Machiavelli
The Prince
19
That
We Must Avoid Being Despised and Hated
But
as I have now spoken of the most important of the qualities in question, I
will now deal briefly and generally with the rest. The prince must, as
already stated, avoid those things which will make him hated or despised;
and whenever he succeeds in this, he will have done his part, and will
find no danger in other vices. He will chiefly become hated, as I said, by
being rapacious, and usurping the property and women of his subjects,
which he must abstain from doing, and whenever one does not attack the
property or honour of the generality of men, they will live contented; and
one will only have to combat the ambition of a few, who can be easily held
in check in many ways. He is rendered despicable by being thought
changeable, frivolous, effeminate, timid, and irresolute; which a prince
must guard against as a rock of danger, and so contrive that his actions
show grandeur, spirit, gravity, and fortitude; and as to the government of
his subjects, let his sentence be irrevocable, and let him adhere to his
decisions so that no one may think of deceiving or cozening him.
The
prince who creates such an opinion of himself gets a great reputation, and
it is very difficult to conspire against one who has a great reputation,
and he will not easily be attacked, so long as it is known that he is
capable and reverenced by his subjects. For a prince must have two kinds
of fear: one internal as regards his subjects, one external as regards
foreign powers. From the latter he can defend himself with good arms and
good friends, and he will always have good friends if he has good arms;
and internal matters will always remain quiet, if they are not perturbed
by conspiracy and there is no disturbance from without; and even if
external powers sought to attack him, if he has ruled and lived as I have
described, he will always if he stands firm, be able to sustain every
shock, as I have shown that Nabis the Spartan did. But with regard to the
subjects, if not acted on from outside, it is still to be feared lest they
conspire in secret, from which the prince may guard himself well by
avoiding hatred and contempt, and keeping the people satisfied with him,
which it is necessary to accomplish, as has been related at length. And
one of the most potent remedies that a prince has against conspiracies, is
that of not being hated by the mass of the people; for whoever conspires
always believes that he will satisfy the people by the death of their
prince; but if he thought to offend them by doing this, he would fear to
engage in such an undertaking for the difficulties that conspirators have
to meet are infinite. Experience shows that there have been very many
conspiracies, but few have turned out well, for whoever conspires cannot
act alone, and cannot find companions except among those who are
discontented; and as soon as you have disclosed your intention to a
malcontent, you give him the means of satisfying himself, for by revealing
it he can hope to secure everything he wants; to such an extent that
seeing a certain gain by doing this, and seeing on the other hand only a
doubtful one and full of danger, he must either be a rare friend to you or
else a very bitter enemy to the prince if he keeps faith with you. And to
express the matter in a few words, I say, that on the side of the
conspirator there is nothing but fear, jealousy, suspicion, and dread of
punishment which frightens him; and on the side of the prince there is the
majesty of government, the laws, the protection of friends and of the
state which guard him. When to these things is added the goodwill of the
people, it is impossible that any one should have the temerity to
conspire. For whereas generally a conspirator has to fear before the
execution of his plot, in this case, having the people for an enemy, he
must also fear after his crime is accomplished, and thus he is not able to
hope for any refuge.
Numberless
instances might be given of this, but I will content myself with one which
took place within the memory of our fathers. Messer Annibale Bentivogli,
Prince of Bologna, ancestor of the present Messer Annibale, was killed by
the Canneschi, who conspired against him. He left no relations but Messer
Giovanni, who was then an infant, but after the murder the people rose up
and killed all the Canneschi. This arose from the popular goodwill that
the house of Bentivogli enjoyed at that time, which was so great that, as
there was nobody left after the death of Annibale who could govern the
state, the Bolognese hearing that there was one of the Bentivogli family
in Florence, who had till then been thought the son of a blacksmith, came
to fetch him and gave him the government of the city, and it was governed
by him until Messer Giovanni was old enough to assume the government.
I
conclude, therefore, that a prince need trouble little about conspiracies
when the people are well disposed, but when they are hostile and hold him
in hatred, then he must fear everything and everybody. Well-ordered states
and wise princes have studied diligently not to drive the nobles to
desperation, and to satisfy the populace and keep it contented, for this
is one of the most important matters that a prince has to deal with.
Among
the kingdoms that are well ordered and governed in our time is France, and
there we find numberless good institutions on which depend the liberty and
security of the king; of these the chief is the parliament and its
authority, because he who established that kingdom, knowing the ambition
and insolence of the great nobles, deemed it necessary to have a bit in
their mouths to check them. And knowing on the other hand the hatred of
the mass of the people against the great, based on fear, and wishing to
secure them, he did not wish to make this the special care of the king, to
relieve him of the dissatisfaction that he might incur among the nobles by
favouring the people, and among the people by favouring the nobles. He
therefore established a third judge that, without direct charge of the
king, kept in check the great and favoured the lesser people. Nor could
any better or more prudent measure have been adopted, nor better
precaution for the safety of the king and the kingdom. From which another
notable rule can be drawn, that princes should let the carrying out of
unpopular duties devolve on others, and bestow favours themselves. I
conclude again by saying that a prince must esteem his nobles, but not
make himself hated by the populace.
It
may perhaps seem to some, that considering the life and death of many
Roman emperors that they are instances contrary to my opinion, finding
that some who always lived nobly and showed great strength of character,
nevertheless lost the empire, or were killed by their subjects who
conspired against them. Wishing to answer these objections, I will discuss
the qualities of some emperors, showing the cause of their ruin not to be
at variance with what I have stated, and I will also meanwhile consider
the things to be noted by whoever reads the deeds of these times. I will
content myself with taking all those emperors who succeeded to the empire
from Marcus the philosopher to Maximinus; these were Marcus, Commodus his
son, Pertinax, Julianus, Severus, Antoninus, Caracalla his son, Macrinus,
Heliogabalus, Alexander, and Maximinus. And the first thing to note is,
that whereas other princes have only to contend against the ambition of
the great and the insolence of the people, the Roman emperors had a third
difficulty, that of having to support the cruelty and avarice of the
soldiers, which was such that it was the cause of the ruin of many, it
being hardly possible to satisfy both the soldiers and the people. For the
people love tranquility, and therefore like pacific princes, but the
soldiers prefer a prince of military spirit, who is insolent, cruel, and
rapacious. They wish him to exercise these qualities on the people so that
they may get double pay and give vent to their avarice and cruelty. Thus
it came about that those emperors who, by nature or art, had not such a
reputation as could keep both parties in check, were invariably ruined,
and the greater number of them who were raised to the empire being new
men, knowing the difficulties of these two opposite dispositions, confined
themselves to satisfying the soldiers, and thought little of injuring the
people. This choice was necessary, princes not being able to avoid being
hated by some one. They must first try not to be hated by the mass of the
people; if they cannot accomplish this they must use every means to escape
the hatred of the most powerful parties. And therefore these emperors, who
being new men had need of extraordinary favours, adhered to the soldiers
rather than to the people; whether this, however, was of use to them or
not, depended on whether the prince knew how to maintain his reputation
with them. From these causes it resulted that Marcus, Pertinax, and
Alexander, being all of modest life, lovers of justice, enemies of
cruelty, humane and benign, all came to a sad end except Marcus. Marcus
alone lived and died in honour, because he succeeded to the empire by
hereditary right and did not owe it either to the soldiers or to the
people; besides which, possessing many virtues which made him revered, he
kept both parties in their place as long as he lived and was never either
hated or despised. But Pertinax was created emperor against the will of
the soldiers, who being accustomed to live licentiously under Commodus,
could not put up with the honest life to which Pertinax wished to limit
them, so that having made himself hated, and to this contempt being added
because he was old, he was ruined at the very beginning of his
administration.
Whence
it may be seen that hatred is gained as much by good works as by evil, and
therefore, as I said before, a prince who wishes to maintain the state is
often forced to do evil, for when that party, whether populace, soldiery,
or nobles, whichever it be that you consider necessary to you for keeping
your position, is corrupt, you must follow its humour and satisfy it, and
in that case good works will be inimical to you.
But
let us come to Alexander, who was of such goodness, that among other
things for which he is praised, it is said that in the fourteen years that
he reigned no one was put to death by him without a fair trial.
Nevertheless, being considered effeminate, and a man who allowed himself
to be ruled by his mother, and having thus fallen into contempt, the army
conspired against him and killed him.
Considering,
on the other hand, the qualities of Commodus, Severus, Antoninus,
Caracalla, and Maximinus, you will find them extremely cruel and
rapacious; to satisfy the soldiers there was no injury which they would
not inflict on the people, and all except Severus ended badly. Severus,
however, had such abilities that by maintaining the soldiers friendly to
him, he was able to reign happily, although he oppressed the people, for
his virtues made him so admirable in the sight both of the soldiers and
the people that the latter were, in some degree, astonished and stupefied,
while the former were respectful and contented.
As
the deeds of this ruler were great and notable for a new prince, I will
briefly show how well he could use the qualities of the fox and the lion,
whose natures, as I said before, it is necessary for a prince to imitate.
Knowing the sloth of the Emperor Julianus, Severus, who was leader of the
army in Slavonia, persuaded the troops that it would be well to go to Rome
to avenge the death of Pertinax, who had been slain by the Prętorian
guard, and under this pretext, without revealing his aspirations to the
throne, marched with his army to Rome and was in Italy before his
departure was known. On his arrival in Rome the senate elected him emperor
through fear, and killed Julianus. There remained after this beginning two
difficulties to be faced by Severus before he could obtain the whole
control of the empire: one in Asia, where Nigrinus, head of the Asiatic
armies, had declared himself emperor; the other in the west from Albinus,
who also aspired to the empire. And as he judged it dangerous to show
himself hostile to both, he decided to attack Nigrinus and deceive Albinus,
to whom he wrote that having been elected emperor by the senate he wished
to share that dignity with him; he sent him the title of Caesar and, by
deliberation of the senate, he was declared his colleague; all of which
was accepted as true by Albinus. But when Severus had defeated and killed
Nigrinus, and pacified things in the East, he returned to Rome and charged
Albinus in the senate with having, unmindful of the benefits received from
him, traitorously sought to assassinate him, and stated that he was
therefore obliged to go and punish his ingratitude. He then went to France
to meet him, and there deprived him of both his position and his life.
Whoever
examines in detail the actions of Severus, will find him to have been a
very ferocious lion and an extremely astute fox, and will find him to have
been feared and respected by all and not hated by the army; and will not
be surprised that he, a new man, should have been able to hold so much
power, since his great reputation defended him always from the hatred that
his rapacity might have produced in the people. But Antoninus his son was
also a man of great ability, and possessed qualities that rendered him
admirable in the sight of the people and also made him popular with the
soldiers, for he was a military man, capable of enduring the most extreme
hardships, disdainful of delicate food, and every other luxury, which made
him loved by all the armies. However, his ferocity and cruelty were so
great and unheard of, through his having, after executing many private
individuals, caused a large part of the population of Rome and all that of
Alexandria to be killed, that he became hated by all the world and began
to be feared by those about him to such an extent that he was finally
killed by a centurion in the midst of his army. Whence it is to be noted
that this kind of death, which proceeds from the deliberate action of a
determined man, cannot be avoided by princes, since any one who does not
fear death himself can inflict it, but a prince need not fear much on this
account, as such men are extremely rare. He must only guard against
committing any grave injury to any one he makes use of, or has about him
for his service, like Antoninus had done, having caused the death with
contumely of the brother of that centurion, and also threatened him every
day, although he still retained him in his bodyguard, which was a foolish
and dangerous thing to do, as the fact proved.
But
let us come to Commodus, who might easily have kept the empire, having
succeeded to it by heredity, being the son of Marcus, and it would have
sufficed for him to follow in the steps of his father to have satisfied
both the people and the soldiers. But being of a cruel and bestial
disposition, in order to be able to exercise his rapacity on the people,
he sought to favour the soldiers and render them licentious; on the other
hand, by not maintaining his dignity, by often descending into the theatre
to fight with gladiators and committing other contemptible actions, little
worthy of the imperial dignity, he became despicable in the eyes of the
soldiers, and being hated on the one hand and despised on the other, he
was conspired against and killed.
There
remains to be described the character of Maximinus. He was an extremely
warlike man, and as the armies were annoyed with the effeminacy of
Alexander, which we have already spoken of, he was elected emperor after
the death of the latter. He did not enjoy it for long, as two things made
him hated and despised: the one his base origin, as he had been a shepherd
in Thrace, which was generally known and caused great disdain on all
sides; the other, because he had at the commencement of his rule deferred
going to Rome to take possession of the Imperial seat, and had obtained a
reputation for great cruelty, having through his prefects in Rome and
other parts of the empire committed many acts of cruelty The whole world
being thus moved by indignation for the baseness of his blood, and also by
the hatred caused by fear of his ferocity, he was conspired against first
by Africa and afterwards by the senate and all the people of Rome and
Italy. His own army also joined them, for besieging Aquileia and finding
it difficult to take, they became enraged at his cruelty, and seeing that
he had so many enemies, they feared him less and put him to death.
I
will not speak of Heliogabalus, of Macrinus, or Julianus, who being
entirely contemptible were immediately suppressed, but I will come to the
conclusion of this discourse by saying that the princes of our time have
less difficulty than these in being obliged to satisfy in an extraordinary
degree their soldiers in their states; for although they must have a
certain consideration for them, yet any difficulty is soon settled, for
none of these princes have armies that are inextricably bound up with the
administration of the government and the rule of their provinces as were
the armies of the Roman empire. If it was then necessary to satisfy the
soldiers rather than the people, it was because the soldiers could do more
than the people; now, it is more necessary for all princes, except the
Turk and the Sultan, to satisfy the people than the soldiers, for the
people can do more than the soldiers. I except the Turk, because he always
keeps about him twelve thousand infantry and fifteen thousand cavalry, on
which depend the security and strength of his kingdom; and it is necessary
for him to postpone every other consideration to keep them friendly. It is
the same with the kingdom of the Sultan, which being entirely in the hands
of the soldiers, he is bound to keep their friendship regardless of the
people. And it is to be noted that this state of the Sultan is different
from that of all other princes, being similar to the Christian
pontificate, which cannot be called either a hereditary kingdom or a new
one, for the sons of the dead prince are not his heirs, but he who is
elected to that position by those who have authority. And as this order is
ancient it cannot be called a new kingdom, there being none of these
difficulties which exist in new ones; as although the prince is new,