# 13. Men rise from a Low to a Great Position by Means rather of Fraud than of Force44

It is quite true, I think, that seldom, if ever, do men of low positiona obtain high rank except by force and by fraud, though there are, of course, others to whom rank comes merely by way of gift or inheritance. Nor do I think that force by itself ever suffices, whereas instances can easily be found in which fraud alone has sufficed. Anyone who has read the life of Philip of Macedon or that of Agathocles the Sicilian, for instance, or others of that ilk, will see that, from an extremely low, or at any rate a low position, they rose either to a kingdom or to very great power. Xenophon, in his Life of Cyrus, calls attention to the necessity for deceit. For in view of the amount of fraud used in the first expedition Cyrus made against the King of Armenia, and of the fact that it was by means of deceit, not by means of force, that he acquired his kingdom, one cannot but conclude from such actions that a prince who wishes to do great things must learn to practise deceit. Besides this, Xenophon also makes him deceive Cyaxares, king of the Medes, his maternal uncle, in various ways, and shows that without such frauds Cyrus could not have attained the greatness he did attain.

Nor do I think that anyone can be found whose position at the outset was humble, but who subsequently acquired vast power simply by the use of open and undisguised force: but it can quite well be done by using only fraud, as was done by Giovanni Galeazzo in order to deprive his uncle, Bernabo, of his position as ruler of Lombardy. And what princes have to do at the outset of their career, republics also must do until such time as they become powerful and can rely on force alone.

Since in all her decisions, whether by chance or by choice, Rome took all steps necessary to make herself great, she did not overlook fraud. She could not at the start have been more deceitful than she was in the means she took, as we were saying just now, to acquire allies, since under this title she made them her servants, as was the case with the Latins and other peoples round about. For she first availed herself of their arms in order to subjugate neighbouring peoples and to build up her reputation as a state, and then, having subdued them, she increased to such an extent that she could beat anyone. Nor would the Latins ever have realized that in reality they were mere slaves, if they had not seen the Samnites twice defeated and forced to accept Rome’s terms. Since this victory increased the already great reputation of the Romans with more distant rulers, who thus felt the impact of her name though not of her arms, envy and suspicion were aroused in those who did see and feel the weight of her arms, among them the Latins. So strong became this envy and this dread that not only the Latins, but also the colonies Rome had in Latium, together with the Campanians who a short while before had been defended by Rome, joined in a conspiracy against her. The Latins provoked this war in the way in which most wars are provoked, as has been pointed out above, namely, not by attacking the Romans, but by protecting the Sidicines against the Samnites, who had made war on them with Rome’s sanction. That the Latins were moved to do this because they recognized the deceit Rome had practised, is shown by the words Titus Livy puts into the mouth of Annius Setinus, the Latin praetor, when speaking before the allied council: ‘For if under cover of a treaty between equals it has been possible to reduce us to servitude’, and so forth.45

It is clear, therefore, that, when the power of the Romans was first beginning to grow, they did not fail to use fraud; of which it is always necessary that those should make use who from small beginnings wish to rise to sublime heights, and the better they conceal it, as the Romans did, the less blameworthy it is.