The Prince - Никколо Макиавелли

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Alexander’s son was commonly called) possessed himself of Romagna. In the heat of our conference, the Cardinal telling me that the Italians were ignorant of the art of war, I replied that the French had as little skill in matters of State; for if they had had the least policy in the world they would never have suffered the Church to have come to that height and elevation. And it has been found since by experience, that the grandeur of the Church and the Spaniard in Italy is derived from France, and that they in requital have been the ruin and expulsion of the French.

      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.

      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.

      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.

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