first, to eliminate the family of the previous rulers; second, to leave all laws and taxes as they were. In this way the acquired territory and the king’s original possessions will soon form a single entity.

  But when a ruler occupies a state in an area that has a different language, different customs and different institutions, then things get tough. To hold on to a new possession in these circumstances takes a lot of luck and hard work. Perhaps the most effective solution is for the new ruler to go and live there himself. This will improve security and make the territory more stable. The Turkish sultan did this in Greece, and all the other measures he took to hold on to the country would have been ineffective if he hadn’t. When you’re actually there, you can see when things start going wrong and nip rebellion in the bud; when you’re far away you only find out about it when it’s too late. Another advantage is that the new territory won’t be plundered by your officials. Its subjects will be happy that they can appeal to a ruler who is living among them. So, if they’re intending to be obedient, they’ll have one more reason to love you, and if they’re not, all the more reason to fear you. Anyone planning an attack from outside will think twice about it. So, if you go and live in the new territory you’ve taken, you’re very unlikely to lose it.

  Another good solution is to establish colonies in one or two places. These work rather like chains to bind the captured state to your own. If you don’t do this you’ll have to keep large numbers of infantry and cavalry in the territory. Colonies don’t cost a great deal. You can send and maintain them
very cheaply and they only arouse the hostility of the people whose houses and land are expropriated to give to the colonists. Since that will only be a very small proportion of the population, and since these people will now be poor and will have fled to different places, they can hardly cause much trouble. Everyone else will be unaffected (hence prone to keep quiet) and at the same time frightened of stepping out of line for fear of having their own houses and land taken away. In conclusion, colonies are cheap, more loyal, provoke less hostility among your new subjects, and, as I’ve said, those few who are provoked can’t fight back since they’ll be dispossessed refugees. In this regard it’s worth noting that in general you must either pamper people or destroy them; harm them just a little and they’ll hit back; harm them seriously and they won’t be able to. So if you’re going to do people harm, make sure you needn’t worry about their reaction. If, on the other hand, you decide to send an occupying army rather than establish colonies, the operation will be far more expensive and all the revenues from the new territory will be used up in defending it, turning what should have been a gain into a loss. And you’ll provoke more hostility: an army moving about and requisitioning lodgings will do damage across the entire territory, something that has consequences for the whole population and turns them all into enemies. And these are enemies who can hit back, people beaten but still on their own ground. So however you look at it military garrisons are as pointless as colonies are useful.

  A ruler who has moved into a new region with a different language and customs must also make himself leader and protector of the weaker neighbouring powers, while doing what he can to undermine the stronger. In particular, he must take care that no foreign power strong enough to compete with his own gets a chance to penetrate the area. People who are discontented, whether out of fear or frustrated ambition, will always encourage a foreign power to intervene. It was the Aetolians who invited the Romans into Greece. Every time the Romans moved into a new region it was on the invitation of local people. And it’s in the nature of things that as soon as a powerful foreign ruler moves into a region, all the weaker local powers support him, if only out of resentment towards the stronger states that previously kept them down. So the new ruler will have no trouble winning their support; they’ll all run to ally themselves with the territory he has taken. He just has to watch out that they don’t grab too much power and authority. Then, with his own strength and their support, he can easily undermine the more powerful neighbours and hence dominate the region. However, an invader who fails to manage relations with his new neighbours will soon lose what territory he has taken; and even while he’s still holding on to it, he’ll be up against all kinds of trouble and hostility.

  The Romans followed these principles whenever they took a new province: they sent colonists; they established friendly relations with weaker neighbours, though without allowing them to increase their power; they undermined stronger neighbours and they prevented powerful rulers outside the region from gaining influence there. Their handling of Greece will be example enough: they established good relations with the Achaeans and the Aetolians; Macedonia’s power was undermined; they drove out Antiochus. They didn’t reward the good behaviour of the Achaeans and the Aetolians by allowing them any new territory and whenever Philip convinced them to establish friendly relations with him they made sure he was weakened as a result. Antiochus, for all his strength, was never allowed any influence in the region. The Romans were simply doing what all wise rulers must: not restricting themselves to dealing with present threats but using every means at their disposal to foresee and forestall future problems as well. Seen in advance, trouble is easily dealt with; wait until it’s on top of you and your reaction will come too late, the malaise is already irreversible.

  Remember what the doctors tell us about tuberculosis: in its early stages it’s easy to cure and hard to diagnose, but if you don’t spot it and treat it, as time goes by it gets easy to diagnose and hard to cure. So it is with affairs of state. See trouble in advance (but you have to be shrewd) and you can clear it up quickly. Miss it, and by the time it’s big enough for everyone to see it will be too late to do anything about it.

  However, since they had this capacity for seeing a threat in advance, the Romans always knew how to respond. They never put off a war when they saw trouble coming; they knew it couldn’t be avoided in the long run and that the odds would simply shift in favour of their enemies. They chose to fight Philip and Antiochus in Greece, so as not to have to fight them in Italy. They could have put off both wars, but they didn’t. They never took the line our pundits are constantly giving us today - relax, time is on your side - but rather they put their faith in their own foresight and spirit. Time hurries everything on and can just as easily make things worse as better.

  But let’s get back to the King of France and see if he took any of the measures we’ve been discussing. And when I say the King, I mean Louis, not Charles, since Louis held territory in Italy for longer than Charles and it’s easier to see what his methods were. You’ll notice that he did the opposite of what a ruler must do to hold on to conquests in a region whose customs and language differ from those of his home kingdom.

  It was Venetian ambitions that brought Louis into Italy. The Venetians planned to take half of Lombardy while he seized the other half. I’m not going to criticize Louis for agreeing to this. He wanted to get a first foothold in Italy, he didn’t have any friends in the region - on the contrary, thanks to King Charles’s behaviour before him, all doors were barred - so he was forced to accept what allies he found. And the arrangement would have worked if he hadn’t made mistakes in other departments. Taking Lombardy, the king recovered in one blow the reputation that Charles had lost. Genoa surrendered. The Florentines offered an alliance. The Marquis of Mantua, the Duke of Ferrara, Bentivogli of Bologna, Caterina Sforza of Forlì, the lords of Faenza, Pesaro, Rimini, Camerino and Piombino, as well as the republics of Lucca, Pisa and Siena, all queued up to make friends. At which point the Venetians were in a position to see how rash they had been when they proposed the initial deal: for two towns in Lombardy they had made Louis king over a third of Italy.

  Think how easily Louis could have held on to his position in Italy if he had observed the rules outlined above and guaranteed security and protection to all those friends. There were so many of them and they were so weak and frightened, either of Venice or Rome, that they were simply forced to side with Louis. Then with their help he could easily have defended himself against the states that were still powerful. But no sooner had he arrived in Milan than Louis did the opposite; he helped Pope Alexander to invade Romagna. He didn’t see that this decision weakened his own position, losing him friends and the support of those who had run to him for help, while reinforcing the pope, adding temporal dominion to the spiritual power that already gives a pope so much authority. Having made that first mistake, he was dragged in deeper, since, to curb Alexander’s ambitions and prevent him from taking control of Tuscany, he was forced to advance further into Italy himself. Not content with having lost his friends and increased the power of the Church, he was eager now to get hold of the Kingdom of Naples and so made an agreement to split it with the King of Spain. Until then Louis had been the dominant power in Italy, but this move introduced another equally great power into the peninsula, with the result that anyone in the region who had ambitions or was disgruntled with Louis now had someone else to turn to. Louis could have kept Naples under a client king but instead he kicked the man out and brought in a king who was powerful enough to kick him out.

  The desire to conquer more territory really is a very natural, ordinary thing and whenever men have the resources to do so they’ll always be praised, or at least not blamed. But when they don’t have the resources, yet carry on regardless, then they’re at fault and deserve what blame they get. If Louis was in a position to capture the Kingdom of Naples with his own forces, then he should have gone ahead and done it; if he wasn’t, he certainly s
houldn’t have split the territory with another king. Sharing Lombardy with the Venetians was forgivable, in that it gave him a foothold in Italy; but there was nothing necessary about sharing Naples with Spain and hence it was a mistake.

  So Louis made five mistakes: he eliminated the weaker states; he enhanced the power of one of Italy’s stronger states; he brought in an extremely powerful foreign king; he didn’t go to live in the territory he’d acquired and he didn’t establish colonies there.

  All the same, these mistakes might not have done serious damage during his lifetime had he not now made a sixth by stripping Venice of its power. Of course, if he hadn’t increased the pope’s power and brought Spain into Italy, it would have been quite reasonable and even necessary to cut the Venetians down to size. But having taken those earlier decisions, he should never have reduced Venice to such a state of weakness. As long as Venice was militarily strong, no one else was going to try to take Lombardy from the French; the Venetians wouldn’t have allowed another state to attack the region unless they were going to get territory themselves and the other states would never have wanted to take Lombardy from France if it meant giving it to Venice; plus, they would never have had the courage to confront France and Venice together. Someone might object: but Louis gave Romagna to Pope Alexander and Naples to Spain to avoid war; in which case, let me repeat what I said earlier: you must never fail to respond to trouble just to avoid war, because in the end you won’t avoid it, you’ll just be putting it off to your enemy’s advantage. Someone else might insist that Louis had promised the pope he would attack Venice on his behalf in return for the pope’s granting the French king a divorce and making the Archbishop of Rouen a cardinal; in this case let me refer the reader to what I’ll be saying later about when rulers should, or then again shouldn’t, keep their promises.