§ 1. I shall set forth and examine the opinion of a man who follows his own judgment rather than a prudent one, so that it may be evident to all that he not only employs weak reasoning but also sins against the fidelity of history and deduces conclusions and consequences from things that are utterly false. In book 2, chapter 2 of Discourses on Livy, he writes thus:
Love of preserving liberty, which at that time resided among many nations, rendered victory over neighboring and certain other peoples difficult and arduous for the Roman people. For they endeavored to defend it with so much zeal that they could not be conquered and overcome except by a certain extraordinary valor. As proof of this fact, you have examples of so many dangers which they were willing to undergo for the sake of defending and recovering it, and of so many and such dreadful punishments exacted from those who had furnished the cause of its loss. Nor is it obscure from the reading of histories how highly liberty ought to be valued, and how great and how difficult for a people the yoke of servitude is.
In our age a single nation seems to survive in which there are free cities; formerly the freest peoples existed throughout every region of the world. Certainly, in Italy, between the Alps, which divide Cisalpine Gaul from Tuscany, and the furthest shore of Italy, many free peoples dwelt: the Etruscans, Romans, Samnites, and others. Nor is mention made of any kings who then ruled in Italy, apart from the kings of the Romans and Porsenna. Although the histories have handed down nothing to memory concerning the destruction of his stock, it is nevertheless established that Tuscany, over which Porsenna had ruled, was free at the time when the Romans undertook war against Veii. Indeed, it enjoyed liberty with so much delight and held the designation of monarchy in so great hatred that, when the Veientes had created a king for the sake of defending themselves and had sought aid from the Etruscans against the Romans, the Etruscans, after long deliberation upon the matter, finally judged that assistance ought not to be brought to them so long as they had a king. For it was not fitting to bring aid to those who had subjected their fatherland to the government of one man.
Nor without cause does the love of liberty reside in every people. For experience testifies that no city enriches its citizens except in a time of liberty, nor even acquires dominion or augments the public resources in any manner. It is worthy of the highest admiration that the Athenians, freed from the tyranny of Pisistratus, were able to augment their strength and power so greatly within the space of one hundred years. And it is still much more astonishing that the commonwealth of the Romans, after the kings had been expelled, was able to arrive at so great a summit. All these things happen
because it is not the resources of private persons but those which are public and common that augment the commonwealth; nor is account taken of the public good except in free cities, in which that which can equally benefit all or as many as possible is always decreed, while no account is taken of certain few whom that which benefits all might perhaps harm. The contrary occurs in those cities which obey the government of some prince. For in them it generally happens that what can benefit the prince harms all the citizens.
Hence it happens that, if a free commonwealth is reduced beneath the tyranny of someone, it may number among the lightest losses arising to it from that event the fact that it can no longer be augmented either in resources or in dominion, but begins even to decline gradually. For although we concede that this tyrant, beneath whose government it has been reduced, is an industrious man and outstanding in military valor, nevertheless he converts what he acquires to his own private advantage, not to public uses. And since, through fear of vengeance, he does not dare to select from his subjects, whom he rules tyrannically, all the most outstanding men and put them in charge of affairs, if he should occupy any cities besides, he certainly will not make them tributary to this commonwealth. For the tyrant’s aim is not to augment the power of his subjects, but to preserve them in subjection to himself and to crush the strength by which they might someday shake off the yoke. On this matter many excellent things are read in Xenophon’s book on tyranny.
Since these things are so, it ought to seem astonishing to no one that the ancients burned with so great a zeal for liberty and held the name of tyrants in so great a hatred. Thus, when a messenger once reached the army concerning the slaying of Hieronymus, grandson of Hiero of Syracuse, and all the soldiers were roaring against the conspirators, nevertheless, when it was reported a little later that liberty was being proclaimed publicly at Syracuse, they laid aside their anger against the conspirators and began to deliberate concerning the manner of preserving liberty.
For the same reasons those who had been willing to become the authors of liberty’s loss were very often afflicted with enormous punishments. Although very many examples of these exist, in this place I shall adduce only one, and that a dreadful and memorable one, which occurred at Corcyra in the time of the Peloponnesian War. For since all Greece was then divided into two factions, one of which endeavored to retain the friendship of the Athenians and the other that of the Spartans, and the best men at Corcyra, having become superior, had once taken liberty away from the people, it afterward happened that the people, assisted by the aid of the Athenians, again conquered the best men.
And so, after the yoke of servitude had been shaken off, they confined all the best men in a certain large prison. Then, leading them out of it ten at a time, one group after another, as though they wished to send them into exile, they afflicted them with various punishments. When the others in the prison were finally made more certain of this fact, they resolved to defend themselves from such foul punishments in whatever manner they could. Therefore, making an assault upon those who were entering the prison, they repelled them and prohibited their entrance. But when the people learned of this fact, they stirred up a tumult, opened the flooring laid over the prisons, and suffocated everyone at once through the collapse of the walls.
Several other examples of cruelty of this kind also occurred then in defense of liberty. Yet human beings are accustomed to avenge liberty when it has been taken away with a greater impetus than they are accustomed to be carried against those who wished to take it away. But not without reason might someone marvel in this place at the cause why those ancients seem to have labored far more for public liberty than we see done in our age. I indeed think that this happened for the same reason on account of which those same men were braver than ours, and that this reason depended for the greater part upon education itself and upon the difference between their religion and ours.
For since from our religion we perceive the truth of things, we learn from it at once to despise the honors and pomp of this world. But the pagans valued all these things greatly and thought that the highest good was situated in them; for this reason they were more ready and fierce defenders of things of this kind. This is apparent from many of their institutions. For if you compare even their sacrifices with ours, in theirs you will discern a certain dreadful magnificence, but in ours a certain delicate softness. In theirs the slaughter of many animals was joined to pomp and magnificence, and this terrible sight rendered even human beings fierce; ours lacks all these things.
The religion of the pagans rendered human beings blessed by no things other than glory and the praise of valor for affairs conducted well and successfully in war or peace. From the institution of our religion, those who are humble and devoted to the contemplation of divine things are judged more blessed than those who have accomplished great affairs. It establishes the highest good, moreover, in humility and contempt for the things of this world. The pagans believed that all things stood in the contrary manner, for they judged that the highest good was situated in greatness of spirit, in strength of body, and in all the other things customarily done by the bravest men.
This institution of the Christians’ life seems to have rendered the world unwarlike, so that it is customarily a certain prey for criminal and faithless princes. For most mortals, through hope of the blessed life, think more about enduring injuries than about avenging them, as though heaven ought to be acquired without any arms, by leisure alone. But that explanation of our religion is not free from error, and those who have so interpreted it were abject human beings to whom leisure rather than valor was dear. For the defense of one’s fatherland and the enlargement of its dominion by a legitimate manner are in no way opposed to the Christian religion. It is permitted to all to love their fatherland, to hold it in honor, and to prepare themselves for its defense.
But that inept manner of education brings it about that, if in our age you traverse the entire world, you can by no means find so many free peoples and so many free commonwealths as formerly existed, nor human beings who are lovers of liberty and its keen defenders. Indeed, the magnitude of the Roman Empire also contributed not a little to this, since it subjected the free commonwealths throughout the entire world beneath its yoke. But even after the Roman Empire had been destroyed, nevertheless only a very few were able to recover their former liberty.
At the time when the Roman Empire was being increased, there were found in every region many free peoples, many free commonwealths excellently instituted, and the keenest defenders of liberty; and consequently they could not be conquered and overcome by the Roman people without extraordinary valor. The Samnites alone can serve as an example. Livy testifies that they were so powerful in peace and war, and so keen as defenders of liberty, that they waged war with the Romans for forty-six years and could not be conquered entirely before the time of the consulship of Papirius Cursor, who was the son of the first Papirius, although they had suffered innumerable slaughters.
For this reason it is all the more worthy of pity if anyone sees in our age that region almost desolate which was formerly inhabited by so many free human beings and adorned with so many free and excellently instituted cities. All these things derive the cause of their difference from liberty and servitude. For whatever cities and regions enjoy liberty are augmented in resources, dominion, and multitude of human beings. For who would not more gladly procreate human beings in those places where marriages and resources are free than where there is fear that, if by your labor you have acquired something for educating your children, it may be taken from you by some tyrant? Where liberty exists, you are able to promise yourself not only that the children whom you beget will not be slaves, but also, if indeed they devote themselves to virtue, that they will be employed in public affairs.
Resources are augmented here, not only from agriculture but also from all other honorable arts, because we are all so disposed that we gladly acquire in that place where we hope to be able to enjoy in safety the things acquired. In places of this kind all competitively take account both of public and of private advantages and endeavor to augment them. But where human beings are oppressed by the yoke of servitude, all things occur in the contrary manner, and all the more so, the harsher the servitude has been.
The servitude of those cities and regions which obey the dominion of a free
commonwealth seems harshest. First, it is customarily of the longest duration, so that no hope of attaining liberty is set before them. Next, free commonwealths, for the sake of augmenting their own strength, are accustomed to diminish the power of cities subjected to their dominion and to suck out almost all their vital juice. Princes are accustomed to act otherwise—not those who are wholly barbarous, such as in our age are the eastern princes, corrupters of all civil life. The others, instructed in humane arts, are accustomed to be more equitable and to love their subjects; and they permit not only that their subjects acquire property by their customary arts, but leave their ancient statutes and laws intact, so that if, on account of this servitude, they can receive no further increase, they may nevertheless be able to preserve the things previously acquired by them.
And indeed in this place I speak of a principate which is occupied by an external man; concerning the tyranny which a citizen invades in his own fatherland, we spoke above. If you contemplate all these things diligently, it ought not to seem astonishing that the Samnites arrived at so great a power at the time when they enjoyed liberty and, after it had been lost, were ultimately reduced to the lowest condition. On this matter Livy says in the Punic War that the Samnites were oppressed by a single legion of the Romans near Nola to such a degree that they were compelled to send ambassadors to Hannibal for the sake of imploring aid. The ambassadors also complained of their misery before the Carthaginian: they were those who had waged war with the Roman people by their own strength for one hundred years and had often withstood two consular armies; now they had been reduced to such misery that they could not withstand a single legion.
§ 2. The Machiavellian propositions are these. First: In our age a single nation survives in which there are free cities, whereas formerly there were innumerable free peoples. Second: No commonwealth other than a free one enriches its citizens or acquires dominion. Third: In a monarchy it ordinarily happens that what is advantageous to princes harms citizens. Fourth: When some free commonwealth oppresses other cities with servitude, that servitude is both long-lasting and most harsh. Fifth: Account is taken of the public good only in free cities. Sixth: The Christian religion brings it about that human beings are not lovers of liberty; the Roman Empire also contributed not a little to this.
§ 3. These things must be considered from reason and experience. For Machiavelli himself denies that, when the Romans possessed dominion, there were free nations, except for a very few. If we regard more ancient times, sacred scripture teaches us that there were kings throughout the whole East, and this from the time of Abraham down to the Roman Empire. The Roman wars teach sufficiently that Italy possessed free peoples in the time of the Roman kings and consuls; nevertheless, not all were free, but many cities also had their own kings. Gaul and Germany, except when their inhabitants dwelt dispersedly, were governed by kings and petty kings, as likewise were the Spaniards and, apart from the Carthaginians, the Africans.
Now Venice, Genoa, Ragusa, Switzerland, Holland, indeed also cities of Germany, and the Kingdom of Poland, although it has a king, are free. But many abuse the name of liberty. For why is Venice free, because many myriads of citizens are so governed by a few nobles that they are compelled to obey their word, while they themselves do not rule in turn, but the Colony of the Ubii is not free, which is so governed by its own citizens that it possesses alternations of obeying and commanding, the moderated governments of magistrates, and the readiness of citizens in obeying, although it recognizes the emperor as its supreme head? But it recognizes an emperor who, according to the laws and received rights, examines and decides controversies.
If these things are examined by reason, we shall find very many entirely free cities in Europe. For liberty is various, and that which is judged the greatest, and exists in democracy, is plainly the worst of all. The Roman common people extorted this liberty to its own destruction: first laws, then tribunes, finally participation in magistracies and intermarriage, until all things were now within its power. Thus the Roman people would have denied that the Venetian people was free. For the former sought and retained tribunician aid against the fathers; the Venetian people remains within the power of the nobles.
§ 4. Second, he says: No commonwealth enriches its citizens unless it is free. If he speaks of a free commonwealth such as the Roman or Athenian commonwealth was, where the supreme power was in the hands of the people, then no commonwealth is now free, and none enriches its people; for all are governed by princes or by the best men, unless one pleases to except the Swiss. But there are many distinguished cities in our age, and there were formerly, which we see have attained great resources under the government of kings. Look upon the distinguished cities of Europe under the emperor and under the kings of France, Spain, Poland, and Britain, and show me free cities formerly in Greece with equal cultivation, equal felicity, and equal resources.
In Italy, in Samnium, in Campania, and in Latium there were free peoples, but certainly their cities were small, rustic, poor, and—to speak truly—barbarous rather than free. Florus, the epitomator of Roman history, says that his Quirites led a rustic life and carried off rustic spoils, the cattle of the Volscians and the flocks of the Sabines, until, after they had entered Asia, they carried resources and luxury home. But in Asia, what cities and of what quality were founded, fortified, and adorned by kings and burdened beyond measure with riches? Babylon, Nineveh, Ecbatana, Persepolis, Sidon, Jerusalem, Damascus, Tyre, Memphis, Sardis. The Holy Spirit in Ezekiel describes for us the riches of Tyre as an example of a prosperous city.
But in Italy Rome was then the greatest, and Capua next. For when a triumph was celebrated over Tarentum and Pyrrhus, they received their first experience of riches. “Before this day,” says Florus, book 1, chapter 28, “it had seen nothing but the cattle of the Volscians, the flocks of the Sabines, the wagons of the Gauls, and the broken arms of the Samnites. Then, if you looked upon the captives, there were Molossians, Thessalians, Macedonians, Bruttians, Apulians, and Lucanians; if upon the processions, there were gold, purple, statues, paintings, and Tarentine delicacies. But the Roman people looked upon nothing more gladly than those beasts which it had feared, with their towers: they followed the conquering horses with necks lowered, not without a sense of their captivity.”
The Roman consul himself, when he speaks of the ancient Romans, teaches us that they were ignorant of Asiatic riches. The Romans judged that only three cities in all the lands—Carthage, Corinth, and Capua—were able to sustain the weight and name of empire. Therefore what Machiavelli reports in the third place is false: that in a monarchy all things are referred to the advantage of the prince; for a legitimate prince regards the advantage and safety of the people, and by this end is distinguished from a tyrant. Moreover, to possess opulent peoples is also the advantage and dignity of the prince. And so the Roman city also grew under kings, as did the other Italian cities; the affairs of the Corinthians grew under the civil and humane administration of tyrants. Therefore, he who accuses princes of being intent solely upon their own advantage condemns them all, by one vote, of tyranny unless they are extraordinarily clement and liberal.
§ 5. It is therefore a consequence that this statement too is false, which he makes: In free cities alone is account taken of public advantage. Is that truly so? Did those who defended their peoples and poured out their blood, not from desire for dominion but in defense of their fatherland, and the founders of so many cities, temples, and academies, accomplish nothing for the public good? Cobblers, evidently,
and athletic anointers, while they are elevated by an annual government, take account of the public good, but kings and princes devote themselves only to their own affairs.
The contrary must therefore be established: in the government of the best men and of the people, each person is more zealous for his own advantage than for the public advantage. For the best men endeavor to turn the majesty and advantage of government toward themselves—to such a degree that at Rome the tribunes so often cried out, both spitefully and truly, that there were two cities. The common people regarded its own advantages: agrarian laws, new account books, and assemblies; it sought bread and circuses and the gifts of candidates. There was no mention of public advantage except where the magnitude of danger also threatened private losses.
T. Quinctius Capitolinus spiritedly reproaches his citizens with this: “But through these things the common interest is in a worse position: the field is burned, the city is besieged, the glory of war is in the hands of enemies. Yet in what condition are your private affairs? Now the report of his own losses from the fields is being brought to each. What, finally, is there at home from which you may replenish them? Will the tribunes return and restore to you 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. But from those assemblies no one of you has ever returned home increased in property and fortune.
“Has anyone carried anything back to wife and children besides hatreds, offenses, and public and private enmities, from which you are always safe not by your own valor and innocence but by the aid of others? But, by Hercules, when you served your campaigns with us as consuls, not with the tribunes as leaders, and in the camp, not in the forum, the enemies trembled at your shout in the battle line, not the Roman fathers in the assembly.”
§ 6. Finally, we admit that the Christian religion brings it about that human beings are less lovers of liberty, and this not only because they estimate fleeting and perishable things at their own value. For, instructed by divine oracles, they hope that one day they are to be asserted from servitude and the workhouse into the liberty of the children of God. They believe and follow the admonition of the Apostle: “Let each one remain in that calling in which he was called. Were you called as a slave? Let it not be a care to you; but if you can become free, use it rather. For he who was called in the Lord as a slave is the Lord’s freedman; similarly, he who was called as a free man is a slave of Christ. You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of human beings.” 1 Corinthians 7:20.
But they fear the governments of princes less—indeed, they willingly entrust themselves to them—because those princes also know that they are slaves of Christ and treat their fellow slaves moderately and clemently, mindful that they themselves stand in the sight of their common Lord. For where among Christian princes are found the familiar and customary savagery and plunderings of the ancients? But I shall show that it is a slander that our religion makes men soft, not brave, when I treat of fortitude.
Now I shall refute this impious pseudo-politics by the testimony of Tertullian and by reason. For if Christians so despise death and torments, how brave would they be in battle, they who possess so great a desire for an honorable death? They endure so many devices of executioners when they are able to rescue themselves from vexations with one word, if they should say, “I am not a Christian.” Certainly, if I wish, I am a Christian; you will therefore condemn me if I wish to be condemned. But since you cannot do what you are able to do against me unless I wish it, what you are able to do is now a matter of my will, not of your power. Hence the common crowd also rejoices vainly in our vexation; hence the joy which they claim for themselves is ours also, since we prefer to be condemned rather than to fall away from God. On the contrary, those who hate us ought to grieve, not rejoice, because we have attained what we chose.
Certainly, one who is prepared to die and laughs at torments is not unfit for war. And in the Apologeticum, chapter 5: “Therefore, you say, why do you complain that we persecute you, if you wish to suffer, since you ought to love those through whom you suffer what you wish? We plainly wish to suffer, but in the manner in which a soldier also wishes war. No one indeed suffers willingly, since both trembling and danger are necessary; nevertheless, he both fights with all his strength and, when victorious in battle, rejoices—the man who complained of the battle—because he obtains both glory and spoil.
“For us, the battle is that we are summoned before tribunals, so that there, under peril of the head, we may contend for truth. But victory is to obtain that for which you have contended. That victory possesses both the glory of pleasing God and the spoil of living eternally. But we are overcome. Certainly, when we have obtained our object. Therefore we conquer when we are killed; finally, we escape when we are overcome. You may now call us Sarmenticii and Semaxii, because, bound to the stake of half an axle, we are burned amid a surrounding mass of faggots. This is the attire of our victory; this is our palm-embroidered robe; in such a chariot we triumph. Deservedly, therefore, we do not please the conquered.
“For this reason we are judged desperate and lost. But this desperation and destruction, when it is among you for the sake of glory and fame, raises the standard of valor. Mucius willingly left his right hand upon the altar. O sublimity of spirit! Empedocles gave his whole self to the Etnaean fires of the Catanians. O vigor of mind! A certain foundress of Carthage gave herself to the funeral pyre as a second marriage. O proclamation of chastity! Regulus, lest he alone live in exchange for many enemies, suffers tortures over his whole body. O brave man, and victor in captivity!
“When Anaxarchus was being pounded to destruction with the pestle for barley-groats, he said, ‘Pound, pound the sack of Anaxarchus! For you do not pound Anaxarchus.’ O magnanimity of the philosopher, who jested even thus concerning his own end! I pass over those who contracted for praise with their own sword or some other gentler kind of death. For behold, contests of torments also are crowned by you. An Attic courtesan, when the executioner was now exhausted, finally spat her own chewed-off tongue into the tyrant’s face, so that she might spit out her voice also and be unable to confess the conspirators, even if, when conquered, she had wished to do so.
“Zeno of Elea, when asked by Dionysius what philosophy furnished and when he had answered, ‘Contempt of death,’ was cast, insensible to suffering, before the tyrant’s scourges and sealed his judgment even unto death. Certainly, the scourges of the Laconians, made more bitter beneath the eyes of kindred who even exhort them, confer as much honor of endurance upon their house as they have shed blood. O permitted glory, because it is human, to which neither a lost presumption nor a desperate persuasion is imputed in contempt of death and of cruelty of every kind; for which it is permitted to suffer as much for fatherland, for empire, and for friendship as it is not lawful to suffer for God!
“And nevertheless you both cast statues for all those men, inscribe images, and engrave titles for eternity, so far as you are able by means of monuments. Evidently, you yourselves also furnish this resurrection, in a certain manner, to the dead. Is he who hopes for the true resurrection from God, if he suffers for God, insane?”
Therefore softness is not the cause why Christians love their kings, but the ordinance of God, the moderation of those who command, and the virtue of those who obey. For the Romans also rejected their kings only on account of their vices. Florus himself is a witness, book 1, chapter 8: “Finally, the importunate domination of that proud man was of some—indeed, of the greatest—benefit. For thus it came about that the people, agitated by injuries, was inflamed with desire for liberty.” Most wisely, therefore, did Tertullian show that Christians were brave and could bear commands, since they could bear martyrdoms.
I shall conclude a little differently. If through the Christian religion so many Muciuses, so many Anaxarchuses, so many Zenos, so many Laconians, and all in a better cause, have been made, the Christian religion does not enervate the strength of human beings but confirms it. But concerning these things in their own place. Now, against the pseudo-politician, I give this warning: when I praise the just government of a just prince, I do not act against liberty.
It is an inestimable good to become one’s own. But, as Aristotle says, Metaphysics 1, chapter 2, the free man exists for his own sake, not for another’s. All judge loss of liberty the gravest, and
the poet sang with applause:
“οὐ θνῄσκει ζῆλος ἐλευθερίας.”
The love of liberty does not die.
And rightly Strabo also:
“Ἐλευθερία μόνη ἴδια ποιεῖ τῶν κτησαμένων τἀγαθά. Τὰ δ᾽ ἐν δουλείᾳ τῶν ἀρχόντων, οὐκ ἀρχομένων ἐστί.”
Liberty alone makes the goods of those who possess them their own; but the things that are under servitude belong to those who command, not to those who obey. But I have now shown that to obey a just government and one according to laws is not servitude, but the safest liberty. But if the prince departs from justice and breaks the laws through avarice, anger, and lust, nevertheless the tyranny of one will not be more grievous than the savagery and outrages of many masters.