# CHAPTER 38 — Weak Republics Are Indecisive and Do Not Know How to Reach Decisions; If They Ever Do Take Sides, This Arises More by Necessity Than by Choice

With a very serious plague in Rome, it seemed to the Volscians and the Aequi that the time had come to attack Rome, and after these two peoples had raised an enormous army, they attacked the Latins and the Hernici, and after laying waste to their lands, they forced the Latins and the Hernici to make Rome aware of this and to beg the Romans to defend them: the Romans, afflicted by the plague, responded that they should decide to defend themselves with their own forces, since the Romans could not defend them. This shows the generosity and the prudence of the Roman senate, and how it always insisted, no matter the circumstances, on being the ultimate authority in any decisions that its allies might have to take, but it was never ashamed to make a decision contrary to its usual procedures or to other decisions it had taken, when necessity required it.

I say this because, on other occasions, the same senate had prohibited these same peoples from taking up arms and defending themselves, and a less prudent senate than this one would have considered its reputation to have been diminished had it conceded them this possibility to defend themselves. But the senate always judged things as they ought to be judged, and it always selected the less harmful decision as the best one; as much as it displeased the senate to be unable to defend its subjects, and as much as it displeased them to allow their subjects to take up arms without their support, for reasons already mentioned and for many others that are obvious, nevertheless, recognizing that their allies would have had to arm themselves in any case, since they had the enemy at their gates, it chose the honourable course of action and insisted that they do what they were forced to do with their permission, so that in disobeying out of necessity, they should not become accustomed to disobeying by choice. Although this seems to be a decision that every republic ought to make, nevertheless, weak and poorly advised republics do not know how to make them, nor do they understand how to behave honourably in such situations of necessity. Duke Valentino * had taken Faenza * and had forced Bologna to come to terms with him. * Then, wishing to return to Rome through Tuscany, Borgia sent one of his men to Florence to request passage for himself and his army. In Florence they conferred over how to manage the situation, but no one ever advised granting him this request. In this matter, Florence did not follow the Roman practice: since the duke was heavily armed and the Florentines were insufficiently armed to prevent his passage, it was a much more honourable course of action for them to make it seem that he passed with their permission rather than by force, and whereas the entire matter resulted in their disgrace, had they managed the situation differently it would have been a minor matter. But the worst defect weak republics can have is to be indecisive, so that all their decisions are taken out of necessity, and if any good comes to them, it comes through force of circumstance rather than through their own prudence.

I wish to cite two other examples of this which occurred during our own times in the government of our city. In 1500, after King Louis XII of France had retaken Milan, he wished to give Pisa back to Florence in return for the 50,000 ducats the city had promised for such a restitution, and he sent his armies towards Pisa, commanded by Monsignor de Beaumont, who, although a Frenchman, was, nevertheless, a man in whom the Florentines had great confidence. The army and this commander marched between Cascina and Pisa in order to attack the city’s walls, and while they remained there for several days to ready the siege, Pisan ambassadors came to Beaumont and offered to surrender the city to the French army under these conditions: that in the king’s name he would promise not to place the city in the hands of the Florentines before four months had passed. This proposal was completely rejected by the Florentines, with the result that they continued marching into the field and then left in disgrace. * This proposal was refused for no other reason than distrust of the king’s word on the part of those who, as a result of the weakness of their planning, had been forced to place themselves in his hands and who, on the other hand, were unable to trust him: they failed to see how much better it was for the king to restore Pisa to them once he was inside the city, or, if he did not restore it, to reveal his intentions, than for him to promise it to them when he did not yet have it, and to force them to pay for his promises. Thus, it would have been much more profitable for them to have agreed that Beaumont could take the city for any promise whatsoever: experience made this clear later on in 1502 when, after the rebellion of Arezzo, Monsignor Imbault, sent by the king of France with French troops, came to the aid of the Florentines; once he had approached Arezzo he began after a brief time to negotiate with the Aretines, who under certain conditions wished to surrender the city as the Pisans had wanted to do. This proposal was refused by the Florentines; once he saw this and realized that the Florentines had little understanding of the matter, Monsignor Imbault began to work out the details of the agreement by himself without the participation of the Florentine commissioners: he concluded the agreement in his own way, and under those terms he entered Arezzo with his troops, making the Florentines understand that he thought they were crazy and understood nothing of worldly affairs, and that if they wanted Arezzo they should make it clear to the king, since he could give it to them much more easily with his troops inside the city rather than outside it. There was no end in Florence to the backbiting and abuse heaped upon this Imbault, nor did they stop until they finally realized that if Beaumont had acted like Imbault, they would have had Pisa as well as Arezzo.

And so, to return to our topic, indecisive republics never choose beneficial policies except by force of circumstance, because their weakness never allows them to make decisions where any doubt exists; if that doubt is not erased by some violent act that drives them on, they remain forever in a state of indecision.