The Prince

by Niccolo Machiavelli

  To get back to the internal situation: when there is no threat from outside, a ruler must take care that his subjects don’t start conspiring against him. He can guard against this by making sure he isn’t hated or despised and that people are happy with him, all of which is very important, as I’ve explained at length. In fact, one of the most powerful preventive measures against conspiracies is simply not being hated by a majority of the people. People planning a conspiracy must believe that killing the ruler will be popular; when they realize that, on the contrary, it would be unpopular they lose heart, because conspiracies are always beset with endless difficulties. Experience shows that for every successful conspiracy there are any number of failures. A conspirator can’t act alone and can look for accomplices only among people he believes are unhappy with the situation. But as soon as he reveals his intentions to someone else he’s giving that person the chance to improve his position, since obviously there are all kinds of advantages to be had from betraying a conspiracy. When you reckon that the benefits of betrayal are assured, while joining a conspiracy is a risky and extremely dangerous business, the man will have to be a rare friend indeed, or a very bitter enemy of the government, if he’s going to keep faith.

  To summarize: on the conspirator’s side all you have is fear, envy and the demoralizing prospect of punishment, while the ruler on his side has the authority of the government and its laws plus the protection of his friends and the state. Add to all that the good will of the people and it’s extremely unlikely that anyone will be so crazy as to start a conspiracy. Because, while in general a conspirator has most to fear prior to the coup, in this case, with the people against him, he’s going to be in danger afterwards too and the fact that he’s seen off the ruler doesn’t mean he can expect to escape unscathed.

  I could give infinite examples of this but let’s make do with just one that happened in our fathers’ times. Annibale Bentivogli, grandfather of the present Annibale, was Duke of Bologna when the Canneschis conspired against him and killed him. At that point the only surviving Bentivogli was his son, Giovanni, who was still a baby. All the same, immediately after the murder, the people rose up and killed all the Canneschis. This was because the Bentivogli family was extremely popular at the time. In fact, when the Bolognese realized that with Annibale dead there were no family members capable of ruling the town, they went to Florence to get a man who was supposedly a Bentivogli, though until shortly before that he had passed himself off as the son of a blacksmith; they asked him to govern Bologna and he duly did so until Giovanni was old enough to take over.

  My conclusion, then, is that so long as he has the people on his side a ruler needn’t worry about conspiracies, but when they are against him and hate him he’ll have to watch everyone’s every move. Sensible rulers and well-run states have always done all they can not to drive the nobles to despair and to keep the people happy and satisfied; indeed this is one of a ruler’s most important tasks.

  One of the better organized and well-governed states in our own times is France. It is full of good institutions which guarantee the king’s security and freedom of action. The most important of these is parliament and parliamentary authority. In fact the king who set up the country’s constitution was aware of the ambition and presumption of the nobles and reckoned they needed a bit in their mouths to rein them back. He also knew how much the people hated and feared the nobles and he wanted to protect them. But it was important that the king shouldn’t be personally responsible for doing this since then he might be blamed by the nobles for favouring the people or by the people for favouring the nobles. So he introduced an independent body, parliament, that could keep the nobles in their place and protect the people without the king’s being responsible. There really couldn’t be a better or more sensible institution, nor one more conducive to the security of the king and the realm. This prompts the following reflection: that a ruler must get others to carry out policies that will provoke protest, keeping those that inspire gratitude to himself. In conclusion, let me repeat that a ruler should respect the nobles but must make sure he is not hated by the people.

  Perhaps many readers familiar with the fate of certain Roman emperors will feel that their examples contradict these opinions of mine, in that they consistently behaved well and showed great character but nevertheless lost their empire or even their lives at the hands of subjects who conspired against them. To meet these objections, I shall consider the qualities of some of these emperors, showing how the causes of their downfall are not at all out of line with my reasoning above, and bringing into the argument some of the context that historians of the period consider important. I hope it will be enough to take all the emperors who held power from the philosopher Marcus Aurelius down to Maximinus, which is to say: Marcus, his son Commodus, Pertinax, Julian, Severus, Antoninus Caracalla his son, Macrinus, Heliogabalus, Alexander and Maximinus.

  The first thing to note is that, while in other states a ruler has only to guard against the ambition of the nobles and the disrespect of the people, Roman emperors faced a third hazard: the greed and cruelty of the army. This was such a tough problem that it proved the downfall of many emperors, because it was so hard to keep both the people and the army happy. The people were for a quiet life and hence loved low-profile leaders, while the soldiers loved leaders with military ambitions, men who were brazen, grasping and cruel; they wanted the emperor to unleash these qualities on the people so that they could double their incomes and give vent to their own greed and cruelty.

  As a result, emperors who for lack of natural authority or political flair didn’t have the kind of standing that could hold both soldiers and people in check always ended badly. When they saw how difficult it was to deal with these conflicting demands, most of them, and especially those new to power, chose to satisfy the army and more or less ignored the people’s suffering. It was a policy dictated by necessity: if a ruler can’t avoid hatred altogether, he must first try to avoid the hatred of the country as a whole, and when that proves impossible he must do everything he can to escape the hatred of the classes that wield the most power. So emperors new to their positions and in need of special support turned to the army rather than the people, a policy that worked for as long as they were able to maintain their prestige in the eyes of the soldiers.

  This is why, although Marcus, Pertinax and Alexander were benign, humane men, who led unassuming lives, loving justice and hating cruelty, only Marcus managed to avoid a sad end and still commanded respect at his death. This was because he succeeded to the emperor’s throne by hereditary right and owed nothing to either the soldiers or the people. Possessing many good qualities that aroused general admiration, he kept both the people and the army in their place throughout his reign and was never either hated or despised. But Pertinax was made emperor against the army’s will; under Commodus the soldiers had got used to a degenerate lifestyle and wouldn’t accept the standards of honesty Pertinax tried to impose on them. This aroused their hatred and since Pertinax was also despised for being old he was soon overthrown.

  In this regard it’s worth noting that you can be hated just as much for the good you do as the bad, which is why, as I said before, a ruler who wants to stay in power is often forced not to be good. Because when a powerful group - whether they be the common people, the army or the nobility - is corrupt, then if you reckon you need their support you’ll have to play to their mood and keep them happy, and at that point any good you do will only put you at risk. But let’s move on to Alexander. He was such a good man that among the many things he was praised for was the fact that over fourteen years in power he never had anyone executed without a trial. All the same, people despised him; they thought him effeminate and said he let his mother run the show; as a result the army conspired against him and killed him.

  Going to the opposite extreme and looking at the characters of Commodus, Severus, Antoninus Caracalla and Maximinus, we find they were extremely cruel and grasping; to keep the
army happy they committed every crime a leader can commit against his people and all of them, with the exception of Severus, came to a sad end. Severus had such a strong character that though he tyrannized the people to keep the army friendly he was always able to govern with success; his qualities amazed and awed the people, impressed and pleased the army, so that both groups in their different ways admired him.

  Since, for a man who took power rather than inheriting it, Severus achieved such a lot, I’d like very briefly to show how well he was able to play both the fox and the lion, animals that, as I said, a ruler must learn to imitate.

  Aware that the emperor Julian was weak and indecisive, Severus persuaded the army he commanded in Slavonia to march on Rome and avenge Pertinax, who had been murdered by the Praetorian Guard. With this pretext and betraying no sign of any ambition to become emperor, he led his army towards Rome and was already in Italy before people realized he’d set out. When he arrived in Rome, the Senate, out of fear, elected him emperor and had Julian killed. Having got thus far, Severus faced two obstacles if he was to take complete control of the empire: one in Asia, where the commander of the Asian armies, Pescennius Niger, had declared himself emperor; and the other in the west, where Albinus also aspired to become emperor. Deciding it would be dangerous to show he was hostile to both opponents at once, Severus chose to attack Niger and trick Albinus. So he wrote to Albinus, in France, saying that now that the Senate had elected him emperor he wanted to share the honour with him, Albinus. He sent him the title of Caesar and had the Senate vote to make him co-emperor. Albinus was taken in, but as soon as Severus had defeated and killed Niger and got control of the eastern empire, he went back to Rome and complained in the Senate that Albinus, far from being grateful for everything Severus had given him, had set a trap to kill him; as a result, he, Severus, would have to go and punish his ingratitude. In fact he went to France, stripped Albinus of his power and had him killed.

  If we look carefully at what Severus did, we find he played both the ferocious lion and the cunning fox very well; he was feared and respected by all parties and he managed to avoid being hated by the army. It’s hardly surprising, then, that despite being a new arrival he was able to hold so much power: his enormous reputation always protected him from the hatred people might otherwise have felt as a result of his pillage and violence.

  Severus’s son, Antoninus, was also a man with some excellent qualities; the people thought him remarkable and the army welcomed him. He was a warlike leader, capable of handling every hardship and contemptuous of fine foods and easy living of any kind. So the army loved him. But his cruelty and ferocity were overwhelming and unspeakable, to the extent that, after endless individual murders, he wiped out much of the population of Rome and all the people of Alexandria. At this point everybody really hated him and even those close to him began to get nervous so that in the end he was killed by a centurion while among his soldiers.

  It’s worth noting that assassinations like this, coming as they do when a determined man takes a considered decision, are bound to happen to rulers sometimes, if only because, once a person no longer cares about dying, he’s free to strike. That said, a ruler shouldn’t be too concerned, because such murders are extremely rare. He must just take care not to do a serious injustice to any of the men he has serving him or keeps beside him to run the state. Antoninus in fact had killed the centurion’s brother in disgraceful circumstances and was threatening the man himself every day, yet still kept him in his bodyguard. It was the kind of rash behaviour that can, and in this case did, lead to disaster.

  But let’s turn to Commodus, who could so easily have held on to the empire. Son of Marcus Aurelius, Commodus came to power by hereditary right; all he had to do was follow in his father’s footsteps and he would have been welcome to army and people alike. But the man was cruel, bestially so, and to unleash his appetite and greed on the people he set about currying favour with the soldiers and corrupting them. He had no self-respect either and would often go down to the floor of the amphitheatre to fight the gladiators. He did so many things that were sordid and unworthy of an emperor that his soldiers found him contemptible, until, hated by the people and despised by the army, he eventually fell victim to a conspiracy.

  Which leaves Maximinus. He was a real warmonger. As I said earlier on, the armies had been frustrated with the effeminate Alexander, and when they’d got rid of him they elected Maximinus in his place. But he didn’t last long. Two things led to his being both hated and despised. First, his extremely lowly background: he had been a shepherd in Thrace - everybody knew it and thought it scandalous; second, on becoming emperor he had put off going to Rome for the formal investiture and got himself a reputation for extreme cruelty by ordering his prefects in Rome and all over the empire to carry out numerous atrocities. Universally despised for his low birth, hated and feared for his ferocity, he faced rebellions first in Africa, then in the Senate; the Senate rebellion was supported by the entire population of Rome. Then the whole of Italy conspired against him, until finally his own army got involved; they were laying siege to Aquileia and finding it tough going; they were also fed up with his cruelty and when they realized how many enemies he had they became less afraid of the man and killed him.

  I don’t want to talk about Heliogabalus, Macrinus or Julian, who were all intensely despised and swiftly dispatched. Instead I’ll conclude this discussion with the reflection that contemporary rulers do not have to give the same priority to satisfying the army that the Roman emperors did. True, one does have to pay the army some attention, but the problem is soon resolved, because none of today’s rulers has to live with armies that have long experience in the government and administration of the provinces, as the armies of the Roman empire did. If the emperors had to put their armies before the people it was because the armies were the more powerful. These days it is more important for all rulers, with the exceptions of the Turkish and Egyptian sultans, to put the people before the army, because the people are more powerful.

  I’ve made an exception of the Turkish leader because he keeps an army of 12,000 infantry and 15,000 cavalry beside him. Depending on them as he does for the strength and security of his realm he has to put their good will before any other consideration. In the same way, Egypt is entirely at the mercy of its army and again the sultan has to satisfy the soldiers before worrying about the people. It’s worth noting that Egypt is a unique case; it is similar to the papal state, which can’t be classified as a hereditary monarchy or as a new monarchy. When the old ruler dies he is not replaced by one of his children, but a new leader is elected by a body vested with this authority. Since the state’s institutions are well established, this can hardly be compared with a situation where a new ruler seizes a state, and in fact a pope or Egyptian sultan faces none of the difficulties that a new ruler usually faces, because although he may be new to power the institutions are old and set up to work on his behalf as if he were a hereditary king.

  But let’s get back to our discussion. I’m sure that anyone reflecting on what I’ve said will see that it was hatred or contempt that led to the downfall of these Roman emperors; they will also understand how it was that, while some behaved one way and some another, there were nevertheless successes and failures in both groups. Since they had seized rather than inherited power, it was futile and dangerous for Pertinax and Alexander to try to imitate Marcus Aurelius, who had inherited his position; similarly, since they didn’t have the necessary qualities, it was a fatal mistake for Caracalla, Commodus and Maximinus to imitate Severus. Though a man who has seized power and is establishing a new monarchy cannot imitate the likes of Marcus Aurelius, that doesn’t mean he has to behave like Severus. What he must take from Severus are the policies you need to found a state, and from Marcus the policies that bring stability and glory once the state is firmly established.

  20

  Whether fortresses and other strategies rulers frequently adopt are useful

  To h
old power more securely, some rulers have disarmed their citizens; some have kept subject towns divided in factions; some have encouraged hostility towards themselves; others have sought to win over those who were initially suspicious of their rise to power; some have built fortresses; others have torn them down and destroyed them. And though one can’t pass final judgement on these policies without detailed knowledge of the states where such decisions were taken, all the same I shall try to discuss the matter in general terms as far as is possible.

  No one new to power has ever disarmed his subjects; on the contrary, finding them disarmed new rulers have always armed them. When you’re the one giving people arms, those arms become yours; men who were potentially hostile become loyal, while those already loyal become your supporters rather than just your subjects. It’s true you can’t arm everyone, but in favouring some you can feel safer about the others too. Seeing that they’ve been preferred, the men you’ve armed will be under an obligation to you. The others won’t be resentful, understanding that the people facing danger for you and binding their lives to yours will inevitably deserve the greater rewards. But when you take arms away from people, then you start to upset them; you show you don’t trust them because you’re frightened or cagey. Either way, they’ll begin to hate you. Then, since you can hardly manage without an army, you’ll have to turn to mercenary forces, which will have all the failings I discussed earlier. And even if your mercenaries are good, they’ll never be good enough to defend you against powerful enemies and a hostile people.