# CHAPTER 28 — How Dangerous It Is for a Republic or a Prince Not to Avenge an Injury Committed Against the Public or Against a Private Individual

What indignation causes men to do can easily be ascertained by what happened to the Romans when they sent the three Fabii as emissaries to the Gauls, who had come to attack Etruria and Chiusi in particular. For, after the people of Chiusi had sent to Rome for assistance against the Gauls, the Romans sent ambassadors to the Gauls, who, in the name of the Roman people, told them to cease waging war upon the Etruscans. When these emissaries were on the spot and proved themselves more capable of acting than speaking, they placed themselves among the first to fight against them when the Gauls and Etruscans engaged in battle, and after they were recognized by the Gauls, the Gauls turned all the indignation they had felt against the Etruscans against the Romans. This indignation became greater, because, after the Gauls through their ambassadors had lodged a complaint with the Roman senate about this injury and had asked that the previously mentioned Fabii be delivered to them in satisfaction for the damage, not only did the Romans fail to turn the Fabii over to them or punish them in any way, but when elections came around, they were made tribunes with consular authority. Thus, once the Gauls saw them honouring the men who should have been punished, they thought that all this had been done with contempt and to their disgrace, and burning with indignation and wrath, they came to attack Rome and took the city, except for the Capitol. This disaster came upon the Romans solely because of their failure to observe justice, for after their ambassadors had transgressed ‘against the law of nations’ and should have been punished, they were honoured. Nevertheless, it must be considered how much care every republic and every prince should take not to commit such an injury, not only against a mass of people but also against any single individual, because if a man is greatly offended either by the state or by a private person and is not avenged to his own satisfaction, he will, if he lives in a republic, seek to avenge himself, even if it results in the republic’s ruin, and if he lives under a prince and has any inner strength, he will never be appeased until in some way he has avenged himself upon the prince, even if he sees his own harm in it.

To verify this, there is no finer nor truer example than that of Philip of Macedonia, the father of Alexander. He had in his court a handsome young nobleman named Pausanias, with whom Attalus, one of the foremost men in Philip’s court, fell in love, and after trying to obtain his consent on numerous occasions, and discovering that Pausanias was contrary to such things, he decided to take with deceit and force what he saw he was unable to obtain in any other way. Having organized a formal banquet to which Pausanias and many other noble barons came, after each guest was full of food and drink, he had Pausanias seized and brought to him with no hope of escape, not only fulfilling his own lust by force but also, to bring him even greater dishonour, allowing many others to violate him in the same way. Pausanius complained more than once about this insult to Philip; after keeping him for some time in the hope of being avenged, Philip not only failed to avenge him but made Attalus governor of a province in Greece; hence Pausanius, seeing his enemy honoured and unpunished, turned all his indignation not against the man who had done him the injury but against Philip who had not avenged him. One solemn morning, at the time of the wedding feast of Philip’s daughter whom he had married to Alexander of Epirus, while the king was going to the temple to celebrate the wedding, Pausanius killed him as he stood between the two Alexanders, son-in-law and son. This example is very similar to the one concerning the Romans and it is worthy of note to anyone who governs: he must never esteem a man so lightly that, piling injury upon injury, he believes that the injured man does not think about taking revenge despite all the danger and harm that might befall him.