# 3. When Liberty has been newly acquired it is Necessary in Order to maintain it to ‘Kill the Sons of Brutus’

The severity used by Brutus was no less necessary than it was useful in maintaining the liberty which Rome had just acquired by his aid. Of such severity one rarely comes across a case in history in which a father not only sits on a tribunal and condemns his own sons to death, but is present at their death. Those, however, who are familiar with ancient history are well aware that, when the form of government has been changed, whether from a republic to a tyranny or a tyranny to a republic, it is in all cases essential that exemplary action be taken against those who are hostile to the new state of affairs. He who establishes a tyranny and does not kill ‘Brutus’, and he who establishes a free state and does not kill ‘the Sons of Brutus’, will not last long.

Since this question has already been discussed at length elsewhere55 I refer the reader back to what was there said, and shall here give but one example, a modern one, which took place in our own day and in our own country. It is that of Piero Soderini who thought that by patience and goodness he could quell the desire of ‘Brutus’s sons’ to return to another form of government, but in this he was mistaken. Though, being a prudent man, he recognized the need for action, and thought the type of ambitious men who were against him gave him ground for getting rid of them, yet he could never make up his mind to do this. For, in addition to thinking that he could by patience and goodness extinguish their malevolence, and by distributing rewards put an end to some of their hostility, he was of opinion – and often told his friends so in confidence – that, if he were to take vigorous action against his opponents and to fight his adversaries, he would need to assume extraordinary authority and introduce laws disruptive of civic equality; and that such a course and such authority, even though he did not henceforth use it tyrannically, would so alarm the general public that, after his death, they would never again agree to appoint a gonfalonier for life, an office which he thought it would be well to strengthen and to keep up.

Such a point of view was wise and good. None the less, an evil should never be allowed to continue out of respect for a good when that good may easily be overwhelmed by that evil. Soderini ought to have considered that, when his actions and his intentions came to be judged by their end and in the light of the good fortune and the life that had accompanied them, he would be able to convince everyone that what he had done, was done for the security of his country, and not for ambitious reasons. He could, moreover, so have regulated things that none of his successors could do with evil intent what he had done with good intent. But the view which he first adopted misled him, for he failed to realize that malevolence is not vanquished by time, nor placated by any gifts. With the result that, through his inability to emulate Brutus, he lost both his position and his reputation, a loss in which his country shared.

And just as it is a difficult thing to give security to a self-governing state, so, too, is it difficult to give security to a kingdom, as will be shown in the next chapter.