# 26. In a City or Province which he has seized, a New Prince should make Everything New

Should anyone become the ruler either of a city or of a state, especially if he has no sure footing in it and it is suited neither for the civic life characteristic of a monarchy nor yet that of a republic, the best thing he can do in order to retain such a principality, given that he be a new prince, is to organize everything in that state afresh; e.g. in its cities to appoint new governors, with new tides and a new authority, the governors themselves being new men; to make the rich poor and the poor rich; as did David when he became king, ‘who filled the hungry with good things and the rich sent empty away’21; as well as to build new cities, to destroy those already built, and to move the inhabitants from one place to another far distant from it; in short, to leave nothing of that province intact, and nothing in it, neither rank, nor institution, nor form of government, nor wealth, except it be held by such as recognize that it comes from you.

His aim should be to emulate Philip of Macedon, the father of Alexander, who, starting as a little king, by these methods made himself prince of Greece. Of him a writer says that he moved men from province to province as shepherds move their sheep.

Such methods are exceedingly cruel, and are repugnant to any community, not only to a Christian one, but to any composed of men. It behoves, therefore, every man to shun them, and to prefer rather to live as a private citizen than as a king with such ruination of men to his score. None the less, for the sort of man who is unwilling to take up this first course of well doing, it is expedient, should he wish to hold what he has, to enter on the path of wrong doing. Actually, however, most men prefer to steer a middle course, which is very harmful; for they know not how to be wholly good nor yet wholly bad, as in the next chapter will be shown by means of an example.