Discourses on Livy by Niccolò Machiavelli

Author:Niccolò Machiavelli
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: The University Of Chicago Press, Chicago

28

How Dangerous It Is for a Republic or a Prince Not to Avenge an Injury Done against the Public or against a Private Person1

[1] What indignation makes men do is easily known from what happened to the Romans when they sent the three Fabii as spokesmen to the French who had come to assault Tuscany and Chiusi in particular.2 Since the people of Chiusi had sent to Rome for aid against the French, the Romans sent ambassadors who in the name of the Roman people were to signify to the French that they should abstain from making war on the Tuscans. When the French and the Tuscans came to fight, these spokesmen, being on the spot and more capable of doing than saying, put themselves among the first to combat against the former. From this it arose that since they were recognized by them, [the French] turned against the Romans all the indignation they had against the Tuscans. This indignation became greater because when the French through their ambassadors made a complaint to the Roman Senate about this injury, and asked that in satisfaction of that harm the Fabii written above should be given over to them, not only were they not consigned to them or punished in any other mode, but when the electoral meetings came they were made tribunes with consular power. So that when the French saw those honored who should have been punished, they took all to have been done for their disparagement and ignominy. Inflamed with indignation and anger, they came to assault Rome and took it, except for the Capitol. This ruin arose for the Romans only through the inobservance of justice, for when their ambassadors sinned “against the law of nations”3 and should have been punished, they were honored. It is therefore to be considered how much every republic and every prince should take account of doing similar injuries, not only against a collectivity but even against an individual. For if a man is greatly offended either by the public or by a private person4 and is not avenged according to his satisfaction, if he lives in a republic he seeks to avenge himself, even if with its ruin; and if he lives under a prince and has any generosity in himself he is never quiet until he avenges himself against him, even if he sees evil for himself in that.

[2] To verify this there is no example more beautiful or more true than that of Philip King of Macedon, father of Alexander. He had in his court Pausanias, a beautiful and noble youth, with whom Attalus, one of the first men near Philip, was in love. Having often sought to get him to consent to him, and finding him averse to such things, he decided to have by deception and by force that which he saw he could not have by any other direction. Having made a festive5 banquet to which came Pausanias and many other noble barons, after everyone was full

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