# 7. How it comes about that Changes from Liberty to Servitude and from Servitude to Liberty sometimes occur without Bloodshed and sometimes abound in it

Some perchance may wonder how it comes about that of many revolutions involving a change from freedom to tyranny or the other way about, some are accompanied by bloodshed and others not. For it is plain from history that in such revolutions sometimes vast numbers of men get killed, and that in others nobody at all gets hurt, as happened in the change which Rome made from kingship to rule by consuls, for in it no one was banished except the Tarquins, and nobody else at all got hurt.

The answer is that it all depends upon whether the change in form of government is or is not brought about by violence; for when it is accompanied by violence it is inevitable that many should get hurt, and then of necessity those who in their downfall have been injured seek revenge, and this desire for vengeance gives rise to bloodshed and loss of life; but when that form of government has been brought into being by the common consent of a whole peoplea which has made it great, there is no reason why, when the said people as a whole meets its downfall, they should harm anyone except its head. This was the case with Rome’s government and with the expulsion of the Tarquins. It was also the case with the government of the Medici in Florence, which, when it fell in 1494, harmed nobody but the Medici themselves.

Revolutions of this kind, therefore, are not attended with much danger. Those, on the other hand, are extremely dangerous which are brought about by men who are out for vengeance, and have invariably been of such a kind as to appal those who read of them, to say the least. Since of such revolutions there are plenty of instances in history, I propose to leave it at that.