# CHAPTER XXV.—_That he who attacks a City divided against itself, must not think to get possession of it through its Divisions._

Violent dissensions breaking out in Rome between the commons and the
nobles, it appeared to the Veientines and Etruscans that now was their
time to deal a fatal blow to the Roman supremacy. Accordingly, they
assembled an army and invaded the territories of Rome. The senate sent
Caius Manlius and Marcus Fabius to meet them, whose forces encamping
close by the Veientines, the latter ceased not to reproach and vilify
the Roman name with every sort of taunt and abuse, and so incensed the
Romans by their unmeasured insolence that, from being divided they
became reconciled, and giving the enemy battle, broke and defeated
them. Here, again, we see, what has already been noted, how prone men
are to adopt wrong courses, and how often they miss their object when
they think to secure it. The Veientines imagined that they could
conquer the Romans by attacking them while they were at feud among
themselves; but this very attack reunited the Romans and brought ruin
on their assailants. For the causes of division in a commonwealth are,
for the most part, ease and tranquillity, while the causes of union are
fear and war. Wherefore, had the Veientines been wise, the more divided
they saw Rome to be, the more should they have sought to avoid war with
her, and endeavoured to gain an advantage over her by peaceful arts.
And the best way to effect this in a divided city lies in gaining the
confidence of both factions, and in mediating between them as arbiter
so long as they do not come to blows; but when they resort to open
violence, then to render some tardy aid to the weaker side, so as to
plunge them deeper in hostilities, wherein both may exhaust their
forces without being led by your putting forth an excess of strength to
suspect you of a desire to ruin them and remain their master. Where
this is well managed, it will almost always happen that you succeed in
effecting the object you propose to yourself.

The city of Pistoja, as I have said already in connection with another
matter, was won over to the Florentine republic by no other artifice
than this. For the town being split by factions, the Florentines, by
now favouring one side and now the other, without incurring the
suspicions of either, brought both to such extremities that, wearied
out with their harassed life, they threw themselves at last of their
own accord into the arms of Florence. The city of Siena, again, has
never made any change in her government which has had the support of
the Florentines, save when that support has been slight and
insignificant; for whenever the interference of Florence has been
marked and decided, it has had the effect of uniting all parties in
support of things as they stood.

One other instance I shall add to those already given. Oftener than
once Filippo Visconti, duke of Milan, relying on their divisions, set
wars on foot against the Florentines, and always without success; so
that, in lamenting over these failures, he was wont to complain that
the mad humours of the Florentines had cost him two millions of gold,
without his having anything to show for it. The Veientines and
Etruscans, therefore, as I have said already, were misled by false
hopes, and in the end were routed by the Romans in a single pitched
battle; and any who should look hereafter to prevail on like grounds
and by similar means against a divided people, will always find
themselves deceived.