# CHAPTER 33 — When a Problem Has Arisen Either Within a State or Outside It, It Is Safer To Delay Dealing With It Than to Attack It

While the Roman republic was growing in reputation, strength, and dominion, its neighbours, who at first had not thought about how much damage this new republic might inflict upon them, began too late to recognize their error; and since they wished to remedy what they had not remedied earlier, some forty peoples formed an alliance against the Romans. Hence, the Romans, among the other customary remedies taken during times of urgent danger, decided to create a dictator, that is, to give power to a man who might make decisions without any consultation whatsoever and who, without any right of appeal, might execute his decisions. Thus, this remedy, which was useful at the time, and was the reason why the Romans overcame the above-mentioned dangers, always remained extremely useful in all those circumstances which arose at different times to hinder the republic’s efforts to expand its empire.

Regarding this matter, there is this to be said: first, that when a problem arises either inside or outside a republic, brought about by internal or external causes, and has become so serious that it has begun to terrify everyone, the safest policy is to put off dealing with it rather than trying to eliminate it, because almost always those who eliminate it only increase its strength and hasten the harm that is expected from it. Circumstances of this kind arise in a republic more often for internal rather than for external reasons: it often happens that either a citizen is allowed to acquire more power than is reasonable, or that a law which is the nerve and life of a free government begins to become corrupted, and this error is allowed to go on until it becomes a more dangerous policy to attempt a remedy than to allow it to continue. Moreover, it is even more difficult to recognize these problems when they arise, since it always seems more natural for men to approve the beginnings of things: and such approval is more likely for undertakings that seem to possess some merit and which are the work of young men than for anything else. If a young nobleman who possesses some extraordinary ability emerges in a republic, the eyes of all the citizens begin to turn toward him and they race without any concern to honour him, so that if in that man there exists an iota of ambition, through a combination of the favours nature grants him and these circumstances, he quickly assumes such a rank that when the citizens come to realize their error they have few remedies to employ, and if they wish to employ those remedies they possess, they do nothing but accelerate his rise to power.

One could set forth many examples of this, but I only wish to give one from our own city. Cosimo de’ Medici, to whom the Medici family owed the origin of its greatness in our city, acquired so much renown as a result of the favour that his prudence and the ignorance of other citizens had earned for him that he began to arouse the fear of the government, to the extent that other citizens considered attacking him to be dangerous and leaving him as he was even more dangerous. But living in those times there was a certain Niccolò da Uzzano, who was held to be a man of great expertise in civic affairs, and while he had committed the first error of not recognizing the dangers arising from Cosimo’s reputation, as long as he lived, he never permitted himself to commit the second error—that is, of trying to do away with him, considering such an attempt to entail the complete ruin of the government; this was seen to be true after his death, for the citizens who were left did not follow his advice and they joined forces against Cosimo and chased him out of Florence. Thus, it came about that Cosimo’s faction, feeling resentment for this injury, shortly afterwards recalled Cosimo and made him prince of the republic, a rank he never would have reached without this open opposition. *

The same thing happened in Rome to Caesar, whose exceptional ability won him the favour of Pompey and others, but shortly thereafter this favour turned into fear, to which Cicero testifies when he declares that Pompey began to fear Caesar too late. * This fear caused them to seek remedies, and the remedies they adopted hastened the downfall of their republic.

Let me say, therefore, that since it is difficult to recognize these evils when they arise—a difficulty caused by the way in which these matters deceive you at the beginning-—it is a wiser policy to put off dealing with them when they are recognized rather than to combat them, because when you put off dealing with them, they either fade away by themselves or at least the evil is postponed for a longer time. In all such affairs, princes who plan on eliminating these difficulties or opposing them impetuously with force should keep their eyes open to avoid increasing them in a harmful way, thinking that they are pushing something away by dragging it behind them—as one might drown a plant by watering it. But the strength of the disease must be carefully considered, and if you are capable of curing it, put yourself to doing so without hesitation; otherwise, leave it alone and make no attempt to do anything, because what happened to Rome’s neighbours, as was mentioned above, would happen to you. Since Rome had grown so powerful, it would have been far safer for them to placate the city and hold it back by peaceful means than to force it by warlike means to consider new institutions and new defences, because their conspiracy accomplished nothing other than to make the Romans more united, more courageous, and intent upon finding new ways to expand their power in a shorter period of time. One of these methods was the creation of the office of a dictator, a new institution which not only overcame present dangers but also prevented countless evils which that republic would have incurred without such a remedy.