The essential writings of Machiavelli (17 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN
O
N THE EXTENT TO WHICH PUBLIC INDICTMENTS ARE NECESSARY IN A REPUBLIC TO KEEP IT FREE

The most useful and necessary authority that can be granted to institutions entrusted with the protection of the republic’s liberty is the ability of indicting publicly or before some magistrate or council, citizens who in some way have offended the public. Such institutions have two very useful results. First, citizens, out of fear of being indicted, will not attempt anything against the state; if they do, they are immediately persecuted regardless of who they are. Second, it is a way to provide an outlet for the humors that arise in different ways within cities against particular citizens. When these humors do not have a lawful outlet they seek one that is unlawful, which can bring the whole state to ruin. Therefore, nothing makes a republic more stable and firm than to be set up so that the change in such humors that agitate it have an outlet that is regulated by the laws.

This can be demonstrated by many examples, but best of all by what Livy writes of Coriolanus.
³⁰
The Roman nobility had been angered because in their view the plebeians had too much power through the creation of the tribunes, who protected them. At that time there was a great scarcity of provisions in Rome, and while the Senate had sent to Sicily for grain, Coriolanus, who was hostile to the popular faction, advised that the time had come to punish the plebeians and take back the authority that they had seized from the nobility. The plebeians, Coriolanus advised, should be kept hungry, and the grain should not be distributed among them. When this reached the ears of the populace, such anger flared up against Coriolanus that the crowd would have lynched him as he came out of the Senate had the tribunes not summoned him to argue his case. This incident reinforces what I have said above: How useful and necessary it is for the laws of a republic to provide an outlet for the anger that the masses feel toward a single citizen. When these legal means do not exist, the masses will resort to illegal means, which without doubt have far worse results than the former.

When a citizen is punished by legal means, even if he is wronged, little or no unrest follows, because the law is enforced without private or foreign forces that ruin the state’s freedom. Order is upheld with public forces and laws that have precise boundaries, which they do not transgress and so ruin the state. I feel that the example of Coriolanus from ancient times should suffice, as anyone can judge what harm would have befallen the Roman Republic had he been lynched in a riot. Once private citizens harm other private citizens, the harm generates fear, and fear seeks defense, for which partisans are secured, who then cause factions in states, and factions lead to the destruction of these states. But as the matter has been mediated by those who have public authority, all the harm that might have come from controlling it with private authority falls away.

We have seen in our own times the disorder that ensued in the Florentine Republic when the multitude could not vent its anger against one of its citizens within the boundaries of the law, as happened in the era when Francesco Valori ruled the city like a prince.
³¹
Many in Florence saw him as a man of unbridled ambition who strove to transcend the law through audacity and violence, but there was no way to resist him except by starting a faction that would oppose his. As he had nothing to fear unless illegal steps were taken against him, he began surrounding himself with supporters. In the meantime, those who opposed him had no legal means of countering him, and so they turned to illegal means, finally resorting to arms. Had they been able to oppose him with legal means, his authority would have been destroyed with harm done to him alone, but having to destroy his authority by illegal means, his opponents did harm not only to him, but also to many outstanding citizens. In support of this conclusion I could also add another incident that occurred in Florence, involving Piero Soderini.
³²
This, too, came about solely because there were no institutions in the republic through which one could indict the ruthless ambition of powerful citizens, as it is not sufficient to indict a powerful citizen before eight judges in a republic:
³³
There have to be many judges, because the few always look out for the interests of the few. Had such institutions existed, the citizens could have indicted Soderini if he had comported himself badly, and so have given vent to their anger without calling in the Spanish army; and had Soderini not comported himself badly, the citizens would not have dared indict him, out of fear of ending up indicted themselves. This way, the forces that were the occasion for the scandal would have been removed.

It can therefore be concluded that whenever we see a faction in a city calling in foreign forces, we can be certain that this arises from the city’s bad system, which has no institutions within its walls providing a legal outlet for the malignant humors that arise in man. This problem can be fully anticipated by establishing a system of bringing indictments before a large number of judges and giving these indictments weight. In Rome this system was so well set up that in the many conflicts between the plebeians and the Senate, neither the Senate nor the plebeians nor any private citizen ever considered using foreign forces. They had the remedy at home, and so were not compelled to seek it abroad.

Though the examples I have cited furnish ample proof of this, I would like to add another that Livy relates in his
Histories
. In Chiusi, the foremost city of Etruria in those days, a chief magistrate raped one of the sisters of a certain Arunte, who, unable to avenge himself because of the rank and position of the rapist, turned to the Gauls, who were ruling present-day Lombardy, and encouraged them to come to Chiusi with their army arguing that they could avenge him to their advantage.
³⁴
Had Arunte been able to avenge himself through the institutions of the city he would not have sought the help of the barbarian forces. But as useful as such indictments are in a republic, false accusations are harmful, as I shall discuss in the following chapter.

30.
Gaius Marcius Coriolanus is a legendary figure believed to have lived in the fifth century
BCE
. Livy describes this episode in Book II, chapters 33–35.

31.
Francesco Valori was one of the main political figures involved in the ousting of the Medici from Florence and the restoration of a republican government influenced by the ideas of the radical Dominican prior Girolamo Savonarola. Valori was murdered shortly before Savonarola’s execution in 1498.

32.
In 1502 Piero Soderini had been elected Gonfalonier for life in Florence, but in 1512 he was deposed by the Medici with the help of a Spanish army. Soderini had been Machiavelli’s patron.

33.
Otto di guardia
, eight Florentine magistrates who administered justice.

34.
In fact Livy (Book V, chapter 33) writes: “Arruns’s wife had been seduced by an Etruscan prince whose tutor Arruns was. But since the prince was an influential young man, Arruns could not get justice without seeking help from abroad. In revenge, he led the Gauls across the Alps and encouraged them to attack Clusium.”

CHAPTER EIGHT
A
S USEFUL AS PUBLIC INDICTMENTS ARE TO STATES, FALSE ACCUSATIONS ARE HARMFUL

Furius Camillus’s brilliance in liberating Rome from the oppression of the Gauls
³⁵
made the Roman citizens cede to him without feeling that they were losing standing or rank. Manlius Capitolinus, however, could not bear to see such honor and glory awarded to Furius Camillus. He himself had saved the Capitol, and felt that he had done as much for the protection of Rome as Camillus had, and that he was in no way inferior to him in feats of military glory. He was filled with envy and rankled by Camillus’s glory. As Manlius Capitolinus could not sow discord among the senators, he turned to the plebeians, spreading dark rumors, including one that the treasure that had been gathered for the Gauls, but then had not been given to them, had been seized by private citizens: If this treasure could be regained, it could be used for the public good, relieving the plebeians of taxes or private debts.
³⁶
These words had a great effect on the plebeians, and they began causing turmoil in the city. The Senate saw the gravity of the situation and elected a dictator to look into the matter and put a stop to the violence that Manlius was unleashing. The dictator immediately summoned him to be confronted before the public, the dictator standing among the nobles, Manlius among the plebeians. He ordered Manlius to reveal who, according to him, had seized that treasure, since the Senate was as eager to know as the plebeians. Manlius evaded the question, saying that there was no need for him to inform the Senate of what it already knew. As a result, the dictator had him imprisoned.

It is to be noted from this incident from Livy how detestable false accusations are in free states or in any other form of society, and that no legislation to repress such false accusations should be neglected. In fact, there is no better system for eliminating false accusations than providing ample opportunity for public indictments, because just as indictments are beneficial to a state, false accusations are harmful. The difference between the two types is that false accusations need neither witnesses nor proof to substantiate them: Anybody can falsely accuse anybody else, but not everyone can be lawfully indicted, as public indictments need proof and circumstances that demonstrate the truth of the charge. Men are publicly indicted before magistrates, the people, and the councils, while they are falsely accused in town squares and market stalls. Calumny is more common where there are fewer opportunities for public indictments and where the states are not as well set up to receive them in their judicature. Therefore, a founder of a state must plan the legislature in such a way that any citizen can indict any other citizen without fear or deference to rank, and once the charges have been made and have been carefully looked into, false accusers must be severely punished. And the false accuser cannot complain if he is punished, as he could have made his accusations by lawful means rather than in spreading calumnies in market squares. Whenever this system is not well set up, clashes and disorder always follow, because calumnies provoke but do not punish citizens, and the provoked have their minds set on retaliation, as they hate rather than fear the things being said against them.

As I have already mentioned, the system of public indictment was set up well in Rome, but badly here in Florence. And just as in Rome this institution did much good, in Florence its absence did much harm. Whoever reads the history of Florence will see how much calumny in every era was perpetrated on those of its citizens who were employed in the important affairs of the city. Of one man they said that he had stolen money from the state, of another that he had been unsuccessful in a military campaign because he had been bribed, and that another had done this or that misdeed out of ruthless ambition. Hatred surged from all sides, leading to division; division led to factions, and factions led to ruin. Had there been institutions in Florence for bringing indictments against citizens and punishing false accusers, the infinite scandals would not have continued. Those citizens who were either condemned or acquitted would not have been able to harm the city, and there would have been fewer men indicted than falsely accused, for it is easier, as I have said, to accuse a man falsely than to indict him officially. Among the devices used by a citizen to achieve greatness have been calumnies, for leveling false accusations against powerful citizens who have opposed a man’s appetite for power can be very effective. When the false accuser takes the part of the populace, and confirms their bad opinion of the powerful citizen, he wins them to his side. I could cite many examples, but will limit myself to one. The Florentine army was on a campaign against the city of Lucca under the command of Giovanni Guicciardini, who was its commissary
³⁷
Lucca did not fall, either because of Guicciardini’s bad leadership or his bad fortune, and yet, whichever the case might have been, he was held culpable, as it was said that he had been bribed by the Luccans. This calumny was promoted by his enemies and almost drove Guicciardini to the brink of desperation.
³⁸
He put himself in the hands of the Captain of the People in order to clear his name,
³⁹
but even so, he never managed to clear himself entirely, as there was no system in Florence for him to do this. Much indignation resulted among Guicciardini’s friends, who were for the most part men of great influence and wanted to bring about a change in Florence. This incident, along with others like it, grew to such an extent that the ruin of the republic ensued.

Hence Manlius Capitolinus was a false accuser, and not a legitimate one, and in his case the Romans demonstrated precisely how false accusers must be punished. Calumniators have to be turned into public accusers, and where the accusation proves to be true, either they must not be punished or they must be recompensed, but in cases where the accusation proves false, they must be punished in the way Manlius was.

35.
Marcus Furius Camillus (d. 365
BCE
) was a Roman general, statesman, and five-time dictator of Rome. His greatest triumph was the conquest of the Etruscan city of Veii (also discussed in chapter 55 below). Later Romans celebrated him as the second founder of Rome after the Gauls sacked the city in 396
BCE
. Machiavelli is discussing the events described by Livy in Book VI.

36.
Livy (Book VI, chapter 14) writes: “[Manlius] delivered speeches in his house as if he were haranguing the Senate. Unconcerned about truth or falsehood, he insinuated that the treasure that had been collected for the Gauls had been sequestered by the senators, who were not content with seizing public lands, but also wanted to embezzle public funds. With this treasure the populace could be freed of its debts.” See also chapter 24, in which Machiavelli further discusses Manlius Capitolinus’s sedition.

37.
Giovanni Guicciardini (c. 1385–1435) was the commissary of the Florentine army that attacked Lucca in 1430, which at the time was under the rule of Pagolo Guinigi, who is mentioned in passing in
The Life of Castruccio Castracani:
“Lucca, which remained under his family’s rule [the Guinigi] until the reign of his great-great-grandson Pagolo.”

38.
Giovanni Guicciardini was an opponent of the faction of Cosimo de’ Medici, who was exiled in 1433 but managed to seize power again the following year.

39.
The Capitano del Popolo was the magistracy in charge of leading the military forces of the populace and ensuring that justice was done to wronged members.