The Portable Machiavelli

by Niccolo Machiavelli

  CHAPTER XIV. THE ROMANS INTERPRETED THE AUSPICES ACCORDING TO NECESSITY, AND THEY PRUDENTLY MADE A SHOW OF OBSERVING RELIGION EVEN WHEN THEY WERE FORCED NOT TO; AND IF ANYONE DARED TO DISPARAGE IT, HE WAS PUNISHED

  The auguries were not only, as was noted above, in large measure the basis of the ancient religion of the pagans, but also the cause of the well-being of the Roman republic; thus, the Romans took more care of this institution than any other: they used the auspices in their consular meetings, in beginning their enterprises, in marching forth their armies, in fighting their battles, and in all their important actions, civil or military; never would they have set out on an expedition without first having persuaded their soldiers that the gods had promised them victory. And among the other auspices in their armies they had a certain order of diviners called poultry-diviners [pullarii]: every time the Romans prepared to give battle to the enemy they required the poultry-diviners to take the auspices; if the chickens pecked to eat their food, they fought with a good augury; if they did not peck, they abstained from combat. Nonetheless, when reason showed them that they should proceed, notwithstanding the fact that the auspices were adverse, they did so anyway; but they managed the auspices so shrewdly, with such words and such ways, that they in no way seemed to be doing it with disrespect to religion.

  This cleverness was employed by the consul Papirius in a most important battle which he fought with the Samnites, after which this people remained totally weak and broken; for when Papirius was encamped opposite the Samnites, feeling that a victory in the battle was certainly his, he wished to attack and ordered the poultry-diviners to take the auspices; but though the hens would not peck, the chief of the poultry-diviners—observing the great willingness of the army to fight and the opinion of the general and all his soldiers that they would be victorious—in order not to deprive the army of an opportunity for good action, told the consul that the auspices were favorable. But, as Papirius was ordering the troops to draw up, certain poultry-diviners told some of the soldiers that the chickens had not pecked; they, in turn, told it to the nephew of the consul, Spurius Papirius, who then referred this news to the consul, who immediately replied that he expected him to perform his duty well and, as far as he and the army were concerned, the auspices were favorable, and if the poultry-diviners had told lies, they would turn out to their disadvantage.

  And in order for the result to correspond to the prediction, he ordered his legates to put the poultry-diviners in the front lines of the battle; whereupon it happened that as they advanced against the enemy one of the Roman soldiers shot an arrow and accidentally killed the leader of the poultry-diviners; when the consul heard about this, he announced that everything was proceeding well and with the favor of the gods, for with the death of the liar the army had purged itself of any blame and from any anger which the gods might have felt against it. And thus, because he knew very well how to fit his plans to the auspices, he decided to go into battle without his army realizing that he had neglected the institutions of their religion in any way.

  Appius Pulcher did just the opposite in Sicily during the First Punic War: since he wished to engage the Carthaginian forces, he had the poultry-diviners take the auspices, and when they told him that the hens did not eat, he said: “Let’s see if they will drink!” and had them thrown into the sea. Whereupon after attacking the enemy he lost the battle; and he was condemned for this in Rome; but Papirius was honored: not so much because one conquered and the other was defeated, but rather because one had acted against the auspices with prudence while the other had done so with rashness. Nor did this means of taking the auspices serve any purpose other than to instill confidence in the soldiers going into battle; such confidence almost always achieved victorious results. This was practiced not only by the Romans but also by other peoples, and I think I would do well to give an example of this in the following chapter.

  CHAPTER XV. THE SAMNITES TURNED TO RELIGION AS A LAST RESORT WHEN THEY WERE AFFLICTED

  [After being repeatedly defeated by the Romans, the Samnites turned to religion as a last resort to encourage their soldiers, and they revived, on the advice of their high priest, Ovius Paccius, the practice of swearing an oath on pain of death. The Romans, led by Papirius, nevertheless defeated the Samnites, in spite of the courage inspired by the fear of breaking a religious oath. Regardless of this defeat, the actions of the Samnites prove how much confidence religious faith can inspire.]

  CHAPTER XVI. A PEOPLE ACCUSTOMED TO LIVING UNDER A PRINCE MAINTAINS ITS FREEDOM WITH DIFFICULTY IF, BY CHANCE, IT BECOMES FREE

  Countless examples in the records of ancient history demonstrate how difficult it is for a people accustomed to living under a prince to preserve its freedom afterward if, by chance, it acquires it as Rome did after the Tarquins were driven out of the city. And such a difficulty is reasonable: for these people are no different from a brutish animal which, although by nature ferocious and a dweller in the woods, has always been nourished in prison and in captivity and is then accidentally set free in a field; since it is not used to feeding itself and does not know the places where it may turn for refuge, it becomes the prey of the first person who tries to recapture it.

  The same thing happens to a people accustomed to living under the rule of others: not able to think about public defense or offense, not understanding princes nor understood by them, it quickly returns under a yoke which is, in most cases, heavier than the one which, just a short time earlier, was lifted from its neck; and a people finds itself in this difficulty though its matter is not corrupt. For a people which is totally corrupt cannot live free for even a short time, as will be explained below; our discussions, therefore, will deal with those peoples in whom corruption has not spread too much and in whom there is still more goodness than corruption.

  Another difficulty may be added to the one above: the state which becomes free makes enemies for itself but not friends. All those who profited from the tyrannical government, feeding upon the riches of the prince, become its enemies; since they have had their privileges taken away from them, they cannot live contented and are each forced to try to reestablish the tyranny in order to return to their former authority. Nor will such a state acquire friends, as I have said, for a free government presupposes honors and rewards based upon honest and predetermined criteria, and outside of these confers no honors or rewards; and when a person possesses those honors and advantages he believes he deserves, he does not admit an obligation to those who have rewarded him. Besides this, the common benefit that is derived from a free government is not appreciated while it is enjoyed; that is, to be able freely to enjoy one’s possessions without any fear, not to fear for the honor of one’s women or children, and not to fear for one’s own safety—for no one will ever admit to owing an obligation to someone just because he is not harmed by the other person. And so, as I said above, a free and newly formed state comes to have enemies but not friends.

  To remedy these inconveniences and the disorders which the aforementioned difficulties create, there is no more powerful remedy, nor one more efficacious, more certain, or necessary, than to murder the sons of Brutus, who, as history demonstrates, would not have been tempted to plot against their fatherland with other young Romans if it had not been for the fact that they found they could not enjoy exceptional privileges under the consuls whereas they could under the kings; in this way, it seemed that the freedom of that people had become their servitude. And anyone who undertakes to govern a body of people, either under a free system or under a principality, and does not protect himself against those who are hostile to that new order will found a state of brief duration. It is true that I consider those rulers to be unhappy who have had to employ extraordinary means to secure their state, having the multitude as their enemy: for the ruler who has the few as his enemy can protect himself from them easily and without too much trouble, but he who has the general population as an enemy can never rest secure; and the more cruelty he employs, the weaker his
principality becomes. Thus, the best remedy that he has is to try to make the people friendly.

  And although this argument departs from the one above, as I speak here of a prince and there of a republic, nevertheless, in order not to have to return to this subject I shall briefly speak about it here. If, then, a prince wishes to win over to his side a people that is hostile (I am speaking of those princes who have become tyrants of their fatherlands), let me say that he must first consider what the people desire, and he will find that they always desire two things: the first is to avenge themselves against those who were the cause of their being enslaved; the other is to regain their freedom. The prince can satisfy the first desire completely and the second only in part. There is an appropriate example of the first case: while Clearchus, tyrant of Heraclea, was in exile, a disagreement arose between the people and the aristocrats of Heraclea, who, realizing that they were weaker, turned to support Clearchus and, conspiring with him, set him up in power contrary to popular sentiment in Heraclea, and in so doing took freedom away from the people. When Clearchus found himself caught between the insolence of the aristocrats, whom he could neither content nor curb in any way, and the anger of the people, who could no longer endure the loss of their liberty, he decided to free himself from the annoyance of the patricians and to win over the people to his side with one blow. When the most suitable occasion arose, he cut up into pieces all the aristocrats—to the immense gratification of the people; in this manner he satisfied one of the wishes of the people, namely, to avenge themselves. But as for the other popular wish, that of having their liberty restored, since a prince cannot satisfy that, he should consider the causes that make people wish to be free: he will find that a small part of them desire to be free in order to command, but all the others, the countless majority, desire liberty in order to live in security. In all republics, no matter how they are organized, no more than forty or fifty citizens ever arrive at a position of command; since this is a small number, it is an easy matter to protect oneself from them, either by getting rid of them or by bestowing upon them so many honors that, according to their station, they will, for the most part, be content. For those others who want only to live in safety, they can easily be satisfied by establishing institutions and laws which confirm the prince’s security while at the same time confirming their own. As an example of this there is the Kingdom of France, which exists securely for no other reason than the fact that its kings are limited by countless laws which also guarantee the security of all their people. And whoever established that state wanted those kings to do as they wished as far as military and financial matters are concerned, but prescribed that in any other area they should not act otherwise than in the manner established by the laws. Therefore, a prince or a republic which has not provided for its security at the outset must do so at the first opportunity, as the Romans did. Anyone who lets the occasion pass will repent too late for not having done what he should.

  Since, then, the Roman people were not yet corrupt by the time they recovered their liberty, they were able to maintain it, after killing the sons of Brutus and doing away with the Tarquins, by all those ways and means discussed previously. But if that people had been corrupt, there would not have existed strong enough methods in Rome or elsewhere to maintain it, as will be shown in the following chapter.

  CHAPTER XVII. A CORRUPT PEOPLE WHICH ACQUIRES ITS FREEDOM CAN MAINTAIN ITS FREEDOM ONLY WITH THE GREATEST OF DIFFICULTY

  I think that it was necessary either for the kings of Rome to be done away with or for Rome to become weak and useless in a very short period of time; for when one considers how much corruption there was in those kings, if two or three successive reigns had continued in the same way, and that corruption which was in them had spread to members of the body politic, it would no longer have been possible to reform her. But as the head was lost while the trunk was still sound, the Romans could easily bring themselves back to living an ordered and free existence. And this principle must be taken as very true: that a corrupt city which lives under a prince will never be able to regain its freedom, even if that prince and all his family are done away with; on the contrary, one prince needs to destroy the other, and without the creation of one new ruler the city will never rest unless the goodness of a single man, together with his ability, maintains her freedom; but this freedom will last only as long as the life of that man—as occurred in Syracuse with Dion and Timoleon, whose ability in different eras kept that city free while they were alive; when they died, the city returned to its former tyranny. But there is no better example of this than that of Rome; when the Tarquins were driven out, she was immediately able to seize and maintain her liberty. But after Caesar, Gaius Caligula, and Nero were dead, and the entire race of Caesar was destroyed, the city was not able to maintain her freedom or even reestablish it.

  Such contrasting results in the same city arose from nothing other than the fact that the Roman people were still uncorrupt in the time of the Tarquins, while they were most corrupt in these later times; in the early days, in order to keep the people firm and disposed toward rejecting a king it was enough merely to have them swear that they would never consent to another king ruling in Rome; but in later days the authority and severity of Brutus plus all the Eastern legions were not enough to keep the people prepared to maintain their liberty, which he, like the first Brutus, had restored to them. This arose from the corruption which the faction of Marius had spread among the people; for when Caesar became the leader of this faction, he was able to blind the multitude so that they did not recognize the yoke which they themselves were placing upon their necks.

  And though this example in Rome is preferable to any other, I nevertheless wish to present, on this topic, examples of other peoples known in our own times; therefore, let me say that no event—no matter how serious or violent it might be—could ever restore freedom in Milan or Naples, for their members are completely corrupt. This was evident after the death of Filippo Visconti, when Milan wished to restore her liberty but was not able to, nor did she know how to maintain it. And so it was Rome’s great good fortune that her kings became corrupt early and, as a result, were driven out of the city before their corruption passed into the citizenry: this lack of total corruption was the reason why the countless disturbances which occurred in Rome never did any harm; on the contrary, they benefited the republic since the goals of the men who created them were essentially good.

  It can be concluded, then, that where the material is not corrupt disturbances and other scandals can do no harm; where it is corrupt, well-organized laws do no good unless they are enforced by a man with enormous power who sees to it that they are observed in such a manner that the material becomes good. Whether this has ever happened, or might ever possibly happen, I do not know; for it is evident, as I said a little earlier, that if a city has begun to decline because of the corruption of its material, and if it ever happens to pull itself up again, this happens because of the ability of a single man living at the time and not because of the ability of the people supporting its good institutions; and as soon as that man is dead it returns to its former ways. This happened in Thebes, which, because of the ability of Epaminondas, was able to maintain a republican form of government and an empire as long as he was alive; but after he was dead it returned to its earlier disorders. The reason is that no one man can live long enough to teach good habits to a city which has for a long time known only bad ones. And if one man with an extremely long life or two strong successive reigns are not able to accomplish this, then when the reformers disappear, as was mentioned above, the city comes to ruin unless the reformers, before passing on and at the risk of many dangers and much bloodshed, have managed to bring about her rebirth. Such corruption and the inability to lead a free life arise from the inequality that exists in that city, and if one wishes to return the city to a state of equality, he will have to use drastic measures which few know how or wish to use, as will be discussed in more detail in another place.