The essential writings of Machiavelli (36 page)

253.
Sallust writes in
Bellum Catilinae
(32): “[Catiline] and a few other men set out in the dead of night to Manlius’s encampment, leaving behind Lentulus [and] Cethegus, of whose bravery he was certain […] to further the plots against the consul, start a massacre, set fire to the city, and plot other destructive actions of war. He promised that he would soon march on the city with a large army.”

254.
Sallust writes in
Bellum Catilinae
(41): [The Allobroges] demanded an oath in writing from Lentulus, Cethegus, Statilius, and Cassius, which they could carry back with them under seal, otherwise, they said, it would not be possible to secure support for such a great endeavor.”

255.
Machiavelli follows Justin’s description in
Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus
, Book XXI, chapter 4.

256.
Pisistratus had gained influence in Athens after his victories in the Battle of Megara (635
BCE
), and established his own political faction. Plutarch in
Parallel Lives
, “Solon,” describes how Pisistratus inflicted wounds on himself and made a dramatic entrance into the Athenian agora in his chariot, claiming that his enemies had attacked him. The Athenians accorded him an armed bodyguard with which he subsequently seized power.

257.
Pandolfo Petrucci, 1452–1512, had been exiled from Siena for his involvement with the Noveschi (Council of Nine), the former ruling party of Siena. Petrucci returned to Siena in 1487.

258.
Justin writes in
Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus
, Book XXI, chapter 4: “Frightened of being sentenced he rounded up twenty thousand armed slaves and captured a fortress…. There he was captured, and after being whipped, and having his eyes gouged out and his arms and legs broken, as if penance as to be drawn from every single limb, he was slaughtered before the eyes of the people.”

259.
See discussion of Laetus and Eclectus’s conspiracy earlier in this chapter.

260.
Book II, chapter 26, above.

261.
Livy describes the incident in Book VII, chapters 38–41.

262.
In 1342, Walter de Brienne, titular Duke of Athens, became Signore of Florence. He was, however, deposed the following year.

263.
As Machiavelli writes in
Florentine Histories
, Book II, chapter 36: “[The Duke of Athens] wanted to show everyone that he believed himself beloved by all. Thus, when Matteo di Morozzo, either to acquire his favor or free himself from danger, revealed to the duke that the Medici were conspiring against him, not only did not inquire into the matter, but had the informer put to a cruel death.”

264.
Plutarch describes the incident in
Parallel Lives
, “Dion,” chapters 54 and following.

Selections from
T
HE
A
RT OF
W
AR

The Art of War
is a richly woven work on military tactics, politics, and the philosophy of war. Machiavelli wrote it in 1519 or 1520, and it is his only political work published in his lifetime. Though since its first publication in English
L’Arte della Guerra
has been known as “The Art of War,” a more correct rendering of the title might be “The Craft of War.”

Machiavelli wrote this work at a time when Italy
—
and Florence in particular
—
was beset by wars and international intrigue. He regarded these ills as caused by political and military blunders. As in
The Prince
and The
Discourses,
the message of
The Art of War
is that ancient history
—
particularly the Roman model
—
could be relied upon as a paradigm to bring Renaissance Italy out of its dire straits. Though in his preface Machiavelli professes that “it is an audacious act for a man like myself to take up matters of which he has no professional experience,” one must be careful not to take him at his word; as Secretary of the Second Chancery in the Republican government of Florence he was responsible for military strategy
.

Machiavelli divided The
Art of War
into a preface and seven books, presenting the narrative in a series of dialogues between the great mercenary general Fabrizio Colonna and a company of young Florentine noblemen. Machiavelli gives Colonna lengthy monologues in which Machiavelli’s ideas and philosophy are systematically presented. Modern scholars have argued that Machiavelli was weak as a practical military strategist and that he underestimated the degree to which firearms and artillery would shape the future of warfare. But for centuries after its first publication
, The Art of War
was extremely influential, military leaders relying upon it for strategy. In Voltaire’s words: “Machiavelli taught Europe the art of war.”

P
REFACE

By Niccolò Machiavelli, Citizen and Secretary of Florence, on the Books of the Art of War, to Lorenzo di Filippo di Strozzi,
¹
Florentine Patrician

Many, Lorenzo, have held the opinion, and still do, that nothing in the world is more unlike civilian life than military life. Therefore one often sees an immediate change in a man who chooses life in the army: not only in his clothes, but also in his manner, habits, and voice as he distances himself from every civilian convention. This man will not believe that, striving to be unencumbered and ready for any violence, he can assume a civilian manner. Nor can a man keep civilian customs and habits when he sees the customs as effeminate and the habits as unfavorable to his task, nor does it seem right to him to maintain his ordinary appearance and words when, with his beard and blasphemies, he wants to instill fear in other men. This is the way of thinking in our times. But if one considers ancient institutions, one will not find anything more united, more harmonious, and of necessity with greater affinity for each other than civilian and military institutions. All the professions pursued in a society for the common good of man, and all the institutions created to make him live in fear of the laws and of God, would be in vain if provision were not made for their defense. If this defense is well organized it will also maintain those institutions that are weaker, while good institutions without military backing become as disordered as the bejeweled chambers of a proud and regal palace without a roof: If the chambers are not covered, they will have nothing to protect them from the rain. If in the civil institutions of a city or a kingdom every diligence is employed to keep men loyal, peaceful, and filled with the fear of God, such diligence should be redoubled in the military. Where can a state find greater loyalty than in a man who must promise to die for her? Who would have a greater love of peace than a man who can only be harmed by war? Who would have a greater fear of God than a man who every day faces infinite perils and has more need for God’s help? This necessity, considered carefully by legislators and men in the military profession, had the effect in ancient times that the life of the soldier was praised, imitated, and carefully followed by other men. But military institutions are now completely corrupted and much changed from the ancient ways, which has led to mistaken ideas that make men hate the military and avoid any interaction with those who have soldiery as their profession.

I have come to the opinion, from what I have seen and read, that it is not impossible to restore the army to the ancient ways and bring back some form of past skill and prowess. In order not to let my leisure pass without doing something constructive, I have decided to write what I know of the art of war for the satisfaction of those who are admirers of ancient deeds. Although it is an audacious act for a man like myself to take up matters of which he has no professional experience, I do not believe it amiss to assume with words a position that many, with far greater conceit, have assumed with deeds. The errors I might commit in writing about these things can be rectified without anyone’s coming to harm, while the errors others have committed with actual deeds come to light only with the downfall of their government.

Consider therefore, Lorenzo, the quality of my efforts, and evaluate them with the kind of blame or praise you believe they merit. But I send them to you to show myself grateful for all the benefits I have received from you—though my efforts in no way equal my debt to you—and also because it is the custom to dedicate works such as this to those who are resplendent in their nobility, wealth, intellect, and generosity. And I know that you have few equals in wealth and nobility, fewer in intellect, and none in generosity.

1.
Lorenzo di Filippo Strozzi (1482–1549) was a member of the group of gentlemen and intellectuals who met in the Orti Oricellari, the gardens of Cosimo Rucellai’s family, and was a patron and friend of Machiavelli.

BOOK I

Fabrizio Colonna passed through Florence on his return from Lombardy where he had fought long and gloriously for the Catholic king,
²
and decided to stay several days to visit His Excellency the Duke
³
and several gentlemen of his acquaintance. Cosimo
⁴
took the opportunity to invite him to his gardens, not so much to show his generosity as to have an opportunity to converse with him at length and learn all the things one can expect from such a man. Cosimo looked forward to spending a day discussing matters that would satisfy his curiosity.

As Cosimo hoped, Fabrizio Colonna came, and was received by him and several of his closest friends, among whom were Zanobi Buondelmonti, Battista della Palla, and Luigi Alamanni.
⁵
Cosimo was close to these young men, who shared his passion for the same studies, and whose qualities I need not touch on, as they shine forth every day and every hour.

Colonna was received with great honor. The banquet was soon over, the tables cleared and the festivities concluded, which happens quickly with great men whose minds are turned to lofty thoughts. As the day was long and the heat intense, Cosimo decided to take the opportunity to escape the sun by leading his friends to the more secluded and shaded part of his garden. When they sat down there—some on the grass, which in that spot is very fresh, some on chairs in the shadow of the tallest trees—Colonna praised the place as delightful. But he gazed bemused at the trees, not recognizing some of them. Cosimo noticed this and said, “It might be that you have no knowledge of a number of these trees, but this should not surprise you, as some of them were more highly prized in ancient times than they are today.” Cosimo told him their names, and how his grandfather Bernardo had worked hard to cultivate them.

“I thought that might be the case,” Fabrizio replied. “This place and this pursuit bring to mind several princes of the Kingdom of Naples, who delighted in what the ancients cultivated and the shadows it cast.” He fell silent, and then, as if hesitating, added, “I would give you my opinion, were I not concerned that I might offend you. And yet I do not believe I would be offending you, because when one converses with friends one simply discusses, one is not finding fault. How much better would your grandfather and the princes have done—may they rest in peace—to seek resemblance with the ancients in rough and solid matters, not in what is delicate and soft; in matters accomplished under the sun, not within the shadows, to choose the ways of a true and perfect antiquity, not ways that are false and corrupt. Because once such pursuits began to please the Romans, our country came to ruin.” To which Cosimo replied …—But so that I may avoid repeating “he said” and “the other added,” I shall note only the name of whoever is speaking, without repeating anything else.
⁶

COSIMO:
You have opened the way to a discussion that I hoped for, and I beg you to speak freely, for I shall not hesitate to ask you questions just as freely. And if in a question or answer I should defend or accuse anyone, I will do so not in order to defend or accuse that person, but only as a matter of argument in order to hear the truth from you.

FABRIZIO:
I will be happy to tell you what I know about anything you ask, and will leave you to judge whether it is true or not. I will be grateful for your questions, because I wish to learn as much from you in what you ask as you will from me in what I answer. For often a wise questioner leads one to consider many things and to realize many others, things that would never have been realized had the question not been asked.

COSIMO:
I want to return to what you said first, that my grandfather and the princes of Naples would have done better to resemble the ancients in rough things rather than in delicate ones, and I wish to defend my side because I hope you will defend yours. I do not believe that any man of my grandfather’s era disliked living in ease more than he did, and he was very much a lover of the rough life that you praise. Nevertheless, he recognized that he himself could not live by these norms or compel his sons to do so, as he had been born into such a corrupted era that anyone wanting to depart from the common way would be defamed and vilified by all. If a man were to roll naked in the sand under the hottest sun, or roll in the snow during the coldest months of winter, as Diogenes did, he would be thought mad.
⁷
If a man were to raise his children outside the city the way the Spartans did, making them sleep in the open, go about with bare head and feet, and bathe in cold water to harden them, so that they might endure every ill and have less love of life and less fear of death, he would be derided by everyone and considered a beast rather than a man. Or if one sees someone living off vegetables and scorning gold, as Gaius Fabricius Luscinus
⁸
did, he would be praised by few and followed by none. Hence, constrained by our present way of living, my grandfather turned from the ways of the ancients, and imitated them only in matters that would draw the least attention.

FABRIZIO:
You have gallantly defended him, and you certainly speak the truth, but I was referring not so much to harsh ways of life as to the kind of humane ways of the ancients that could be adapted to our manner of living today. I believe these could easily be introduced by someone counted among the nobles of a city. In all my examples I shall stay with the Romans. If one considers their way of life and the institutions of their republic, one can see much that might be introduced into a society in which some good still remains.

COSIMO:
What are the things having affinity with the ancient world that you would like to introduce?

FABRIZIO:
Honoring and rewarding skill, not scorning poverty, esteeming the principles and institutions of military discipline, compelling citizens to love one another, living without factions, esteeming what is public more than what is private, and other such ideas that could easily be accommodated to our times. It would not be difficult to make these principles accepted if one thought the matter through and applied it in an adequate manner, because the truth in them would appear so clearly that the simplest mind would be capable of perceiving it. He who institutes these principles is planting trees beneath whose shade one can live with greater happiness and cheer.

COSIMO:
I shall not respond to what you have said, but would like to leave judgment to the present company, who can judge easily. I shall address myself to your accusing those who are not imitators of the ancients in serious and important matters, as I believe that by doing so I will satisfy my intention better. I would therefore like to know how it is that on the one hand you condemn those who do not imitate the ancients in their actions, but on the other hand, in matters of war, which is your profession and in which you are considered to excel, one cannot see that you have made use of any ancient system or any similar system.

FABRIZIO:
You have touched on the subject I expected you to, for what I said did not merit any other question, nor did I desire another. I could evade your question with a simple excuse, but nevertheless wish, for your greater satisfaction and mine, to enter into a much longer discussion, as the hour is still early. A man wishing to do something must first prepare himself with great application in order to be ready, if the opportunity presents itself, to accomplish what he has set out to do. When preparations are undertaken with circumspection they are unknown to others, and there can be no accusations of negligence unless the preparer is first caught out by the occasion. If he does not act once the opportunity presents itself, it is clear that he has either not prepared or not foreseen things. I have not had the opportunity to show the preparations I have made to draw the military back toward its ancient order, and if I have not done so I cannot be blamed by you or anybody else. I believe this excuse might suffice to counter your allegation.

COSIMO:
It would suffice if I were certain that the opportunity had not presented itself.

FABRIZIO:
I can understand your doubting whether the opportunity had in fact presented itself, and so, if you will not tire of listening, I wish to discuss at length which preparations must be made first, what occasion might arise, what difficulty might impede the preparations from succeeding and the occasion from arising, and how turning back toward the ancients is a thing at once most easy and most difficult, though this might seem a contradiction.

COSIMO:
Nothing would delight me or the others more. If you do not find it disagreeable to speak at length, we will not tire of listening. As this discussion will inevitably be long, I turn, with your permission, to my friends, and ask on my and their behalf, that you not take umbrage should we occasionally interrupt you with an importunate question.

FABRIZIO:
I will be very happy, Cosimo, if you and these young gentlemen ask me questions, for I believe that your youth will make you more accepting of military matters and more disposed to consider what I shall say. Men whose heads are wizened and whose blood is cold in their veins are either enemies of war or set in their ways. They are like those who believe that it is the times, and not bad government, that forces men to live in such a way. So I encourage you all to question me openly and without fear. This would be a pleasant diversion for me, and I will also be relieved not to leave any doubts in your minds.

I would like to begin with your question why I have not applied any of the ancient methods in war, which is my profession. My reply is that, as soldiery is a profession by which men cannot live honestly in both times of war and times of peace, it can be a profession only in a republic or a kingdom. And yet if a republic or a kingdom is well ordered, it will never allow any of its citizens or subjects to exercise soldiery as a profession. No good man ever adopted it as a profession, because a man will never be judged good who practices a profession in which, if he wants to do well both in times of war and times of peace, he must be rapacious, cunning, and violent, and have many other qualities that can only make him bad. Nor can men—great or small—who have soldiery as a profession act otherwise, for it is one that does not feed them in times of peace. Consequently these men are compelled either to find a way to fend off peace, or to gain such advantage for themselves in times of war that they can keep feeding themselves in times of peace. Whenever men entertain either of these thoughts they cannot be good, because it is from the need to provide for themselves in times of both war and peace that soldiers turn to the robbery, violence, and assassination that they inflict on both friends and enemies. Generals who do not want peace deceive the princes who hire them by drawing wars out; and even if peace does come, it frequently happens that the generals, deprived of their stipends and no longer able to live unencumbered by laws, raise the banner of the soldier of fortune, sacking a land without mercy.

Do we not see in your Florentine history the many soldiers throughout Italy finding themselves without pay once wars ended, gathering themselves into brigades called “companies,” going around extorting money from cities, and plundering the land without anyone being able to do anything about it? Have you not read how the Carthaginian soldiers, after their first war with the Romans ended, rebelled and elected Mathos and Spendius as their leaders and waged a more dangerous war against the Carthaginians than they had just concluded with the Romans?
⁹
And in the time of our fathers, Francesco Sforza, in order to be able to live properly in times of peace, not only deceived the Milanese in whose pay he was, but took away their liberty and became their prince.
¹⁰
All the other mercenaries of Italy who were professional soldiers were like Francesco Sforza, and though they might not have become dukes of Milan through evil deeds, they deserve all the more blame, for, if one looks at their lives, they all incurred the same guilt without, however, bringing as much benefit to a city. Muzio Attendolo Sforza, Francesco’s father, forced Queen Giovanna to throw herself on the mercy of the King of Aragon, having quite suddenly abandoned her, leaving her disarmed and surrounded by her enemies, because of his ambition to extort a considerable sum from her or to seize her kingdom for himself.
¹¹
Braccio
¹²
attempted to occupy the Kingdom of Naples by the same method, and would have succeeded had he not been defeated and killed at Aquilla. Such evils arise only from the existence of men who exercise the profession of mercenary. Do you not have a proverb that supports my argument, which says: “War creates robbers, and peace hangs them”? When men do not know how to live by any other profession, and are unable to find anyone who will pay them, and do not have the skill to come together and be honorably evil,
¹³
they are forced by necessity to become highwaymen, and justice is forced to eliminate them.