# CHAPTER 17 — A Corrupt People Which Becomes Free Can Remain So Only With the Greatest Difficulty

I believe it was necessary either for the kings in Rome to die off or for Rome to have become weak and of little worth in a very short time, because considering the degree of corruption into which these kings fell, if two or three successive reigns had followed in the same manner, so that the corruption which was within them had begun to spread throughout the members, once the members had become corrupted it would have been impossible ever to reform the city. But since the head was lost while the body was still intact, the Romans were easily able to bring themselves back to living a free and well-ordered existence. It must be taken as absolutely true that a corrupt city living under a prince can never regain its liberty, even if a prince and his entire family are done away with, indeed, even if one prince does away with the other, and without the creation of a new ruler, the city will never be at rest until the goodness of a single man, along with his exceptional ability, keeps it free. Yet this liberty will endure only as long as his own life, as happened in Syracuse with Dion and Timoleon, whose exceptional ability at different times kept that city free as long as they lived; once they were dead, the city returned to its long-standing tyranny. * But no more powerful example can be found than that of Rome, for, once the Tarquins were driven out, it was immediately able to seize and maintain its liberty; still, after Caesar, Gaius Caligula, and Nero died, and Caesar’s race was extinguished, * not only could Rome never maintain its freedom but it could never even give it a beginning. Such dissimilar results in the same city arose from nothing other than the fact that in the time of the Tarquins the Roman people were still uncorrupted, while in those later times they were extremely corrupt. In that former time, in order to make the people steadfast and willing to avoid kings, it was enough merely to make them swear that they would never agree to the reign of another king in Rome, while in these later days, the authority and severity of Brutus plus all the eastern legions were not sufficient to make the people willing to maintain the liberty that he, like the first Brutus, * had restored to them. This arose from the corruption that the factions of Marius had established among the people; as the leader of these factions, Caesar was able to blind the multitude so that they did not recognize the yoke that they themselves were placing upon their own necks.

Although this example from Rome is preferable to any other, nevertheless, on this subject I want to bring forward examples of peoples known in our own times. Let me say, therefore, that no event, though it might be serious or violent, could ever have restored freedom to Milan or Naples, since their members were completely corrupt. This can be seen after the death of Filippo Visconti, * when Milan, desiring to restore its liberty, was not able, nor did the city know how, to maintain it. Thus, it was Rome’s greatest good fortune that its kings quickly became corrupt, so that they were driven out, and long before their corruption had passed into the heart of the city; this lack of corruption was the reason why the countless disturbances that took place in Rome never caused any harm but, rather, benefited the republic, given that those men had good aims.

Hence, one can draw this conclusion: that where the material is not corrupt, disturbances and other disorders can do no harm, and where the material is corrupt, carefully enacted laws do no good, unless they are initiated by a man who, with enormous power, causes them to be observed in such a way that the material becomes good. Whether this has ever occurred, or whether it might ever possibly occur, I do not know, because it is evident, as I declared above, that once a city has begun to decline through the corruption of its substance, if it ever manages to rise again, this occurs through the exceptional ability of a single man who is alive at the time and not through the exceptional ability of the people as a whole who support good institutions, and as soon as that man is dead the city returns to its former habits, just as in Thebes, which, through the exceptional skill of Epaminondas, was able to maintain the republican form of government and an empire while he was living but once he was dead returned to its former disorders. * The reason is that no single man can live long enough to train well a city long accustomed to bad habits. If one man with an extraordinarily long life, or one skilful ruler succeded by another, does not set it back in order, the lack of such men, as I have said above, brings it to ruin, unless they have, at the risk of much danger and bloodshed, brought about its rebirth. Thus, such corruption and so little aptitude for living in freedom arise from an inequality that exists in the city, and if one wishes to bring the city back to a state of equality, it is necessary to employ extraordinary measures, which few know how or wish to employ, as will be discussed in another place in greater detail. *