# CHAPTER 29 — That the Faults of Peoples Begin With Their Princes

Princes should not complain of any sin committed by the people they have under their control, because such sins of necessity arise either from his negligence or from his being tainted by similar errors. Anyone who will examine the peoples who in our times have been considered abounding in robberies and similar faults will see that all of them begin with those who govern them and who are of a similar nature. The Romagna, before Pope Alexander VI destroyed the lords who were once in control there, was an example of every kind of wicked living, because in that region the slightest causes brought about murders and the greatest robberies. This situation arose from the wickedness of those princes and not from the wicked nature of men, as they claimed. Since those princes were impoverished but wanted to live as if they were rich, they had to turn to frequent robberies, employing a variety of means. Among the other dishonest methods they adopted, they passed laws and prohibited certain actions; later, they were the first to provide opportunities for breaking the laws, nor did they ever punish those who broke them, except when they saw that many others had become involved in the same violation, and then they turned to punishment, not out of any zeal for the enacted law but rather out of their greed to collect the fine. Hence, many difficulties arose, and above all else, the peoples grew poor and were not corrected, and those who were impoverished managed to avenge themselves on those who were less powerful than they. Hence, all those evils recounted above emerged, the cause of which was the prince.

Livy shows that this is true when he relates how the Roman legates, while carrying the gift of the spoils taken from the Veientes to Apollo, were captured by the pirates of Lipari in Sicily and brought to that city, and how once Timasitheus their prince understood what kind of gift this was, where it was going, and who was sending it, he conducted himself, although born in Lipari, like a Roman, and showed his people how impious it was to seize such a gift, so that, with the consensus of the entire population, he let the legates go with all their possessions. These are the words of the historian: ‘Timasitheus instilled religious fear into the crowd, which always resembles its leader.’ * Lorenzo de’ Medici, in confirmation of this maxim, declares:

What the ruler does, many do afterward,

For the eyes of all are fixed on their lord. *