The Prince: Chapters 6–7

Because for a private citizen to become a prince presupposes virtue or Fortune, it appears that either the one or the other of these two things should partially mitigate many of the problems.

These opportunities, therefore, made these men successful, and their outstanding virtue enabled them to recognize that opportunity, whereby their nation was ennobled and became extremely happy.

This lukewarmness partly arises from fear of the adversaries who have the law on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not truly believe in new things unless they have actually had personal experience of them.

Therefore, it happens that whenever those who are enemies have the chance to attack, they do so with partisan zeal, whereas those others defend hesitantly, so that they, together with the prince, run the risk of grave danger.

However, once they have overcome them and have begun to be venerated, having wiped out all those who were envious of their accomplishments, they remain powerful, secure, honoured, and successful.

As a result, the Duke decided to depend no longer upon the troops and Fortune of others. His first step was to weaken the Orsini and Colonna factions in Rome.

He won over all their followers who were noblemen, making them his own noblemen and giving them huge subsidies; and he honoured them, according to their rank, with military commands and civil appointments.

He knew how to dissimulate his intentions so well that the Orsini themselves, through Lord Paulo, reconciled themselves with him.

Therefore, he gave a cruel and unscrupulous man, Messer Remirro de Oreo, the fullest authority there.

Afterwards, the Duke judged that such excessive authority was no longer required, since he feared that it might become odious, and in the middle of the territory he set up a civil tribunal with a very distinguished president, in which each city had its own advocate.

Because he realized that the rigorous measures of the past had generated a certain amount of hatred, in order to purge the minds of the people and to win them completely over to his side he wanted to show that, if any form of cruelty had occurred, it did not originate from him but from the violent nature of his minister.

Because of this, he began to seek out new allies and to vacillate with France during the campaign the French undertook in the Kingdom of Naples against the Spaniards besieging Gaeta.

If he had carried out these designs (and he would have brought them to fruition during the same year that Alexander died), he would have gathered together so many military forces and such reputation that he would have been able to stand alone and would no longer have had to rely upon the Fortune and military forces of others, but instead on his own power and virtue.

Possessing great courage and high goals, he could not have conducted himself in any other manner, and his plans were frustrated solely by the brevity of Alexander’s life and by his own illness.

Anyone, therefore, who considers it necessary in his newly acquired principality to protect himself from his enemies, to win allies, to conquer either by force or by deceit...to be both severe and kind, magnanimous and generous, to wipe out disloyal troops and create new ones, to maintain alliances with kings and princes in such a way that they must either gladly help you or injure you with caution — that person cannot find more recent examples than this man’s deeds.