# Chapter XIV — What a Prince Should Do Regarding the Military

Thus, a prince should have no other object, nor any other thought, nor take anything else as his art but that of war and its orders and discipline; for that is the only art which is of concern to one who commands. And it is of such virtue that not only does it maintain those who have been born princes but many times it enables men of private fortune to rise to that rank; and on the contrary, one sees that when princes have thought more of amenities than of arms, they have lost their states. And the first cause that makes you lose it is the neglect of this art; and the cause that enables you to acquire it is to be a professional in this art.

Francesco Sforza, because he was armed, became duke of Milan from a private individual; and his sons, because they shunned the hardships of arms, became private individuals from dukes.120 For, among the other causes of evil that being unarmed brings you, it makes you contemptible, which is one of those infamies the prince should be on guard against, as will be said below. For there is no proportion between one who is armed and one who is unarmed, and it is not reasonable that whoever is armed obey willingly whoever is unarmed, and that someone unarmed be secure among armed servants. For since there is scorn in the one and suspicion in the other, it is not possible for them to work well together. And therefore a prince who does not understand the military, besides other unhappiness, cannot, as was said, be esteemed by his soldiers nor have trust in them.

Therefore, he should never lift his thoughts from the exercise of war, and in peace he should exercise it more than in war. This he can do in two modes, one with deeds, the other with the mind. And as to deeds, besides keeping his armies well ordered and exercised, he should always be out hunting, and through this accustom the body to hardships; and meanwhile he should learn the nature of sites, and recognize how mountains rise, how valleys open up, how plains lie, and understand the nature of rivers and marshes—and in this invest the greatest care. This knowledge is useful in two modes. First, one learns to know one’s own country, and one can better understand its defense; then, through the knowledge of and experience with those sites, one can comprehend with ease every other site that it may be necessary to explore121 as new. For the hills, the valleys, the plains, the rivers, and the marshes that are in Tuscany, for example, have a certain similarity to those of other provinces, so that from the knowledge of a site in one province one can easily come to the knowledge of others. And the prince who lacks this skill lacks the first part of what a captain must have, for this teaches him to find the enemy, seize lodgings, lead armies, order battles, and besiege towns to your advantage.122

Among other praise given by writers to Philopoemen, prince of the Achaeans,123 is that in times of peace he never thought of anything but modes of war; and when he was on campaign with friends, he often stopped and reasoned with them: “If the enemy were on top of that hill and we were here with our army, which of us would have the advantage? How could one advance to meet them while maintaining order? If we wanted to retreat from here, how would we have to do it? If they retreated, how would we have to follow them?” And he put before them, as he went along, all the chances that can occur to an army; he listened to their opinions, gave his own, supported it with reasons, so that because of these continued cogitations there could never arise, while he led the army, any accident for which he did not have the remedy.

But, as to the exercise of the mind, a prince should read histories and consider in them the actions of excellent men, should see how they conducted themselves in wars, should examine the causes of their victories and losses, so as to be able to avoid the latter and imitate the former. Above all he should do as some excellent man has done in the past who found someone to imitate who had been praised and glorified before him, whose exploits and actions he always kept beside himself, as they say Alexander the Great imitated Achilles; Caesar, Alexander; Scipio, Cyrus. And whoever reads the life of Cyrus written by Xenophon124 will then recognize in the life of Scipio how much glory that imitation brought him, how much in chastity, affability, humanity, and liberality Scipio conformed to what had been written of Cyrus by Xenophon.

A wise prince should observe such modes, and never remain idle in peaceful times, but with his industry make capital of them in order to be able to profit from them in adversities, so that when fortune changes, it will find him ready to resist them.