This opportunity, therefore, must not be permitted to pass by so that Italy, after so long a time, may behold its redeemer. Nor can I express with what love he will be received in all those provinces that have suffered through these foreign floods; with what thirst for revenge, with what obstinate loyalty, with what compassion, with what tears! What doors will be closed to him? Which people will deny him obedience? What jealousy could oppose him? What Italian would deny him homage? This barbarian dominion stinks to everyone! Therefore, may your illustrious house take up this mission with that spirit and with that hope in which just undertakings are begun; so that under your banner this country may be ennobled and, under your guidance, those words of Petrarch may come true:Discipline over rage
Will take up arms; and the battle will be short.
For ancient valor
In Italian hearts is not yet dead.21
THE DISCOURSES
EDITORS’ NOTE
First published in 1531, The Discourses apparently grew Out of marginal notes Machiavelli assembled from a reading of Livy’s account of the history of Rome. After setting this longer work aside, in 1513, to complete The Prince, Machiavelli returned to it in 1515 and worked on it from time to time until I517. The prefaces and the dedication were added to the commentary last, it seems, but the entire work was probably never put into a finished form by its author. Although The Discourses are less well known than The Prince, they nevertheless contain many of Machiavelli’s most original ideas and reflect the author’s republican stance, a position which would subsequently puzzle many later critics and scholars intent upon branding Machiavelli as an authoritarian thinker and an enemy of republican liberty. This abridged translation of The Discourses contains, in their entirety, all the prefaces and dedication plus sixty-four chapters of its three books; the remaining seventy-six chapters are abridged (within brackets) so that the reader may follow Machiavelli’s arguments with no loss of continuity.
DISCOURSES ON THE FIRST TEN BOOKS OF TITUS LIVIUS
Niccolò Machiavelli to
Zanobi Buondelmonti and Cosimo Rucellai, Greetings
I am sending you a gift which, even though it may not match the obligations I have to you, is, without a doubt, the best that Niccolò Machiavelli can send to you; in it I have expressed all I know and all that I have learned from long experience and continuous study of worldly affairs. And since it is not possible for you or anyone else to ask more of me, you cannot complain if I have not given you more. You may very well complain about the poverty of my wit when my arguments are weak, and about the fallacious quality of my judgment if, in the course of my reasonings, I often manage to deceive myself. This being the case, I do not know which of us should be less obliged to the other: whether I should be so to you, who have encouraged me to write what I never would have written by myself, or you to me, since I may have written without satisfying you. Take this, then, as you would accept something from a friend: there one considers the intention of the sender more than the quality of the thing which is sent. And rest assured that in this venture I have one consolation, for I believe that although I may have deceived myself in many of its particulars, in one matter I know that I have not made an error, that is, to have chosen you above all others to whom I should dedicate these Discourses of mine, both because in so doing I believe that I have shown my gratitude for the benefits I have received and because I felt that I had departed from the common practice of those who write and always address their works to some prince and, blinded by ambition and by avarice, praise him for all his virtuous qualities when they ought to be blaming him for all his bad qualities. So, to avoid this mistake, I have chosen not those who are princes but those who, because of their numerous good qualities, deserve to be princes; not those who might shower me with offices, honors, and wealth, but those who, although unable, would like to do so. If men wish to judge correctly, they must esteem those who are generous, not those who are potentially generous; and, in like manner, they must esteem those who know how to rule a kingdom, not those who, without knowing how, have the power to do so. Thus, historians praise Hiero the Syracusan more when he was a private citizen than they do Perseus of Macedonia when he was king: for Hiero lacked nothing to be prince save a kingdom, while the other had no attribute of a king except his kingdom. Therefore, enjoy this good or bad work which you yourselves have requested; and if you persist in erroneously finding pleasure in my opinions, I shall not fail to follow this with the rest of the history, as I promised you in the beginning. Farewell.
BOOK I
INTRODUCTION
Because of the envious nature of men, it has always been no less dangerous to discover new methods and institutions than to explore unknown oceans and lands, since men are quicker to criticize than to praise the deeds of others. Nevertheless, driven by that natural desire I have always felt to work on whatever might prove beneficial to everyone, I have determined to enter a path which has not yet been taken by anyone; although it may bring me worry and difficulty, yet I may find my reward among those who study kindly the goal of these labors of mine. And if my feeble intelligence, my limited experience of current events, and my weak knowledge of ancient ones should make this attempt of mine defective and of little use, it may, at least, show the way to someone with more ability, more eloquence, and more judgment who will be able to fulfill my intention; so that if I do not earn praise, I should not receive blame.
When we consider, then, how much honor is attributed to antiquity, and how many times (leaving aside numerous other examples) a fragment of an ancient statue has been bought at a great price so that the buyer may have it near him to decorate his house or to have it imitated by those who take pleasure in that art; and when we see, on the other hand, the powerful examples which history shows us that have been accomplished by ancient kingdoms and republics, by kings, captains, citizens, and legislators who have exhausted themselves for their fatherland, examples that have been more often admired than imitated (or so much ignored that not the slightest trace of this ancient ability remains), I cannot but be at the same time both amazed and sorry. And I am even more amazed when I see that in civil disputes which arise among citizens, or in sicknesses that break out, men always have recourse to those judgments or remedies which were pronounced or prescribed by the ancients. For civil law is nothing other than the judgments given by ancient jurists which, organized into a system, instruct our jurists today. Nor is medicine anything other than the experiments carried out by ancient doctors on which the doctors of today base their diagnoses. Nevertheless, in instituting republics, maintaining states, governing kingdoms, organizing the army and administering a war, dispensing justice to subjects, and increasing an empire one cannot find a prince or a republic that has recourse to the examples of the ancients.
This, in my opinion, arises not so much from the weakness into which the present religion has brought the world or from the harm done to many Christian provinces and cities by an idle ambition as from not possessing a proper knowledge of histories, for in reading them we do not draw out of them that sense or taste that flavor which they have in themselves. Hence it happens that an infinite number of people read them and take pleasure in hearing about the variety of incidents which are contained in them without thinking to imitate them, for they consider imitation not only difficult but impossible; as if the heavens, the sun, the elements, and men had varied in their motion, their order, and their power from what they were in ancient times. Wishing, therefore, to free men of this erroneous way of thinking, I deemed it necessary to write about all those books by Livy which the malignity of time has not taken from us; I wish to write what I, according to my knowledge of ancient and modem affairs, judge necessary for a better understanding of them, so that those who read these statements of mine may more easily draw from them that practical knowledge one should seek from an acquaintance with history books. And although this undertaking is difficult, nevertheless, aided by those who have encouraged me to shoulder this burde
n, I believe I can carry it in such a manner that only a short distance will remain for another to bring it to the destined goal.
CHAPTER I. WHAT THE BEGINNINGS OF ALL CITIES HAVE BEEN AND WHAT, IN PARTICULAR, WAS THE BEGINNING OF ROME
Those who read of the origin of the city of Rome, its lawgivers, and how it was organized will not be surprised that so much ability was preserved in that city for so many centuries, and that afterward there developed from it the empire which that republic achieved. And wishing first to discuss its origin, let me say that all cities are built either by men native to a region or by foreigners. The first situation occurs when inhabitants, dispersed in many small groups, feel they cannot live securely, since each single group, because of its location or its small number, cannot resist the assault of anyone who may attack it, and if the enemy arrives, they are not in time to unite for their defense; if there is time, they have to abandon many of their strong fortifications, and thus they remain at the mercy of their enemies. Hence, to escape these dangers, moved either by their own decision or by someone among them of greater authority, they join together to live as a group in a place chosen by them that is more convenient to live in and easier to defend.
This was what happened to Athens and Venice, among many others. The first of these cities, under the authority of Theseus, was built for such reasons by the inhabitants, who were a scattered people. As to the other city, many sought refuge on various small islands which were at the edge of the Adriatic Sea in order to escape the wars that arose each day as a result of the arrival of new barbarians after the decline of the Roman empire. The second city was built by its people without a particular prince to establish law and order, and they began on their own to live under those laws which appeared to them to be most suitable for their maintenance. This turned out well for them because of the lengthy peace which their location af forded them, for that sea had no harbor and the peoples who were molesting Italy had no ships with which to invade them; thus, this meager beginning was such that they were able to arrive at their present greatness.
The second instance occurs when a city is built by foreigners and originates either from free men or from those who depend on others, such as the colonies sent either by a republic or by a prince to relieve their lands of the inhabitants, or for the defense of a land which, newly acquired, they wish to maintain securely and without expenditure. The Roman people built many such cities throughout their empire. They may also be built by a prince, not in order to live there but rather for his own glorification, as was the case with the city of Alexandria for Alexander. And since these cities are not by origin free, it rarely happens that they make great progress and can be numbered among the chief capitals of kingdoms. The building of Florence was similar to that of such cities, for (either built by the soldiers of Sulla or perhaps by the inhabitants of the mountains of Fiesole, who came to live in the Arno plain because they had faith in the long peace that was born in the world under Octavian) she was built under the Roman empire, and she could not, in the beginning, experience any growth except that which the goodwill of her prince allowed her.
The builders of cities are free men when any people, either under the rule of a prince or on their own, are forced to abandon their native land and to find themselves a new home, either because of pestilence, famine, or war. Such men either inhabit the cities that they find in the lands which they conquer, as Moses did, or they build new ones, as Aeneas did. In this case we are able to see the ability of the builder in the fortune of what he builds, for the city is more or less remarkable according to whether he who has been its cause is more or less able. The ability of the man is recognized in two ways: the first is in his selection of a site, the second in the organization of the laws. And since men act either out of necessity or by choice, and since we know that there is more ability where free choice has less authority, it must be considered whether it might be best to select barren places for the building of cities so that men, forced to become industrious and less idle, will live more united, having less cause for discord because of the poverty of the site—as happened in Ragusa and in many other cities built in similar spots. Such a selection would, without a doubt, be most wise and useful if men were content to live on what they had and did not wish to try to govern others. Nevertheless, since men cannot make themselves secure without power, it is necessary for them to avoid the barren places in the country and to establish themselves in very fertile places where, the fruitfulness of the site permitting expansion of the city, men can both defend themselves from anyone who attacks them and overcome anyone who opposes their greatness. And as for that idleness which the site invites, one should organize the laws in such a way that they force upon the city those necessities which the location does not impose; and one should imitate the wise men who have lived in the most beautiful and fertile of lands, lands more apt to produce idle men unfit for any vigorous activity; in order to avoid the harm which the pleasant nature of the land might have caused because of idleness, they constrained their soldiers to undergo such training and exercise that better soldiers are produced there than in lands which are naturally harsh and barren. Among kingdoms like these was the kingdom of the Egyptians, where, notwithstanding the fact that the land was very pleasant, the necessity imposed by the laws was so powerful that it produced very excellent men; and if their names had not been destroyed by time, we would see that they merit more praise than Alexander the Great and many others still fresh in our memory. And if one considers the Kingdom of the Sultan, or the organization of the Mamelukes and that of their army before they were destroyed by Selim the Great Turk, one will see that there were many kinds of training exercises that the troops underwent, and one would also see how much they feared that idleness which the beneficence of the land might have brought upon them if they had not prevented it with the strictest of laws.
I say, therefore, that it is more prudent to select a fertile site when that fertility’s influence is kept within certain bounds by the laws. When Alexander the Great wanted to construct a city to his glory, the architect Dinocrates came to him and showed him how he could build a city on top of Mount Athos, a place which, besides being strong, could be shaped in such a way that a human form would be given to that city, a most marvelous and rare thing and one worthy of his greatness. And when Alexander asked him how its inhabitants would live, he answered that he had not thought about that; at this Alexander laughed and put that mountain site aside and built Alexandria, where the inhabitants were happy to live because of the fertility of the land and the convenience of the sea and the Nile. Anyone who examines, then, the building of Rome, taking Aeneas as her first founder, will count her as one of those cities built by foreigners: if Romulus is taken as her first founder, he will consider her as one of those cities constructed by men native to the site; and in any case, he will see her as having had a free beginning, with no dependence upon anyone; and furthermore, he will see how many necessities were imposed upon her by the laws instituted by Romulus, Numa, and others so that the fertility of the location, the convenience of the sea, the frequent victories, and the grandeur of her empire were not able to corrupt her for many centuries; these laws kept her very rich in ability, richer than any other city or republic that was as well adorned.
And because the deeds she accomplished (of which Livy preserves the memory) were done either by public decree or private initiative, either inside or outside the city, I shall begin by discussing those internal affairs which happened as a result of public decree, which I judge to be most worthy of attention, adding to them everything that depended upon them; to these Discourses this first book, or rather this first part, will be limited.
CHAPTER II. OF HOW MANY KINDS OF REPUBLICS THERE ARE AND OF WHAT KIND THE ROMAN REPUBLIC WAS
I wish to put aside a discussion of those cities which, at their beginnings, were subject to others; and I shall speak about those which have had their beginnings far from any foreign servitude and have been governed from the be
ginning by their own judgment, either as republics or as principalities, and which have had different laws and institutions just as they have had different origins. Some of them, either at their start or after very little time, were given laws by a single man and at one time, as Lycurgus did with the Spartans; others acquired their laws by chance, at different times and according to circumstances, as occurred in Rome. A republic can, indeed, be called fortunate if it produces a man so prudent that he gives it laws organized in such a manner that it can live securely under them without needing to revise them. And it seems that Sparta observed its laws more than eight hundred years without corrupting them or without any dangerous upheaval. Unfortunate, on the contrary, is the city which is forced to reorganize itself, not having chanced to encounter a prudent organizer. And of these cities, the one which is the furthest from order is the most unfortunate; and that one is furthest from it which in its institutions is completely off the straight path which could lead it to its perfect and true goal, because for those who find themselves in this state it is almost impossible that by any happening they can be set on the right path again. Those other cities that have had a good beginning and are capable of becoming better, even if they have not had a perfect constitution, can, by means of an unexpected course of events, become perfect. But it is very true that institutions are never established without danger, for most men never agree to a new law that concerns a new order in the city unless a necessity demonstrates to them that it is required; and since this necessity cannot arise without danger, the republic may easily be destroyed before it is brought to a perfection of organization. The Republic of Florence testifies to this: reorganized after what occurred at Arezzo in 1502, it was disorganized by what occurred at Prato in 1512.22
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