The essential writings of Machiavelli (9 page)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
O
F THE THINGS FOR WHICH MEN, AND PRINCES IN PARTICULAR, ARE PRAISED OR BLAMED

It remains now to discuss what methods and measures a prince should employ with his subjects or friends. Many have written about this, and I fear I might be considered presumptuous, particularly as I intend to depart from the principles laid down by others. As my intention is to write something useful for discerning minds, I find it more fitting to seek the truth of the matter rather than imaginary conceptions. Many have imagined republics and principalities that have never been seen or heard of, because how one lives and how one ought to live are so far apart that he who spurns what is actually done for what ought to be done will achieve ruin rather than his own preservation. A man who strives to make a show of correct comportment in every circumstance can only come to ruin among so many who have other designs. Hence it is necessary for a prince who wishes to maintain his position to learn how to be able not to be good, and to use or not use this ability according to circumstances.

Casting aside imagined things about a prince, and considering only things that are true, I argue that all men, particularly princes, since they have a higher position, are judged by qualities that attract praise or blame. This is why some princes are considered generous and others miserly;
⁶³
one is regarded as a giver, the other as a taker; one is seen as cruel, the other as merciful; one faithless, the other faithful; one effeminate and pusillanimous, the other fierce and spirited; one humane, the other haughty; one lascivious, the other chaste; one frank, the other sly; one rigid, the other flexible; one grave, the other jovial; one religious, the other unbelieving; and so on. I know everyone will maintain that it would be commendable for a prince to have all the qualities I have just mentioned that are held to be good. But because a prince cannot wholly have or espouse all these qualities, as the human condition will not allow it, he must be wise enough to know how to evade the infamy of the qualities that are thought to be bad, which will cause him to lose his state. If possible he should also avoid the qualities which are considered bad but will not actually lose him his state, but if he must indulge in them, he need not concern himself about their consequences. He also should not concern himself about incurring the infamy of qualities that are considered bad if he needs them to save his state. For there are cases in which people might think a certain path is valorous, but following it would be the prince’s ruin, while there are also cases in which a certain way might seem evil, but following it will result in the prince’s safety and well-being.

63.
Machiavelli’s note: “I am using the Tuscan term
misero
here, as
avaro
(miserly) in Italian still carries the implication of someone who wishes to acquire by robbery, while we use
misero
in Tuscan to mean someone who excessively abstains from using what is his own.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
O
F GENEROSITY AND PARSIMONY

To begin with the first of these qualities: I propose that it is good to be thought generous. And yet generosity pursued in a way that makes people perceive you as generous will harm you, because if you exercise generosity in all modesty, as is appropriate, it will not be recognized, and you will not be able to avoid the reputation of miserliness. Hence, if one wishes to be perceived as generous among men, one will have to indulge in a great deal of sumptuous display. A prince who chooses this path will consume all his resources and eventually will have to overburden the populace with taxes, extort money from them, and do whatever else is necessary to raise money to maintain his reputation for being generous. This will make him hateful to his subjects, and, should he become poor, despised by all. With his generosity he will have hurt many and rewarded few. He will be vulnerable to the slightest unrest and fall prey to the first danger. When the prince who has chosen this path realizes this, his impulse is to draw back, which quickly brings him a reputation for miserliness.

Therefore a wise prince, seeing that he is unable to practice ostentatious generosity without harming himself, must not mind acquiring a reputation for miserliness. With time he will come to be considered generous once people see that his parsimony has produced sufficient funds and enabled him to defend himself from those who make war on him, and to launch campaigns without burdening the populace. In this way he will be considered generous by the great number of men from whom he takes nothing, and miserly by the few to whom he gives nothing. In our times we have seen great deeds accomplished only by those who were considered miserly; all the others came to ruin. Pope Julius II, though he made use of his reputation for generosity to gain the papacy, did not strive to maintain it afterward. This was so that he could wage wars. The present king of France
⁶⁴
has launched many wars without imposing extra taxes on his people, which he has been able to do only because the additional expenditures have been provided for by his long parsimony. The present king of Spain,
⁶⁵
had he been considered generous, could not have undertaken or won so many campaigns. Consequently, a prince must care little about gaining a reputation for parsimony if he does not want to rob his subjects and yet wishes to be able to defend himself without becoming poor and contemptible or being forced to become rapacious. Parsimony is one of the vices that permit him to reign.

Were someone to argue that Caesar acquired his empire through generosity, and that many others achieved the highest ranks because they were generous and were seen as such, my answer is: Either you are already a prince, or you are on your way to becoming one. In the first case, such generosity is damaging; in the second, it is quite necessary to be considered generous. Caesar was one of those who wanted to rule Rome. However, had he survived after he gained his principality and not tempered his spending, he would have destroyed Rome. But were someone to counter that there have been many princes who were considered most generous and who did great things with their armies, I would reply: A prince spends either his own wealth, or that of his subjects or of others. In the first case he must be frugal, while in the second, he must show every generosity. A prince who rides out with his army, sustaining himself by looting, sacking, and plundering, controlling the assets of others, such a prince needs to be generous. Otherwise his soldiers will not follow him. And it is easier to be a generous giver when the possessions you are giving away are not your own or those of your subjects. Cyrus, Caesar, and Alexander were of this class. Spending what belongs to others does not diminish your standing but increases it. Only spending what is your own harms you. There is nothing that consumes itself like generosity: The more you use it, the more you lose the capacity of using it. You either become poor and disdained, or, to escape poverty, rapacious and hated. There is nothing a prince must avoid more than being at once disdained and hated, and generosity leads to both. It is therefore wiser to settle for a reputation of miserliness which incurs disdain without hatred, than to try to gain a reputation for generosity that brings with it a reputation for rapacity, incurring disdain with hatred.

64.
Louis XII.

65.
Ferdinand II.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
O
F CRUELTY AND MERCY, AND WHETHER IT IS BETTER TO BE LOVED THAN FEARED, OR THE CONTRARY

Proceeding to the other qualities I have already mentioned,
⁶⁶
1 maintain that every prince must wish to be considered merciful and not cruel. Nevertheless, he must avoid using mercy inappropriately. Cesare Borgia was considered cruel, yet his cruelty brought order to the Romagna, uniting it and making it peaceful and loyal. All things considered, Borgia proved far more merciful than the people of Florence, who allowed Pistoia to be destroyed simply in order to avoid a reputation for cruelty. A prince, therefore, must not fear being reproached for cruelty when it is a matter of keeping his subjects united and loyal, because with a few exemplary executions he will be more merciful than those who, through too much mercy, allow the kind of disorder to spread that gives rise to plunder and murder. This harms the whole community, while an execution ordered by a prince harms only a single individual.

Unlike an established prince, a new prince cannot escape a reputation for cruelty, since newly acquired states are filled with danger. As Virgil has Dido say:
Res dura, et regni novitas me talia cogunt / Moliri, et late fines custode tueri
(The harsh situation and the newness of my kingdom force me to act this way and post guards at my borders). Nevertheless, a prince must not be quick to believe the worst and act impulsively, becoming afraid of his own shadow. His actions must be tempered by prudence and humanity so that too much trust does not render him incautious, nor too much mistrust intolerable.

This raises the question whether it is better to be loved than feared, or the contrary. My reply is that one would like to be both, but as it is difficult to combine love and fear, if one has to choose between them it is far safer to be feared than loved. Because it can be said of men that they are ungrateful and inconstant, simulators and dissimulators,
⁶⁷
and that they are hungry for profit and quick to evade danger. While you do them good they are devoted to you, offering you their lives, their possessions, their children, as I have said before—but only as long as danger is far off. The moment danger is at hand, they turn away. A prince who has based everything on their word without taking other precautions is ruined, because friendships acquired at a price and not through magnanimity and nobility of spirit can be bought but not owned, nor do they bring a return in difficult times. Men have less compunction about harming someone who has made himself loved than harming someone who has made himself feared, because love is held in place by chains of obligation, which, as men are evil, will quickly be broken if self-interest is at stake. But fear is held in place by a dread of punishment, which one can always rely on.

The prince, however, must make himself feared so that he avoids hatred, even if he does not acquire love. Being feared and not hated go well together, and the prince can always achieve this if he does not touch the property or the women of his citizens and subjects. If he finds he must execute someone, he should do so only if there is adequate justification and a manifest cause. But above all he must refrain from seizing the property of others, because a man is quicker to forget the death of his father than the loss of his patrimony. Furthermore, there are always ample reasons for seizing another’s property, and he who begins to live by plunder will always find reasons to take what belongs to others, whereas the reasons for having to execute someone are rare, and frequently altogether lacking.
⁶⁸

Yet when a prince is with his army and has a multitude of soldiers under his command, he must not scruple about gaining a reputation for cruelty, because without it he can never keep his army united or willing to follow him into battle. One of Hannibal’s many admirable achievements was that he marched his enormous army of myriad nationalities into battle in foreign lands. Whether Fortune smiled on him or not, there was never any dissension among them nor any rebellion against him. The only reason for this was his inhumane cruelty, which, combined with his infinite skill, made him venerated and feared in the eyes of his men. Without this quality, his other abilities would not have produced this effect. Some careless historians admire this quality while condemning the principal reason for it.

That his other abilities would not have sufficed to keep his army in check can be seen from the example of Scipio, an exceptional man not only in his time, but in all of history. His army rebelled in Spain for no other reason than his undue lenience, which allowed the soldiers more freedom than is suitable in military discipline. He was reproached for this in the Senate by Fabius Maximus, who called him the corrupter of the Roman army. The Locrians had been savaged and plundered by one of Scipio’s officers, after which Scipio neither made reparations nor punished the officer, a consequence of Scipio’s easygoing nature.
⁶⁹
Subsequently, a Locrian spoke before the Senate and, in an attempt to excuse Scipio, said that there were many men who were better at not transgressing than they were at punishing the transgressions of others. With time, Scipio’s nature would have thrown a shadow on his fame and glory had he been a general in the times of the empire, but as he lived under the government of the Senate, this weakness was not only concealed, but brought him glory.

Returning to the question of being feared or loved, I conclude that since men love at their own will and fear at the will of the prince, a wise prince must build a foundation on what is his own, and not on what belongs to others. At the same time, he must do all in his power to escape being hated, as I have already said.

66.
Chapter 15, paragraph 2.

67.
Sallust, in his account of the Catiline conspiracy in
De conjurations Catilinae
, described Catiline as
simulator ac dissimulator
.

68.
See
Discourses
, Book III, chapter 6, in which Machiavelli develops these ideas in the paragraph beginning “The injury princes do to citizens is usually against their property, their honor, or their life. In the case of injury against life, threats are more dangerous than executions. In fact, threats are extremely dangerous, while executions are not at all: He who is dead cannot think about revenge, while he who remains alive will usually leave such thoughts to the dead.”

69.
Livy (Book XXIX, chapter 8) writes: “But Pleminius so surpassed General Hamilcar in crime and greed—the Roman soldiers so surpassing the Carthaginians—that they seemed to be rivaling one another not in battle but in vice. Nothing that renders the power of the strong hateful to the weak was left undone by the Roman general and his soldiers toward the townspeople.”