# CHAPTER 52 — There Is No More Secure and Less Divisive Means of Restraining the Insolence of a Man Who Rises to Power in a Republic Than to Be the First to Occupy the Paths Through Which He May Come into Such Power

We have seen in the discourse above and we have read about how much credit the nobility acquired with the plebeians through its efforts to benefit them, both by the salary they instituted and by the method of imposing the taxes. If the nobility had maintained this institution it would have eliminated every disturbance in that city, and they would have stripped the tribunes of the credit that they enjoyed among the plebeians and, as a consequence, of their authority. Truly there is, in a republic, especially those that are corrupt, no better method, nor one that is less divisive and more simple, of opposing the ambition of any citizen than to be the first to occupy the paths through which he appears to be moving towards the rank he intends to reach. Had this method been used against Cosimo de’ Medici, it would have been a much better policy for his adversaries than driving him out of Florence, because had those citizens who were competing with him adopted his method of favouring the people, they would have managed, without strife and without violence, to remove from his hands weapons that served him best. *

Piero Soderini made himself a reputation in the city of Florence with this method alone, that of favouring the people, who considered him devoted to the city’s liberty. Truly, it would have been much simpler, easier, more honest, less dangerous, and less damaging to the republic for the citizens who were envious of his greatness to be the first to occupy the paths through which he was making himself great, instead of wanting to oppose him so that at his downfall all the rest of the republic came to ruin. * If they had removed from his hands the weapons with which he was making himself powerful (something they could have easily accomplished), they would have been able to oppose him without suspicion and without regard for anyone in all the councils and all public deliberations. Someone may reply that if the citizens who hated Piero committed an error by not being the first to occupy the paths through which he was winning his reputation with the people, Piero also came to commit the same error in not being the first to occupy those paths through which his adversaries caused him fear. Piero deserves to be excused for this, both because it was difficult for him to do so, and because such a strategy would not have been honest for him, inasmuch as the means through which they did him injury consisted in supporting the Medici, with whose support they fought him and finally destroyed him. Piero could not, therefore, have honestly taken that side, lending it his good name, without destroying that liberty of which he had been appointed guardian; Piero could not, then, offer favours to the Medici secretly and all at once, and these were extremely dangerous for him, because as soon as he had been discovered to be a friend of the Medici, he would have become suspected and hated by the people, and his enemies would have found it even easier to attack him than they had previously. Men must, therefore, consider the defects and the dangers of every decision and avoid adopting the one that is more dangerous than useful, notwithstanding the fact that they might find it to be in accord with their own thinking. By doing otherwise in this case, what happened to Cicero might happen to them; wishing to take away support from Mark Antony, he increased it. Since Mark Antony had been judged to be an enemy of the senate and had assembled that great army in large measure made up of soldiers who had pursued Caesar’s cause, Cicero, in order to deprive him of these troops, urged the senate to enhance Octavian’s reputation and to send him against Mark Antony with the consuls Hirtius and Pansa, * claiming that as soon as the soldiers following Mark Antony heard the name of Octavian, Caesar’s nephew who had adopted Caesar’s name, they would abandon him and join Octavian, and thus, once Mark Antony had been stripped of support, it would be easy to overcome him. The affair turned out completely to the contrary, because Mark Antony won the support of Octavian who, abandoning Cicero and the senate, joined forces with him. This affair caused the complete destruction of the aristocratic party. It was easy to speculate that the senate should never have believed the arguments that convinced Cicero, and should have always taken into account the name which with so much glory had extinguished its enemies and acquired for itself the principality of Rome; nor should the senate ever have expected to gain from Caesar’s heirs or supporters anything that was compatible with the name of liberty.