# 28. How Dangerous it is for a Republic or a Prince not to avenge an Injury done either to the Public or to a Private Person

What is likely to make men indignant with others may easily be learnt from what happened to the Romans when they sent the three Fabii as ambassadors to the Gauls, who were about to attack Tuscany and, in particular, Clusium. The people of Clusium had appealed to Rome for help against the Gauls. Hence the Romans sent the three Fabii as ambassadors to the Gauls to insist in the name of the Roman republic on their abstaining from a war with the Tuscans. When they arrived at their destination the ambassadors, who were better at acting than speaking, found the Gauls and the Tuscans about to join battle, whereupon they were the foremost to enter the fray. It thus came about that when the Gauls became aware of this, their annoyance with the Tuscans was turned against the Romans. And their indignation was intensified when the Gauls having complained to the Roman senate through their ambassadors of this unfairness and demanded that the aforesaid Fabii be handed over to them to compensate for the harm they had done, they were not only not handed over or punished in some other way, but an election was held in which they were made tribunes with consular power. Consequently when the Gauls saw those being honoured who ought to have been punished, they took it as an affront and an indignity offered to themselves, and, inflamed with indignation and anger, marched on Rome and took it, except for the Capitol. A disaster which the Romans brought on themselves through their disregard of justice, for since their ambassadors had offended ‘against the Law of Nations’,52 they should have been punished, instead of being honoured.

This leads one to consider how important it is for every republic and every prince to take account of such offences, not only when an injury is done to a whole people, but also when it affects an individual. For if an individual is grievously offended either by the public or by a private person, and does not receive due satisfaction, he will, if he lives in a republic, seek to avenge himself, even if it lead to the ruin of that republic; and, if he live under a prince and has a spark of manliness, will never rest content till he has in some way or other wreaked vengeance on him even though he see that, in doing so, he will bring disaster on himself.

In verification of this there is no finer or more relevant instance than that of Philip, king of Macedon, the father of Alexander, in whose court there was a handsome and noble young man, Pausanias. With him Attains, one of the chief men in Philip’s entourage, was enamoured, and had on several occasions sought to get him to assent, but found that he had no liking for such things; so, seeing that he could not get what he wanted otherwise, he decided to set a trap for him and to use force. He gave, therefore, a great banquet, which Pausanias and other noble barons attended, and, when they had had their fill of food and wine, he had him seized and bound; then he not only used force in order to gratify his lust, but, to his greater shame, got others to treat him in the same disgusting way. Of this affront Pausanias complained several times to Philip, who, having kept him for a time in expectation of vengeance, not only did not avenge him, but made Attalus governor of a Grecian province. Pausanias, therefore, seeing his enemy honoured instead of being punished, gave full vent to his indignation not only against the perpetrator of the deed, but against Philip who had not avenged it. So, one morning, the day of the solemn wedding of Philip’s daughter, who was being married to Alexander of Epirus, he killed Philip as he was going to the temple for the celebration standing between the two Alexanders, his son and his son-in-law. Of this incident, which is akin to that which happened to the Romans, all who rule should take note, so that they may never esteem any man so lightly as to think that, if injury be added to injury, the injured person will not consider how to vindicate himself, even though it involve him hi all manner of dangers and entail his own downfall.