§ 1. The origin of seditions, just as that of diseases arises from the constitution of the body, so arises from the extent of the empire and its diverse parts. Augustine, Book XIX, The City of God, chapter 7: “Although enemies are lacking, nevertheless the very breadth of the empire has produced wars of a worse kind, namely allied and civil wars, by which the human race is shaken more miserably, whether war is waged so that at some time men may come to rest, or whether it is feared that they will rise again.”
Discords of the people therefore frequently arise from no cause, but only from the wickedness and wantonness of the people and of those who lead the people. Of this kind were the seditions of the Israelite people in the desert, directed against Moses and Aaron and against God himself. For what was more equitable and benign than Moses? What was more propitious than God, who overwhelmed the ingratitude of the rebels with daily miracles and benefits? Nor was there any cause of sedition in Samuel, and yet those who rose up rejected him and sought a king. What moved the madmen to follow Absalom and then Sheba as leaders and to bring impious arms against David? I can think of nothing other than the successful wars of the holy king and the spoils of neighboring nations, and thence the luxury which had engulfed very many. Hence Absalom was more suited than David to the vices of the people, and Sheba, as a man of Belial, subject to and a patron of every most shameful man, would permit everything.
To this class I refer the most foolish spectacles on account of which frequent seditions were raised. Actors and pantomimes were expelled from Italy by Nero because various factions arose on their account, to such a degree that soldiers had to be stationed at the theater to restrain the quarrels of their supporters. Thus says Suetonius. Nerva restored them badly; Trajan again removed them well.
God often, on account of the sins of peoples, does not preserve the state even when the prince is excellent.
The Romans rose against Leo III without cause and occasion; the Venetians against Vitalis Michael, alleging that a plague had invaded the city after the fleet had returned; the Bolognese against their own magistrates and Neapolio the legate. Thus seditions frequently arise for which there is no cause in the rulers and no pretext of a cause at all.
§ 2. The cause of Sheba’s war, indeed, was faction and envy, because the tribe of Judah had brought the king back while the others were not present. “Why,” they say in 2 Kings, chapter 19, “have our brethren the men of Judah stolen you and brought the king and his household across the Jordan, and all the men of David with him?” And: “I am greater by ten parts in the king, and David belongs more to me than to you. Why have you done me an injury, and why was it not first reported to me that I might bring my king back?” But the men of Judah answered the children of Israel more harshly. What is here other than pure love for the king? And yet see the changeable disposition of the people. In chapter 20, Sheba son of Bochri sounded the trumpet and said: “We have no portion in David, nor inheritance in the son of Jesse. Return to your tents, Israel.” And all Israel separated itself from David and followed Sheba son of Bochri. So easily does contentious envy change men’s minds. The part that had been slighted at once attaches itself, not to some noble and brave leader, but to Sheba son of Bochri, a man of Belial. They therefore envied the tribe of Judah—whose perpetual kingdom had been promised—its good fortune, and through the contagion of one man they go mad; for when he had been slain, all came to rest.
The malicious common people, indeed, always behold the good fortune of the nobles with sidelong eyes and, when they can, oppose it. That rust sucks the state dry, and no one can break and lay it low; then it hands the bloodless state over to its enemies to be torn apart.
Such was that famous sedition of the peasants in England: for they complained not so much that they were oppressed as that they were not equal to the nobles. In the year 1381 the men of Kent refused every yoke and said that the nobles must be removed from their midst. They said that all had been born without distinction from the same Adam and that all were equal. And so, after taking up arms, the faction killed many of the magistrates and nobles, plundered their goods, and compelled the king to accept unjust conditions, until at length its authors were punished. Of this kind were the assemblies of the Athenians when they punished with exile illustrious and eminently deserving men.
§ 3. Another customary cause of seditions is when powerful men have consumed their patrimonies. Aristotle most wisely noted this cause in Book V of the Politics, chapter 6: “Changes also occur in oligarchies when a few powerful men who govern the state have consumed their family property by living intemperately. For such men are eager for revolution and either themselves seize a tyranny or prepare another man as tyrant: in this manner Hipparinus prepared Dionysius at Syracuse, and at Amphipolis a certain man whose name was Cleobinus brought the Chalcidian settlers into the city; and when they had come, he rendered them hostile to the wealthy and incited them against them. And at Aegina, the man who conducted that business which concerned Chares attempted to change the form of administering the state for such a cause.”
Sometimes, therefore, they attempt to move and innovate something; sometimes they steal public money, from which either they disagree and quarrel among themselves or those who oppose and resist these men as they plunder the state do so—something which happened at Apollonia, I mean the city in Pontus. There is no need to recount modern examples after these ancient ones: those whose resources at home are bad or nonexistent, while their hope is far richer, are seditious. They seek abroad the means of living. In general it is accustomed to happen thus: they attempt to soothe their own evils by the common destruction. They are cheerful in disturbed affairs because some hope shines upon them; in peace their own troubles oppress them. Hence they prefer tumult and uncertain dangers to the certain evils of their own household.
Let the magistrate therefore hold it certain that there are as many enemies in the state as there are men who have ruined their property through wickedness and lust. Julius needed a royal fortune merely in order to have nothing, for he had poured everything out in largesses. There are Catilines and Cethegi for whom the disgraces of poverty arising from luxury are an incitement to crime. Demades, an Athenian orator, formerly very wealthy, was at length expelled from the state as a poor man, having been accused of falsehood seven times. But there is no need to seek foreign examples: the histories exhibit Curio, Milo, and the other wretched disturbers, and especially Julius Caesar and Antony the triumvir.
§ 4. The state is also overthrown when matters gradually reach the point that the power of the magistrate is diminished and those whom the laws command to obey are more powerful. For they do not obey the command unless it pleases their mind. Hence the Roman Empire is rendered weak when there are two or three princes who, if they oppose the emperor, would without doubt bring great difficulties upon the state. The cause is that power without strength is despised.
Thus, Aristotle testifies, the state of the Thebans was changed because there were more and better and stronger men who were not admitted to the administration of the state. The same thing happened to the Megarians, the Syracusans, and the Rhodians. Nor did anything else destroy the empire of Constantinople than princes dissenting from the emperor and possessing such power that he could not reduce them to concord. For in this way it happens that the power of the rich is such as utterly removes the vigor of the magistrate; and in a great empire the power of princes does the same.
Indeed, magistrates elected by lot and commoners destroyed the state of the Athenians. For it is shameful that those should be elected to command others whose relatives, parents, and children no one would dare to name because of shame. Hence noble men endowed with a great spirit, through contempt for base rulers who are mocked even by the common people, can easily conspire and transfer the power to themselves.
§ 5. Dissimilarity also can easily stir up seditions, as when different nations are under one king and some cannot endure the others. Aristotle records that this happened at Clazomenae and Athens. In our own time also we have frequently seen armies collected from various nations mutiny among themselves. We have also seen most illustrious cities agitated by the seditions of admitted foreigners. At Aachen especially the Belgian settlers, who had left their homeland because of errors and rebellion and were already practiced in civil evils, caused disturbance and expelled the Catholics. They did the same at Wesel and Bremen after the Lutherans had been reduced to order.
In former times there was greater danger from this circumstance, when colonies were sometimes led out from different peoples, especially if they were mingled with the old citizens. Thus we frequently read that the beginning of slaughter occurred in colonies. Diversity of regions, however, has more force toward discord than diversity of nations.
§ 6. But if we regard the matter itself, the same cause of seditions arises from the people as from rulers, since, just as men possess the same nature, so also their vices have an affinity. Florus admits this concerning his own Rome in Book V, chapter 12: “For what other thing produced civil madnesses than excessive prosperity? Conquered Syria first corrupted us, and soon thereafter the inheritance of the king of Pergamum in Asia. Those resources and riches ruined the morals of the age, and cast the state, drowned as in a sewer by its own vices, into destruction. For whence would the Roman people have demanded lands and provisions from the tribunes, unless through the hunger which luxury had made? Hence, therefore, the first and second Gracchan seditions and that third, the Appuleian.
“Why was the equestrian order commanded by the Senate to rule through the judicial laws, unless from avarice, so that the revenues of the state and the very courts might be held for profit? Hence again citizenship was promised to Latium, and through this came the arms of the allies. But what of the servile wars? Whence did they come to us, unless from the abundance of households? Whence came armies of gladiators against their own masters, unless lavish largesse, when it indulges the favor of the plebs with spectacles, makes an art of what were once punishments of enemies?
“Now, that we may touch upon the more specious vices, was not canvassing for honors incited by the same riches? Yet thence came the Marian, thence the Sullan tempest. Or did not the magnificent provision of banquets and costly largesse arise from opulence, soon to produce poverty? This drove Catiline to become an enemy of his own fatherland. Finally, whence did that very desire for principate and domination come, unless from excessive wealth? Yet this armed Caesar and Pompey with the torches of the Furies for the destruction of the state. Therefore we shall pursue in order all these domestic disturbances of the Roman people, separately from external and lawful wars.”
All these things are assisted and intensified when they rage among the people: both because they are spread abroad among very many and because the people do not readily resist vices. There is more spirit than counsel in them; they are unstable and change their opinions as the breeze changes storms. They are desirous of movements and changes because there are many agents among them, many who desire revolution. For just as every land is welcome to sailors suffering from hunger and thirst, so every change seems likely to bring something better to poor, restless, afflicted men. This is Plato’s oracle in the Axiochus: “The people are ungrateful, easily wearied of things, changeable, cruel, envious, unlearned, since they are collected from the dregs of the plebs and from violent impostors. They regard as honorable that which is praised by the majority.”
§ 7. The greatest and almost incurable kind of sedition is that which arises from superstition. For its principle arises from the innermost mind and drives men to every deed, lawful and unlawful, nor does it cease so long as superstitions occupy their minds. It is pleasing in this place to repeat the warning which Justus Lipsius, a most illustrious man and the great glory of our age, gives in his book Against the Dialogist. His words are these: “Therefore I warn you princes earnestly: beware. From nothing does greater danger come to empires and scepters than from an innovated or deceitfully simulated religion. For such men move especially the minds of the plebs and under the appearance of piety impel them where they wish.
“Shall I give examples? Behold these few. Eunus formerly lived in Sicily as a slave (Florus, Book III, chapter 9, and Diodorus Siculus in the Fragments); after feigning fanatical madness, while he tossed about the hair of the Syrian goddess, he stirred slaves to liberty and arms as if by command of the gods. Having gathered an army of more than sixty thousand, and openly bearing himself as king, he had subdued all Sicily, had Roman arms not with difficulty restrained him.
“What of that Egyptian false prophet under Claudius, who in Judaea (Josephus, Book II of the Jewish War, chapter 12), through this very appearance of piety, attached to himself as many as thirty thousand men? With them he sought Jerusalem, intending to possess that citadel and seat of kingship, had he not been met by the governor Florus and defeated and slain in battle.
“Was not the deed of that Maricus under Vitellius very similar? He, the ‘liberator of the Gauls and god’—for he had given himself that name—after stirring up eight thousand men, was drawing the nearest villages of the Aedui with him and was himself about to dare greater things, when the fanatical multitude was crushed or scattered by picked soldiers.
“What of Elmaheli in Africa? He, as Johannes Leo relates in Book II, having won over the people by a marvelous reputation for holiness, openly brought war upon his own king, the king of the Moroccans—Abraham then held that office—defeated him in battle, and deprived him of kingdom and life.
“A different impious man in the same Africa—called Chemen Mennal—practiced a fraud and met a fate not unlike his (the same Leo, Book III). He stirred against the king of Fez a people enticed by the vanity of rites and religion, forbade tribute to be paid, and finally drove the king by open force to the point that by agreement he handed over to him the kingdom of Tlemcen.
“Among the Turks themselves, as the Turkish annals relate, were affairs not stirred several times under this pretext? There was a certain Schaecoculis, a man of simulated holiness, who for this purpose generally dwelt in solitary places; the Turkish prince Bayezid himself, from veneration for his piety, was accustomed to send him annual little gifts in his cave. When the time seemed ripe, after seven years he came forth, disseminated a new sect, and found patrons and followers. With these he invaded and plundered several cities of Asia and defeated the pasha of Anatolia himself in a regular battle. Indeed, a little afterward he also defeated Corcut, son of Bayezid, and soon Ali Pasha, who came against him with strong and veteran forces.
“Why say more? He had brought the Turkish state into the greatest danger when it seemed good to him to turn toward the borders of the Persians, whose king belonged to that same sect. For this is the sect of the Sophilarians, which even now is a chief cause of war between those two peoples. But when on the journey his soldiers attacked and plundered a certain Persian caravan—for thus they call a company of travelers—and killed most of the travelers, Ismael Sophi, king of the Persians, bore it so ill that he immediately exposed the man himself and all his commanders to his guards to be slaughtered, while the rest of the multitude was adjudged and distributed into servitude. This just Nemesis overtook that scoundrel.
“In the same Asia, very recently under Prince Suleiman, as the Turkish annals relate, a certain Calender Zelebis rose up to make a revolution, covered with this very veil of piety. With some number of dervishes he routed several sanjaks and called all Anatolia to arms. But Ibrahim Pasha, sent under the authority and auspices of Suleiman, destroyed him and his faction after a battle of uncertain issue.
“What of the island of Crete—for we must come to ridiculous matters? How wickedly and dangerously did a certain Jew impose upon his own people under the emperor Theodosius, as Socrates relates in Book VII of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 37? He pretended that he was present as a new Moses, sent from heaven to rescue them from long servitude. He therefore went about from town to town and exhorted them to leave wealth and friends and to follow him into that land of promise; and he added, after the example of the ancient Moses, that he would lead them across the sea itself. They believe him; they assemble; an immense multitude, every age and every sex, proceeds to the promontory under his leadership; they set out for the blessed land. He orders them to leap down, and this was done by very many with insane confidence. They were immediately drowned, with only a few of them caught up by fishing boats.
“The chief author of the crime appeared nowhere, whether he was a man or an evil spirit in human appearance. Finally, were there not such monsters in our own age or that of our fathers? That famous John of Leiden, the welt and stain of his city, a tailor by trade, dreamed of kingdoms and scepters and would have attained them after the city of Münster had been captured, had not the princes of the empire besieged and recovered it with a powerful army and visited him and his followers with condign punishments. Thus I may rightly conclude these things with Livy’s saying in Book XXXIX: ‘Nothing is more deceptive in appearance than corrupt religion, when the divine power of the gods is put forward as a pretext for crimes.’ But if you seek the madnesses of religions and superstitions, read the histories of our age: you will understand that nothing is more efficacious for tumult, slaughters, and tortures.”
§ 8. Guilds and associations also are frequently accustomed to be the seeds of discord, when, not as members of the whole state but as certain independent cities inserted into a great city, they arrogate to themselves more power than is expedient for the common good. Hence ἑταιρίαι (“associations”) and assemblies are prohibited in the laws of the empire, and on this occasion persecution sometimes raged against the churches of the Christians.
Augustus, as Suetonius is our authority, abolished all guilds except the ancient ones. All, that is, except the ancient ones; for those established by Numa remained, as Plutarch is our authority. The various artisans had been distributed into groups, as is accustomed to happen now in cities. There was one law common to all: “That associates who possess the right of assembling shall have power to establish for themselves whatever compact they wish, provided that it does not impair anything in the public law.”
This law must especially be maintained, and all associations must be judged unlawful which have not united under the authority of the magistrate; they must therefore be dissolved, as Marcian laid down. But when others too are rendered suspect in any manner whatever, they must immediately be prohibited, as was done in Italy to the guilds of the Pythagorean philosophers. Yet in former times these men were dealt with barbarously: by a public judgment the philosophers were burned together with their schools—unless perhaps most of them were magicians, which indeed seems probable to me.
Guilds, therefore, must be governed by laws so that they may serve the public good; or, if anything is done privately against the public good, the law of Marcian, Digest 47, title 22, must be observed: “Provincial governors are instructed by imperial mandates not to permit guilds or associations to exist, nor soldiers to have guilds in the camps. But men of slender means are permitted to contribute a monthly payment, provided, however, that they assemble only once in a month, lest under the pretext of this sort an unlawful guild assemble. The deified Severus also declared by rescript that this has place not only in the city but also in Italy and the provinces. They are not, however, prohibited from assembling for the sake of religion, provided that by this means nothing is done contrary to the senatus consultum by which unlawful guilds are restrained.
“It is not lawful, however, to belong to more than one lawful guild, as was established both by the Deified Brothers; and if anyone shall belong to two, it was declared by rescript that he ought to choose in which one he prefers to be, and that from the guild which he leaves he shall receive that which belongs to him by reason of the property that was held in common. A penalty has been established: whoever assumes an unlawful guild is held by the penalty by which those are held who have been judged to have occupied public places or temples with armed men.
“Concerning guilds not specially authorized the law is: If any guilds shall be unlawful by mandates, constitutions, and senatus consulta, they are dissolved; but when they are dissolved they are permitted to divide the common funds, if they have any, and to distribute the money among themselves. In sum, unless a guild or any such body has assembled by authority of a senatus consultum or of Caesar, its members hold a guild contrary to the senatus consultum, the mandates, and the constitutions.”
§ 9. No war in Greece was more destructive than the Peloponnesian War. It was civil; the victors over the Persians contended among themselves; it lasted twenty-seven years; many cities were destroyed, all were made mournful by slaughters, fields were ravaged by flame and sword, and the destruction of Athens was deliberated. But what was the cause of the war? The Megarians had burned a grove. Moved by this deed, the Athenians barred the Megarians from their own harbor and from Attica. The Megarians refer the matter to the Spartans; the Spartans desire the law to be repealed. Pericles admits that the cause is of no great importance, but says that liberty is at stake and the patience of Athens is being tested. For if they accept the command now, it must thereafter be endured. He persuaded them of this not only as the greatest orator but also as a trusted counselor. For in truth the Lacedaemonians were threatening the liberty of all, and the other cities sought dominion, for which reason they also destroyed them all.
§ 10. A most slight sedition in Otho’s time is famous, arising from an inconvenient distribution of arms. Tacitus, Book I of the Histories, recounts it in this manner: “A sedition which under Otho arose from a small beginning, from which nothing was feared, nearly proved the destruction of the city. Otho had ordered the Seventeenth Cohort to be summoned into the city from the colony of Ostia. The care of arming it was given to Varius Crispinus, a tribune of the praetorians. The more freely to execute his orders while the camp was quiet, at the beginning of night he ordered the wagons of the cohort to be loaded after the armory had been opened.
“The time became a ground of suspicion, the reason an accusation, and the pursuit of quiet grew into tumult. The sight of arms among the drunken stirred a desire for them. The soldiers roar and accuse the tribunes and centurions of treason, as though the households of senators were being armed for the destruction of Otho. Some were ignorant and heavy with wine; every worst man sought an occasion for plunder; the common people, as is customary, desired any novel disturbance; and night had removed the obedience of the better men.
“They cut down the tribune who resisted the sedition and a most rigorous centurion; the arms are seized, swords drawn, and, mounted upon horses, they seek the city and palace. Otho was holding a crowded banquet; he himself fears and is feared by his guests. Magistrates and old men and women scatter through the darkness and seek uncertain hiding places by diverse routes through the city. The onset of the soldiers was not restrained even by the doors of the palace from breaking into the banquet, while they demanded that Otho be shown to them. Julius Martialis the tribune and Vitellius Saturninus the prefect of the legion were wounded while they resisted those rushing in. On all sides were arms and threats, now against the centurions and tribunes, now against the entire Senate, their minds frenzied by blind fear; and because they could designate no one man for their anger, they demanded license against all, until Otho, standing upon the banquet couch contrary to the dignity of imperial command, with prayers and tears restrained them with difficulty. They returned to camp unwillingly.”
Otho did this in a sedition most dangerous to the city of Rome: after the first disturbance he entered the camp of the mutineers, calmed or rebuked the soldiers with a gentle speech, and ordered that punishment be taken upon no more than two, who were corrupt and drunken. This measure of severity was gratefully received, and for the present the soldiers who could not be restrained were pacified.
§ 11. Ill-considered liberality of princes also frequently gives cause for discords. For when something is given to one man which another contends is his own, the disputes grow to such a point that not even the giver can quiet them. Thus it happened in the Low Countries in the year 1007. Baldwin the Bearded, count of Flanders, after many services to the emperor Henry II and after winning his favor, obtained from him as a gift Walcheren together with the other islands of Zeeland—and at the same time the material of discord, quarrels, and wars between the Flemings and Hollanders. These were so bitter and protracted that at intervals they lasted for the space of four hundred years, the Hollanders referring their right and the liberal donation to Emperor Louis, son of Louis the Pious, while the Flemings in no way yielded because of Henry’s more recent donation.
§ 12. It also seems difficult to me to preserve liberty where there is indeed one duke, but one whose power is small and, as it were, held on sufferance, whom, while they elect him for the sake of honor, they guard as if suspect, so that neither they themselves nor the duke appears safe. Marino Faliero, elected duke by the Venetians, resolved to destroy the Senate; and had the affair not been revealed through accomplices, he would have perpetrated the crime. Baiamonte Tiepolo had also undertaken to do this through treachery and, after a great slaughter had been committed, was finally defeated. Egnatius, Book IV. Hence it is advisable either to elect no duke or such a one as through guards can accomplish nothing throughout his lifetime; for laws are not sufficiently strong to restrain ambition, and the minds of men are insufficiently steadfast.
§ 13. A marvelous contention about empty things is a cause of seditions and war. Gaspard de Coligny judged it a just cause of war that a place more honorable than that of the French envoy had been given to the Spanish envoy before Maximilian. A greater controversy between the Englishman and the Spaniard obstructed serious business in the year 1598. There was a similar quarrel between the Florentine and the man of Ferrara. Opportunities to wage war against the Turk have sometimes escaped through those trifles.