MACHIAVELLI has already covered this topic to a large extent, but now decides to elaborate upon some of his previous remarks in more depth. As we have already seen, he is of the opinion that a prince should take care not to attract the ire of his people by seizing their property or other personal belongings. We have also seen that any good qualities that a prince may have are, in the author’s opinion, open to abuse. In addition, if a prince enjoys the support of the people it makes things considerably more difficult for those who wish to remove him from power:
Any conspirator always expects to please the people by the prince’s removal. But when the conspirator can only look forward to offending them, he will not have the courage to take such a course, because the difficulties that face a conspirator are infinite.
This means that the odds are heavily stacked against the conspirators themselves, acting as a useful deterrent:
On the side of the conspirator, there is nothing but fear, jealousy, and the prospect of punishment. On the side of the prince there is the power of the principality, the laws, the protection of friends, and the state to defend him. If we add to all these things the popular support of the people, it is impossible that any one should be so foolish as to conspire.
Relating the tale of Annibale I Bentivoglio (1415-1445), who, more than a century earlier, had risen to become absolute ruler of Bologna, Machiavelli explains that both Bentivoglio (pictured) and most of his relatives were killed by the rival Canelloni family with the support of Pope Eugene IV (1383-1447). Following this murderous act, the people – grateful for the role the Bentivoglio family had played in the city’s hard-won independence – rose against the perpetrators in turn and slaughtered them. However, notwithstanding the fact that Bentivoglio had still been a tyrant, Machiavelli insists that this episode demonstrates that
a prince ought not to worry about conspiracies when his people have love and respect him. But when the people are hostile to him, and bear hatred towards him, he ought to fear everything and everybody. Well ordered states and wise princes have taken every care to keep the nobles happy, and to keep the people satisfied and contented, for this is one of the most important goals a prince can have.
The Italian then decides to examine the lives of those Roman emperors who were deposed as a result of a conspiracy against them. His choice of emperors are
Marcus and his son Commodus, Pertinax, Julian, Severus and his son Antoninus Caracalla, Macrinus, Heliogabalus, Alexander, and Maximinus.
Governing the Roman Empire, he says, was often a very difficult balancing act and whilst the people liked a happy, content emperor, the soldiers preferred a man who was tough and uncompromising. This meant that emperors were faced with a choice and, due to their obvious desire to keep the peace as much as possible, usually chose to retain the support of the military.
Marcus (121-180), Pertinax (126-193) and Alexander (208-235), Machiavelli claims, were far too nice for their own good and, by showing kindness towards both the people and the military, paved the way for their own downfall. Pertinax was never wanted by the Roman soldiery and was killed by the Praetorian Guard, whilst Alexander was so gentle that he was regarded as something of ‘a woman’. Indeed, after failing to execute a single citizen during his thirteen-year rule, Alexander was murdered by assassins from the ranks of his own army.
Meanwhile, the characters of Commodus (161-192), Severus (145-211), Antoninus Caracalla (86-161) and Maximinus (173-238) were altogether different in that they were cruel and ruthless:
They were men who, to satisfy their soldiers, did not hesitate to commit every kind of wicked act against the people. All, except Severus, came to a bad end. In Severus there was so much courage that, keeping the soldiers friendly, although the people were oppressed by him, he ruled successfully. His courage made him so much admired in the sight of the soldiers and the people that the latter were kept in a way astonished, and the former were respectful and satisfied.
Severus, we are told, wished to avenge the death of Pertinax without giving the impression that he wanted to seize power from Emperor Didius Julianus (133-193). As a result, he quietly moved his troops to the outskirts of Rome and inspired such fear among the senators that Julianus was murdered and Severus installed in his stead. The new emperor then chose to deal with his two potential enemies, both of whom had already declared themselves emperor. The first was Pescennius Niger (135/140-194), who commanded a large Syrian force to the east, whilst the second was the threat of Clodius Albinus (150-197), who had
served in Britain, Hispania and Gaul. Severus, deciding that by far the best method of dealing with two enemies simultaneously was to attack Niger and deceive Albinus. After defeating the former, Severus sent a message to the latter to explain that, having been
elected emperor by the Senate, he was willing to share that honour with him and sent him the title of Caesar; and moreover, he wrote that the Senate had made Albinus his colleague. This was all believed by Albinus as true. But after Severus had conquered and killed Niger, and settled affairs in the east, he returned to Rome. He complained to the Senate that Albinus, little recognizing the benefits that he had received from him, had sought to murder him and for this he was forced to punish him. Afterwards he sought him out in France, and took from him his government and life. Therefore, anyone who carefully examines the actions of this man will find him a most courageous lion and a most tricky fox.
Turning now to Antoninus Caracalla, Machiavelli contends that his qualities were such that they
made him admired by the people and accepted by the soldiers. He was a warlike man, full of energy, who despised all delicate food and other rich delights. This caused him to be loved by the armies. Nevertheless, his fierceness and cruelties were great and far beyond belief. After endless single murders, he killed a large number of the people of Rome and all those of Alexandria. He became hated by the whole world, and feared by those he had around him, to such an extent that he was murdered in the midst of his army by a soldier.
Such incidents, he says, are very rare and this particular emperor had already had the assassin’s brother killed. Commodus suffered a similar fate when he allowed his men so much freedom that he became despised, whilst Maximinus was always doomed to failure as a result of murdering his popular predecessor. Facing rebellions in North Africa, Rome and eventually the whole of Italy, Maximinus became another Roman leader who was slaughtered by his own legions.
It goes without saying that Machiavelli’s advice – muddied by the waters of history – is often inconsistent and contradictory, and his closing words in this section merely suggest that it is almost impossible to devise a single modus operandi for a prospective prince when the circumstances themselves are so often prone to change. In this respect, therefore, perhaps Machiavelli would have made a better historian than a glorified consultant for ambitious aristocrats:
It would have been useless and dangerous for Pertinax and Alexander, being new princes, to imitate Marcus, who inherited the principality. Likewise it would have been completely destructive to Caracalla, Commodus, and Maximinus to have imitated Severus. They did not have sufficient courage to enable them to follow in his footsteps. Therefore a prince, new to the principality, cannot imitate the actions of Marcus, nor, again, is it necessary to follow those of Severus. But a prince ought to take from Severus those parts which are necessary to establish his state, and from Marcus those which are proper and glorious to keep a state that may already be stable and firm.
Frederick, meanwhile, who can detect more than a hint of the political busybody in Machiavelli, has little appreciation for his malevolent motives:
The hysteria of system-building does not only afflict the philosophers, it also crept into the minds of analysts of policy. Machiavel is infected by it more than anybody. He wants to prove that a prince must be malicious and cheating; these are the sacramental words of his religion.
There is a contradiction, Frederick claims, between Machiavelli’s previous assertion that a prince must choose between kindness and cruelty, and what he says here in relation to it being difficult for someone to wage a successful conspiracy against a leader who is popular among the people. Not least, as a result of Machiavelli’s constant belief that the true leader must never rely on others.
Similarly, Machiavelli’s remark about the conspirator also being deterred by the possibility of punishment is another contradiction, because the author of these words has no trouble in recommending to his readers a litany of other criminal actions:
Machiavel here makes like the Protestants, who use gladly the arguments of the sceptics to fight the Transubstantiation of the Catholics, and then use the same arguments they heard from the Catholics to fight the sceptics themselves.
His Roman case-studies are also very selective, Frederick notes, and he chooses to omit those examples pertaining to emperors who relinquished power for an entire multitude of other reasons:
He allots the cause of these frequent changes to the venality of the empire, but this is not the only cause there. Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho and Vitellius met a disastrous end without having bought Rome like Didius Julianus. Venality was the final reason to assassinate the emperors, but the true bottom was the shape of government there.
Elsewhere, he reminds us that Theodosius I (347-395) died in his bed and Justinian I (482-565) lived quite contentedly for eighty-four years.
Machiavelli even states that a low-born prince is more likely to be assassinated on account of his humble origins, but history – as Frederick capably demonstrates – is full of political, imperial and religious figureheads who completely disprove this claim, among them Pupienus (178-238), Diocletian (244-311), Valentinian I (321-375), Cromwell (1599-1658) and Muhammed (571-632).
On the matter of having to keep the army happy at all costs, Frederick says:
The more an emperor spared the intractable Praetorians, the more he felt their force; it was also dangerous to flatter them, and to ask them to oppress. The troops today need not be feared for any Praetorianism, because all of them are divided into small bodies who watch each other; because the kings have the right to employ and dismiss any of them; and because the force of laws is established.
The German concludes by once again bringing into question the kind of individuals that Machiavelli recommends to his readers, asking
how can one urge the emulation of Severus, César Borgia, and Marcus Aurelius at the same time? It would join together wisdom and the purest virtue with the most dreadful opportunism. I have only one more fact to point out: César Borgia, with his so skilful cruelty, had a career that was full of “negative achievements,” while Marc-Aurele, this crowned philosopher, always virtuous, never experienced until his death a reverse of fortune.
TO BE CONTINUED…
