§ 1. In Chapter XVI Machiavelli commends to his prince the appearance of liberality, but in reality avarice. First, indeed, he does not deny that it would be best for the prince to be regarded as liberal; but surely it is better that he both be liberal and be regarded as such. For if he is not truly liberal but only hunts after the reputation, he will cast himself and the commonwealth into great evils: either, liberal only in countenance and words, he will deceive men and thus incur hatred, and by delaying his benefits will himself spoil them; or, by failing to observe a measure, he will take away from the worthy what he may bestow upon the unworthy.
§ 2. Next, he rightly reproves the man who, in order to retain the name of beneficence, pours out everything, who must thereafter turn to plunder and rapine, and whom public hatreds will easily overthrow, since he takes from all what he gives to a few. Third, he says that it is better for him to be sparing, for in this way all from whom he has taken nothing will be his friends. Fourth, that a reputation for liberality is necessary to those who are about to seize a principality. Finally, he advises him to be generous with what belongs to another.
And again, if someone were to say that many princes have existed who performed great deeds with their armies and yet excelled in that beneficence, it must be said that a prince makes expenditures either from his own goods or from those of others. If the former, he ought to be sparing; if the latter, it is necessary that he omit no part of liberality. But this liberality is necessary to a prince who leads an army on an expedition—an army that must be maintained by booty, pillaging, and tribute—and who handles the goods of others; otherwise the soldiers would not follow him. What is not yours or your people’s can be conferred more liberally, as it is agreed was done by Cyrus, Caesar, and Alexander. For what you spend from another’s goods does not diminish your reputation but rather makes it more abundant; but from the consumption of your own resources comes detriment to you. And there is nothing that consumes itself more than liberality, in the use of which you lose the ability to use it and are reduced to want or to contempt of you; or, if you judge poverty to be avoided, you then turn to rapine and to procuring hatred for yourself.
This counsel is wicked, for in order that princes may appear liberal, he commands them to be robbers and plunderers of the whole world. But that course turned out well neither for Cyrus, nor for Alexander, nor for Caesar—wealthy brigands—and it will not turn out well for any prince. Apart from the civil wars, Caesar cut down eleven hundred thousand human beings, and almost always had avarice as the cause of his wars; at last he paid for all those things with his own wounds. Alexander was harassed by a brief enjoyment of goods ill-gotten, and he devoted his whole progeny to the vengeance of the nations he had violated. Cyrus’s insatiable greed wasted away in human blood.
Yet I advise this to a prince: if he wages a just and lawful war, let him show himself munificent toward his commanders and soldiers, and let him distribute not only booty, but also villages, castles, cities, and little provinces as fiefs or on an emphyteutic tenure to those who have deserved well, together with a new title of honor. For in this way he will always secure a faithful and ready band of soldiers and commanders, because they will defend their own possessions more steadfastly than the prince’s. But those matters pertain not so much to liberality as to military prudence, which I shall discuss in Book X.
§ 3. True liberality, therefore, is fitting for a prince and is especially becoming, because, as a virtue that wins the greatest favor, amid so great an abundance of material it appears altogether divine. It is a measured rule in preserving and expending wealth, holding the middle between the extremes of avarice and prodigality. In the affection it is named benignity; in the effect, beneficence. The Greeks sometimes call it ἐλευθεριότητα, sometimes δαψίλειαν; but εὐδαπανία especially expresses the force of this virtue, for liberality places all expenditures well. And although they are received by the ungrateful, another’s baseness nevertheless does not contaminate the dignity of liberality, just as it is not contrary to the beauty of the sun that its shining rays fall into caves and sewers.
There are, moreover, two kinds of liberality: one of giving a benefit, the other of repaying one. I dealt with repaying in the preceding discussion, for it pertains to gratitude. I now deal with giving, of which the manner is likewise twofold, for it is accomplished either by service or by money. It is always a great virtue, whether it is brought forth from the treasury or from labor. “He who gives benefits,” says Seneca, “imitates the gods; he who demands them back, moneylenders.” Nothing is more adapted to the nature of man than liberality. For by nature we are inclined toward liberality. Nature commands human beings to benefit human beings. But it placed the prince on high so that he might demonstrate his greatness by doing good.
The beneficence which is in a prince also has this feature, that it is most properly called liberality. For it is so called not because it is given to free men, but because it proceeds from a free spirit—one not coerced, not bound, and not demanding repayment. The prince is supremely free in giving; neither fear extorts his liberality nor hope bids for it. Nature commends beneficence to all; the prince, because he is a father, and the commonwealth, because it is a mother, and both, because each is rich, ought to exercise it. For a prince to be conquered in arms is human; to be conquered in liberality is disgraceful. Anaxilaus was capable of a great monarchy, for he judged the happiest thing in a kingdom to be not to be conquered in benefits. I consider it a great thing among human affairs to be incapable of being conquered in this way; yet I consider that kings can be conquered. For it is a matter of great virtue to be the friend and intimate of a prince who can easily be offended and, when offended, can do much harm. To be the prince’s friend, I say—not the friend of his purple, nor of one’s own hope.
Nor did Alexander define the best king badly: he is the one who binds both friends and enemies by benefits. By benefits, not words; for liberality in words together with a restriction of benefits scarcely becomes even a private person, and that pretence cannot be concealed for even one year. For when many petitioners understand that words have been given them, they think themselves mocked by a flattering prince, not assisted by a beneficent one. Only by a favorable interpretation might a prince approve the softened form of this:
Let him be munificent in praise, but not prodigal of gold.
For that great flatterer retains an image of liberality, and in words shows what is becoming, while avarice forbids deeds akin to the words. Yet I do not say these things in order to maintain that the affections ought not to be shown. For, as Seneca rightly admonishes in On Benefits, neither gold nor silver nor anything of those things which are received from one’s neighbors is a benefit; rather, it is the very will of the giver. Care must be taken that the man who receives the gifts recognize this will.
Therefore let the prince determine that what Ptolemy, the richest of kings, said is true and has been set before him for imitation: “It is more kingly to enrich than to grow rich.” And what Artaxerxes said with the same meaning: “It is more kingly to add than to take away.”
§ 4. Therefore let the prince be generous. But in beneficence let him follow measure and reason, not impulse.
First, indeed, let him make a selection of those to whom he gives, for benefits are not to be poured out rashly upon the multitude.
When you have undertaken to bestow benefits upon the multitude, many must be lost in order that you may place one well.
You will not understand this as though the prince ought not to show himself beneficent toward the wretched common people, for those in misery must especially be succored. But judgment ought to accompany that liberality; otherwise, if by inept largesse he fosters the vices of the people, under the appearance of liberality he deceives both himself and the peoples. The grain-distribution and the meat-distribution were a foul corruption of the Roman plebs; luxurious ambition fattened the crowd beneath the Rostra and in the theater, which was fit for being driven to riots in every vice. Augustus condemned this, but did not dare remove it. Thus Suetonius: “He writes that he conceived an impulse to abolish the public grain-distributions forever, because through reliance upon them the cultivation of the fields had ceased; and yet he did not persevere, because he held it certain that at some time they could be restored through ambition. And so thereafter he moderated this matter in such a way that he took no less account of farmers and merchants than of the people.”
No less criminal is a false liberality of another kind, which was also prohibited. Caesar decreed, as Tacitus says in Book XIII, that no magistrate or procurator who governed a province should present a spectacle of gladiators or wild beasts or any other public entertainment. For previously they afflicted their subjects no less by such largesse than by seizing their money, while through canvassing they defended what they had committed through lust. I would not even approve the custom of the Persians, among whom it was customary for a king to deny nothing to the first petitioner. For, such is human malice, something joined with disgrace or injury could be sought, and the new king would be compelled either to dishonor the beginnings of his reign by a crime or, contrary to the received custom, to deny the requests with the reproach of avarice.
§ 5. Second, it belongs to liberality to give things that will not cause harm. I am not speaking of cruel gifts, of δῶρα ἄδωρα, of gifts that are no gifts, such as those of Heliogabalus, who scattered presents so that those running together for them would crush one another and perish transfixed upon the soldiers’ shields. Rather, I speak of those gifts which do harm more secretly, such as those of Vespasian, who appointed the most avaricious men as provincial governors and afterward slaughtered them when they were full of plunder, so that he was said to use them as sponges. Why does he entrust jurisdiction to an irascible man, the treasury to an avaricious man, an army to an insolent man? He will not give even money to a prodigal any more than he will give a sword to a madman. Now it is so common that a great part of princes’ gifts is lost and that a man is struck by the very adornments bestowed upon him.
Seneca says in Book IV of On Benefits, Chapter X: “To return a deposit is a thing desirable in itself; nevertheless, I shall not always return it, nor in any place whatsoever, nor at any time whatsoever. Sometimes it makes no difference whether I deny it or return it openly. I shall consider the advantage of the man to whom I am about to return it, and I shall refuse him the deposit if it will harm him. I shall do the same in the case of a benefit. I shall see when I give, to whom I give, in what manner, and why. For nothing must be done without reason; and it is not a benefit unless it is given according to reason, since
reason is the companion of everything honorable. How often have we heard this utterance from men reproaching their own ill-considered gift: ‘I would rather have lost it than given it to that man’? An ill-considered gift is the most shameful kind, and it is much more grievous to have given a benefit badly than not to have received one in return. For it is another’s fault that we do not receive back; that we did not choose the man to whom we would give is ours. In making my selection, I shall regard nothing less than what you suppose I will regard: from whom I am going to receive back. For I choose one who will be grateful, not one who will repay. Often a man who will not repay is grateful, and a man who has repaid is ungrateful. My assessment is directed toward the spirit. Therefore I shall pass by a rich but unworthy man; I shall give to a poor good man. For he will be grateful in the utmost want, and when he lacks everything, his spirit will remain. I do not seek profit from a benefit, nor pleasure, nor glory. Content to please one man, I shall give for this purpose, that I may do what I ought; but what I ought to do is not without selection. You ask what sort that selection will be? I shall choose a man of integrity, sincere, mindful, grateful, abstaining from another’s goods, not avariciously tenacious of his own, and benevolent.”
And in Book II, Chapter XIV: “There are certain things which will harm those who command them to be given; not to give but to deny these is a benefit. Therefore we shall assess the advantage rather than the will of the petitioners. For often we desire harmful things and are not permitted to discern how pernicious they are, because affection interrupts judgment. But when desire has subsided, when that impulse of the blazing spirit which puts counsel to flight has fallen, we detest the authors of pernicious, evil gifts. As we deny cold water to the sick, and a sword to those who mourn and are angry with themselves, or to lovers whatever their ardor seeks to use against themselves, so shall we persevere in not giving things which will cause harm, even when they ask earnestly and submissively, and sometimes even pitiably. It is proper to regard both the beginnings of one’s benefits and also their ends, and to give things which delight not only when they are received but also after they have been received. There are many who say: ‘I know this will not profit him, but what am I to do? He asks; I cannot resist his entreaties. Let him see to it: he will complain about himself, not about me.’”
§ 6. Third, it is neither becoming for a prince, I add, nor safe, to give without reason. Seneca says in Book II of On Benefits, Chapter XVI: “The frenzied Alexander, who conceived nothing in his spirit that was not grand, was giving a city to someone. When the man to whom it was being given had measured himself and shrank from the ill will belonging to so great a gift, saying that it did not suit his fortune, Alexander said, ‘I do not ask what it is fitting for you to receive, but what it is fitting for me to give.’ This utterance appears high-spirited and kingly, although it is most foolish. For nothing is fitting for anyone in itself; it matters what is given, to whom, when, why, where, and the other circumstances without which an account of the deed will not stand. Most swollen creature! If it is not fitting for him to receive this, neither is it fitting for you to give it. Let there be a proportion of persons and dignities; and since there is everywhere a measure of virtue, what exceeds sins equally with what falls short. Let this indeed be lawful for you, and let fortune have raised you so high that your distributions are cities: how much greater a spirit did it take not to accept them than to scatter them? Yet there is someone too small for a city to be founded in his lap. Who would think that he was going to receive, or had received, anything great when he sees an uncultivated and unworthy man made the master of a state? What will be bestowed upon veteran commanders, comrades-in-arms, and the flower of the Macedonian nobility? Each man grieves more that he has been placed after one unworthy man than that he has been made equal to many. If a city is to be given because you are king, give it to your own men and to the veterans of your father. Prince, give to the faithful; give to prudent counselors; be sparing toward lyre-players, fowlers, and entertainers—this is praiseworthy. Those men soothe the senses for a brief time; the others relieve a great part of your labors and die for you.”
§ 7. Fourth, this rule must be observed: let liberality be proportionate to one’s means; thus you will give without yourself being in want. Yet I forbid it to be sordid. Dio writes of Galba: “He was insatiable in heaping up money, as though he lacked many things, and he expended so little of it that he bestowed upon some men not drachmas but obols.” Antigonus mocked Diogenes more in jest than from avarice. For when Diogenes asked for a talent, he refused and added that it was more than a Cynic ought to ask; but when, after being refused, Diogenes asked for a denarius, he replied that it was less than it was fitting for a king to give. Let liberality, therefore, be proportionate to one’s means. In whatever way you can, be merciful: if you have much, bestow abundantly; if you have little, strive gladly to impart even a little. Aristotle says that it pertains to liberality not to bestow in such a way as to leave fewer things for oneself. For great liberality can exist even amid small resources.
Seneca says excellently in Book I of On Benefits, Chapter VI: “It is the spirit which exalts small things, makes sordid things illustrious, and dishonors things great and held in esteem. The things themselves which are sought have neither nature, neither of good nor of evil; it matters where the directing spirit impels them, by which a form is given to things. Therefore the benefit itself is not what is counted out or handed over. Just as even in victims, though they be the finest and shine with gold, the honor of the gods does not consist in them, but in the pious and upright will of the worshipers. And so the good are religious even with meal and a little sacrificial cake; the wicked, in turn, do not escape impiety, although they have stained the altars with much blood. If benefits consisted in things and not in the very will of doing good, they would be greater in proportion as the things which we receive are greater. But that is false. For sometimes he who gave small things magnificently binds us more: he who in his spirit equaled the riches of kings; who bestowed a little, but gladly; who forgot his own poverty while he regarded mine; who had not only the will to assist but an eager desire; who thought that he was receiving a benefit when he gave; who gave as though he would not receive, received as though he had not given; who both seized and sought an opportunity that might profit. On the contrary, thankless are those benefits—as I have said—which, although they appear great in substance and appearance, are either extorted from the giver or fall from him; and what is given with a ready hand comes much more agreeably than what is given with a full one. ‘What he conferred upon me is little, but he could do no more. But what this man gave is great; yet he hesitated, yet he delayed, yet he groaned when he gave, yet he gave haughtily, yet he paraded it about, and wished to please not the man upon whom he bestowed it. He gave to ambition, not to me.’”
§ 8. Fifth, let him also give quickly. He who was willing late was unwilling for a long time. Delayed gratitude makes a benefit unwelcome. Every benignity hastens; it is characteristic of one who acts willingly to act quickly. But in a prince inequality must especially be guarded against in this matter. He has an aged minister, a veteran commander; that man sees others enriched in a short time for slight services that involved no danger, while he himself is abandoned—and it is not so bitter to be abandoned as not even to be admitted into the crowd. Whatever they see given to men less worthy, they think has been taken from themselves. Therefore, in this matter a most honorable promptness must be established. For they cease to love a prince by whom they think themselves passed over. A stage-player or flatterer in one hour snatches away what a senator awaits for ten years, what a faithful soldier has earned with much blood. And sometimes a new lyre-player receives the rewards of a veteran commander.
But if they observe that order is preserved and that honors and riches are distributed with regard to merits, they will attempt to prove their service for the opportune time, and will judge not that they themselves have been deferred, but that others have been sent ahead.
§ 9. Sixth, a prince must often moderate his liberality not according to his own judgment but according to the good of the commonwealth, for gifts must often be conferred upon the unworthy so that they may do no harm. It pertains to the stability of rule to bind the spirits of wicked men by benefits, so that they may do harm less or later, or may abandon an altogether depraved will. At the beginning of his reign Nero bound every very powerful man to himself by largesses, as Tacitus relates.
After a drinking-party, liberality and affability were Alexander’s salvation, for one of the conspirators disclosed the devices undertaken for his murder. The wicked whom you have bought in this way will not be faithful, nor will traitors to whom you have given a price; rather, after receiving the bait, they will withdraw, lest they seem to owe obedience. Nevertheless, they will hope again.
§ 10. Seventh, to give willingly, to give quickly, and to give before you are asked are the adornments and, as it were, the seasonings of benefits. But to give even secretly and without causing shame to the recipient is greater than the gifts themselves. It is a rare virtue to be unwilling that one’s liberality be known to men, and to wish it to be hidden even from the recipient. Rare, I say, and so praised in Saint Nicholas, bishop of Myra, and celebrated throughout the Christian world by the pleasantness of little gifts received with gratitude: many have given more; few have escaped the recipient’s awareness. Those who give with the best spirit and do not reckon up their benefits so that they may pass into the form of a debt nevertheless desire those to whom they give to be grateful. That holy bishop wished the benefit to be pure; he permitted nothing to be deducted from it and therefore concealed it. But God, who had seen in secret, made it public in the sight of this sun, and seeks imitators.
§ 11. A liberality that supports ancient and noble families and raises up afflicted cities is welcome and suitable for strengthening a kingdom. Suetonius relates thus of Vespasian: “He was most liberal toward every class of human beings. He made up the senatorial census; he sustained impoverished men of consular rank with five hundred thousand sesterces annually; he restored to a better condition very many cities throughout the whole world which had been afflicted by earthquake or fire.”
Tiberius incurred great hatred because of certain noblemen who were poor not through their own fault but through the injustice of fortune and whom he haughtily rejected. The reason is that nothing appears so wretched to everyone as nobility cast down; all favor such men, all pity them, and sometimes even their enemies do. Therefore the glorious liberality of a prince affects the spirits of all, especially those of noble and powerful men. Many examples show how much pity a noble house and disposition arouses for itself when it has undergone an unworthy fortune.
Valerius, Book VIII, Chapter I: “Aulus Gabinius, in the greatest heat of his infamy, was subjected to the votes of the people, with Gaius Memmius as his accuser, and seemed to be a man whose hope was cut off, because both the prosecution was plainly discharging its part and the supports of the defense rested upon feeble trust, while those who were judging, with headlong anger, eagerly sought the man’s punishment. The lictor and prison therefore stood before his eyes. Meanwhile, all these things were dispelled by the intervention of favorable fortune. For Gabinius’s son Sisenna, driven by consternation, prostrated himself as a suppliant at the feet of Memmius, seeking some alleviation of the storm from the place whence the whole violence of the tempest had burst. The insolent victor repelled him from himself with a savage countenance, struck the ring from his hand, and allowed him to lie upon the ground for some time. This spectacle caused Laelius, with all the tribes of the plebs approving, to order Gabinius released, and furnished a lesson that neither ought one insolently to abuse the outcome of prosperous affairs, nor ought anyone hastily to be broken by adverse ones.
“Likewise, Lucius Piso, accused by Publius Claudius Pulcher because he had inflicted grievous and intolerable injuries upon the allies, escaped the fear of an undoubted ruin by a chance assistance. For at the very time when grim votes were being cast concerning him, a sudden violent rainstorm broke out. And as he lay prostrate on the ground kissing the feet of the judges, he filled his face with mud. When this was seen, it transferred the whole court from severity to clemency and gentleness, because they judged that he had paid the allies sufficiently grievous penalties when he had been brought to this point of necessity: that he was compelled either to cast himself down so abjectly or to raise himself so hideously.
“Quintus Flavius the augur was prosecuted before the people by Gaius Valerius the aedile. When he had been condemned by the votes of fourteen tribes, he cried out that he, though innocent, was being crushed. Valerius replied in an equally clear voice that it made no difference to him whether he perished guilty or innocent, provided that he perished. The violence of this statement gave the remaining tribes to his adversary. He had cast down his enemy; when he believed that same man certainly ruined, he raised him up and lost the victory in the midst of victory itself.
“Marcus Aemilius Scaurus also, when accused of extortion, brought a defense so ruined and given up for lost into court that the accuser said that the law permitted him to summon one hundred and twenty men to give testimony, and that he would not object to Scaurus’s acquittal if he named just as many from whom he had taken nothing in the province. Although he could not make use of so favorable a condition, nevertheless he was acquitted because of the extreme antiquity of his nobility and the recent memory of his father.”
If the people so favor the wicked—indeed, if even the sworn judges themselves do so—how much love will the commonwealth or the prince gather for itself if it makes innocent and good men, whom impoverished nobility burdens more than it adorns, equal to the honor of their birth? Lactantius spoke truly of all liberality in his book On the Anger of God: “Justice and beneficence are as immortal as the mind and soul, which by good works attains the likeness of God.”
§ 12. Ninth, I would also admonish the prince to exercise liberality toward his own family and agnates. But because, out of many, few sin in that direction, while the churches frequently complain that the riches of provinces are heaped upon little nephews and little kinsmen, the hand which is munificent toward its own family alone and not toward the fatherland seems instead to need restraining. I shall speak opportunely of this matter when I have treated magistrates.
§ 13. Tenth, let a prince never pour out everything from a full granary, or, as the Greeks say, from a βαθὺν σάκκον, “deep sack.” Let him give frequently and in portions. The reason is that in this way recipients will remember both the present gift and past gifts, and benefits are heaped upon benefits; then, if they receive the whole at once, they easily run away, whereas an eager hope for the future detains those who otherwise would depart. Hence princes frequently have it in their mouth that this is given not as a gift but as an indication of favor; that it will not be the last, but will be the beginning of a more ample beneficence.
Finally, no one has received so much from a prince that he has not wished for more and does not hope for more. Seneca described this disposition in one man, but it exists in almost all, in Book II, Chapter XXVII of On Benefits: “Gnaeus Lentulus the augur, the greatest example of riches before his freedmen made him poor—he saw four hundred million sesterces belonging to him; I spoke precisely, for he did nothing more than see them—was of a disposition as barren as it was petty. For although he was most avaricious, he let coins escape more quickly than words, so great was his poverty of speech. Although he owed all his advancements to the deified Augustus, to whom he had brought poverty laboring beneath the honor of nobility, and though he was now the first man of the state in money and favor, he was accustomed from time to time to complain to Augustus, saying that he had been drawn away from his studies; that nothing had been heaped upon him equal to what he had lost by abandoning eloquence. But among other things the deified Augustus had also conferred this upon him: he had freed him from ridicule and useless labor. Greed permits no one to be grateful, for what is given is never enough for a depraved hope. The greater the things that have come to us, the greater the things we desire; and avarice placed amid a heap of great wealth is much more aroused, just as the force of an immense flame is fiercer the greater the conflagration from which it has flashed forth.”
Therefore a prince can enrich many, but satisfy few.
§ 14. Eleventh, care must also be taken that liberality not appear compelled. Daniel, long neglected by Belshazzar and already almost unknown, is summoned in the utmost necessity; honors and the third place in the kingdom are offered to him. But he did not want the gifts of a kingdom about to perish, which would have made his cause worse before the conqueror, and so he freely rejects them: “Let your gifts,” he says, “be yours, and give the gifts of your house to another.”
When Antiochus and other kings of Syria were in fear and danger, their promises toward the Jews were abundant but unwelcome, because they were extorted by fear. Therefore the prince will promptly preoccupy the spirits of the nobility and the plebs by gifts and advantages. For what is given in danger they think has been thrown away because it cannot be retained, and they think it will be recalled when the fear has been removed. When the kings had been expelled and the Roman Senate saw a great mass of war approaching from Etruria, it prudently granted much to the people—indeed, it courted the people: the consul lowered the fasces; it permitted appeal to the people; it was liberal toward those bound by debt and debtors; it lived on equal terms of law with the plebs; and, what is of the highest importance for conciliating the spirits of the common people, it remitted taxes, took care for the grain supply, and gave salt without charge.
If these things are given in such a way that they appear to be gifts of necessity, besides being harmful they alienate the people still more. For from the prince’s great fear and distrust of his own affairs they judge him prodigal and no longer liberal, though until now he has devoted himself to avarice. Just as, when they see merchandise thrown into the sea from a ship breaking apart, those standing on the shore, although they do not see the cause of such great losses, nevertheless infer that the passengers are in great danger, so also, when the plebs suspects hidden dangers from an avaricious prince’s sudden largesse, it transfers its hopes and affections elsewhere.
§ 15. Twelfth, give to the powerful. In Tacitus, Book III, Nero binds each of the most powerful men by largesses. In a good cause, for the safety of the people, the prince will carry owls to Athens, wood into a forest, and water into the ocean. For because the greed of the rich is more aroused, and the costly life of the powerful needs many things, to conciliate them by gifts belongs to liberality; but to alienate them by neglect belongs to avarice. The prince will not fear to imitate the example of a prudent supplanter, who said, Genesis 32:20: “I shall appease him with the gifts which go before me, and afterward I shall see him; perhaps he will be propitious to me.”
§ 16. Thirteenth, since princes are in great danger of avarice and tenacity—for patrons of the treasury and of rapine are always present, and besides this human nature is greedy for riches, while with an increase in money the madness of greed is increased—he will ensure this one thing before all else: that he not be ready to receive. And so he will moderate all tolls and tributes. He will appoint just and upright collectors.
Therefore he will certainly persuade himself that such abundance as exists in bodies when a quantity of vicious humor distends them is not the support of a kingdom but its pestilence: when treasuries swell with unjust exactions, but the subjects have neither property nor any hope except in a change of affairs. Such is the prince who is never wearied τῷ κερδαίνειν—“in making gain,” as Epictetus said to Hadrian. Such is the prince who heaps the riches of the world into one house, as Severus, the most avaricious of all emperors, had undertaken to do. Such was Justinian, whom Zonaras records to have been always avaricious, always needy, and often prodigal. Yet there is no need of ancient examples: the emperor of the Turks exceeds the rapacity of all, for he judges everyone’s resources to be his own.
§ 17. Let a magnanimous prince weigh in his own mind that it is greater, and certainly more welcome, to benefit all than to possess great riches. For to what purpose are great treasures unjustly collected and heaped up over many years, which one Julius will break open and one Gaius will dissipate? The labor of avarice belongs to the avaricious man; the advantage belongs to his successor, and often to an enemy.
An example for us is Haolonus, mentioned in the history of Hayton the Armenian, Chapter XXVI, “Armenia.” He, the brother of Mango Khan, the fourth emperor of the Tartars, baptized in the year 1258, captured Baghdad, or Babylon, and ordered the caliph to be brought to him and all his treasure to be carried to him. Haolonus then said to him, “Why did you not summon your neighbors and mercenaries to you with so great a treasure, to defend you and your country from the incursions of the Tartars?” He replied, “I seemed to myself to have enough strength if I fought with my own men alone.” Haolonus answered, “You are the master of all who believe in Mohammed the false prophet; therefore so great a master ought to be nourished by no food other than this treasure. Let this be your food.” Thus he shut him inside a chamber filled with gold and gems, without any food, and compelled him to die of starvation.
Midas’s fate in this respect was milder, for by his touch he turned everything into gold; for at least he delighted his eyes by variety and transformations of things.
Deadly money adheres to an avaricious prince no less than to private persons, and it is not torn away without feeling. Avarice may even appear to be proof of a great spirit: it lies upon heaps of gold and silver, cultivates fields under the names of provinces, and under each individual steward possesses territories wider than those which consuls used to receive by lot. This vice is fatal among the powerful. For they draw not merely estates and houses, but kingdoms and nations into their patrimonies. They join not only house to house and couple field to field, but join kingdoms to kingdoms and seas to seas, and expend the deaths of nations upon a single title.