# CHAPTER 13 — That One Moves from Humble to Great Fortune More Often Through Fraud Than Through Force

I consider it to be very true that it rarely or never happens that men of humble fortune rise to high positions without the use of force and fraud, although others obtain this rank either as a gift or by inheritance. Nor do I believe that force ever suffices by itself, whereas it is often the case that fraud alone will suffice, as anyone who reads the life of Philip of Macedonia or that of Agathocles the Sicilian and of many other similar men will clearly see, for from the most humble, or at least a very humble fortune, they attained either kingdoms or very great empires. Xenophon demonstrates the necessity for deception in his Life of Cyrus, considering that the first expedition Cyrus carried out against the king of Armenia was full of fraud and that Cyrus occupied his kingdom by means of deceit, not force. No other conclusion can be drawn from his action except that a leader who wishes to undertake great enterprises must learn how to deceive. Xenophon also says that Cyrus deceived his maternal uncle, Cyaxares, king of the Medes, in several ways, and he demonstrates that without such deception, Cyrus could never have attained the greatness he achieved. Nor do I believe that anyone who has been placed in humble circumstances has ever attained supreme authority purely by means of open force and sincerity, but this has certainly been the case for those who have employed fraud alone, as Giovan Galeazzo did when he seized the state and the supreme authority in Lombardy from his uncle, Messer Bernarbò. *

What princes are obliged to do at the beginning of their expansion republics must do as well, until they have become powerful and force alone proves sufficient, and because Rome, in every instance, employed either by chance or by choice all the methods necessary to achieve greatness, it did not fail to employ this one either. Nor could the city have chosen a more useful deception at the beginning than to select the method (the one we discussed above) of making allies for itself, for under this name the Romans made them their slaves, as were the Latins and the other peoples surrounding them. Accordingly, Rome first used its own armies to subdue the peoples nearby and to acquire the reputation of a powerful state; then, once the city had subdued them, it achieved such growth that it could defeat any one of them; and the Latins never realized that they had become completely enslaved until they saw the Samnites twice defeated and forced to come to terms. * With this victory the Romans acquired great renown among far-away rulers, who in this way heard of the Roman name but not of their armies, and so they generated envy and suspicion in those who saw and felt the force of their arms, among whom were the Latins. This envy and this fear were so powerful that not only the Latins but also the colonies they possessed in Latium, along with the Campanians, who had shortly before been defended by the Romans, conspired against the Roman people. The Latins started this war in the way that we noted above, the way in which most wars are started, not by attacking the Romans but by defending the Sidicini against the Samnites, who were making war on the Sidicini with the permission of the Romans. Livy demonstrates that the Latins started the war once they recognized this deception, when he puts the following words in the mouth of Annius Setinus, the Latin praetor, who spoke in their council: ‘For if we are able to endure slavery even now when we have the pretence of a fair treaty, etc.’ * It is evident, therefore, that in their early expansions even the Romans did not fail to employ fraud, which must always be used by those who from small beginnings wish to ascend to sublime heights, and which is much less deserving of condemnation the more it is concealed, as it was in the case of the Romans.