The Prince

From hence a general rule may be deduced, and such a one as seldom or never is subject to exception,—viz., that whoever is the occasion of another’s advancement is the cause of his own diminution; because that advancement is founded either upon the conduct or power of the donor, either of which become suspicious at length to the person preferred.

CHAPTER 4 Why the Kingdom of Darius, usurped by Alexander, did not rebel against his Successors, after Alexander was dead

The difficulties encountered in the keeping of a new conquest being considered, it may well be admired how it came to pass that Alexander the Great, having in a few years made himself master of Asia, and died as soon as he had done, that State could be kept from rebellion; yet his successors enjoyed it a long time peaceably without any troubles or concussions but what sprung from their own avarice and ambition. I answer that all monarchies of which we have any record were governed after two several manners; either by a prince and his servants whom he vouchsafes out of his mere grace to constitute his ministers, and admits of their assistance in the government of his kingdom; or else by a prince and his barons, who were persons advanced to that quality, not by favour or concession of the prince, but by the ancientness and nobility of their extraction. These barons have their proper jurisdictions and subjects, who own their authority and pay them a natural respect. Those States which are governed by the prince and his servants have their prince more arbitrary and absolute, because his supremacy is acknowledged by everybody; and if another be obeyed, it is only as his minister and substitute, without any affection to the man. Examples of these different governments we may find in our time in the persons of the Grand Signor and the King of France. The whole Turkish monarchy is governed by a single person, the rest are but his servants and slaves; for distinguishing his whole monarchy into provinces and governments (which they call Sangiacchi) he sends when and what officers he thinks fit, and changes them as he pleases. But the King of France is established in the middle, as it were, of several great lords, whose sovereignty having been owned, and families beloved a long time by their subjects, they keep their pre-eminence; nor is it in the king’s power to deprive them without inevitable danger to himself. He, therefore, who considers the one with the other will find the Turkish empire harder to be subdued; but when once conquered more easy to be kept. The reason of the difficulty is, because the usurper cannot be called in by the grandees of the empire, nor hope any assistance from the great officers to facilitate his enterprise, which proceeds from the reasons aforesaid; for being all slaves and under obligation they are not easily corrupted; and if they could, little good was to be expected from them, being unable for the aforesaid reasons to bring them any party: so that whoever invades the Turk must expect to find him entire and united, and is to depend more upon his own proper force than any disorders among them; but having once conquered them, and beaten their army beyond the possibility of a recruit, the danger is at an end; for there is nobody remaining to be afraid of but the family of the emperor, which, being once extinguished, nobody else has any interest with the people, and they are as little to be apprehended after the victory as they were to be relied upon before. But in kingdoms that are governed according to the model of France it happens quite contrary, because having gained some of the barons to your side (and some of them will always be discontented and desirous of change), you may readily enter; they can, as I said before, give you easy admission and contribute to your victory. But to defend and make good what you have got brings a long train of troubles and calamities with it, as well upon your friends as your foes. Nor will it suffice to exterminate the race of the king; forasmuch as other princes will remain, who, upon occasion, will make themselves heads of any commotion, and they being neither to be satisfied nor extinguished, you must of necessity be expelled upon the first insurrection.

Now, if it be considered what was the nature of Darius’s government, it will be found to have been very like the Turks, and therefore Alexander was obliged to fight them, and having conquered them, and Darius dying after the victory, the empire of the Persians remained quietly to Alexander, for the reasons aforesaid; and his successors, had they continued united, might have enjoyed it in peace, for in that whole empire no tumults succeeded but what were raised by themselves. But in kingdoms that are constituted like France it is otherwise, and impossible to possess them in quiet. From hence sprung the many defections of Spain, France and Greece from the Romans, by reason of the many little principalities in those several kingdoms of which, whilst there remained any memory, the Romans enjoyed their possession in a great deal of uncertainty; but when their memory was extinct by power and diuturnity of empire, they grew secure in their possessions, and quarrelling afterwards among themselves, every officer of the Romans was able to bring a party into the field, according to the latitude and extent of his command in the said provinces; and the reason was, because the race of their old princes being extirpate, there was nobody left for them to acknowledge but the Romans. These things, therefore, being considered, it is not to be wondered that Alexander had the good fortune to keep the empire of Asia, whilst the rest, as Pyrrhus and others, found such difficulty to retain what they had got; for it came not to pass from the small or great virtue of the victor, but from the difference and variety of the subject.

CHAPTER 5 How such Cities and Principalities are to be governed who lived under their own Laws before they were subdued

When States that are newly conquered have been accustomed to their liberty, and lived under their own laws, to keep them three ways are to be observed: the first is utterly to ruin them; the second, to live personally among them; the third is (contenting yourself with a pension from them) to permit them to enjoy their old privileges and laws, erecting a kind of Council of State, to consist of a few which may have a care of your interest, and keep the people in amity and obedience. And that Council being set up by you, and knowing that it subsists only by your favour and authority, will not omit anything that may propagate and enlarge them. A town that has been anciently free cannot more easily be kept in subjection than by employing its own citizens, as may be seen by the example of the Spartans and Romans. The Spartans had got possession of Athens and Thebes, and settled an oligarchy according to their fancy; and yet they lost them again. The Romans, to keep Capua, Carthage and Numantia, ordered them to be destroyed, and they kept them by that means. Thinking afterwards to preserve, Greece, as the Spartans had done, by allowing them their liberty, and indulging their old laws, they found themselves mistaken; so that they were forced to subvert many cities in that province before they could keep it; and certainly that is the safest way which I know; for whoever conquers a free town and does not demolish it commits a great error, and may expect to be ruined himself; because whenever the citizens are disposed to revolt, they betake themselves of course to that blessed name of liberty, and the laws of their ancestors, which no length of time nor kind usage whatever will be able to eradicate; and let all possible care and provision be made to the contrary, unless they be divided some way or other, or the inhabitants dispersed, the thought of their old privileges will never out of their heads, but upon all occasions they will endeavour to recover them, as Pisa did after it had continued so many years in subjection to the Florentines. But it falls out quite contrary where the cities or provinces have been used to a prince whose race is extirpated and gone; for being on the one side accustomed to obey, and on the other at a loss for their old family, they can never agree to set up another, and will never know how to live freely without; so that they are not easily to be tempted to rebel, and the prince may oblige them with less difficulty, and be secure of them when he hath done. But in a commonwealth their hatred is more inveterate, their revenge more insatiable; nor does the memory of their ancient liberty ever suffer, or ever can suffer them to be quiet; so that the most secure way is either to ruin them quite, or make your residence among them.

CHAPTER 6 Of Principalities acquired by one’s own proper conduct and arms

Let no man think it strange if in speaking of new governments, either by princes or states, I introduce great and eminent examples; forasmuch as men in their actions follow commonly the ways that are beaten, and when they would do any generous thing they propose to themselves some pattern of that nature; nevertheless, being impossible to come up exactly to that, or to acquire that virtue in perfection which you desire to imitate; a wise man ought always to set before him for his example the actions of great men who have excelled in the achievement of some great exploit, to the end that though his virtue and power arrives not at that perfection, it may at least come as near as is possible, and receive some tincture thereby. Like experienced archers, who observing the mark to be at great distance, and knowing the strength of their bow, and how far it will carry, they fix their aim somewhat higher than the mark, not with design to shoot at that height, but that by mounting their arrow to a certain proportion, they may come the nearer to the mark they intend. I say, then, that principalities newly acquired by an upstart prince are more or less difficult to maintain, as he is more or less provident that gains them. And because the happiness of rising from a private person to be a prince presupposes great virtue or fortune, where both of them concur they do much facilitate the conservation of the conquest; yet he who has committed least to fortune has continued the longest. It prevents much trouble likewise, when the prince (having no better residence elsewhere) is constrained to live personally among them. But to speak of such who by their virtue, rather than fortune, have advanced themselves to that dignity, I say that the most renowned and excellent are Moses, Cyrus, Romulus, Theseus, and the like. And though Moses might be reasonably excepted, as being only the executioner of God’s immediate commands, yet he deserves to be mentioned, if it were only for that grace which rendered him capable of communication with God. But if we consider Cyrus, and the rest of the conquerors and founders of monarchies, we shall find them extraordinary; and examining their lives and exploits, they will appear not much different from Moses, who had so incomparable a Master; for by their conversations and successes they do not seem to have received anything from fortune but occasion and opportunity, in introducing what forms of government they pleased; and as without that occasion the greatness of their courage had never been known, so had not they been magnanimous, and taken hold of it, that occasion had happened in vain. It was necessary, therefore, for Moses that the people of Israel should be in captivity in Egypt that to free themselves from bondage they might be disposed to follow him. It was convenient that Romulus should be turned out of Albo, and exposed to the wild beasts when he was young, that he might afterwards be made King of Rome, and founder of that great empire. It was not unnecessary, likewise, that Cyrus should find the Persians mutinying at the tyranny of the Medes, and that the Medes should be grown soft and effeminate with their long peace. Theseus could never have given proof of his virtue and generosity had not the Athenians been in great trouble and confusion. These great advantages made those great persons eminent, and their great wisdom knew how to improve them to the reputation and enlargement of their country. They, then, who become great by the ways of virtue (as the princes aforesaid) do meet with many difficulties before they arrive at their ends, but having compassed them once they easily keep them. The difficulties in the acquisition arise in part from new laws and customs which they are forced to introduce for the establishment and security of their own dominion; and this is to be considered, that there is nothing more difficult to undertake, more uncertain to succeed, and more dangerous to manage, than to make one’s self prince, and prescribe new laws. Because he who innovates in that manner has for his enemies all those who made any advantage by the old laws; and those who expect benefit by the new will be but cool and lukewarm in his defence; which lukewarmness proceeds from a certain awe for their adversaries, who have their old laws on their side, and partly from a natural incredulity in mankind, which gives credit but slowly to any new thing, unless recommended first by the experiment of success. Hence it proceeds, that the first time the adversary has opportunity to make an attempt, he does it with great briskness and vigour; but the defence is so trepid and faint, that for the most part the new prince and his adherents perish together. Wherefore for better discussion of this case it is necessary to inquire whether these innovators do stand upon their own feet, or depend upon other people; that is to say whether in the conduct of their affairs they do make more use of their rhetoric than their arms. In the first case they commonly miscarry, and their designs seldom succeed; but when their expectations are only from themselves, and they have power in their own hands to make themselves obeyed, they run little or no hazard, and do frequently prevail. For further eviction, the Scripture shows us that those of the prophets whose arms were in their hands, and had power to compel, succeeded better in the reformations which they designed; whereas those who came only with exhortation and good language suffered martyrdom and banishment, because (besides the reasons aforesaid) the people are inconstant and susceptible of any new doctrine at first, but not easily brought to retain it; so that things are to be ordered in such manner that when their faith begins to stagger they may be forced to persist. Moses, Cyrus, Theseus, and Romulus could never have made their laws to have been long observed had they not had power to have compelled it; as in our days it happened to Friar Jerome Savonarola, who ruined himself by his new institutions as soon as the people of Florence began to desert him, for he had no means to confirm them who had been of his opinion, nor to constrain such as dissented. Wherefore such persons meet with great difficulty in their affairs; all their dangers are still by the way, which they can hardly overcome, but by some extraordinary virtue and excellence; nevertheless, when once they have surmounted them, and arrived at any degree of veneration, having supplanted those who envied their advancement, they remain puissant and firm, and honourable and happy. I will add to these great examples another, perhaps not so conspicuous, but one that will bear a proportion and resemblance with the rest, and shall satisfy me for all others of that nature. It is of Hiero of Syracuse, who of a private person was made prince of that city, for which he was beholding to fortune no further than for the occasion, because the Syracusans being under oppression chose him for their captain, in which command he behaved himself so well he deserved to be made their prince, for he was a person of so great virtue and excellence that those who have written of him have given him this character, that even in his private condition he wanted nothing but a kingdom to make him an admirable king. This Hiero subdued the old militia, established a new; renounced the old allies, confederated with others, and having friends and forces of his own, he was able upon such a foundation to erect what fabric he pleased, so that though the acquisition cost him much trouble he maintained it with little.

CHAPTER 7 Of new Principalities acquired by accident and the supplies of other people

They who from private condition ascend to be princes, and merely by the indulgence of fortune, arrive without much trouble at their dignity, though it costs them dear to maintain it, meet but little difficulty in their passage, being hurried as it were with wings, yet when they come to settle and establish then begins their misery. These kind of persons are such as attain their dignity by bribes, or concession of some other great prince, as it happened to several in Greece, in the cities of Ionia, and upon the Hellespont, where they were invested with that power by Darius for his greater security and glory, and to those emperors who arrived at the empire by the corruption of the soldiers. These persons, I say, subsist wholly upon the pleasure and fortune of those who advanced them, which being two things very valuable and uncertain, they have neither knowledge nor power to continue long in that degree; know not, because, unless he be a man of extraordinary qualities and virtue, it is not reasonable to think he can know how to command other people, who before lived always in a private condition himself; cannot, because they have no forces upon whose friendship and fidelity they can rely. Moreover, States which are suddenly conquered (as all things else in Nature whose rise and increase is so speedy) can have no root or foundation but what will be shaken and supplanted by the first gust of adversity, unless they who have been so suddenly exalted be so wise as to prepare prudently in time for the conservation of what fortune threw so luckily into their lap, and establish afterwards such fundamentals for their duration as others (which I mentioned before) have done in the like cases. About the arrival at this authority either by virtue, or good fortune, I shall instance in two examples that are fresh in our memory; one is Francis Sforza, the other Cæsar Borgia; Sforza, by just means and extraordinary virtue, made himself Duke of Milan, and enjoyed it in great peace, though gained with much trouble. Borgia, on the other side (called commonly Duke of Valentine), got several fair territories by the fortune of his father Pope Alexander, and lost them all after his death, though he used all his industry, and employed all the arts which a wise and brave prince ought to do to fix himself in the sphere where the arms and fortune of other people had placed him: for he, as I said before, who laid not his foundation in time, may yet raise his superstructure, but with great trouble to the architect and great danger to the building. If, therefore, the whole progress of the said Duke be considered, it will be found what solid foundations he had laid for his future dominion, of which progress I think it not superfluous to discourse, because I know not what better precepts to display before a new prince than the example of his actions; and though his own orders and methods did him no good, it was not so much his fault as the malignity of his fortune.

Pope Alexander the Sixth had a desire to make his son Duke Valentine great, but he saw many blocks and impediments in the way, both for the present and future. First, he could not see any way to advance him to any territory that depended not upon the Church; and to those in his gift he was sure the Duke of Milan and the Venetians would never consent; for Faenza and Riminum had already put themselves under the Venetian protection. He was likewise sensible that the forces of Italy, especially those who were capable of assisting him, were in the hands of those who ought to apprehend the greatness of the Pope, as the Ursini, Colonnesi, and their followers, and therefore could not repose any great confidence in them; besides, the laws and alliances of all the States in Italy must of necessity be disturbed before he could make himself master of any part, which was no hard matter to do, finding the Venetians, upon some private interest of their own, inviting the French to another expedition into Italy, which his Holiness was so far from opposing that he promoted it by dissolution of King Louis’s former marriage. Louis therefore passed the Alps by the assistance of the Venetians and Alexander’s consent, and was no sooner in Milan but he sent forces to assist the Pope in his enterprise against Romagna, which was immediately surrendered upon the king’s reputation. Romagna being in this manner reduced by the Duke, and the Colonnesi defeated, being ambitious not only to keep what he had got, but to advance in his conquests, two things obstructed: one was the infidelity of his own army, the other the aversion of the French; for he was jealous of the forces of the Ursini who were in his service, suspected they would fail him in his need, and either hinder his conquest or take it from him when he had done; and the same fears he had of the French. And his jealousy of the Ursini was much increased when, after the expugnation of Faenza, assaulting Bologna, he found them very cold and backward in the attack. And the King’s inclination he discovered when, having possessed himself of the Duchy of Urbin, he invaded Tuscany, and was by him required to desist. Whereupon the Duke resolved to depend no longer upon fortune and foreign assistance, and the first course he took was to weaken the party of the Ursini and Colonni in Rome, which he effected very neatly by debauching such of their adherents as were gentlemen, taking them into his own service, and giving them honourable pensions and governments and commands, according to their respective qualities; so that in a few months their passion for that faction evaporated, and they turned all for the Duke. After this he attended an opportunity of supplanting the Ursini, as he had done the family of the Colonni before, which happened very luckily, and was as luckily improved: for the Ursini, considering too late that the greatness of the Duke and the Church tended to their ruin, held a council at a place called Magione, in Perugia, which occasioned the rebellion of Urbin, the tumults in Romagna, and a thousand dangers to the Duke besides; but though he overcame them all by the assistance of the French, and recovered his reputation, yet he grew weary of his foreign allies, as having nothing further to oblige them, and betook himself to his artifice, which he managed so dexterously that the Ursini reconciled themselves to him by the mediation of Seignor Paulo, with whom for his security he comported so handsomely by presenting with money, rich stuffs, and horses, that being convinced of his integrity, he conducted them to Sinigaglia, and delivered them into the Duke’s hands. Having by this means exterminated the chief of his adversaries, and reduced their friends, the Duke had laid a fair foundation for his greatness, having gained Romagna and the Duchy of Urbin, and insinuated with the people by giving them a gust of their future felicity. And because this part is not unworthy to be known for imitation sake, I will not pass it in silence. When the Duke had possessed himself of Romagna, finding it had been governed by poor and inferior lords, who had rather robbed than corrected their subjects, and given them more occasion of discord than unity, insomuch as that province was full of robberies, riots, and all manner of insolencies; to reduce them to unanimity and subjection to monarchy, he thought it necessary to provide them a good governor, and thereupon he conferred that charge upon Remiro d’Orco, with absolute power, though he was a cruel and passionate man. Orco was not long before he had settled it in peace, with no small reputation to himself. Afterwards, the Duke, apprehending so large a power might grow odious to the people, he erected a court of judicature in the middle of the province, in which every city had its advocate, and an excellent person was appointed to preside. And because he discovered that his past severity had created him many enemies, to remove that ill opinion, and recover the affections of the people, he had a mind to show that, if any cruelty had been exercised, it proceeded not from him but from the arrogance of his minister; and for their further confirmation, he caused the said governor to be apprehended, and his head chopped off one morning in the marketplace at Cesena, with a wooden dagger on one side of him and a bloody knife on the other; the ferocity of which spectacle not only appeased but amazed the people for a while. But resuming our discourse, I say, the Duke finding himself powerful enough, and secure against present danger, being himself as strong as he desired, and his neighbours in a manner reduced to an incapacity of hurting him, being willing to go on with his conquests, there remaining nothing but a jealousy of France, and not without cause, for he knew that king had found his error at last, and would be sure to obstruct him. Hereupon he began to look abroad for new allies, and to hesitate and stagger towards France, as appeared when the French army advanced into the kingdom of Naples against the Spaniards, who had besieged Cajeta. His great design was to secure himself against the French, and he had doubtless done it if Alexander had lived. These were his provisions against the dangers that were imminent; but those that were remote were more doubtful and uncertain. The first thing he feared was lest the next Pope should be his enemy, and reassume all that Alexander had given him, to prevent which he proposed four several ways. The first was by destroying the whole line of those lords whom he had dispossessed, that his Holiness might have no occasion to restore them. The second was to cajole the nobility in Rome, and draw them over to his party, that thereby he might put an awe and restraint upon the Pope. The third was, if possible, to make the College his friends. The fourth was to make himself so strong before the death of his father as to be able to stand upon his own legs and repel the first violence that should be practised against him. Three of these four expedients he had tried before Alexander died, and was in a fair way for the fourth; all the disseized lords which came into his clutches he put to death, and left few of them remaining; he had insinuated with the nobility of Rome, and got a great party in the College of Cardinals; and as to his own corroboration, he had designed to make himself master of Tuscany, had got possession of Perugia and Piombino already, and taken Pisa into his protection. And having now farther regard of the French (who were beaten out of the kingdom of Naples by the Spaniard, and both of them reduced to necessity of seeking his amity), he leaped bluntly into Pisa, after which Lucca and Sienna submitted without much trouble, partly in hatred to the Florentines, and partly for fear; and the, Florentines were grown desperate and without any hopes of relief; so that had these things happened before, as they did the same year in which Alexander died, doubtless he had gained so much strength and reputation that he would have stood firm by himself upon the basis of his own power and conduct, without depending upon fortune or any foreign supplies. But his father died five years after his son had taken up arms, and left him nothing solid and in certainty, but Romagna only, and the rest were in nubibus, infested with two formidable armies, and himself mortally sick. This Duke was a man of that magnanimity and prudence, understood so well which way men were to be wheedled, or destroyed, and such were the foundations that he had laid in a short time, that had he not had those two great armies upon his back, and a fierce distemper upon his body, he had overcome all difficulties and brought his designs to perfection. That the foundations which he had laid were plausible appeared by the patience of his subjects in Romagna, who held out for him a complete month, though they knew he was at death’s door, and unlikely ever to come out of Rome, to which place, though the Baglioni, the Vitelli, and the Ursini returned, seeing there was no likelihood of his recovery, yet they could not gain any of his party, nor debauch them to their side. It is possible he was not able to put who he pleased into the Pontifical chair, yet he had power enough to keep any man out who he thought was his enemy; but had it been his fortune to have been well when his father Alexander died, all things had succeeded to his mind. He told me himself, about the time that Julius XI was created, that he had considered well the accidents that might befall him upon the death of his father, and provided against them all, only he did not imagine that at his death he should be so near it himself. Upon serious examination, therefore, of the whole conduct of Duke Valentine, I see nothing to be reprehended; it seems rather proper to me to propose him, as I have done, as an example for the imitation of all such as by the favour of fortune, or the supplies of other princes, have got into the saddle; for his mind being so large, and his intentions so high, he could not do otherwise, and nothing could have opposed the greatness and wisdom of his designs but his own infirmity and the death of his father. He, therefore, who thinks it necessary in the minority of his dominion to secure himself against his enemies, to gain himself friends; to overcome, whether by force or by fraud; to make himself beloved or feared by his people; to be followed and reverenced by his soldiers; to destroy and exterminate such as would do him injury; to repeal and suppress old laws, and introduce new; to be severe, grateful, magnanimous, liberal, cashier and disband such of his army as were unfaithful, and put new in their places; manage himself so in his alliances with kings and princes that all of them should be either obliged to requite him or afraid to offend him: he, I say, cannot find a fresher or better model than the actions of this prince. If in anything he is to be condemned, it is in suffering the election of Julius XI, which was much to his prejudice; for though, as is said before, he might be unable to make the Pope as he pleased, yet it was in his power to have put any one by, and he ought never to have consented to the election of any of the cardinals whom he had formerly offended, or who, after their promotion, were like to be jealous of him; for men are as mischievous for fear as for hated. Those cardinals which he had disobliged were, among others, the cardinals of St. Peter ad Vincula, Collonno St. George, and Ascanius. The rest, if any of them were advanced to the Papacy, might well be afraid of him, except the Spanish cardinals and the cardinal of Roan; the Spaniards by reason of their obligations and alliance, and the other by reason of his interest in the kingdom of France. Wherefore, above all things, the Duke should have made a Spanish cardinal Pope; and if that could not have been done, he should rather have consented to the election of Roan than St. Peter ad Vincula; for it is weakness to believe that among great persons new obligations can obliterate old injuries and disgusts. So that in the election of this Julius XI Duke Valentine committed an error that was the cause of his utter destruction.