The Portable Machiavelli by Niccolo Machiavelli

Author:Niccolo Machiavelli [Machiavelli, Niccolo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101128091
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2010-02-26T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER I. WHETHER ABILITY OR FORTUNE WAS THE MAIN REASON THE ROMANS CONQUERED THEIR EMPIRE

Many have held the opinion—among them Plutarch, a most serious writer—that the Roman people, in acquiring their empire, were favored more by Fortune than by their own ability. And among the other reasons he brings forth, he says that the people, by their own admission, attributed all their victories to Fortune, since they built more temples to Fortune than to any other god. And it seems that Livy holds this opinion, for he seldom has any Roman deliver a speech in which he speaks of ability without mentioning Fortune. But I do not accept this argument in any way, nor do I believe that it can be supported, for if no republic produced such results as Rome did, it is obvious that there never has been a republic so organized that she could acquire as Rome did. For the ability of her armies caused her to acquire her empire, and the institution of her conduct and her individual way of living, which were discovered by her first lawgiver, allowed her to keep her conquests, as will be explained in more detail in successive chapters.

These same writers declare that it was a consequence of Fortune, and not because of the innate ability of the Roman people, that they never had to fight two great wars at the same time; that they never waged war on the Latins unless they had completely vanquished the Samnites and, in fact, were even waging war in their defense; they never fought with the Tuscans unless they had first subjugated the Latins and had almost exhausted the Samnites through frequent defeats. However, if two of these powers had united when they were fresh and at full strength, without a doubt one might say that the ruin of the Roman republic would have been inevitable. But no matter how things turned out, they never waged two important wars at the same time; on the contrary, the case was always such that either one came to an end at the beginning of another or the other was begun when one was finished. This is surely evident from the order in which their wars took place: putting aside those wars waged before Rome was sacked by the Gauls, it is clear that while they fought with the Aequi and the Volsci—and those peoples were powerful—other nations never rose up against them. When they were defeated, the war against the Samnites broke out, and although the Latin peoples revolted against the Romans before the war ended, nevertheless, when this rebellion occurred the Samnites were allied with Rome; their army helped them to tame the Latin insolence. When the Latins were defeated, the war with Samnium broke out again, and when the Samnite troops were broken by the many defeats they suffered, the war against the Tuscans began; when this was settled, the Samnites again rose up because of the crossing of Pyrrhus into Italy. When he

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