# CHAPTER 26 — A New Prince, in a City or Province He Has Seized, Must Create Everything Anew

Anyone who becomes a prince either of a city or a state, especially when his foundations are weak and he does not wish to give either a republican or a monarchical form to civil life, will find that the best remedy he possesses for holding on to that principality is, if he is a new prince, to create everything in that state anew; that is, in the cities he must create new governments with new names, new authorities, and new men; he must make the rich poor and the poor rich, as David did when he became king, who ‘filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty’; * he must build new cities, destroy those already built, move the inhabitants from one place to another, and, in short, leave nothing in that province intact, no rank, order, position, or wealth that is not acknowledged by the one who possesses it as coming from you; and he must take as his model Philip of Macedonia, the father of Alexander the Great, who with these means rose from petty king to ruler of Greece. Those who write of him declare that he moved men from province to province, just as shepherds move their flocks about. These are extremely cruel methods and inimical to every way of life, not only Christian but human, and every man should avoid them and prefer to live as a private citizen rather than as a king with so much damage to other men; anyone who does not wish to take this first good course of action must nevertheless take this evil one if he wishes to maintain himself. But men take certain middle courses of action which are extremely damaging, because they do not know how to be entirely good or entirely bad, as the following chapter will demonstrate through an example.