# Chapter XIX — Of Avoiding Contempt and Hatred

But because I have spoken of the most important of the qualities mentioned above, I want to discourse on the others briefly under this generality, that the prince, as was said above in part, should think how to avoid those things that make him hateful and contemptible. When he avoids them, he will have done his part and will find no danger in his other infamies. What makes him hated above all, as I said,148 is to be rapacious and a usurper of the property and the women of his subjects. From these he must abstain, and whenever one does not take away either property or honor from the generality149 of men, they live content and one has only to combat the ambition of the few which may be checked in many modes and with ease. What makes him contemptible is to be held variable, light, effeminate, pusillanimous, irresolute, from which a prince should guard himself as from a shoal. He should contrive that greatness, spiritedness, gravity, and strength are recognized in his actions, and he should insist that his judgments in the private concerns of his subjects be irrevocable. And he should maintain such an opinion of himself that no one thinks either of deceiving him or of getting around him.

The prince who gives this opinion of himself is highly reputed, and against whoever is reputed it is difficult to conspire, difficult to mount an attack, provided it is understood that he is excellent and revered by his own subjects. For a prince should have two fears: one within, on account of his subjects; the other outside, on account of external powers. From the latter one is defended with good arms and good friends; and if one has good arms, one will always have good friends. And things inside will always remain steady, if things outside are steady, unless indeed they are disturbed by a conspiracy; and even if things outside are in motion, provided he has ordered and lived as I said, as long as he does not forsake himself he will always withstand every thrust, as I said Nabis the Spartan did.150 But, as to subjects, when things outside are not moving, one has to fear that they may be conspiring secretly. From this the prince may secure himself sufficiently if he avoids being hated or despised and keeps the people satisfied with him; this is necessary to achieve, as was said above at length.151 And one of the most powerful remedies that a prince has against conspiracies is not to be hated by the people generally. 152 For whoever conspires always believes he will satisfy the people with the death of the prince, but when he believes he will offend them, he does not get up the spirit to adopt such a course, because the difficulties on the side of the conspirators are infinite. And one sees from experience that there have been many conspiracies, but few have had a good end. For whoever conspires cannot be alone, but he cannot find company except from those he believes to be malcontents; and as soon as you disclose your intent to a malcontent, you give him the matter with which to become content, because manifestly he can hope for every advantage from it. So, seeing sure gain on this side, and on the other, dubious gain full of danger, he must indeed either be a rare friend, or an altogether obstinate enemy of the prince, to observe his faith with you. And to reduce this to brief terms, I say that on the part of the conspirator there is nothing but fear, jealousy, and the anticipation of terrifying punishment; but on the part of the prince there is the majesty of the principality, the laws, the protection of friends and of the state which defend him, so that when popular good will is added to all these things, it is impossible that anyone should be so rash as to conspire. For whereas a conspirator ordinarily has to fear before the execution of the evil, in this case (having the people as enemies) he must fear afterwards too, when the excess has occurred, nor can he hope for any refuge.

One might give infinite examples of this matter, but I wish to be content with only one that happened within the memory of our fathers. Messer Annibale Bentivoglio, grandfather of the present Messer Annibale, who was prince in Bologna, was killed by the Canneschi conspiring against him, and no one survived him but Messer Giovanni, who was in swaddling clothes. Immediately after that homicide the people rose up and killed all the Canneschi. This came from the popular good will the house of Bentivoglio had in those times, which was so great that since there remained no one of that house in Bologna who could rule the state, Annibale being dead, and since there was indication that in Florence someone had been born of the Bentivogli who was considered until then the son of a blacksmith, the Bolognese came to Florence for him and gave him the government of their city, which was governed by him until Messer Giovanni reached an age suitable for gov-earning. 153

I conclude, therefore, that a prince should take little account of conspiracies if the people show good will to him; but if they are hostile and bear hatred for him, he should fear everything and everyone. And well-ordered states and wise princes have thought out with all diligence how not to make the great desperate and how to satisfy the people and keep them content, because this is one of the most important matters that concern a prince.

Among the well-ordered and governed kingdoms in our times is that of France;154 and in it are infinite good institutions on which the liberty and security of the king depend. The first of these is the parlement and its authority. For the one who ordered that kingdom,155 knowing the ambition of the powerful and their insolence, and judging it necessary for them to have a bit in their mouths to correct them, and on the other side, knowing the hatred of the generality of people156 against the great, which is founded in its fear, and wanting to secure them, intended this not to be the particular concern of the king, so as to take from him the blame he would have from the great when he favored the popular side, and from the popular side when he favored the great; and so he constituted a third judge to be the one who would beat down the great and favor the lesser side without blame for the king. This order could not be better, or more prudent, or a greater cause of the security of the king and the kingdom. From this one can infer another notable thing: that princes should have anything blameable administered by others, favors157 by themselves. Again I conclude that a prince should esteem the great, but not make himself hated by the people.

It might perhaps appear to many, considering the life and death of some Roman emperor, that there were examples contrary to my opinion, since one may find someone who has always lived excellently, and shown great virtue of spirit, and has nonetheless lost the empire or indeed been killed by his own subjects who conspired against him. Since I want, therefore, to respond to these objections, I shall discuss the qualities of certain emperors, showing the causes of their ruin to be not unlike that which I have advanced; and in part I shall offer for consideration things that are notable for whoever reads about the actions of those times. And I want it to suffice for me to take all the emperors who succeeded to the empire, from Marcus the philosopher to Maximinus: these were Marcus, Commodus his son, Pertinax, Julianus, Severus, his son Antoninus Caracalla, Macrinus, Heliogabalus, Alexander,158 and Maximinus. And first it is to be noted that whereas in other principalities one has to contend only with the ambition of the great and the insolence of the people, the Roman emperors had a third difficulty, of having to bear with the cruelty and avarice of their soldiers. This was so difficult that it was the cause of the ruin of many, since it was difficult to satisfy the soldiers and the people. For the people loved quiet, and therefore loved modest princes, and the soldiers loved a prince with a military spirit who was insolent, cruel, and rapacious. They wanted him to practice these things on the people so that they could double their pay and give vent to their avarice and cruelty. These things always brought about the ruin of those emperors who by nature or by art did not have a great reputation such that they could hold both in check. And most of them, especially those who came to the principate as new men, once they recognized the difficulty of these two diverse humors, turned to satisfying the soldiers, caring little about injuring the people. This course was necessary; for since princes cannot fail to be hated by someone, they are at first forced not to be hated by the people generally;159 and when they cannot continue this, they have to contrive with all industry to avoid the hatred of those communities which are most powerful. And so those emperors who because they were new had need of extraordinary support stuck to the soldiers rather than the people, which nonetheless turned out useful for them or not according to whether that prince knew how to keep himself in repute with them. From the causes mentioned above, Marcus, Pertinax, and Alexander, all living a modest life, lovers of justice, enemies of cruelty, humane and kind, all, except for Marcus, came to a bad end. Only Marcus lived and died most honorably, because he succeeded to the empire by hereditary right and did not have to acknowledge it as from either the soldiers or the people; then, since he was attended with many virtues that made him venerable, while he lived he always kept the one order and the other within its bounds, and was never either hated or despised. But Pertinax was created emperor against the will of the soldiers, who, since they were used to living in license under Commodus, could not tolerate the decent life to which Pertinax wanted to return them; hence, having created hatred for himself, and to this hatred added disdain since he was old, he was ruined in the first beginnings of his administration.

And here one should note that hatred is acquired through good deeds as well as bad ones; and so, as I said above,160 a prince who wants to maintain his state is often forced not to be good. For when that community161 of which you judge you have need to maintain yourself is corrupt, whether they are the people or the soldiers or the great, you must follow their humor to satisfy them, and then good deeds are your enemy. But let us come to Alexander. He was of such goodness that among the other praise attributed to him is this: that in the fourteen years he held the empire no one was ever put to death by him without a trial. Nonetheless, since he was held to be effeminate and a man who let himself be governed by his mother, and for this came to be despised, the army conspired against him and killed him.

Reviewing162 now, by contrast, the qualities of Commodus, of Severus,163 Antoninus Caracalla, and Maximinus, you164 will find them very cruel and very rapacious. To satisfy the soldiers, they would not spare any kind of injury that could be inflicted on the people; and all except Severus came to a bad end. For in Severus was so much virtue that, by keeping the soldiers his friends, although the people were overburdened by him, he was always able to rule happily because his virtues made him so admirable in the sight of the soldiers and the people that the latter remained somehow astonished and stupefied, while the former were reverent and satisfied.

And because the actions of this man were great and notable in a new prince, I want to show briefly how well he knew how to use the persons of the fox and the lion, whose natures I say above165 are necessary for a prince to imitate. Since Severus knew of the indolence of Emperor Julianus, he persuaded his army, of which he was captain in Slavonia, that it would be good to go to Rome and avenge the death of Pertinax, who had been put to death by the praetorian soldiers. Under this pretext, without showing that he aspired to the empire, he moved his army against Rome; and he was in Italy before his departure was known. When he arrived at Rome, he was elected emperor by the Senate out of fear and Julianus put to death. After this beginning there remained two difficulties for Severus if he wanted to become lord of the whole state: one in Asia, where Pescennius Niger, the head of the Asian armies, had had himself called emperor; and the other in the West, where Albinus also aspired to the empire. And because he judged it dangerous to disclose himself as an enemy to both, he decided to attack Niger and deceive Albinus. To Albinus he wrote that since he had been elected emperor by the Senate he wanted to share that dignity with him; he sent him the title of Caesar, and by decision of the Senate accepted him as colleague. These things were accepted by Albinus as true. But after Severus had defeated Niger, put him to death, and brought peace to affairs in the East, he returned to Rome and complained in the Senate that Albinus, hardly grateful for the benefits he had received from him, had perfidiously sought to kill him, and for this it was necessary for Severus to go punish his ingratitude. Then he went to meet him in France, and took from him his state and his life.

Thus, whoever examines minutely the actions of this man will find him a very fierce lion and a very astute fox, will see that he was feared and revered by everyone, and not hated by the army, and will not marvel that he, a new man, could have held so much power.166 For his very great reputation always defended him from the hatred that the people could have conceived for him because of his robberies. But his son Antoninus [Caracalla] was himself a man who had most excellent parts that made him marvelous in the sight of the people and pleasing to the soldiers. For he was a military man, very capable of enduring every trouble, disdainful of all delicate food and of all other softness, which made him loved by all the armies. Nonetheless, his ferocity and cruelty were so great and so unheard of—for after infinite individual killings he had put to death a great part of the people of Rome and all the people of Alexandria—that he became most hateful to all the world. He began to be feared even by those whom he had around him, so that he was killed by a centurion in the midst of his army. Here it is to be noted that deaths such as these, which follow from the decision of an obstinate spirit, cannot be avoided by princes because anyone who does not care about death can hurt167 him; but the prince may well fear them less because they are very rare. He should only guard against doing grave injury to anyone of those whom he uses and has around him in the service of his principality, as Antoninus had done. He had put to death with disgrace a brother of that centurion, and threatened him every day; yet he kept him in his bodyguard, which was a rash policy likely to bring ruin, as happened to him.168

But let us come to Commodus, who held the empire with great ease because he had it by hereditary right, being the son of Marcus. It was enough for him only to follow in the footsteps of his father, and he would have satisfied both the soldiers and the people. But since he had a cruel and bestial spirit, so as to practice his rapacity on the people he turned to indulging the armies and making them licentious. On the other hand, by not keeping his dignity, by descending often into theaters to fight with gladiators, and by doing other very base things hardly deserving of the imperial majesty, he became contemptible in the sight of the soldiers. And since he was hated on one side and despised on the other, he was conspired against and put to death.

It remains now to tell of the qualities of Maximinus. He was a very warlike man; and since the armies were disgusted with the softness of Alexander, whom I discussed above, when he was put to death they elected Maximinus to the empire. He did not possess it for long because two things made him hated and contemptible: one was being of very base origin169 because he had formerly herded sheep in Thrace (which was very well known everywhere and brought great disdain for him in the sight of everyone); the other was that because at the start of his principality he had deferred going to Rome and taking possession of the imperial throne, he had established an opinion of himself as very cruel, since he had committed many cruelties through his prefects in Rome and everywhere in the empire. So, since the whole world was excited by indignation at the baseness of his blood and by hatred arising from fear of his ferocity, Africa rebelled first, then the Senate with all the people of Rome; and all Italy conspired against him. These were joined by his own army, which, while besieging Aquileia and finding difficulty in capturing it, became disgusted with this cruelty, and fearing him less because it saw he had so many enemies, it killed him.

I do not want to reason about either Heliogabalus or Macrinus or Julianus, who, because they were altogether contemptible, were immediately eliminated; but I shall come to the conclusion of this discourse. And I say that the princes of our times have less of this difficulty of satisfying the soldiers by extraordinary means in their governments. For notwithstanding that one has to show them some consideration, yet this is quickly settled because none of these princes has armies joined together which are entrenched in the government and administration of provinces, as were the armies of the Roman Empire. And so, if at that time it was necessary to satisfy the soldiers rather than the people, it was because the soldiers could do more than the people. Now it is necessary for all princes except the Turk and the Sultan170 to satisfy the people rather than the soldiers, because the people can do more than the soldiers. I except the Turk from this, since he always keeps around him twelve thousand infantry and fifteen thousand horse on whom the security and strength of his kingdom depend; and it is necessary for that lord to put off every other regard and keep them his friends. Similarly, since the kingdom of the sultan is in the hands of the soldiers, he also is required to keep them his friends, without respect for the people. And you171 have to note that the sultan’s state is formed unlike all other principalities because it is similar to the Christian pontificate, which cannot be called either a hereditary principality or a new principality. For it is not the sons of the old prince who are the heirs and become the lords, but the one who is elected to that rank by those who have the authority for it. And this being an ancient order, one cannot call it a new principality, because some of the difficulties in new principalities are not in it; for if the prince is indeed new, the orders of that state are old and are ordered to receive him as if he were their hereditary lord.

But let us return to our matter. I say that whoever considers the discourse written above will see that either hatred or disdain has been the cause of the ruin of the emperors named before, and will also know whence it arises that, though some of them proceeded in one mode and some in the contrary mode, in whichever mode, one of them came to a happy end and the others to unhappy ends. For to Pertinax and Alexander, because they were new princes, it was useless and harmful to wish to imitate Marcus, who was in the principate by hereditary right; and similarly, for Caracalla, Commodus, and Maximinus it was a pernicious thing to imitate Severus, because they did not have as much virtue as would allow them to follow in his footsteps. Therefore, a new prince in a new principality cannot imitate the actions of Marcus, nor again is it necessary to follow those of Severus; but he should take from Severus those parts which are necessary to found his state and from Marcus those which are fitting and glorious to conserve a state that is already established and firm.