§ 1. No state is to be judged powerful unless it possesses the lofty and strong defenses of cities. Today, indeed, there is no one who doubts that cities and towns must be possessed and fortified; dispute concerns only the manner and method. For in former times the boast of the Spartans was ridiculed because they called the valor of their young men their walls: if shield should cling to shield and man stand close-packed against man. It was a great and ruinous error, even in the judgment of the Spartans, who afterward encircled their city with walls and then themselves judged those cities powerful which were surrounded by walls, towers, and ditches. For they stripped Athens, their rival city, of its walls: at Lysander’s persuasion the ephors judged that this should be done, and, when it had thus been disarmed, they oppressed it with the Thirty Tyrants. They placed a garrison upon the citadel and the Piraeus. Why did they destroy the walls of that most renowned city, unless in order to enervate its strength?
Sparta, ungenerous and ungrateful, gave a notable monument of this same judgment, but one full of envy and injustice, as Nepos is the authority in his Themistocles, together with Plutarch, Diodorus Siculus in book 11, and Frontinus in book 1, chapter 1. For when Xerxes had been defeated at Salamis—the foremost glory and command in that victory belonging to the Athenians—and they returned to their fatherland and began to rebuild the walls, or rather to restore everything that had been thrown down, the Spartans, through envy of their glory and fear of their future power, sent ambassadors to explain that it would be contrary to the safety of all the Greeks if they constructed walls; for if the Persians returned and occupied the cities, from them the whole Peloponnese and all Greece could easily be harassed. They would have prevailed, had Themistocles not frustrated the attempts of these concealed enemies by counsel and artifice. I wished to say this on account of the young men in whose mouths that ecstatic oracle is always found:
ἀσπὶς ἄρ᾽ ἀσπίδ᾽ ἔρειδε, κόρυς κόρυν, ἀνέρα δ᾽ ἀνήρ.
Shield should support shield, helmet helmet, man man. Just as the ancients ridiculed this, so it is harmful even now; for at the present time a few cannon would scatter that wall. Therefore, one who intends to defend great wealth with a small force and without danger will build for himself fortified cities, equipped to the highest degree with every kind of provision and instrument of war. For he who has no defenses of cities is continually tossed about in danger and takes less thought for his safety than wild beasts in the forests and birds, which choose the safest forests and rocks for the protection of their offspring.
§ 2. The care of building cities is most ancient. Cain built the first and called it Enoch after the name of his son. After the Flood Babel followed—for the times before the Flood are obscure—and very many cities were built thereafter, as is evident from the history of Abraham, who was born not yet three hundred years after the Flood. At that time there were not only cities, but destructions of cities, far-ranging wars of nations, and servitudes imposed by kings, Genesis 13. In the land of Canaan, strong cities walled up even to heaven, which especially terrified the children of Israel, had been founded in the time of Moses. David afterward built and fortified cities; Solomon even built distant ones, such as Palmyra in the desert; and Jehoshaphat, although in his army, apart from the garrisons of the cities, he numbered one million one hundred and sixty thousand most valiant soldiers, nevertheless built walled cities in Judah. If we look to our own times, the Spaniard holds the New World by means of cities that have been constructed. For he plants very many and very large colonies and possesses exceedingly populous cities; yet, if one considers the East Indies, he maintains supremacy in navigation over so vast an extent with very few fortifications.
§ 3. Care for and protection of cities procure for a prince a multitude of people, arts, wealth, and the other things by which power grows and is made secure—and, what is chief, love of the fatherland that is to be defended. In former times there were no towns in Germany and Britain. The Britons call it a town when they have fortified tangled woods with a ditch and rampart. Strabo says in book 4 that, after constructing huts in groves, they stable themselves there with their herds. Therefore at that time the Germans had no power except when they were borne into battle by a single onrush; and if they were repulsed, they remained quiet. When sought at home, they lay hidden among forests and marshes.
For the same reason they suffered every extremity as the Vandals, Goths, and Huns passed through. When the Empire had been transferred to us, then abundance of wealth and power began to flourish. A German author speaks thus about this condition: “I hold it as most certain that in that age—the age of Caesar—there were no cities, and scarcely anything resembling country houses and villages. For when we read through the records of Strasbourg, endowed with even a modest antiquity, we see that in the times of the Ottos that city had scarcely as much space enclosed within it as an undistinguished town. The same account is commonly given of Mainz, Worms, Speyer, and Nuremberg, which nevertheless received their growth in the times of the Henrys. Trajan, as Dio of Prusa, a Greek author, testifies, began two exceedingly populous cities of Dacia which even today adjoin the Danube; and I am easily led to believe that those were the first cities of the Danube. Thereafter, in the times of Constantine and Julian, as trustworthy annals assert, towns were fortified indiscriminately by the dukes of Swabia; these now obey the Empire, and among their number are Ravensburg, Ulm, and others. Thereafter Attila, the destroyer of all Germany, utterly destroyed Basel, Worms, Strasbourg, Regensburg, Nuremberg, Salzburg, Cologne, Jülich, and other towns. These were restored in part by Saint Rupert the bishop under the auspices of Theodo, duke of Bavaria, and by other bishops. Thereafter Pepin and Charlemagne increased cities to such a degree and endowed them with so many bishoprics, just as Dagobert had done before them. Thus the greater part of all Germany, while it was under their Empire, received its beginning and increase from the kings of the Franks and from the line of Charles, as we shall pursue more fully concerning each city separately when mention is made of it. At the time when the Empire was transferred to us, the cities of Germany were also made more populous.”
But now Germany abounds in so many fortified and wealthy cities that it yields utterly to no region and altogether surpasses them all—not only Asia and Africa, but also the rest of Europe. For neither Spain nor Italy could contend with us in the number of great and wealthy cities. For although no city of Germany surpasses Lisbon, Venice, or Paris, German cities nevertheless surpass those of other countries in number. For no kingdom has cities which it could set against these in equal size, wealth, and strength. They are Antwerp, Lille, Ghent, Cologne, Dordrecht, Amsterdam, Bremen, Hamburg, Lübeck, Danzig, Nuremberg, Augsburg, Vienna, Basel, and Strasbourg. I know many cities larger than these, such as Leuven, Lüneburg, Brunswick, Brandenburg, Erfurt, and Prague, and many equal to them; but I deny that in any kingdom there can be found as many equal to those fifteen which I named in the first place.
§ 4. In founding and adorning cities, those things which Aristotle advises in book 7 of the Politics must always be kept before one’s eyes—in founding and arranging them, I say. Today few are founded, both because there are many already and because suitable places have been occupied, so that the preservation of cities must now be the chief concern. Advantageous fields, rivers, and harbors must be sought.
Therefore, when a prince observes opportunities of this kind, he will attend that city with privileges and benefits, so that in a short time it may become a great city. Thus the celebrated city of Lille grew in our time; thus Dunkirk can grow by means of its harbor, thus Gravelines, thus Goa in India. So Koblenz could grow, wealthy through the confluence of two commercially busy rivers; so could our Mainz, advantageously placed for the commerce of the upper and lower regions, filled also with the riches of Gaul and the lands beyond the Rhine, and abounding in wine and grain. Upon these, I say, labor is usefully expended; for cities which lack the advantages peculiar to their locations spend money in vain. Hanau long ago ceased to grow, separated as it is from the Main; and those who first built it paid for their rashness with their own loss. Frankenthal grew rapidly, but now it comes to a halt, being more widely separated from the Rhine; and when Worms and Speyer have increased their commercial enterprise, Frankenthal, caught between them, will lose the hope of growing.
§ 5. We shall easily judge those cities to have been built in an advantageous site which, after having suffered adversity rather often, have flourished again; for the place seizes men’s affections and holds them by its advantages. Above all I require a fertile place, because poverty is the fountainhead of sedition, and God willed to give his people a fertile land. Dinocrates the architect foolishly contemplated an Alexandria on Mount Athos, to whom Alexander rightly said: “From where will it be able to obtain food?” As regards the quarters of the heavens, little consideration has been given to this matter in Germany. Although our Mainz faces east and north, consideration was given to its fields, rivers, springs, and mountains.
§ 6. Those two conditions can be obtained only with difficulty: that an advance into another’s territory be easy, but an enemy’s approach difficult. In former times many cities were situated on mountains: the descent was easy, the entrance difficult. But because the method of warfare, and also that of provisioning, has changed, cities which are on mountains and afford little convenience for provisions and all other things are not strong. Thus now also we see the castles situated on the hills of the Rhine and Moselle for the most part deserted.
Now as to what some say—that the fortifications of cities are dangerous because enemies, once they have captured them, are secure in them—this has already been refuted above in the treatment of money. For a city ought to be defended by valor and prudence. Who doubts that the single city Tyre resisted Alexander more than the whole kingdom of Darius did? That same city closed its gates to Nebuchadnezzar and detained the conqueror of nations. Thus Ezekiel 29:18: “Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made his army serve a great service against Tyre: every head was made bald, and every shoulder was made bare; yet no recompense was rendered to him or to his army from Tyre for the service which he performed for me against it.”
Therefore he took all Egypt—that is, hundreds of cities—more easily than Tyre, because it is easier to receive a reward than to earn it by laboring. Thus in the memory of our fathers one Vienna, but a faithful Vienna, resisted the Ottomans more than half of Hungary and more than the whole Peloponnese.
§ 7. They say that wealthy cities, once they have easily acquired means, rebel; for satiety and riches are followed by the desire for liberty and honor. But a remedy for this evil will be provided by the just and mild government of the prince, the election of trustworthy men to magistracies, and the binding of those same men to him by honors and benefits. Nor is this to be neglected: that those who might be the instigators of disturbances should possess properties in other places, so that through fear of losing them they may prefer the prince’s favor to all things. He will also grant those privileges which, if the city should deserve it, he can immediately withdraw.
Aachen, a renowned city and royal seat, received immunity from tolls from Charlemagne—a vast benefit if one considers the citizens, but in turn a close obligation not to offend the emperor, who could overturn their fortunes with one word, one sheet of paper. Therefore citizens of this kind will listen to no Manliuses, no Clodiuses or Curios, not even Brutuses. Thus Frankfurt, a renowned emporium, is protected by the right to hold fairs, which it possesses by the favor of the emperors. That right is great and alone preserves the city; but the same right nevertheless makes it a city faithful to the Empire, for it can be stripped of it by a single edict. In no city of Europe are there greater riches than in Lisbon, which is the emporium of the whole world, distinguished for its harbor, buildings, and number of people. But there is no danger of defection, because by one edict its merchants’ wares, dispersed throughout all the royal cities and ports, can be confiscated. For this reason also they detested Antony’s rebellion, because they saw that, if they were impeded by a domestic war, they would easily lose the Indies.