Николо Макиавелли: Discourses on Livy

Here it seems proper to note that the captain of an army ought not to build on what seems a manifest blunder on the part of an enemy; for as men are unlikely to act with conspicuous want of caution, it will commonly be found that this blunder is cover to a fraud. And yet, so blinded are men's minds by their eagerness for victory, that they look only to what appears on the surface.

After defeating the Romans on the Allia, the Gauls, hastening on to Rome, found the gates of the city left open and unguarded. But fearing some stratagem, and being unable to believe that the Romans could be so foolish and cowardly as to abandon their city, they waited during the whole of that day and the following night outside the gates, without daring to enter. In the year 1508, when the Florentines Avere engaged in besieging Pisa, Alfonso del Mutolo, a citizen of that town, happening to be taken prisoner, was released on his promise to procure the surrender to the Florentines of one of the gates of the city. Afterwards, on pretence of arranging for the execution of this surrender, he came repeatedly to confer with those whom the Florentine commissaries had deputed to treat with him, coming not secretly but openly, and accompanied by other citizens of Pisa, whom he caused to stand aside while he conversed with the Florentines. From all which circumstances his duplicity might have been suspected, since, had he meant to do as he had engaged, it was most unlikely that he should be negotiating so openly. But the desire to recover possession of Pisa so blinded the Florentines that they allowed themselves to be conducted under his guidance to the Lucca Gate, where, through his treachery, but to their own disgrace, they lost a large number of their men and officers.

It must happen, as I have already said, in every great city, that disorders needing the care of the physician continually spring up; and the graver these disorders are, the greater will be the skill needed for their treatment. And if ever in any city, most assuredly in Rome, we see these disorders assume strange and unexpected shapes. As when it appeared that all the Roman wives had conspired to murder their husbands, many of them being found to have actually administered poison, and many others to have drugs in readiness for the purpose.

Of like nature was the conspiracy of the Bacchanals, discovered at the time of the Macedonian war, wherein many thousands, both men and women, were implicated, and which, had it not been found out, or had the Romans not been accustomed to deal with large bodies of offenders, must have proved perilous for their city. And, indeed, if the greatness of the Roman Republic were not declared by countless other signs, as well as by the manner in which it caused its laws to be observed, it might be seen in the character of the punishments which it inflicted against wrong–doers. For in vindicating justice, it would not scruple or hesitate to put a whole legion to death, to depopulate an entire city, or send eight or ten thousand men at a time into banishment, subject to the most stringent conditions, which had to be observed, not by one of these exiles only, but by all. As in the case of those soldiers who fought unsuccessfully at Cannæ, who were banished to Sicily, subject to the condition that they should not harbour in towns, and should all eat standing.

But the most formidable of all their punishments was that whereby one man out of every ten in an entire army was chosen by lot to be put to death. For correcting a great body of men no more effectual means could be devised; because, when a multitude have offended and the ringleaders are not known, all cannot be punished, their number being too great; while to punish some only, and leave the rest unpunished, were unjust to those punished and an encouragement to those passed over to offend again. But where you put to death a tenth chosen by lot, where all equally deserve death, he who is punished will blame his unlucky fortune, while he who escapes will be afraid that another time the lot may be his, and for that reason will be careful how he repeats his offence. The poisoners and the Bacchanals, therefore, were punished as their crimes deserved.

Although disorders like these occasion mischievous results in a commonwealth, still they are not fatal, since almost always there is time to correct them. But no time is given in the case of disorders in the State itself, which unless they be treated by some wise citizen, will always bring a city to destruction. From the readiness wherewith the Romans conferred the right of citizenship on foreigners, there came to be so many new citizens in Rome, and possessed of so large a share of the suffrage, that the government itself began to alter, forsaking those courses which it was accustomed to follow, and growing estranged from the men to whom it had before looked for guidance. Which being observed by Quintius Fabius when censor, he caused all those new citizens to be classed in four Tribes , that being reduced within this narrow limit they might not have it in their power to corrupt the entire State. And this was a wisely contrived measure, for, without introducing any violent change, it supplied a convenient remedy, and one so acceptable to the republic as to gain for Fabius the well–deserved name of Maximus.

THE END.

L'umana probitate: e questo vuoleQuei che la dà, perchè da lui si chiami. Purg . vii. 121–123.

Residesque movebit Tullus in arma viros. Virg. Aen . vi. 814.

Proclivius est injuriæ quam beneficio vicem exsolvere, quia gratia oneri, ultio in quastu habetur. Tacit. Hist. iv. 2.

Quod omnia mala exempla ex bonis initiis orta sunt. (Sall. Cat. 51.)

"Viva la sua morte e muoia la sua vita." The quotation does not seem to be from the "De Monarchia."

Tum pietate gravem ac meritis si forte virum quem Conspexere, silent, arrectisque auribus adstant. Virg. Aen. , I. 154.

Nos Maurusii qui fugimus a facie Jesu latronis filii Navae. Procop. Hist. Bell. Vand. II.

Sævior armis Luxuria occubuit victumque ulciscitur orbem. Juv. Sat. vi. 292.

Nam facetiæ asperæ, quando nimium ex vero traxere, acrem sui memoriam relinquunt. Tacit. An. xv. 68.

"Quod quotidie aggregatur aliquid quod quandoque indiget curatione."

Tac. Hist. iv. 8.

Ad generum Cereris sine caede et vulnere pauci Descendunt reges, et sicca morte tiranni. Juv. Sat. x. 112.

Professus ante inter suos, ire se ad exercitum sine duce, et inde reversurum ad ducem sine exercitu. ( Suet. in Vita J. Caes. )

"In multitudine regenda plus poena quam obsequium valet." But compare Annals, III. 55, "Obsequium inde in principem et æmulandi amoi validioi quam poena ex legibus et metus."

Flav. Blondri Hist. , dec. ii. lib. 9. Basle ed. 1559, p. 337

The heraldic Lion of Florence.

E quel che fa il signer, fanno poi molti; Chè nel signer son tutti gli occhi volti. ( La Rappresentazione di San Giovanni e Paolo. )