The Prince: Second Edition by Niccolo Machiavelli & Harvey C. Mansfield Jr

Author:Niccolo Machiavelli & Harvey C. Mansfield Jr. [Machiavelli, Niccolo]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: University of Chicago Press - A
Published: 1998-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

XX

Whether Fortresses and Many Other Things Which Are Made and Done by Princes Every Day Are Useful or Useless

Some princes have disarmed their subjects so as to hold their states securely; some others have kept their subject towns divided; some have nourished enmities against themselves; some others have turned to gaining to themselves those who had been suspect to them at the beginning of their states; some have built fortresses; some have knocked them down and destroyed them. And although one cannot give a definite judgment on all these things unless one comes to the particulars of those states where any such decision has to be made, nonetheless I shall speak in that broad mode which the matter permits in itself.

There has never been, then, a new prince who has disarmed his subjects; on the contrary, whenever he has found them unarmed, he has always armed them. For when they are armed, those arms become yours; those whom you suspected become faithful, and those who were faithful remain so; and from subjects they are made into your partisans. And because all subjects cannot be armed, if those whom you arm are benefited, one can act with more security toward the others. The difference of treatment that they recognize regarding themselves makes them obligated to you; the others excuse you, judging it necessary that those who have more danger and more obligation deserve more. But, when you disarm them, you begin to offend them; you show that you distrust them either for cowardice or for lack of faith, both of which opinions generate hatred against you. And because you cannot remain unarmed, you must turn to a mercenary military, which is of the quality described above;172 and even if it were good, it cannot be so good as to defend you against powerful enemies and suspect subjects. So, as I said, a new prince of a new principality always has ordered the arms there. The histories are full of examples of this.

But when a prince acquires a new state that is added as a member to his old one, then it is necessary to disarm that state, except for those who were your partisans in acquiring it. These, too, it is necessary to render soft and effeminate, in time and with opportunity, and to be ordered so that the arms of all your state are only with your own soldiers, who live next to you in your old state.

Our ancients, and those who were esteemed wise, used to say that it was necessary to hold Pistoia with parties and Pisa with fortresses; and because of this they nourished differences in some towns subject to them, so as to hold them more easily. In times when Italy was in balance in a certain mode, this would have been good to do, but I do not believe that one could give it today as a teaching. For I do not believe that divisions ever do any good; on the contrary, when the enemy

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