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Index
Copyright Page
Title Page
Contents
Dedication
Introduction
Translators’ Note
Select Bibliography
A Chronology of Niccolò Machiavelli
DISCOURSES ON LIVY
Book I
Niccolò Machiavelli to Zanobi Buondelmonti and Cosimo Rucellai, greetings
Preface to Autograph Manuscript
Preface to 1531 Roman Edition
1. What the beginnings of cities have always been, and what the beginnings of Rome were like
2. How many kinds of republics there are, and what kind the Roman republic was
3. The circumstances that caused the creation of the tribunes of the plebeians, making the republic more perfect
4. How the division between the plebeians and the Roman senate made that republic free and powerful
5. Whether the guardianship of liberty may be more securely lodged in the people or in the upper classes; and who has more reason to create an uprising, he who wishes to acquire or he who wishes to maintain
6. Whether in Rome it was possible to organize a government that could do away with the enmities between the people and the senate
7. To what degree public indictments are necessary in a republic to maintain its liberty
8. False accusations are as harmful to republics as public indictments are useful
9. That a man must be alone if he wishes to organize a new republic or completely to reform its ancient institutions
10. The founders of a republic or a kingdom deserve as much praise as those who found a tyranny deserve blame
11. On the religion of the Romans
12. How important it is to take account of religion, and how Italy, lacking in religion thanks to the Roman Church, has been ruined
13. How the Romans made use of religion to reorganize their city, to carry out their enterprises, and to quell disturbances
14. The Romans interpreted the auspices according to necessity, and they prudently made a show of observing religion even when they were forced not to observe it; and if anyone dared to disparage it, they punished him
15. The Samnites turned to religion as a last resort in times of misfortune
16. A people accustomed to living under a prince maintains its freedom with difficulty if, by some accident, it becomes free
17. A corrupt people which becomes free can remain so only with the greatest difficulty
18. How a free government can be maintained in corrupt cities if one already exists, or, if one does not already exist, how to establish it
19. After an excellent prince, a weak prince can maintain himself; but after a weak prince, no kingdom can be maintained with another weak one
20. Two continuous successions of able princes produce great results; and since well-organized republics necessarily have a succession of able rulers, their acquisitions and growth are also great
21. How much blame a prince or a republic which lacks its own armed forces deserves
22. What is notable in the case of the three Roman Horatii and the three Alban Curiatii
23. That one should not jeopardize all of one’s fortune or all of one’s forces; and, for this reason, defending passes is often dangerous
24. Well-organized republics establish rewards and punishments for their citizens but never compensate one with the other
25. Whoever wishes to reform a long-established state in a free city should retain at least the appearance of its ancient ways
26. A new prince, in a city or province he has seized, must create everything anew
27. Men very rarely know how to be entirely good or entirely bad
28. Why the Romans were less ungrateful to their citizens than the Athenians
29. Who is more ungrateful, a people or a prince?
30. What means a prince or a republic may employ to avoid the vice of ingratitude; and what means a commander or a citizen may employ in order to avoid being overcome by it
31. Why Roman commanders were never excessively punished for errors they committed, nor were they ever punished when their ignorance or poor decisions resulted in harm to the republic
32. A republic or a prince should not delay in rewarding men even in situations of necessity
33. When a problem has arisen either within a state or outside it, it is safer to delay dealing with it than to attack it
34. Dictatorial authority did good, not harm, to the Roman republic; and how authority citizens take for themselves, not that which is granted them through free elections, is harmful to civic life
35. The reason why the creation of the decemvirate in Rome was harmful to the liberty of that republic, notwithstanding the fact that it was created by free and public elections
36. Citizens who have held the highest offices should not disdain the lesser ones
37. What discord arose in Rome from the agrarian laws; and how absolutely outrageous it is for a republic to pass a retroactive law which is contrary to an ancient custom of the city
38. Weak republics are indecisive and do not know how to reach decisions; if they ever do take sides, this arises more by necessity than by choice
39. The same circumstances are often seen among different peoples
40. The creation of the decemvirate in Rome and what is noteworthy about it; including, among many other matters, the consideration of how the same circumstances may either save or destroy a republic
41. To jump from humility to arrogance and from mercy to cruelty without the appropriate measures is an imprudent and unprofitable affair
42. How easily men may be corrupted
43. Those who fight for their own glory are good and faithful soldiers
44. A crowd is ineffective without a leader; and how one should not make threats first and then request authority
45. It is a bad example not to observe a law that has been passed, especially on the part of its author; and it is extremely harmful to the ruler of a city to open new wounds every day
46. Men rise from one ambition to another; and first they seek to avoid injury, then they injure others
47. Although men may deceive themselves in general questions, they do not do so in the particulars
48. Anyone wishing to prevent a magistracy from being given to a man of humble birth or to an evil man should have it requested either by a man who is too humbly born and evil or by one who is too noble and too good
49. If those cities which had free beginnings like Rome experience difficulty in finding laws which maintain them, those which were servile at the outset will find it almost impossible to do so
50. No one council or magistrate should be capable of blocking legal actions in cities
51. A republic or a prince should seem to do out of generosity what must be done out of necessity
52. There is no more secure and less divisive means of restraining the insolence of a man who rises to power in a republic than to be the first to occupy the paths through which he may come into such power
53. The people, deceived by a false kind of good, often desire their own ruin, and how great hopes and bold promises easily move them
54. How much authority a serious man possesses in restraining a multitude
55. How easily affairs are conducted in a city where the populace is not corrupted; and that where equality exists, a principality cannot be created, and where no equality exists, a republic cannot be created
56. Before important events happen in a city or a province, signs that foretell them or men who predict them appear
57. United the people are courageous, but divided they are weak
58. The multitude is wiser and more constant than a prince
59. Which confederation or other kind of league is most reliable, that created with a republic or that created with a prince
60. How the consulate and every other magistracy in Rome were bestowed without respect to age
Book II
Preface
1. What was the main reason for the empire the Romans acquired, ability or fortune?
2. What kinds of peoples the Romans had to fight, and how stubbornly these peoples defended their liberty
3. Rome became a great city by destroying the surrounding cities and by freely receiving foreigners into its ranks
4. Republics have employed three methods of expansion
5. How the changes in religious sects and languages, along with such occurrences as floods and plagues, erase the memory of things
6. How the Romans proceeded in waging war
7. How much land the Romans gave to their colonists
8. The reason why peoples leave their homelands and overrun the lands of others
9. The causes that commonly provoke wars among the powerful
10. Wealth is not, contrary to popular opinion, the sinew of warfare
11. It is not a prudent policy to form a relationship with a prince who has more prestige than power
12. Whether it is preferable, fearing an assault, to start a war or to await its outbreak
13. That one moves from humble to great fortune more often through fraud than through force
14. Men often deceive themselves, in the belief that they will conquer pride with humility
15. Weak states are always ambiguous in their decisions; and slow decisions are always harmful
16. How far the soldiers of our times have strayed from ancient institutions
17. How much value should armies in the present day place on artillery; and if the generally held opinion about artillery is true
18. Why one should hold the infantry in higher regard than the cavalry, based on the authority of the Romans and the example of the ancient militia
19. Conquests made by republics which are not well organized, and which do not proceed according to Roman standards of excellence, bring about their ruin rather than their glorification
20. What kind of danger a prince or a republic employing auxiliary or mercenary soldiers incurs
21. The first praetor the Romans sent anywhere was sent to Capua, four hundred years after they had begun to wage war
22. How often the opinions of men are mistaken in their judgements about important matters
23. To what extent the Romans avoided a middle course of action in passing judgements on subjects for some incident requiring such a verdict
24. Fortresses are generally much more harmful than useful
25. That it is a mistaken policy to attack a divided city in order to occupy it as a result of its disunity
26. Insults and abuse generate hatred against those who employ them, without profit
27. Victory should be sufficient for prudent princes and republics, for most often when it does not suffice, they lose
28. How dangerous it is for a republic or a prince not to avenge an injury committed against the public or against a private individual
29. Fortune blinds men’s minds when she does not wish them to oppose her plans
30. Truly powerful republics and princes do not buy friendships with money but, rather, with their exceptional skill and the reputation of their forces
31. How dangerous it is to believe exiles
32. In how many ways the Romans took towns
33. How the Romans gave the commanders of their armies full discretionary powers
Book III
1. In order for a religion or a republic to have a long life, it is often necessary to bring it back to its beginnings
2. How very wise it is to pretend to be mad at the proper moment
3. How necessary it is to kill the sons of Brutus in order to maintain a newly acquired liberty
4. A prince cannot live in safety in a principality while those whom he deprived of it are still alive
5. What causes a king to lose a kingdom of the hereditary kind
6. On conspiracies
7. Why changes from liberty to servitude and from servitude to liberty are sometimes without bloodshed and sometimes full of it
8. Anyone wishing to alter a republic must consider its basic material
9. That it is necessary for those who wish always to enjoy good fortune to change with the times
10. That a commander cannot avoid a battle when his opponent insists on fighting under any circumstances
11. That anyone who has to fight many enemies, although he is inferior in numbers, may yet win the victory if he can withstand the first onslaught
12. Why a prudent commander must impose on his troops the absolute necessity to fight, while taking it away from those of the enemy
13. Where should one place more trust, in a good commander with a weak army, or in a good army with a weak commander?
14. What effects are produced by the strange contrivances that appear and the strange sounds that are heard in the midst of a battle
15. That one man and not many should be placed in command of an army, and how more than one commander is harmful
16. True ability is sought in difficult times, and in easy ones, men with wealth or from good families, rather than men of ability, find more favour
17. That you should not offend a man and then appoint him to an important governmental post
18. Nothing is more worthy of a commander than to anticipate the decisions of the enemy
19. Whether deference or punishment is more necessary to restrain a multitude
20. One example of humanity towards the inhabitants of Falerii achieved more than any use of Roman power
21. How it came about that Hannibal, with a different mode of conduct from that of Scipio, achieved the same results in Italy that Scipio achieved in Spain
22. How the hardness of Manlius Torquatus and the humaneness of Valerius Corvinus acquired for each man the same glory
23. Why Camillus was driven out of Rome
24. The prolongation of military commands enslaved Rome
25. On the poverty of Cincinnatus and many Roman citizens
26. How a state is ruined because of women
27. How to unify a divided city, and why the opinion that it is necessary to keep cities divided in order to hold them is not true
28. That one must pay attention to the deeds of citizens, because a worthy act often conceals the beginnings of tyranny
29. That the faults of peoples begin with their princes
30. That a citizen in his own republic who wishes to employ his authority for some good work must first extinguish envy; and how to organize the defence of a city when the enemy is coming
31. Strong republics and excellent men retain in every kind of fortune the same spirit and dignity
32. What methods some have used to disturb a peace
33. To win a battle, it is necessary to make an army confident, both in itself and in its commander
34. What kind of fame, rumour, or opinion makes the people begin to favour one citizen; and whether the people assign magistracies with greater prudence than a prince
35. What risks are run in making oneself the leader by counselling an undertaking; and how much greater the risks are when the undertaking is an extraordinary one
36. The reasons why the French have been and are still considered more than men at the outset of a battle and, later on, less than women
37. Whether small skirmishes before a battle are necessary; and what must be done to understand a new enemy in order to avoid them
38. What a commander should be like to gain the trust of the army
39. A commander must be knowledgeable about localities
40. Why employing deceit in waging a war is a glorious thing
41. That one’s native land must be defended either with shame or with glory, and is well defended in either way
42. That promises exacted by force need not be kept
43. That men born in one province display almost the same nature in every age
44. That one often obtains through impetuosity and audacity what would never be obtained through ordinary methods
45. Whether it is a better policy in battles to sustain the enemy’s attack and then to counter-attack after doing so; or to assault him violently from the first
46. How it happens that a family maintains the same customs in a city over a long period of time
47. That a good citizen ought to forget private injuries for the love of his country
48. When an enemy is seen committing a gross error, it should be assumed that there is a trick behind it
49. If a republic is to be kept free, each day it requires new measures; and the good qualities for which Quinctius Fabius was called Maximus
Explanatory Notes
Footnotes
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