PROVIDING he is both wise and strong, the new prince that takes control of his territory will attract the support of his people. However, in this section Machiavelli decides to tackle those princes who have gone on to lose their principalities altogether:

If we look at those princes who have lost their states in Italy in our times, such as the King of Naples, the Duke of Milan, and others, there will be found in them, firstly, one common problem in regard to arms from the causes which have already been discussed at length. Secondly, some will be seen, either to have had the people hostile, or if he has had the people friendly, he has not known how to secure the nobles. In the absence of these problems, states that have enough power to keep an army in the field cannot be lost.

Others, like Philip V (238-179 BCE), the Greek King of Macedonia who was defeated by Titus Quinctius Flamininus (229-174 BCE), managed to prolong his war against the Roman aggressors for many years and whilst he was forced to relinquish some of his cities he did not lose the kingdom. This, for Machiavelli, demonstrates that perseverance – even when a small state tries to defend itself against an empire – can achieve results. Those lesser rulers, he argues, who have fled in the face of a serious challenge in the vain hope that they will eventually be recalled by the people at a later date, do themselves a great disservice and being

saved is of no use unless it is by your own efforts. The only reliable, certain, and lasting ways are those that depend on yourself and your courage.

The disastrous course of Italian history, during which an entire succession of the country’s princes were plunged into utter chaos and ignominious defeat, is described by Frederick thus:

The perfidies and the treasons, passed along from one to the other, ruined them all. This is what you see in the history of Italy from the end of the fourteenth century until the beginning of the fifteenth: cruelties; seditions; violence; leagues for undertakings of mutual destruction; usurpations; assassinations – in a word, an enormous assembly of crimes, whose dramatic adaptation would be a play of horrors.

If those same princes had followed Machiavelli’s advice, he claims, abandoning the last vestiges of honour and justice, the fate of the country would have been far worse.

Frederick also points out that the people are always less likely to follow a new prince if he is a usurper, regardless of his credentials. That which Machiavelli admires in the character of an individual prince means very little if he has come to power through unjust means:

What can a person of any station expect from a man who begins with the crime, if not a violent and tyrannical government? It is the same for any man of any rank who marries, and sees on the very same day an infidelity done by his wife. I do not think that such actions give a forecast which predicts that the wife will be virtuous for the remainder of her life; nor does my breadth of knowledge give me this thought.

This obviously conflicts with Machiavelli’s suggestion that keeping the people content is an essential part of the princely credo and surely nothing good can arise from an act of injustice:

To gain the subjects’ hearts, one must act as I have counselled and not like Machiavel: the teacher, in the course of this work, of injustice, cruelty, raw ambition, and confining one’s care to the aid and assistance of one’s own hunger for power.

Despite the fact that – even in our own time – idealistic notions of global peace will always remain little more than a utopian dream, Frederick fantasises about obliterating all traces of ‘Machiavellianism’ that exist throughout the world and outlines the vast difference between the kind of man favoured by his Italian counterpart and the leader which he considers to be just and humane:

The prince that wants it all, is like a stomach which wants all the food and drink on the table, that does not think it will be unable to digest them, and in implementing this ambition, vomits. The prince who limits himself to good government is like a man who eats moderately, and whose stomach digests properly.

TO BE CONTINUED…