§ 1. The importunate conduct and vices of tyrants bring it about that learned men and political writers advance many things against the governments of kings and princes, as if I were defending the Mezentii, Phalarides, Neros, Ucilini, and similar disgraces to human nature, the memory of whom ought not even to cling to the minds of princes. Accordingly, I prefer a benign, moderate, prudent, and frugal prince to the dominion of the nobles or the common people.
I condemn the tyrant; I reject the absolute governments of the Scythians, Persians, and Turks, and “τὰς αὐτοβασιλείας,” or autocratic monarchies. I proclaim a monarchy tempered by laws, constrained by customs, supported by the authority of the best men, and answerable to the just wishes of a good people. I approve fidelity bound by a reciprocal oath. To state it in one word: I approve that commonwealth in which the prince can do the greatest possible good and the least possible evil; in which the laws possess more power than might; in which a private person can contend with the king under equal right; and in which the supreme power does not judge it unworthy of its majesty to lose a case and be cast out of a private possession.
This is a great and plainly royal dignity of the Franks: when a lawsuit arises concerning possessions, they respond to their subjects under equal right. I judge that king who first enacted so salutary a law to have been above kingship. If we weigh these things rightly, we shall find that most arguments against monarchy have already fallen.
But now let the defenders, as they wish to appear, of the best men and the common people plead their cause.
§ 2. First, divine authority is objected against us, for God is most gravely angered at the Jews when they request a king. God says in 1 Kings 8:7: “Hear the voice of the people in all things which they speak to you. For they have not rejected you, but me, lest I reign over them. According to all their works which they have done from the day on which I led them out of Egypt even to this day, just as they abandoned me and served foreign gods, so they do also to you. Now, therefore, hear their voice.”
And chapter 12:16: “But even now stand and see this great thing which the Lord will do in your sight. Is it not the wheat harvest today? I shall invoke the Lord, and he shall give voices and rains; and you shall know and see that you have done a great evil in the sight of the Lord by requesting a king over yourselves.” The people too, stunned by the tempest and thunder, recognized its transgression. “Pray,” it says, “for your servants to the Lord your God that we may not die; for we have added to all our sins the evil that we requested a king for ourselves.” It is therefore evil to request a king, and kingship is not from God except when he is angry and punishing.
The reason which is added is certainly grave: “They have rejected me, lest I reign over them.” Therefore, when a mortal human being is exalted into a kingdom, there is a withdrawal from the kingdom of God, and the immortal king is cast down from his throne.
§ 3. The answer in this case is not difficult. For the faculty of establishing a king is conceded by a divine oracle in Deuteronomy 17:15; and in Genesis 17:6 it is promised to Abraham that kings will be born from him. But there would be no favor in the promise if every kingdom were unjust and kings detestable after the likeness of robbers. Finally, God did not command the Israelites to return to aristocracy or democracy, but commanded that a kingdom should exist, and he gave many kings of distinguished virtue and knowledge of ruling.
In what, therefore, did they sin by requesting a king? First, they were ungrateful to Samuel, their prophet and leader. Although he had deserved excellently of them and governed the commonwealth excellently, they compelled him to abdicate his power and subjected him to a king. Next, they departed from the will and government of God, by whose command and authority Samuel and the other judges had been given. Their power was less than royal power. For although this government was monarchical, the liberty of the best men and people was nevertheless very great, so much so that each did what seemed right to himself. They therefore importunately desired to change the form of commonwealth established by God.
Third, there was no sufficient cause for changing the commonwealth. For although Samuel’s sons, degenerate from their father, did not walk in his ways but turned aside after avarice, accepted gifts, and perverted judgment, they could nevertheless have been corrected by Samuel and the commonwealth, cast down from their dignity, and judges of proven integrity and holiness established. It was not necessary to introduce a new form of commonwealth for that reason—as if kings could not also pervert judgment.
Fourth, they distrusted God and were ungrateful for his benefits, for through a vain fear of the Ammonites they requested a king. Samuel reproaches them for this in 1 Kings, chapter 12: “Now, therefore, stand, that I may contend with you in judgment before the Lord concerning all the mercies of the Lord
which he performed with you and with your fathers: how Jacob entered Egypt and your fathers cried to the Lord, and the Lord sent Moses and Aaron and led your fathers out of Egypt and placed them in this place. They forgot the Lord their God, and he handed them into the hand of Sisera, commander of the army of Hazor, and into the hand of the Philistines and the hand of the king of Moab, and they fought against them. But afterward they cried to the Lord and said: ‘We have sinned, because we abandoned the Lord and served the Baals and Astaroth; now, therefore, rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and we shall serve you.’ And the Lord sent Jerubbaal, Bedan, Samson, Barak, Jephthah, and Samuel, and rescued you from the hand of your enemies round about, and you dwelt confidently.
“But, seeing that Nahash, king of the children of Ammon, had come against you, you said to me: ‘By no means; rather, a king shall command us,’ although the Lord your God was reigning among you. Now, therefore, your king whom you selected and requested is present; behold, the Lord has given you a king. If you fear the Lord and serve him and hear his voice and do not provoke the mouth of the Lord, both you and the king who commands you shall be followers of the Lord your God. But if you do not hear the voice of the Lord but provoke his words, the hand of the Lord shall be upon you and upon your fathers.”
Finally, they requested a king such as all the surrounding nations possessed, evidently so that they might feed their eyes upon that external splendor and arrive at distinguished power and license. For the magnates contemplated honors and courtly dignities for themselves, and the people resources and luxury. Thus everyone, disgusted with present things and gaping after future ones, requested a king, as if God could no longer raise up any Gideon or Samson. In this matter they transgressed gravely by rejecting God, their supreme commander, who had been accustomed to establish judges and leaders of war, and by despising his most special and benevolent providence, by which he himself governed his people and directed them with a gentle government without tributes and exactions.
§ 4. Second, they object: Prudence is greater among many; among princes there is the greatest scarcity of truth. It is therefore better that the safety and fortunes of peoples be entrusted to the counsels of many than to the judgment of one man, however prudent.
I answer that this indeed is to be desired: that one man should command in the place of many; that kings should possess force in prudence and counsel and, above all, be governed by the divine Spirit itself, like David and Solomon. But wisdom does not always accompany the scepter, and the pride of the purple frequently excludes the Holy Spirit. Hence come rash counsels and frequently precipitate conduct of affairs without counsels—not through the fault of kingship, but of kings.
Nevertheless, I do not see why kings cannot possess counselors proven in prudence and experience; and it is evident that a great part of the best men is often untrained. Certainly now in Germany, Italy, and the other kingdoms of Europe we see an extraordinary abundance of wise and brave men. Therefore, although either ability, learning, or prudence may partly fail the prince, he will nevertheless decree many salutary things according to the opinion of his council; and because what has been decreed depends upon one man, it can be effected swiftly. In the deliberations of the best men, although there is agreement, nevertheless, because of rivalry, favor, and other inconveniences, they arrive at execution slowly and not without altercations. Whatever superiority a multitude of votes might therefore possess in counsels, it loses through delay and impediments in conducting affairs.
§ 5. Third, they object: Several persons are corrupted with greater difficulty and judge more incorruptly; one man is readily enticed into fraud.
I answer that I taught the contrary in the preceding chapter: judgments in an aristocracy and polity were more corrupt than in a kingdom, as was evident from the example of the Romans. In a popular commonwealth the great city of Athens, “μεγαλοπόλιες Ἀθῆναι,” inventress and nurse of all arts, supplies us with a proof. It seems similar to a monster that in the same city in which the cultivation of letters and arts and philosophy fixed its highest summit, judgments were also most corrupt, most inequitable, and truly predatory.
I do not accuse the Areopagus, although even its judgments lost their authority; nevertheless, its judgment owes its integrity not to fidelity but to night and darkness, and indeed to ignorance of the accused. I speak of the judgments of the people, than which nothing was more shameful, destructive, or unjust. They afflicted good and just men, even men unknown to them, by ostracism and harassed them with exiles. In this matter most cultivated Attica surpassed every barbarism.
I brought forward above the reasons why judgments of the best men and of the people are readily corrupted. Now I shall speak of corruption by gifts, which much more readily penetrates the homes of avaricious and needy judges than those of kings, whose immense resources bring it about that the sordid gifts of private persons are despised. For if a prince either possesses something of nobility in his spirit or displays it in his conduct, no one will readily show that he despises him so much that he boasts that he can purchase him for himself at a price and draw him into the shameful obedience of betraying justice.
Since, therefore, small and moderate gifts possess no weight amid the most ample fortune of kings, and since access to them is difficult and dangerous, more sincere judgments can be expected from them. But even a few coins, bullocks, little hares, little cheeses, and fruits of the strawberry tree, when carried into the homes of citizens, crush Themis—what wickedness!—in her own sanctuary, that is, in the tribunals. I would bring forward proof from Cicero concerning the corrupted and violated Clodian trial if modesty did not restrain me.
But I appeal to commonwealths. Who today accuses princes or kings as though they were hunters after gifts? This complaint concerns those who pronounce law upon the lower benches. It is less when princes are severe and strict defenders of justice and never pardon a corrupt judge. It is greater when princes are negligent and slow. It is greatest when no higher magistrate makes inquiry, or if that censorship is given to relatives, connections by marriage, and persons under obligation, and directed against those who have at some time conducted a prevaricating censorship or are feared as though they will conduct one. These things generally occur in government by the best men. Hence so many laws in cities struggle with so many frauds: that two brothers, father and son, or father-in-law and son-in-law should not sit in the same court.
§ 6. The fourth objection: No one dares to admonish a prince who errs, much less censure or teach him. But if anyone dares things that are true and strong, readily overcome by the multitude of flatterers, he is compelled to depart to the other side or withdraw from the court. Princes judge being admonished to be the same as being conquered; they judge their majesty injured unless someone praises even the vices of kings.
But in another form of commonwealth, since an adversary threatens each of the best men from the opposite side, all transgressions are not only noted but even drawn into judgment. In every aristocracy there are parties, and because many are equal, all are watched by all and held in their duty. Aristides fears Themistocles, Demosthenes Aeschines, Pompey Caesar, each of them Crassus, Cicero Clodius, Scipio Cato; all fear many,
and no one is free of danger. But that mutual fear restrains avarice, checks lusts, and represses anger.
I answer that a prince in whose presence truths are kept silent is most wretched, and more wretched is he whose evils are also praised. Nevertheless, kingship is not inferior to aristocracy on account of this. Or if the “αὐθάδεια” and pride of princes, ignorant of admonitions, often reject counsels, other goods by which this evil is compensated are nevertheless not lacking, as was explained some time ago.
But the conduct of a few is maliciously and enviously transferred to everyone. We know many kings who not only did not turn away timely admonishers, but attended their sincere liberty with beneficence and adorned them with dignities. Many also bore rumors, jests, and the sharp speech of the common people with a gentle and civil spirit, judging it sufficient if they had obtained this: that no one could do them harm.
In this matter the moderation of Augustus Caesar must certainly be commended greatly. He was content to bar from his house a historian by whom he had been gravely injured. But since I am treating of virtues, I shall treat this praise of civility there.
For now this is certain: princes have many admonishers. For they possess without offense the books of ancient and living authors, although they sometimes read their own errors in them; they hear sacred sermons; they themselves examine their conscience and demand an account from themselves. Finally, no prince is so unhappy that he does not possess many who counsel him freely and whom flattery and unbecoming servitude offend. This is especially true if they are Christians, among whom there cannot be lacking men like Hilary, Ambrose, Chrysostom, and Gregory, whose liberty can stand against the sins of those who reign.
Only let public, bitter admonition resembling reproach and mockery be removed from the midst, both because it is dangerous to admonishers and because it rouses exasperated powers to excuse and defend their error, lest princes appear to have been conquered, and not to amendment, which ought also to be the end in censuring private persons. For importunate liberty is foolish rashness. It does not correct the man who errs, since it always needs pardon itself and rarely obtains it.
He cannot be a teacher and corrector of a prince with whom matters are conducted excellently if he escapes punishment and if, by admonishing another, he does not overthrow himself. The people praises things spoken freely and delights in abuse of princes; but the same people does not marvel at the destruction of those who act thus—indeed, afterward it pours itself out in praises of the prince who rages. It judges that the man who spoke in such a way that the prince was deservedly angered against him deservedly perished.
Who approved Galba’s rashness when in the forum he told Julius the dictator that he was being summoned concerning the money for which he had become surety to Pompey the Great, his son-in-law? For thus he reproached Caesar with his slain son-in-law and his goods subjected to the auction spear. Caesar did not rage then, but Rome nevertheless marveled that this was not Galba’s final act of audacity. For he could have conducted the matter privately or through a written petition.
The common crowd is astounded by the mad harshness of Theodorus of Cyrene. For when he answered Lysimachus, who was threatening death, “A magnificent thing has fallen to you, because you have attained the power of a cantharid beetle,” prudent men disapprove. For what purpose was served by driving a tyrant voluntarily cruel into madness through contumacy and giving him an occasion to seem to rage justly? And certainly, when raised upon a cross, he learned the difference between rotting on the ground and rotting aloft.
Through this perversity of admonishing, many persons make princes worse. Since they seek the praise of constancy and liberty rather than the good of the commonwealth or the amendment of princes, they must be kept far from princes. For they exasperate them and imbue them with the most perverse and destructive opinion that they are not loved by their subject peoples; conversely, they themselves begin to hate those peoples. They are inflamed much more when they understand that the things said against them are received by the citizens pleasantly and with applause. But I shall give counsel concerning admonishing princes in its own place. For I prefer this to admonishing princes and, unless I am mistaken, it is safer.
§ 7. The fifth objection. Laws are the soul of the commonwealth. Where laws either do not exist or are harassed by the more powerful, the commonwealth is corrupt. But who can enclose a prince within the barriers of the laws?
I answer with the great emperor that it pertains to the majesty of one who commands that he should obey the laws. Therefore I have already excluded “παμβασιλείαν,” or universal monarchy, and the absolute dominion of one man over the rest. Yet that dominion is no more burdensome than the absolute government of the best men over the rest, for in the latter there are as many tyrants as heads. What good shall we judge those men likely to bring to the citizens who, when enrolled in the senate, swore, as Aristotle says, “ὅτι τῷ δήμῳ κακόνους ἔσομαι,” “that I shall be ill-disposed toward the common people”?
The Roman citizens certainly experienced this when they seceded to the Sacred Mount and when, by the counsel of Coriolanus, grain was denied them. What equity of laws existed at Rome when even the tribunes themselves brought forward many bills conjointly? Appius Claudius says that this was the same as if someone set poison together with food before a man whom hunger presses and ordered him either to abstain from that which gives life or to mingle what is deadly with what gives life. Gather everything praised in the Roman commonwealth and show that the senate, the best men, or even the decemvirs for writing the laws were ever able to be restrained by laws.
§ 8. The sixth objection. Liberty is equal for all, and everyone ought to enjoy it. But where more persons participate in liberty, there the commonwealth is more just. Thus the wisest founder of a commonwealth, Aristotle, book 2 of the Politics, chapter 2: “διόπερ τὸ ἴσον τὸ ἀντιπεπονθὸς σῴζει τὰς πόλεις· ἐπεὶ καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἐλευθέροις καὶ ἴσοις ἀνάγκη τοῦτ᾽ εἶναι. Therefore equality and reciprocal alternation preserve cities; for among free and equal persons it is necessary that this exist.” But nowhere is equality less than in monarchy, where all obey one.
I answer that Aristotle pronounces judgment for us. “Δῆλον,” he says, “ὡς τοὺς αὐτοὺς ἀεὶ βέλτιον ἄρχειν. It is manifest that it is better for the same persons always to command.” Nor is that injustice detected here, for equality agrees only with equals, and inequality with unequals; it is contrary to right to attribute equal things to unequals. Nor is there any commonwealth in which everyone can command.
Next, liberty is badly estimated when it is denied to exist under a prince. For some pursue an extreme license of liberty which is the beginning of extreme servitude; others do not judge themselves free unless they command; still others cannot bear even laws and a master. They are certainly deceived. Liberty is indeed that power of living as you wish, but it is nevertheless necessary that you wish justly and rightly. For just government and the restraint of written laws are not opposed to liberty.
There is no reason why we should call the Roman people free when quarreling with its patricians but call the Jews slaves under David and Solomon. Nor ought those who live under kings to be classified by the appellation of slaves because they are oppressed in a servile manner by wicked and unjust kings, since the common people never lived under an equal condition beneath the best men. We in
Germany properly call certain cities free and their citizens free, although they are ruled by Caesar and call him their supreme head and lord. Therefore those who measure liberty by “ἀναρχία,” or anarchy, and the wandering license of nomads err just as much as those who measure it by impunity for crimes.
§ 9. The seventh objection. Princes remove leading and illustrious men from the midst because they fear them; they hate men prudent and upright in life as troublesome censors of a luxurious court. But among the best men and among the common people these men alone are raised to the summit. The supreme power of one therefore oppresses virtue; but where there is government by several, because honor and magistracy are given as a reward to virtue, probity, industry, and courage are sharpened.
The answer: Princes are not accustomed to persecute good men unless they are plainly tyrants; and in a commonwealth of several, fraud and audacity more often than virtue obtain the people’s fasces. For who can excuse the ostracisms of the Athenians and the exiles of virtues ordered by the people? Since they had frequently lost liberty and experienced the most grievous servitude from the sudden setting of liberty, they therefore rose against everyone in whom virtue, industry, eloquence, or resources seemed to be eminent. They removed not vices but suspicions of vices and dangers.
Concerning the Romans we possess an abundant witness in T. Quinctius in Livy: “Discord among the orders is the poison of this city. The contests of the fathers and common people—while neither for us is there a limit to sovereignty nor for you a limit to liberty; while you are weary of patrician magistrates and we of plebeian ones—have raised their spirits. By the faith of the gods, what do you wish for yourselves? You desired tribunes of the common people; for the sake of concord we conceded them. You desired decemvirs; we permitted them to be created. You became weary of the decemvirs; we compelled them to depart from the magistracy. While your anger against those same men as private persons remained, we permitted the noblest and most honored men to die and be exiled. You wished to create tribunes of the common people again; you created them. Although we saw that it was inequitable to the fathers, we saw consuls of your parties created and even a patrician magistracy made a gift to the common people.
“Tribunician aid, appeal to the people, decrees of the common people imposed upon the fathers—under the title of equalizing the laws, we endured and endure our rights being oppressed. What end will there be to dissensions? When will it be permitted to possess one city, when this common fatherland? We, conquered, rest with a more equitable spirit than you as conquerors. Is it enough that we must fear you? Against us the Aventine is seized; against us the Sacred Mount is occupied. When the Esquiline was almost taken by the enemy, and the Volscian enemy was climbing the rampart, no one drove him off; against us you are men, against us you are armed.
“Come now: when you have besieged this senate house, rendered the senate hostile, and filled the prison with leading men, go out with those same fierce spirits beyond the Esquiline Gate; or, if you do not dare even this, look out from the walls upon your fields devastated by sword and fire, plunder driven away, and houses smoking after being burned everywhere. But, you say, the common interest is in a worse position through these things: the field is burned, the city besieged, the glory of war is in the hands of enemies. In what condition, then, are your private affairs? The report of his own losses from the fields will now be brought to each. What is there at home from which you may replenish them? Will the tribunes return and restore what you have lost? They will heap upon you as much voice and words as you wish, and accusations against the leading men, laws one upon another, and assemblies.”
Indeed, monuments relate that Camillus was exiled; Tarquinius Collatinus cast out of the city solely through hatred of his name; Valerius regarded with suspicion because he was building a house upon the Velia, a more elevated place; the Scipios made to waste away in the country; and others, through the fault of an ungrateful fatherland, possessed the most wretched ends. Thus princes must be judged moderate if one pleases to consider the rivalry and malice of citizens ordering wicked things.
Those who compelled a city still retaining the spirit of its ancient liberty to serve unworthy persons under violent and savage domination increased hatred of the principate. Indeed, conspiracies, seditions, sarcasms, and slanders inflamed the harshness of masters. Now in Europe there is a different appearance. How great is the rivalry among the most powerful kings to join brave, noble, and prudent men to themselves? I judge that the king of the Spains alone possesses so many men outstanding in experience, ability, and wisdom that he could furnish us even one hundred Scipios. Count the commanders, masters of cavalry, and tribunes, and admire the supports of so great a monarchy.
“Kings,” they say, “hate brave men and remove them from the midst.” I appeal to the history of our age and seek outstanding men slaughtered by the tyranny of kings. I deny that even one can be produced, unless one pleases to deplore those who, convicted of injustice, plunder, an offense against majesty, or treason, paid deserved penalties. For we do not now treat of those whom kings or princes following new opinions tortured and killed on account of the ancient faith and religion, although the people and petty tyrants killed more.
§ 10. The seventh objection. Nothing afflicts and tears apart the commonwealth as much as variety and inconstancy of laws and actions. For it altogether removes the ruler’s authority; next, it renders everyone uncertain about his own affairs and therefore hostile to the prince. For just as no prudent man builds a citadel upon ground shaken by frequent earthquakes, so all are alienated from and withdraw from a prince who is carried into contrary courses, because he readily overturns his benefits and changes friends. Even those who have received benefits fear that, having changed his mind, he will soon take back what he rather cast away than gave and add loss and outrage besides.
Niccolò Machiavelli, book 1 of Discourses on Livy, attempts to prove that there is greater constancy among the people. But he compares a prince released from the laws with a people which employs no laws, and a prince who administers the commonwealth according to the prescription of the laws with a people which employs good laws; and in each case he prefers administration by the people. For the Romans most bitterly hated kingship for four hundred years. The people rarely affects manifestly wicked human beings with honor. The people rages more gently and is placated more readily. The reason why the people’s inconstancy is censured by writers is not that the people transgress more than princes, but that it is safer to exaggerate the vices of the people than those of princes, for no individual is censured here.
I answer first that Machiavelli admits that he speaks and teaches against all writers. Livy in many places, and all the other writers with nearly one voice, testify that the multitude of the people is inconstant, variable, and mutable. What all writers and all rulers of peoples testify, one Machiavelli ought not to have denied—much less strike everyone with a grave accusation, as though they exaggerate the transgressions of the people and close their eyes to the vices of princes.
That is a malicious and manifestly false slander. For men who lived among a free people testify to it, for whom it was dangerous to praise monarchy and censure the people. Plato says: “The people is ungrateful, lightly sated with any thing, mutable, cruel, envious.” But let us hear Tullius, the greatest patron of the people, thundering against his own people after receiving the greatest benefits from the people: “Within an inexperienced multitude there are variety and inconstancy and, just as frequent changes of weather, so frequent changes of opinions.” For His House and For Plancius.
“The people does not always judge in assemblies, but is generally moved by favor, yields to prayers, and creates those by whom it has been most thoroughly canvassed. Finally, if it judges, it is not led to judging by any selection or wisdom, but sometimes by impulse and even a certain rashness. There is no counsel in the common crowd, no reason, no discrimination, no diligence. Wise men always judged that the things which the people had done must be endured, but not always praised.” And For Murena: “No strait and no Euripus possesses so many movements and such great and various agitations of waves as the procedure of assemblies possesses disturbances and surges. One intervening day, or one night placed between, often disturbs all things; and a small breeze of rumor sometimes changes the whole opinion. Often, even without any evident cause, something other than what we judge occurs, so that sometimes even the people marvels that it was done thus, as if it had not itself done it.”
These are Cicero’s words concerning the people that was lord of the nations, the people which daily heard orators and the most prudent men contending concerning the commonwealth and, having heard them, commanded with supreme power what it wished to be done. The cause of so great a mutability is rightly pronounced by the same man: “It estimates few things from truth and many from opinion,” For Roscius of Ameria. “They judge honorable that which is praised by many.” Since inexperience therefore often errs, is led by opinion, and hears imprudent and fickle human beings, it is necessary that it change often and be a source of honor and profit to its tribunes.
But the hatred of the Roman people against those seeking kingship was constant and bitter. Entirely so, because they feared tyranny; Cicero testified to this in his book On the Laws. For he who had seized dominion at Rome would reign with much blood. But I observed two things in the Roman commonwealth which implanted hatred of tyrants in the city. First were the examples of the Sicilians and of many cities in Greece which were tormented by barbarous and monstrous tyranny. In the period of Roman liberty the affairs of the Persians flourished; in Sicily there were Gelo and the Dionysii; in Greece Periander, Thrasybulus, Alexander of Pherae, and the Thirty Tyrants at Athens; and scarcely any city was ruled at that time without savage cruelty. Hence came so great a hatred of kings and, among a warlike people, a hand ready against them; and punishments imposed when the cause of suspected persons had scarcely been heard—certainly while the lawsuit was pending.
Under a mild and just king extreme liberty is not greatly desired; most live content with quiet and the protection of their affairs. But when they grow pale beneath the blow of a raging tyrant, they pour themselves into whatever nearby opportunity for liberty is opened, although with great danger.
But an angry people too, they say, rages more gently. Indeed, there is no beast more cruel than the people. The ambassadors of the fathers objected to the Roman common people that, through hatred of cruelty, they were rushing into cruelty; before they were free, they wished to dominate their adversaries. If you intend to consider the cruelty of peoples, see the Lemnians, Etruscans, Samians, and Athenians. The cruelty of the Lemnians passed into a proverb, so that whatever was done most monstrously was said to have been done by a Lemnian hand. The Etruscans joined living bodies to dead ones, for this was not the deed of Mezentius alone. The Samians carved an owl upon the foreheads of the Athenians; the Athenians carved a Samian ship upon the foreheads of the Samians—cruelty repaid by a foul example between the most cultivated peoples.
Do you wish me to speak concerning the Romans? The first emperors were cruel and certain monsters of human beings; I except no one, neither Augustus nor Titus. Yet the people was more cruel than they, delighted throughout entire days by the torments and deaths of the amphitheater. Next, were those very monsters not drawn from the citizens? Were the Roman best men gentle? Fimbria, Sulla, Telesinus, Catiline, Pompey, Pollio, Marius, and those who belonged to the Marian or Sullan parties—that is, all Romans. Few kings equaled the cruelty of the Roman leading men. But the Roman people surpassed them all, displaying horrible examples in the punishment of Nero, Caligula, Galba, and other princes, most cruel in punishing cruelty. The medicine exceeded its measure; the guilty and innocent perished.
The people is therefore both inconstant and cruel. The cause of its inconstancy is that it does not judge and is moved only by slight things, and therefore it is also moved to the other side. Although kings too frequently rave, nevertheless the ignorance of the people is greater, since its greatest part is occupied by private affairs. In the judgment of the people no one fears his own personal disgrace or hopes for praise if the counsels turn out badly; each imputes them to others rather than himself. For why should the reputation of the commonwealth touch the most sordid human beings? But where there is a prince, he both fears to establish what must immediately be changed and necessarily turns away from sudden transformations of affairs and the desire to fasten and unfasten laws as from a plague of the commonwealth.