# CHAPTER 25 — That It Is a Mistaken Policy to Attack a Divided City in Order to Occupy It as a Result of Its Disunity

There was so much disunity within the Roman republic between the plebeians and the nobility that the Veientes, along with the Etruscans, thought that through such disunity they could extinguish the very name of Rome. After they had raised an army and conducted raids upon the Roman countryside, the senate sent against them Gaius Manlius and Marcus Fabius, who led their army near that of the Veientes, but the Veientes did not cease, both with attacks and insults, to harm and to tarnish the reputation of Rome: and so great was their temerity and their insolence that the Romans, once disunited, became united and turning to battle, defeated and conquered them. It is, therefore, evident, as we have written previously, * how greatly men deceive themselves in making certain decisions, and how frequently, thinking they will gain something, they lose it. The Veientes thought they would attack the Romans while disunited and conquer them, and this attack was the cause of the unity among the Romans and of their own ruin, for the cause of disunity in republics is in most cases idleness and peace; the cause of unity is fear and warfare. Hence, if the Veientes had been wise, the more disunited they perceived Rome to be, the more they would have avoided war with that city and the more they would have sought to overcome it through the arts of peace. The proper method is to seek to gain the confidence of the city that is disunited and, until the people come to the point of fighting, to act as their arbiter, manœuvring between the factions. When fighting breaks out, it is appropriate to give small favours to the weakest faction, so that they continue fighting for a longer time and wear themselves down, and so that larger forces never make them all suspect that you intend to overcome them and become their ruler. When such a policy is well handled, it will almost always result in reaching the goal you have set for yourself. The city of Pistoia, as I stated in another discourse on a different subject, * did not come under the rule of the Florentine republic by any other method than this one; since it was divided and the Florentines favoured first one faction and then another, without being blamed by either side, they brought the city to such a state that, worn out from its tumultuous civic life, it spontaneously threw itself into their arms. The political status of Siena has never changed with favours from the Florentines except when these favours have been weak and of little account, for when they have been generous and bold, they have made the city unified in defence of the government in place. I want to add to the examples cited above yet another example. Filippo Visconti, duke of Milan, often declared war on the Florentines, basing his decision upon their disunity, and he always remained the loser, to the extent that he was accustomed to declare, complaining about his undertakings, that the follies of the Florentines had caused him uselessly to spend 2 million gold florins.

The Veientes and the Etruscans were, therefore, deceived in this opinion, as was mentioned above, and they were finally overcome by the Romans in a battle. Thus, in the future, anyone who thinks he can conquer a people in a similar way or for a similar cause will also be deceived.