Machiavelli in Tumult: The "Discourses on Livy" and the Origins of Political Conflictualism 9781107177277, 9781316822562, 1107177278

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Machiavelli in Tumult

The Discourses on Livy and the Origins of Political Conflictualism Gabriele Pedullà

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Machiavelli in Tumult Among the theses that for centuries have ensured Niccolò Machiavelli an ambiguous fame, a special place is reserved for his extremely positive opinion of social conflicts, and, more particularly, to the claim that in ancient Rome “the disunion between the plebs and the Roman senate made that republic free and powerful” (Discourses on Livy I.4). Contrary to a long tradition that had always valued civic concord very highly, Machiavelli thought that – at least under certain conditions – internecine discord could be a source of strength and not of weakness, and built upon this daring proposition an original vision of political order. Machiavelli in Tumult (originally published in Italian in 2011) is the first book-length study entirely devoted to analyzing this idea, its ancient roots (never before identified), its enduring (but often invisible) influence right up to the American and French Revolutions (and beyond), and its relevance for contemporary political theory. Gabriele Pedullà is Professor of Italian and Comparative Literature at the University of Rome 3 and has been a visiting professor at Stanford, UCLA, and the École Normale Supérieure (Lyon), Francesco De Dombrowski Fellow at “Villa I Tatti” – the Harvard University Center for the Italian Renaissance, Fellow at the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America (Columbia University), and Belknap Visiting Fellow in the Humanities Council at Princeton. His English-language publications include In Broad Daylight: Movies and Spectators after the Cinema (Verso, 2012) and many essays on Renaissance political thought. With Sergio Luzzatto, he edited the three-volume Atlante della letteratura italiana (Einaudi, 2010–2012). His new edition and commentary on Machiavelli’s Prince (Donzelli, 2013) is due to be published in English by Verso and is under translation in French, Spanish, and Portuguese. He is also the author of two prize-winning works of fiction: the short-story collection Lo spagnolo senza sforzo (Einaudi, 2009, partially translated into English), and the novel Lame (Einaudi, 2017, due to be published in English by Seagull Books as Blades).

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Machiavelli in Tumult The Discourses on Livy and the Origins of Political Conflictualism

GABRIELE PEDULLÀ Università di Roma 3

Translated by

PATRICIA GABORIK AND RICHARD NYBAKKEN

Revised and updated by the author

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University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia 314–​321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi –​110025, India 79 Anson Road, #06-​04/​06, Singapore 079906 Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/​9781107177277 DOI: 10.1017/​9781316822562 © Cambridge University Press 2018 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2018 Printed in the United States of America by Sheridan Books, Inc. A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Pedulla, Gabriele, author. Title: Machiavelli in tumult : the discourses on Livy and the origins of political conflictualism / Gabriele Pedulla, University of Rome. Other titles: Machiavelli in tumulto. English Description: New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018013742 | ISBN 9781107177277 (hardback) Subjects: LCSH: Machiavelli, Niccolo, 1469–1527. Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio. | Political science – Early works to 1800. | Livy. Ab urbe condita. Classification: LCC JC143.M163P4313 2018 | DDC 937–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018013742 ISBN 978-​1-​107-​17727-​7 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-​party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

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Corrado Vivanti in memoriam

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Contents

List of Figures and Tables Acknowledgments Notes on the Text List of Abbreviations Epigraph Introduction 1 Concordia Parvae Res Crescunt: The Humanistic Backdrop 2 “A Necessary Inconvenience”: The Demystification of Political Concord From Philosophy to History “Relishing the Savor” vs. “Hearing” Battles over Chronologies Tumults, Tribunes, and “Mixed Government” Tumults and “Humors” The “Modes” of Tumults Between Friends and Enemies The “Aims” of Tumults

3 Fear and Virtue: The Rebuttal to Humanistic Pedagogy A Precarious Freedom The Fragility of Virtuousness Terror: “The Greatest Master There Is” The Many Faces of Fear The Empty Throne

4 “The Guard of Liberty”: The Rejection of Aristotelian Balance Checks without Balance

page ix xi xv xvii xix 1 10 27 27 34 39 42 48 53 64 73 84 84 88 94 102 110 117 117 vii

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Contents

viii Two or Three? A Skeptical Populism

5 “Giving the Foreigners Citizenship”: An Expansive Republicanism A Humanistic Theory of Citizenship? The Roman Model The Aristotelian Model Conquest or Concord? Reviving Roman Expansionism

6 Dionysius’ Reappearance: The Classical Roots of Modern Conflictualism In the Footsteps of Polybius? Dionysius: “Mixed Government” and Roman Tumults Dionysius: Dictatorship and Roman Tumults Dionysius: Citizenship and Roman Tumults Dionysius and/​or Livy

7 Remembering Conflict: Machiavelli’s Legacy Between Aristotle and Hobbes A Third Paradigm? (1531–​1789) Conflict Remembered (1789–​2000) Machiavelli and Us

Index of Machavelli’s Works General Index

126 134 145 145 148 152 160 170 181 181 187 198 203 213 220 220 227 241 250 259 261

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Figures and Tables

Figures 1.1 Micipsa’s motto in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (Manuzio, 1499) 1.2 Micipsa’s motto on a satirical medal celebrating the Peace of Utrecht (1713) 4.1 Tripartite and binary representations of society: Aristotle vs. Machiavelli 5.1 Types of constitutions according to Machiavelli 6.1 The Roman constitution in the monarchical period according to Dionysius 6.2 The Roman constitution in the republican period according to Dionysius 7.1 Types of political order

page 16 17 134 169 190 202 253

Tables 2.1 2.2 3.1 6.1

Types of Renaissance commentaries “Ordinary modes” vs. “extra-​ordinary modes” Types of metus hostilis The mixed constitution: Polybius vs. Dionysius and Machiavelli

28 62 108 204

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Acknowledgments

I do not believe it has ever been noted that the literary genre of acknowledgments is meant to offer a sort of “census” of one of the main families of characters described by Vladimir Propp in his classic Morphology of the Folktale:  the pomoščnik, namely the “helpers” of the hero (in this case the author himself). Perhaps this is why academic monographs’ opening pages so often indulge in autobiography  –​in a sort of instinctive reaction of personal history against timeless narrative structures, or as the revenge of the very human passions that lurk behind any book against the dry protocols of scholarly research. A similar rite seems all the more necessary with works that had a particularly laborious genesis, as in the case of this book. An earlier version of this study was presented as a tesi di laurea at the University of Rome “La Sapienza” in April 1997 (advisors: Giulio Ferroni and Nino Borsellino) and then discussed as a Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Milan “La Statale” in January 2002 (advisor:  Michele Mari). Two long stays in Paris (an Erasmus fellowship at Paris X “Nanterre” with Paul Larivaille in 1993–​4 and a PhD fellowship at the “École Normale Superieure” of Fontenay-​Saint Cloud with Jean-​Louis Fournel and Jean-​Claude Zancarini in 1998–​9), as well as a year-​long fellowship at “Villa i Tatti,” the Harvard University Center for the Italian Renaissance in Florence (2007–​8), were particularly important in the book’s maturation. Portions of the text have already been published and reappear here in revised form; in particular, paragraphs 1–​3 of Chapter 3, first presented to a Machiavelli conference in Paris (November 1998), came out in A.  Fontana, J.-​L. Fournel, X. Tabet, and J.-​C. Zancarini (eds.), Langues et écritures de la république et de la guerre: Études sur Machiavel (NAME, 2004), pp. 299–​334; some pages of paragraph 5 of Chapter 3 and of paragraph 3 of Chapter 6 synthesize a paper given at a conference on the state of exception held in Teramo (December 2004) and then published in F. Benigno and L. Scuccimarra (eds.), Il governo dell’emergenza. Poteri straordinari e di guerra in Europa tra XVI xi

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e XX secolo (Viella, 2007), pp.  35–​73; Chapters  5 and 6 have respectively appeared in “Storica,” 9 (2003), nn. 25–​26, pp.  105–​73, and in “Storica,” 10 (2004), n.  28, pp.  7–​90; while paragraph 1 of Chapter  7 develops some passages of my introduction to N. Loraux, La città divisa, ed. G. Pedullà (Neri Pozza, 2005). Throughout the stages of my research I have benefited from the comments and the help of a number of friends and colleagues, including Walter Barberis, Francesco Benigno, Amedeo De Vincentiis, Jean-​Louis Fournel, Miguel Gotor, Laura Marvasi, Michael Rocke, Alessandro Schiesaro, Luca Scuccimarra, and Jean-​Claude Zancarini. When the book was almost complete I  had the pleasure of discussing some of its topics with Jérémie Barthas: many traces of our conversations can be found in the final version. Special thanks finally go to Amedeo Quondam, to whose research on European classicism Machiavelli in Tumult owes so much; his close reading of the manuscript as the editor of the series in which the book originally appeared in Italian in 2011 was invaluable to its ultimate form. However, two people deserve special mention. In the fall of 1993 the discovery of the seminar held by Nicole Loraux at the “École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales” marked a point of no return. Her lectures, which that year dealt with the issues discussed in La cité divisée and La tragédie d’Athènes, are behind my decision to study Machiavelli’s theory of conflict. Of course, Loraux was not an expert on Machiavelli. But as an incredibly learned and curious person, she knew about his positive assessment of Roman tumults and sufficiently admired the speech given by an anonymous plebeian in book III of the Florentine Histories to listen with indulgence and generosity to the odd comparison between Athens and Florence that a young Italian did not shy away from presenting to her. The fact that she was not able to read these pages is for me, even today, a source of regret. Most of all, though, my debt goes to Corrado Vivanti, who followed this work from the very beginning. In my catalog of “helpers,” he is the good wizard of my humble fairytale, the one who in moments of despair gave me the magic comb or the enchanted ring with which to overcome the inevitable stalls of research: the friend who never, for almost twenty years, failed to mentor. This tumultuous Machiavelli is dedicated to his memory. Compared to the Italian volume, this is a considerably shorter book. For editorial reasons I  had to cut the footnotes drastically, beginning with the extensive bibliographic discussions and the original Latin texts (including the humanistic translations of the Greek works). However, the English edition gave me also the opportunity to return to the volume, further clarifying some points in light of the new studies that have accumulated since 2009, when the manuscript was delivered to the Italian publisher. Major interventions have been made, especially in Chapter 7 whose first two sections come from the original introduction, while the third and fourth sections of this chapter are entirely new. Since the publication of my book in Italian I have changed my mind only

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on a single point: the judgment on the impasse Machiavelli faces in Disc. I.37 and the role Cleomenes’ model plays in it (here discussed in Chapter 2); a few passages of the new version are from my essay ‘Umori e tumulti,’ published in E.  Cutinelli-​Rendina and R.  Ruggiero (eds.), Lessico critico machiavelliano (Carocci, 2018, pp. 225–43). At its final stage my reworking has benefited from the comments of the reviewers of the Italian monograph,1 the opinions of two anonymous readers of Cambridge University Press and some stimulating conversations with Jérémie Barthas, Filippo Del Lucchese, Romain Descendre, Marco Geuna, John McCormick, John Najemy, and Ronald Witt. To all of them I express my most sincere gratitude. Last but not least, I  want to thank Robert Dreesen, for welcoming my volume into his collection; Elisabetta Tomassini for the graphics; Maddalena Spagnolo for the artistic and iconographic suggestions; Anna Carocci for the index; and the translators, Patricia Gaborik and Richard Nybakken, for their inspired and thoughtful work –​if my Machiavelli in tumulto has successfully passed through that difficult step in a book’s life which is the rendition in another idiom, the merit goes entirely to them.

L. Bolzoni, ‘Una politica molto classica,’ Il Sole 24 Ore, February 24, 2013; J.-​L. Fournel, Rassegna della Letteratura Italiana, 117 (2013), pp. 566–​70; A.M. Cantore, Annali di Italianistica, 31 (2013), pp. 64–​66; P. Zito, Esperienze letterarie, 38 (2013), pp. 132–​34; J.M. Najemy, Renaissance Quarterly, 67 (2014), pp. 992–​93; G. Cappelli, Cuadernos de Filología Italiana, n. 20 (2014), pp. 354–​61; J.-​L. Fournel, Laboratoire Italien, n. 14 (2014); C. Zwierlein, Historische Zeitschrift, n.  229 (2014), pp. 195–​99; F. Raimondi, ‘Machiavelli nel quinto centenario del “Principe”,’ Storia del Pensiero Politico, 3 (2014), pp. 115–​32; R. Gendre, Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana, n. 633 (2014), p. 154; L. Cuppo, The Sixteenth Century Journal, 45 (2014), pp. 184–​86; J. Barthas, ‘Machiavelli e l’istituzione del conflitto,’ Rivista Storica Italiana, 127 (2015), pp. 552–​ 66; N. Sánchez, ‘Orden, conflicto y principado civil. Un diálogo con Gabriele Pedullà en torno a la “política gris” de Maquiavelo,’ Cuadernos de Filología italiana, 23 (2016), pp. 109–​24. 1

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Notes on the Text

For Machiavelli, the Italian reference edition is the one edited by Corrado Vivanti, Opere, 3  vols. (Einaudi, 1999–​2005). His principal works are cited from these English translations: Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, ed. W.J. Connell (Bedford, 2005) Niccolò Machiavelli, The Art of War, transl. Ellis Farneworth, rev. N. Wood (Da Capo, 2001) Niccolò Machiavelli, Florentine Histories, eds. L.  Banfield and H.C. Mansfield (Princeton University Press, 1988) For the passages quoted from the Discourses, a new version has been realized especially for this book, but two previous English editions have been given special consideration:  Niccolò Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, eds. H.C. Mansfield and N.  Tarcov (University of Chicago Press, 1996)  and Niccolò Machiavelli, The Sweetness of Power, eds. J. Atkinson and D.C. Sices (Northern Illinois University Press, 2002); the latter has also been used for the translation of Francesco Guicciardini’s Considerations on the “Discourses,” there published in the appendix. Unless otherwise specified, for all Greek and Latin authors the versions in the Loeb collection have been followed throughout the whole book; when strictly necessary, all translations have been slightly modified to make them closer to the original.

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Abbreviations

G. Sasso, Machiavelli e gli antichi, 4 vols. (Ricciardi, 1987–​97) Atlante S. Luzzatto and G. Pedullà (eds.), Atlante della letteratura italiana, 3 vols. (Einaudi, 2010–​12) City-​States A. Molho, K. Raaflaub, and J. Emlen (eds.), City-​States in Classical Antiquity and Medieval Italy: Athens and Rome, Florence and Venice (Steiner, 1991) Civic Humanism J. Hankins (ed.), Renaissance Civic Humanism: Reappraisals and Reflections (Cambridge University Press, 2000) Companion J.M. Najemy (ed.), Companion to Machiavelli (Cambridge University Press, 2010) Contributi A. Momigliano, Contributi alla storia degli studi classici e del mondo antico, 10 vols. (Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1955–​2012) Legacy P.A. Rahe (ed.), Machiavelli’s Liberal Republican Legacy (Cambridge University Press, 2006) Machiavelli and Republicanism  G. Bock, Q. Skinner, and M. Viroli (eds.), Machiavelli and Republicanism (Cambridge University Press, 1993) Antichi

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Studies

Visions

Abbreviations N. Rubinstein, Studies in Italian History in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, ed. G. Ciappelli, 3 vols. (Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2004–​2012) Q. Skinner, Visions of Politics, 3 vols. (Cambridge University Press, 2002)

newgenprepdf

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“Historians, poets and orators take their start from these popular, poorly considered opinions. They represent foreign war with images of glory and conquest while speaking about civil war only in the odious terms of disorder, injustice and confusion. These are your primary teachers at an age when reason, yet to be fully developed, accepts all the errors presented to it as truths. Later on, one presumes that they had reflected on what they wrote, because they express themselves with authority. One takes them at their word, and I was duped by them like everyone else.” Mably, Des droits et des devoirs du citoyen “The only ‘civil’ wars are civil wars.” Enzo Melandri, La linea e il circolo “In his country, the desirability of a civil war had been discussed for some time.” Giorgio Manganelli, Centuria

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Introduction

“For thou art weak to sing such tumult dire.” John Keats, Hyperion

The publication of Niccolò Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy, composed in the 1510s but only appearing in print in 1531, four years after the author’s death, is undoubtedly one of the most significant moments in the history of political thought. One reason Machiavelli’s treatise is so important is its unprecedented attack on 2,000  years of Greek, Roman, and humanistic reflections on the value of civic concord. This attack –​its premises, its significance, its influence in the western political tradition, its relevance for contemporary theory –​is the subject of the following pages. Machiavelli does not hesitate in confronting the problem. The thesis destined to create scandal –​namely, that “the disunion between the plebs and the Roman senate made that republic free and powerful” (Disc. I.4) –​ appears almost immediately in the Discourses. As we will see, for Machiavelli tumults are a good thing only when they meet certain conditions: they are not violent; they ultimately improve the institutions; they provide a safe “venting” of the “humors” for those hostile toward their rulers and, thanks to the threat they pose, force the rulers to behave more virtuously; they do not take place between organized “sects”; and they are commensurate with their “aim” (someone pushing for a radical redistribution of wealth, for example, would have to resort to much more drastic means, in Machiavelli’s view). These are no minor qualifications. And yet, the decision to look internal conflicts in the eye –​instead of shrinking away in horror –​signaled an absolute break with the past. Even Machiavelli’s regular interlocutors, figures like Donato Giannotti and Francesco Guicciardini, were utterly astonished. Their response is understandable. In the Discourses Machiavelli is resolute, identifying the problem of tumults –​how to avoid them, how to control them, 1

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Introduction

how to exploit them in the interest of the commonwealth –​with that of political order itself (and in regard to this posture it might be helpful to keep in mind one of his famous maxims, confided in a letter to Guicciardini dated May 17, 1521: “I believe that the following would be the true way to go to Heaven: learn the way to Hell in order to steer clear of it”). For Machiavelli, since conflict is always present one must learn to live with it and, hopefully, discipline it –​which is exactly what the ancient Romans managed to do. In fact, somewhat surprisingly, he argued, the Romans derived great benefits from the turbulence between the various “humors” that compose every political body. This reinterpretation of the struggles between patricians and plebs resulted, among other things, in a new way of assessing the sickness and health of States –​and uprooted the Discourses from that humanistic tradition in which Machiavelli was raised. For this highly original argument, Machiavelli has rightly been called “the crowd’s first real champion at the level of theory.”1 It is no exaggeration to say that the long history of conflictualism in western political thought begins with the Discourses, or that they mark a “new conception of society.”2 Of course, not everyone embraced this shift. After the initial reactions were calm and reasoned, a series of frontal attacks appeared, beginning in the mid 1570s, when the French Huguenot Innocent Gentillet (1535–​88) used the thesis of Disc. I.4 to craft one of the most enduring commonplaces of the anti-​Machiavellian tradition. His Machiavelli is the instigator of the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre (1572), a friend to tyrants and, precisely for this reason, an advocate of the civil wars that clear the way for despotic regimes. It would have been nice if Machiavelli and those in his country who considered tumults to be useful and profitable had kept them for themselves, with all the profit and utility they found in them, without sharing them with their neighbors. And as for France, it would have willingly spared itself the Machiavellians coming from Italy, from beyond the mountains, to sow here the tumults and partisan divisions that we see today, the cause of so much bloodshed, so many homes destroyed and so many other miseries and calamities, which everyone feels, sees, and deplores.3

Gentillet’s invectives help us today to fully appreciate the originality of the ideas in Disc. I.4. His Contre-​Machiavel (1576) is laced with a polemic fury that 1 J.S. McClelland, The Crowd and the Mob (Routledge, 2010), p.  62. Early on, John Adams described Machiavelli as the founder of a “plebeian philosophy” (‘Defence of the Constitutions and Government of the United States of America,’ in John Adams, Works, ed. C.F. Adams, 10 vols., Little & Brown, 1850–​6, VI, p. 396), while Benjamin Constant cast him as the intellectual father of those who “have written in favor of equality, and acted or spoken on behalf of the descendants of the oppressed and against the descendants of the oppressors” (Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments, ed. D. O’Keeffe, Liberty Fund, 2003, p.  188). See J. Barthas, ‘Machiavelli in Political Thought from the Age of Revolutions to the Present,’ in Companion, pp. 256–​73: 265–​66. 2 N. Wood, ‘The Value of Asocial Sociability:  Contributions of Machiavelli, Sidney, and Montesquieu,’ Bucknell Review, 16 (1968), pp. 1–​22: 20. 3 Innocent Gentillet, Contre-​Machiavel, eds. A. D’Andrea and P.D. Stewart (Casalini, 1974), III.31, p. 544.

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distorts its target’s words to the point that they are unrecognizable. And yet, even after one shows the extent to which Gentillet’s condemnation relies on a misreading of Machiavelli’s text, some questions remain. What is the meaning of the Discourses’ rupture with the past? How did it take shape? What does it have to teach us, in general, about Machiavelli? And what is the relationship between the Discourses’ conflictualism and the new conflictualist theories that emerged during the nineteenth century? These are the kinds of questions this book seeks to answer, while keeping in mind that reconstructing Machiavelli’s analysis of Roman and Florentine tumults is not aimed so much at focusing on a particular theme as it is an opportunity to interrogate the entire project of the Discourses. After all, his highly original reflections on the best form of government, on the value of fear, on the politics of citizenship, on conquest, on the art of war, and even on religion all pass through this critical node. As one expert recently wrote, Machiavelli’s rehabilitation of conflict “is not only one of the most striking and original theses of his political thought, but also one of the most controversial in the whole history of western political thought.”4 And yet, curiously, in the twentieth century the Discourses’ perspective on tumults has received little scholarly attention, apart from a handful of essays.5 Indeed, for quite some time, entire monographs on Machiavelli could be written without mentioning it or doing so only in passing. Marxist thinkers merely presented him as a predecessor to the theory of class struggle; liberals only drew arguments from him to promote a form of conflict regulated by law; and those nostalgic for the classical tradition, like Leo Strauss, simply viewed the Florentine’s thesis as further confirmation of his immorality.6 Even John Pocock and Quentin Skinner were careful not to emphasize this issue, focusing instead on aspects that allowed them to place the Discourses under the umbrella of ancient and Renaissance republicanism  –​and this despite describing the Discourses’ appreciation of the conflicts between patricians and 4 F. Del Lucchese, The Political Philosophy of Niccolò Machiavelli (Edinburgh University Press, 2015), p. 49. 5 Wood, ‘Asocial Sociability’; C. Lefort, Le travail de l’oeuvre Machiavel (Gallimard, 1972), pp. 467–​87, 510–​14; A. Bonadeo, Corruption, Conflict and Power in the Works and Times of Niccolò Machiavelli (University of California Press, 1973), pp. 37–​71; G. Cadoni, ‘Machiavelli teorico dei conflitti sociali,’ Storia e politica, 17 (1978), pp. 197–​220; G. Sasso, Machiavelli e i detrattori antichi e nuovi di Roma. Per l’interpretazione di “Discorsi” I.4 (Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1978); R. Esposito, La politica e la storia. Machiavelli e Vico (Liguori, 1983), pp. 45–​74; R. Esposito, ‘Ordine e conflitto in Machiavelli e Hobbes,’ in R. Esposito, Ordine e conflitto (Liguori, 1984), pp. 179–​220; K.M. Brudney, ‘Machiavelli on Social Classes and Class Conflict,’ Political Theory, 12 (1984), pp. 507–​19; V. Kahn, ‘Reduction and the praise of disunion in Machiavelli’s “Discourses”,’ Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 19 (1988), pp. 1–​19; G. Bock, ‘Civil Discord in Machiavelli’s “Istorie fiorentine”,’ in Machiavelli and Republicanism, pp. 181–​202; M. Senellart, ‘La crise de l’idée de concorde chez Machiavel,’ Les Cahiers Philosophiques de Strasbourg, 4 (1996), pp. 117–​33; T. Ménisser, ‘Ordini et tumulti selon Machiavel,’ Archives de philosophie, 62 (1999), pp. 221–​39. 6 L. Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli (University of Chicago Press, 1978), p. 259.

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Introduction

plebes as “daring,” “arresting,” “shocking,” even “incredible to minds which identified union with stability and virtue, conflict with innovation and decay,”7 and noting the “radical nature of Machiavelli’s attack on the prevailing orthodoxy.”8 Essentially, the only political thinkers in whose work Machiavellian conflictualism played a major role are Claude Lefort and Neal Wood, both in anti-​bureaucratic and anti-​totalitarian keys.9 Then, more or less at the dawn of the twenty-​first century, the subject of tumults began to receive increasing attention, to the point that in just a few years it turned out to be one of the most hotly debated topics in Machiavelli studies. Indeed, between the time when this research was defended as a doctoral dissertation (in January 2002) and came out as a monograph in Italian (in Fall 2011), the resolute stance taken up by the Discourses had become a trendy object of exploration. And the trend has shown no signs of waning.10 In the plethora of studies on Machiavelli’s conflictualism that have appeared in recent years, two readings have dominated: for convenience one can call them “constituent” and “populist.” At the crossroads between the Spinozism of Louis Althusser and the operaismo (or workerism) of Toni Negri, the constituent interpretation was formulated mainly by Filippo Del Lucchese in Conflict, Power and Multitude in Machiavelli and Spinoza, originally published in Italian in 2004 and then translated into English (Continuum, 2009), French (2010), and Turkish (2016). As an Althusserian, Del Lucchese is interested in the so-​called tradition of “aleatory materialism”:  the line of thought that, running from Epicurus to Marx, passes through Lucretius, Machiavelli, and Spinoza. The relationship between the latter two is Del Lucchese’s focal point, even if in his book Machiavelli sometimes serves principally as a “preamble” for the Tractatus theologicus-​politicus (not surprisingly, the monograph was published in Italy in a series on Spinoza). Conflict, Power and Multitude interprets Machiavelli’s theory on tumults, especially in light of the binary constituent power/​ constituted power, with which Negri surveyed modern political philosophy in 7 J.G.A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment (Princeton University Press, 1975), p. 194. 8 Q. Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, 2 vols. (Cambridge University Press, 1978), I, p. 182. Maurizio Viroli’s denial is even stronger: “In recommending the tumultuous but powerful Roman republic,” Machiavelli “was simply pointing out to his contemporaries that politics must face the additional task of handling civic discord as a fact of life in the city” (From Politics to Reason of State, Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 161). 9 It should however be noted that, in the dispute between consensualist (Talcott Parsons) and conflictualist sociologists (Lewis Coser, Ralf Dahrendorf, Randall Collins), Machiavelli was often placed among the ranks of the latter (whereas Aristotle was considered the head of the former). See D. Martindale, The Nature and Types of Sociological Theory (Routledge, 1961), p. 142; T.J. Bernard, The Consensus-​Conflict Debate (Columbia University Press, 1983). 10 Very likely, Machiavellian theory of conflict also benefited from the increasing interest of social scientists and intellectual historians in civil war. See i.e. S.N. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War (Cambridge University Press, 2006), and D. Armitage, Civil Wars. A History in Ideas (Yale University Press, 2017).

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Insurgencies.11 For Del Lucchese, Machiavelli is the first writer to go beyond the tradition of civic concord but also the first to dispose of the concept of the “common good,” opening the way for modern class struggle (especially in the Florentine Histories). Above all, the Discourses are said to theorize the need to periodically give the people back its voice through riots, understood as tools for promoting “good laws” (Disc. I.4). The impossibility of completely separating constituted power from constituent power is therefore used by Del Lucchese to replace the State-​Revolution binary with that of Institutions-​ Tumults. In doing so Machiavelli and Spinoza are called upon to provide an antidote to a version of Hegel that Althusserians and post-​workerists consider to be a sort of forerunner to Soviet totalitarianism. In the Discourses, then, Conflict, Power and Multitude seeks an alternative route to radical political transformation, which (unlike classic Marxism, and the Leninist tradition in particular) no longer calls for the storming of the Winter Palace but happens instead through a series of insurrectionary rifts that continuously reshape political life in a kind of dialectic without synthesis.12 The interpretation of John McCormick is quite different. Succinctly put, if Del Lucchese reads the Discourses through Spinoza, on more than one point McCormick is indebted to Rousseau (especially for his unassailable faith in popular virtues, whereas on other issues McCormick has much less sympathy for the French philosopher’s ideas).13 Machiavellian Democracy (Cambridge University Press, 2011)  presents a radical Machiavelli (“populist,” “citizen-​empowering,” and “anti-​elitist”) as remote from Pocock and Skinner’s republican version as it is from that of Strauss’ disciples. Yet, contrary to Del Lucchese, McCormick does not place Machiavelli in Marx’s shadow. Moreover, while in his tumults-​institutions binary Del Lucchese focuses almost exclusively on the first term, McCormick emphasizes the second. He is especially interested in the powers assigned to the tribunes in the Discourses to counteract the “ambition of the mighty” (Disc. I.37): the popular trials against anyone appearing to undermine the “free life,” and the right of veto against any laws potentially harmful to the “common good.” Rightly concerned

T. Negri, Insurgencies (University of Minnesota Press, 1999). For a criticism of Negri’s position (deeply rooted in his categories, though) see M. Vatter, ‘Resistance and Legality: Arendt and Negri on Constituent Power,’ Kairos, 20 (2002),  pp. 191–​230, and the reply to Vatter by Del Lucchese: ‘Machiavelli and Constituent Power,’ European Journal of Political Theory, 16 (2017), pp. 1–​21. Blending Negri with Arendt, Vatter developed his own interpretation in Betweeen Form and Event: Machiavelli’s Theory of Political Freedom (Fordham University Press, 2014 –​originally published in 2000). 12 The positions of Roberto Esposito (Living Thought, Stanford University Press, 2012, pp. 52–​ 57), and Fabio Raimondi (Constituting Freedom: Machiavelli and Florence, Oxford University Press, 2018) are not far from those of Del Lucchese. 13 For instance, McCormick reads the Social Contract’s refusal for class-​specific institution like the tribunes as a conscious rebuttal to Machiavelli’s radical approach: ‘Rousseau’s Rome and the Repudiation of Populist Republicanism,’ Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 10 (2007), pp. 3–​27. 11

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about growing social inequality and the crisis of representative democracy, McCormick goes so far as to propose an amendment to the United States constitution, introducing a college of 51 tribunes, elected on an annual basis by lot from citizens with households earning under $345,000. This means that, of all the possible Machiavellis, McCormick chooses the theorist of unprecedented constitutional alchemies whose ideas left lasting traces in the pages of French Enlightenment philosophers and in the work of the Founding Fathers. More recently, McCormick has highlighted another (no less relevant) aspect of Machiavellian “populism,” valorizing the extra-​legal moment that was missing from Machiavellian Democracy: the Florentine’s affection for Greek social reformers who resorted to violence, like the Spartan Cleomenes. As far as the Discourses are concerned, this second tenet of McCormick’s analysis is especially relevant also for a correct interpretation of Machiavelli’s judgment on the Gracchi.14 Machiavelli in Tumult proposes yet another reading, which for simplicity’s sake might be defined as “expansive.” The adjective is meant to emphasize Machiavelli’s identification of a relationship between the territorial expansion of the Republic and the expansion of the people’s power in the city. The significance given to war and to foreign policy in general is certainly not surprising from a man with Machiavelli’s military and diplomatic curriculum. However, rarely have the scholars interested in the Discourses’ conflictualism underscored the connection between the two aspects, even if Machiavelli explicitly spoke of Rome military’s strength as a main benefit of the tumults. In fact Machiavelli’s approval of civil conflict should be considered the axis around which the two wheels of his biography (and work) turn: his efforts to reform the Florentine army through the creation of a popular militia, and his struggle to limit the power of the Florentine aristocracy. The present study distances itself from others on the Discourses’ conflictualism along five fundamental lines: (1) It takes classical and humanist theory on concord (in general, quickly dismissed) very seriously, reconstructing its logic, its intellectual roots, its enormous success and its implications in a number of fields (a preference for certain forms of government, a particular attitude toward pedagogy, a special appreciation for balance, etc.). Only by comparing Machiavelli’s work with this tradition is it possible to fully appreciate the Discourses’ originality and their open polemic with Dante’s “master of those who know” (Inferno IV.131): Aristotle. To elucidate this context, Machiavelli in Tumult casts a wide net, looking at texts not normally considered by historians of political thought: less known and often forgotten treatises but also sermons, medieval romances, legal tracts, 14 Other populist readings of Machiavelli have been proposed by Martin Breaugh (The Plebeian Experience, Columbia University Press, 2013, pp. 46–​52) and Jeffrey Green (The Shadow of Unfairness, Oxford University Press, 2016).

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7

novelle, iconographic materials, local chronicles, antiquarian collections, even pornographic dialogues… This is Michel Foucault’s great methodological lesson: to pull out the philosophical implications of works traditionally excluded from the philosophical canon. (2) It traces the origins of Machiavelli’s thesis, revealing the importance of the too-​often neglected Roman Antiquities by the Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus (60–​7 BCE). Machiavelli took at least four of the Discourses’ main ideas directly from him:  (a) the theory of mixed constitution; (b)  the favorable assessment of dictatorship; (c)  the argument that Rome’s policy of openness toward new citizens and peoples defeated in war contributed to the city’s success and, most significantly, (d)  the positive appraisal of social conflicts. However, while the discovery of Dionysius’ contribution to the project of the Discourses is invaluable for a better understanding of Machiavelli’s cultural formation, it also poses a larger historiographical problem: if the recognition that conflict is natural marks the origins of an alternative to classical political thought, how are we to judge the fact that this shift took place as a result of Machiavelli’s encounter with an author from the first century BCE? In response to this dilemma, Machiavelli in Tumult introduces the concept of political classicism: an (intrinsically modern) attitude toward the Greco-​Roman past which no longer reflects that of the humanists –​because instead of simply drawing on Plato, Aristotle, Xenophon, Cicero, and Seneca, it aims to recover the actual political prudence of the Romans through a hermeneutics of the ancient historical narratives (beginning with Livy). The conflictualism of the Discourses must be framed, then, within a complete repositioning of political theory with respect to philosophy and history. (3) For the first time ever, this book documents the lasting success of Machiavelli’s idea on the positive effects of tumults in Italy (Francesco Sansovino, Antonio Ciccarelli, Virgilio Malvezzi, Tommaso Campanella, Vittorio Alfieri); France (Louis Machon, Montesquieu, Claude-​ Adrien Hélvétius, Jean-​ Jacques Rousseau, Mably); the United Kingdom (Marchamont Nedham, John Milton, Lord Halifax, Algernon Sidney, Walter Moyle, Thomas Gordon, John Trenchard, Adam Ferguson); Spain (Diego de Saavedra Fajardo); Poland (Joachim Pastorius); and the United States (John Adams). Clearly, such diverse authors do not make up a uniform tradition (at most one might speak of a “constellation”); all the same, the European diffusion of Machiavellian conflictualism is highly significant because it shows that his was not an isolated position. On the contrary, by opening a breach in the deeply rooted ideology of civic concord, the Discourses created the possibility of a new way of speaking about politics. From that moment, and for virtually all of the three centuries that followed, the conflictualist paradigm clashed on almost equal footing with Aristotelian consensualism (rooted in nature) and Hobbesian consensualism (founded on the artificial machine of the State), in a sort of three-​way match in which

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Machiavelli remained less visible only because, after being placed on the Index of Prohibited Books (1559), his name could not be safely uttered in any Catholic country. (4) It proposes a new periodization of western political thought, built on the role attributed to conflict by different authors in different epochs. The Discourses appear to be the decisive turning point in this grand narrative: the single work that opened the door to an original conception of political order breaking with the classical and humanistic tradition of concord. Interestingly enough, when the conflictualist approach became prevalent, with the rise of Liberalism and Marxism, Machiavelli’s legacy was somehow clouded by their success and, as a result, he has ever since been read mostly as a precursor to ideas that are very different from his own –​even if this new, post-​1789 conflictualism could emerge only thanks to the Discourses’ seminal contribution. (5) It resists the temptation to connect Machiavelli’s theory of conflict with the political traditions established after Rousseau and the French Revolution. Suggesting that some of the concepts employed in the Discourses are foreign to contemporary thought does not, however, mean simply taking a stand against anachronism in the name of historical truth. When restored to his proper distance, Machiavelli becomes far more original (and stimulating) from a theoretical point of view than if one tries to force him into the categories and problems most familiar to us. Something a great philologist-​philosopher of the last century, Sebastiano Timpanaro, once wrote about the materialism of Giacomo Leopardi (1798–​1837) in relation to that of Marx can also be said about Machiavelli: In order to understand our world we need ideas truly of the moment, not myths we have fabricated or “fragments” from the great authors of the past arbitrarily isolated and reinterpreted. We should not think –​and no serious Marxists could think –​of an easy reconciliation between Marxism and the Leopardian Weltanschauung. Among the many errors I  have committed in my so-​called career as a scholar there is one I  do not believe I  ever committed:  that of travestying as “pre-​Marxist” authors of a completely different school, or  –​with an equal and contradictory fraudulence  –​ that of forcing the interpretation of Marx in order to identify it, even partially, with other forms of thought. My passion for Leopardi (and not only Leopardi) depends above all on that which is not in Marx and others, yet is true and alive. On the contrary, I think –​and this is quite different –​it is necessary to continue the reflection and research on the contribution that the pessimistic materialism of Leopardi, precisely insofar as it is different from Marxism, can make to the development of Marxism so that the latter avoids, among other things, a regression to anthropocentric positions, to a too providentialist conception of the course of history (even if it is a providentialism entirely immanent to human history), or to the opposite dangers of flat sociologism and irrationalism.15 15 S. Timpanaro, Antileopardiani e neomoderati nella sinistra italiana (ETS, 1985), p. 196.

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Of course, this methodological approach is grounded in a clear preference for history as the discipline that best respects intellectual difference. The superimposition of the present onto the past is, I believe, the main risk one faces in an age that increasingly rewards the catchphrases immediately applicable to current events. Indeed, one of the objectives of this book is to contribute to overcoming the “Great Divide” that still hinders dialogue between political theorists and intellectual historians. The novelty of Machiavelli can hardly be appreciated through forced baptisms in the name of Karl Marx or Stuart Mill. At the cost of asking the reader to give up any simplistic formulas, the following chapters intend to demonstrate that the ideas on conflict in the Discourses are far more complex than they are generally presented to be, and far less easy to understand through the lens of contemporary philosophy. This call to history, however, in no way rules out the possibility that, once his ideas have been interpreted iuxta propria principia, Machiavelli’s writings remain extremely relevant today. On the contrary, whether one defends the status quo or contests it, the Discourses still have a great deal to teach us –​provided that one first comes thoroughly to terms with their bewildering otherness.

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1 Concordia Parvae Res Crescunt The Humanistic Backdrop

“‘What about harmony in a State –​do you think that it is something useful?’ ‘Indeed it’s so necessary that the State can’t exist at all without it; take it away and you take away the State’s raison d’être entirely.’” Aurelio Lippo Brandolini, De comparatione reipublicae et regni “No partisan goes to Heaven; it, being divine unity, does not admit but the united and lovers of unity.” Giovanni Dominici, Governo di cura familiare “Nothing is more useful to republics than concord.” Giovanni Cavalcanti, Trattato politico-​morale

Under the shade of a fig tree, in the midst of a vineyard, sit two middle-​aged women. The sun still lies low on the horizon, but it is summer and the temperature is already beginning to rise. Nearby, a maidservant is finishing up the leftovers from the morning meal, while the two friends are deep in conversation. It is an ideal setting for a discussion of the philosophical meaning of love, or the conflict between utile (utility) and honestum (goodness), or the essence of true nobility, as in any number of Renaissance dialogues. And one might even imagine a turn to yet more elevated thoughts, as suggested by the presence of the fig tree –​an ancient scriptural emblem of conversion revived by Augustine, who had set the episode of his own calling under its shade (Confessiones VIII.12.28). However, the two women are not waxing on about religion, philosophy or the ideal form of government. Instead they talk about clandestine trysts and betrayals, sensual enticements and mercenary services, vows broken and innocence corrupted, so that in the end even the plant is revealed to be nothing more than a somewhat vulgar allusion to female anatomy (in Italian fico means “fig”; its close homonym, fica, signifies “vagina”). As a matter of fact, we are in the third and last day 10

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of Ragionamento della Nanna e della Antonia: a singular theory on harlotry composed by Pietro Aretino (1492–​1556) in imitation (and parody) of Renaissance treatises on manners, first published in the tolerant Republic of Venice in 1534. “What is the best condition for women?” the two friends ask each other. Nanna is unsure what future to give her daughter, now at a marriageable age, and Antonia –​whom Aretino depicts as having lived through the three “stages” of wife, nun, and courtesan in sequence –​comes to her aid by retracing her own libertine career. It would be difficult to land any further from the exquisitely male world of politics, where, at most, the task reserved for women was the use of their bodies to seal alliances between clans (of men). Still, a closer look reveals that the female universe portrayed by Aretino is not presented as an ordo naturalis but as a specific ordo artificialis, parallel to that of men and conceived in such a way that the three conditions of wife, nun, and courtesan reflect, as if in a funhouse mirror, the traditional division of society into peasants, priests, and soldiers. For those capable of seeing beyond the comic, carnivalesque vein, Aretino’s dialogue can be read as a highly original political treatise –​one that can teach us much more about the Renaissance conception of society than the umpteenth dull rewriting of Aristotle’s or Cicero’s precepts. Here, though, our interest in the Ragionamento is limited to just one of the many pieces of advice that Antonia offers her friend. If she wants her client’s riches, Antonia suggests, Nanna must first incite their compassion by portraying her daughter as a victim of adversity: better yet if she does so by spreading the rumor that the ill-​fated girl’s father was “killed in the wars between the Guelphs and Ghibellines. So the poor woman fled to Rome with the few things she could snatch up when she escaped.”1 Indeed, Aretino has no doubt that the best way to touch listeners is to tell of someone who has seen her family decimated by civil strife. In more tragic terms, one might think of Luigi Da Porto’s short story Giulietta (1530), or even Shakespeare. Precisely because specialists of political thought normally do not read Aretino, this passage from the Ragionamento is an invaluable testament to the pathos with which Machiavelli’s contemporaries lived factional conflicts. What Aretino does, really, is render comic a widespread fear that was in itself very serious. In fact, as Poggio Bracciolini (1380–​1459) had written almost a century earlier in listing the evils of public life, “to die in one’s own town due to the judgement of the stupid plebs” and “to be dragged into the turmoil of popular factions” was surely “the most miserable end one might come to.”2

Pietro Aretino, Dialogues, ed. D. Rosenthal (University of Toronto Press, 2005), p. 100. 2 Poggio Bracciolini, De infelicitate principum, ed. D. Canfora (Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1998), p. 56. 1

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The significance of Aretino’s text becomes clear only if one takes as a point of departure the unanimity with which Renaissance culture promoted the value of unity and denounced the dangers of any rift within the political body.3 At the same time, the dialogue between Antonia and Nanna reminds us of the anguish behind these recurring appeals to peace, for in Aretino and Bracciolini one glimpses a long history of searing passions and painful memories. One must not be deceived by the elegant and at times slightly cold Latin with which concord is evoked in Renaissance treatises: the weeping of widows and orphans had truly lacerated Italian cities. And Nanna and Antonia, these two unparalleled connoisseurs of the human soul, also seem to have learned from the humanists to weigh the terror that accompanied civil strife. With full knowledge of this anguish, Aretino devised the literary stratagem of the two women to mock a real obsession of his time.4 Certainly, his laughter is somewhat bitter or caustic, but the comic effect is assured. And there’s no need to cite Freud in pointing out the peculiar relationship between laughter and fear (one laughs about the things one fears most). Only against this backdrop –​both social and psychological –​does the centrality of tumults in Machiavelli’s thought become comprehensible. Internal struggles had proven particularly dangerous for the free city-​States in central-​ north Italy, where ever since the thirteenth century extreme competition for offices and the ongoing battle between the pope, the emperor, and the king of France had fueled quarrels first between magnati and popolani and later between Guelphs and Ghibellines. Frequently an eminent citizen had taken advantage of such clashes to present himself in the guise of a peacemaker, setting himself up as the informal ruler of the city until an imperial or pontifical charter legitimated that power, usurped by force and deceit. The undeniable association between internal conflicts and the world of the Communes was already noted in scholastic treatises, where the absence of factions often appears as a decisive argument in favor of princely rule (Giles of Rome, De regimine principum III.2.3; Thomas Aquinas, De regimine principum I.5–​6). Beginning 3 Despite the fact that political factions are a classic theme of historiography on the Italian city-​states, Renaissance reflections on the evils of discord have not attracted much attention. Among the few exceptions are J.K. Hyde, ‘Contemporary Views on Factions and Civil Strife in Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century Italy,’ in L. Martines (ed.), Violence and Civil Disorder in Italian Cities (University of California Press, 1972), pp. 273–​307; F. Bruni, La città divisa (il Mulino, 2003). On concord in Greek and Roman political thought, see at least A. Momigliano, ‘Camillus and Concord,’ in Contributi II, pp. 89–​104; P. Jal, ‘ “Pax civilis-​Concordia,” ’ Revue des études latins, 39 (1961), pp. 210–​31; M. Amit, ‘“Concordia.” Idéal politique et instrument de propagande,’ Iura, 13 (1962), pp. 133–​69; L. Bertelli, ‘L’apologo di Menenio Agrippa: incunabolo di “Homonoia” a Roma?,’ Index, 3 (1972), pp. 224–​34; A. Moulakis, Homonoia. Eintracht und die Entwicklung eines politischen Bewusstseins (List, 1973); N. Loraux, The Divided City (Zone Books, 2002); G.D. Rocchi (ed.), Tra concordia e pace (Cisalpino, 2007); P. Akar, Concordia. Un idéal de la classe dirigeante romaine à la fin de la République (Publications de la Sorbonne, 2013). 4 In Renaissance political treatises, the figures of the widow and the orphan are often associated with civil strife. See i.e. Matteo Palmieri, Vita civile, ed. G. Belloni (Olschki, 1982), III.146.

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in the second half of the fourteenth century, however, this idea had also taken on increasing importance in seigneurial propaganda,5 and it would reappear later in the works of humanists defending Caesar from the accusation of having killed Roman freedom. In their view, the republic would have never found a way out of the vortex of civil wars without the resolute intervention of a man who –​ridding the State of internecine competition between sides –​put an end to such disputes.6 Due to the political instability of civic self-​government, even a Florentine like Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–​75), from his pro-​Angevin perspective, had no qualms about condemning the city of his birth in comparison to the peaceful Neapolitan court, as his Lady Fiammetta does in a vain attempt to persuade her beloved Panfilo to avoid going back to Tuscany: Since you are going where you were born, which is the place that one loves most of all but which (as I have already heard you say) you happen to find irritating because (as you yourself have also said) your city is full of pompous talk and cowardly deeds, is ruled not by a number of laws but as many opinions as there are men, is torn by strife and war within and without, and is turbulent and filled with haughty, avaricious, and envious people and with innumerable troubles.7

Beyond individual preferences and parochial disagreements, civil conflicts constituted a real problem; this is why they were a topic of discussion in the most varied contexts. Among Renaissance authors, in particular, it was a commonly accepted notion that government by the many encouraged discord, and in this respect residents of a free city were at a disadvantage in comparison with the subjects of a prince. Unlike those who proclaimed the primacy of principalities, however, communal political thinkers derived no arguments against republics from this premise. To the contrary, in their eyes self-​government was a privilege earned through constant vigilance over internal and external enemies. The access to public life, which from the Enlightenment on would be conceived of as a natural right, appeared in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance as a traditional right, inscribed much more in a juridical culture 5 See Pietro Paolo Vergerio, ‘De monarchia,’ in Pietro Paolo Vergerio, Epistolario, ed. L. Smith (Tipografia del Senato, 1934), pp. 447–​50. On concord in princely propaganda:  D.M. Bueno de Mesquita, ‘The Place of Despotism in Italian Politics,’ in J.R. Hale, J.R.L. Highfield, and B. Smalley (eds.), Europe in the Late Middle Ages (Faber & Faber, 1965), pp. 301–​31; G.M. Varanini, ‘Propaganda dei regimi signorili: le esperienze venete del Trecento,’ in P. Cammarosano (ed.), Le forme della propaganda politica nel Due e nel Trecento (École française de Rome, 1994), pp. 311–​43; A. Gamberini, ‘Orgogliosamente tiranni,’ in A. Zorzi (ed.), Tiranni e tirannide nel Trecento italiano (Viella, 2013), pp. 77–​93. 6 Coluccio Salutati, ‘De Tyranno,’ in Coluccio Salutati, Political Writings, ed. S.U. Baldassarri (Harvard University Press, 2015), II.9; IV.18; Guarino Guarini, ‘De praestantia Scipionis et Caesaris,’ in D. Canfora (ed.), La controversia di Poggio Bracciolini e Guarino Veronese su Cesare e Scipione (Olschki, 2001), pp. 119–​40: 138; Bartolomeo Platina, De optimo cive, ed. F. Battaglia (Zanichelli, 1942), p. 205; Francesco Patrizi, De regno (Zetner, 1608), I.13; IX.2. 7 Giovanni Boccaccio, The Elegy of Lady Fiammetta, ed. M. Causa-​ Steindler (University of Chicago Press, 1990), p. 34.

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of libertates (in the plural, as exceptions to the universal powers of the Church or the Empire) than one of libertas (in the singular, as an abstract principle). This certainly did not make self-​government any less valuable, but there was a clear awareness that it required exceptional care, especially against partisan divisions.8 There was also a well-​established tradition tying Florence (along with Siena and Genoa) to a peculiar penchant for civil strife. Brunetto Latini (c. 1220–​ 94) had argued that “the Florentines are always at war and in discord,”9 tracing their character back to the city’s astral position, dominated by the planet Mars.10 But one might also recall the judgment of Dino Compagni (1246/​7–​ 1324), who defined his fellow citizens as “bold in arms, proud and contentious (discordevoli)”;11 the harsh condemnations of Giovanni Villani (c. 1280–​1348) in his Nuova cronica (II.1; IV.1), where he blamed the dual origins of the city’s first inhabitants (the Romans and Fiesolani); or a bitter observation by the poet and novelist Franco Sacchetti (1332–​1400) on the Florentines’ inability to remain united.12 Following in these footsteps, Leonardo Bruni and Bracciolini had in the fifteenth century insisted that the Tuscans (like the Etruscans before them)13 were especially prone to tumults. And many of Machiavelli’s contemporaries would write exactly the same thing.14 8 The exaltation of concord and the condemnation of discord commonly appear in the proceedings of Florentine pratiche (the informal consultations between public officials and important citizens of the Republic). See G. Brucker, Florentine Politics and Society (Princeton University Press, 1962), p. 148; G. Brucker, The Civic World of Early Renaissance Florence (Princeton University Press, 1977), p.  333; N. Rubinstein, The Government of Medici under Florence (Clarendon, 1997); G. Pampaloni, ‘Fermenti di riforme democratiche nelle consulte della Repubblica fiorentina (novembre-​dicembre 1465),’ Archivio storico italiano, 119 (1961), p. 272; Consulte e pratiche, ed. D. Fachard, 3 vols. (Droz, 1988–​2002); F. Gilbert, ‘Florentine Political Assumptions in the Period of Savonarola and Soderini,’ Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 20 (1957), pp. 187–​214: 203–​4. 9 Brunetto Latini, Li livres dou Tresor, eds. P. Barrette and S. Baldwin (Garland, 1993), I.37. 10 See L. Gatti, ‘Il mito di Marte a Firenze e la “pietra scema,” ’ Rinascimento, 35 (1995), pp. 201–​30. 11 Dino Compagni, Chronicle of Florence, ed. D.E. Bornstein (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986), I.1. 12 Franco Sacchetti, Opere, ed. A. Borlenghi (Rizzoli, 1957), p. 1120. See also Franco Sacchetti, Trecentonovelle, ed. E. Faccioli (Einaudi, 1979), novella clix. 13 Leonardo Bruni, Historiae, ed. J. Hankins, 3  vols. (Harvard University Press, 2001–​7), I.34; Poggio Bracciolini, ‘De miseria humanae conditionis,’ in Poggio Bracciolini, Opera, ed. R.  Fubini, 4  vols. (La bottega di Erasmo, 1964–​9), I, pp. 88–​131:  127; Poggio Bracciolini, Facetiae, ed. M. Ciccuto (Bur, 1983), lxxxviii. 14 Bartolomeo Cerretani, Storia fiorentina, ed. G. Berti (Olschki, 1993), pp. 71, 189, 300; Francesco Guicciardini, Dialogue on the Government of Florence, ed. A. Brown (Cambridge University Press, 1994), p.  19; Francesco Vettori, ‘Sommario della Istoria d’Italia,’ in Francesco Vettori, Scritti storici e politici, ed. E. Niccolini (Laterza, 1972), pp. 133–​246: 145; Cristoforo Landino, Comento alla Comedia, ed. P. Procaccioli (Salerno, 2001), p.  1796; Baldassar Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier, ed. D. Javitch (Norton, 2002), II.77; Matteo Bandello, Novelle, ed. D. Maestri, 4 vols. (Edizioni dell’Orso, 1992–​6), I.1.

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Ever since the late thirteenth century, when (thanks in part to the dissemination of the classics) the ideology of civic harmony and the “common good” had gradually prevailed, imposing a new “political style” that rejected violence,15 Italian writers had condemned factions. They did so primarily through a quotation from Sallust, which could either exhaust the argument or provide a spur to further reflection depending on the occasion: “small States grow with concord, while even the greatest are destroyed by discord” (concordia parvae res crescunt, discordia maxumae dilabuntur).16 Opportunely taken out of context, Sallust’s line  –​which in the Bellum Iugurthinum (10) is delivered by Jugurtha’s uncle, Micipsa, to persuade his heirs to govern by mutual agreement –​would underpin political thought from that moment on and for centuries to come. Appearing in thirteenth-​century French encyclopedias such as the anonymous Moralium dogma philosophorum or Guillaume Perrault’s Summa virtutum et vitiorum, in Italy it would be reiterated by a wide range of authors before migrating onto cartouches, building facades, majolica tiles, medals, coins, and tapestries (see Figures 1.1. and 1.2).17 It should come as no surprise, then, that at the close of the fifteenth century the humanist Francesco Patrizi of Siena (1413–​94) could qualify this “little phrase” as a sort of divine revelation, venturing that “Sallust’s opinion must be regarded as an oracle.”18 Assuming the character of an aphorism (something that occurred quite frequently in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance with classical texts19), Micipsa’s remark soon took on a life of its own. The first time we encounter it in a Tuscan writ –​a vernacular translation of a work by Albertano of Brescia (c. 1200–​70) –​the author assigns it to Seneca,20 while in the Florentine pratiche J.M. Najemy, ‘The Dialogue of Power in Florentine Politics,’ in City-​States, pp. 269–​88. For the contribution of humanism, see R.G. Witt, In the Footsteps of the Ancients (Brill, 2001), pp. 424–​26. 16 “As hungry men dream of food and frozen men of warmth, so the men of the Italian republics dreamed of concord” (D. Waley, The Italian City-​Republics, Longman, 1978, p. 126). 17 Latini, Tresor III.108; Marsilius of Padua, Defensor pacis I.1.2; Petrarch, Familiares XII.2.14; Flavio Biondo, ‘Roma triumphans,’ in Flavio Biondo, Opera (Froben, 1559), p. 121; Alamanno Rinuccini, Lettere e orazioni, ed. V.R. Giustiniani (Olschki, 1953), pp. 191–​92; Pietro Crinito, De honesta disciplina, ed. C. Angeleri (Bocca, 1955), XIII.2; Pius II, Commentarii, eds. M. Meserve and M. Simonetta (Harvard University Press, 2004–​), II.21; Girolamo Savonarola, ‘Treatise on the Constitution and Government of Florence,’ in R.N. Watkins (ed.), Humanism and Liberty (University of South Carolina Press, 1978), pp. 231–​60, II.3. For other medieval reuses: Q. Skinner, ‘The Rediscovery of Republican Values,’ in Visions II, pp. 10–​38: 23–​24; R.G. Witt, The Two Latin Cultures and the Foundation of Renaissance Humanism in Medieval Italy (Cambridge University Press, 2012), p. 258. Among the many possible “visual” adaptations, it is worth recalling at least Abraham Ortelius’ Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Diesth, 1570), the first modern atlas, where the map of the Turkish empire is commented upon with Micipsa’s motto. 18 Patrizi, De regno IV.10 (see also VIII.14); Patrizi, De institutione reipublicae I.6. 19 A. Moss, Printed Commonplace-​Books and the Structuring of Renaissance Thought (Oxford University Press, 1996). 20 Albertano of Brescia, Trattati morali (Venturini, 1824), p. 152. This is not an error, as Sallust’s saying is taken up by Seneca, Epistulae XCIV.46. 15

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Figure  1.1 Micipsa’s motto in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (Manuzio, 1499). Private collection

it is sometimes recycled without attribution, likely because the source was already so familiar that the orator hardly considered it necessary to repeat it yet again.21 Moreover, the slight variations suggest that Sallust’s motto was being cited by memory, and this is probably the best evidence of its success. There was certainly no dearth of famous sayings on the evils of division. Machiavelli’s contemporaries knew, for example, that Cicero had defined concord –​along with justice –​as “the foundation of the State” (De officiis II.22.78). And they were also aware that Augustine urged his readers to consider concord “the tightest and best safety rope in every State” (De civitate Dei II.21, quoting Cicero’s lost De republica), while Aristotle taught that “friendship is the greatest of blessings for the State, since it is the best safeguard against civil strife” (Politics II.1).22 In the end, though, none of these mottos, not even the evangelical “Any kingdom divided against itself will be ruined” (Matthew 12.25; Luke 11.17), would be cited as often as Micipsa’s words. Pampaloni, ‘Fermenti,’ p. 272. 22 On the importance of friendship in humanistic political thought:  A. Ceron, L’amicizia civile e gli amici del principe (EUM, 2011). For practical applications of ancient theory: D.V. Kent, Friendship, Love, and Trust in Renaissance Florence (Harvard University Press, 2009). 21

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Figure  1.2 Micipsa’s motto on a satirical medal celebrating the Peace of Utrecht (1713). British Museum Note: The medal was realized in Germany by Christian Vermuth in 1714. On the obverse, under the motto Concordia res parvae crescunt, an Englishman, a Frenchman, and a Dutchman, all partially undressed, defecate against a wall; the Englishman says: “I am pleased,” the Frenchman replies: “If you please,” and the Dutchman concludes: “I do it also.” On the reverse, under the motto Discordia maxima dilabuntur, the same three men, now fully dressed, throw at each other the contents of the heap which they are represented making on the other side; the Englishman says: “Fie, what is that?,” the Frenchman replies: “Without regard,” and the Dutchman concludes: “What! Does that please you?”

Hans Blumenberg has argued that the strength of myths lies not in their antiquity but in their adaptability to new contexts, allowing a virtually endless series of reinterpretations and reinventions.23 The extensive reuse of Sallust’s motto suggests that something similar applies to the most successful maxims as well. Here, we are dealing with a particularly malleable expression: applicable to governance of the family and the city, to the secular sphere and the Church, to friends and to military affairs (partly thanks to the polysemic note of the term res). Nor must one overlook the effectiveness of the chiasmus as a mnemonic aid, with its allusion to the unstoppable cycle of growth, corruption, and decadence governing our sublunary world. For several centuries Micipsa’s saying accompanied every reflection on internecine quarrels, but one must resist the temptation of seeing it as a simple refrain. What remain to be deciphered are the subtle conceptual tensions that  –​in all cultures founded on the primacy of tradition  –​mark the repetition of a formula that continually takes on new meanings.24 Within such

23 H. Blumenberg, Work on Myth (MIT Press, 1985). 24 K. Flasch, Einführung in die Philosophie des Mittelalters (Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1987), pp. 2–​3, 16.

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apparent uniformity, only a thorough knowledge of context will free us from the hypnotic spell of the classics. On this point it is always worth recalling a warning by Walter Benjamin, who in reviewing a too-​sparsely annotated edition of Marsilio Ficino’s letters, cautioned readers about the risk of confusing “edifying banalities with things that had perhaps at one time been allusions or pointedly cutting remarks” due to a lack of adequate historical information.25 Variation may of course seem preferable to repetition; however, the humanists’ undisputed familiarity with the classics gave them the possibility of taking either one route or the other (more often both). For examples of the abundant variations on the same concept, there is no better figure to turn to than the aforementioned Francesco Patrizi of Siena. Even though he receives little attention from scholars today, in his own time Patrizi was a prominent author. And when, in 1518 and 1519, both his treatises finally made it to the printing press, he soon became one of the most published political thinkers in sixteenth-​ century Europe, second only to Aristotle and Machiavelli.26 A humanist caught up in Siena’s factional struggles, a high prelate and governor of Foligno appointed by his friend (and distant relative) Pius II and, finally, a resident bishop in the diocese of Gaeta under the protection of the Aragon dynasty of Naples, Patrizi has remained an enigma to modern historians.27 The few twentieth-​century scholars who have studied him merely criticized his supposed opportunism and scolded him for having composed a De regno after a De institutione reipublicae –​as if these were two pamphlets in praise of principalities or civic self-​government, rather than two systematic political tracts –​or otherwise condemned his supposed idealism (whereas Patrizi was anything but an ingénue, and always distilled traditional precepts in light of his own experience as a seasoned politician). In fact, as will become evident in the following chapters, Patrizi is a thinker of considerable depth. His De institutione reipublicae in particular is a summa of the best the humanists had to offer at that time on the different forms of government. However, Patrizi stands out from other authors not so much, or solely, for the breadth of his classical references, which are indeed unparalleled among his contemporaries, but for the perspicacity and the originality with which he brings disparate testimonies into a conceptual framework in large part derived from Aristotle.28 All these factors probably make Patrizi, along with Giovanni Pontano, one of the most acute political theorists of the second half of the W. Benjamin, ‘Einige Ältere und Neuere Neudrucke,’ in W. Benjamin, Schriften, 6  vols. (Suhrkamp, 1972–​85), III, pp. 54–​57: 54. 26 J. Hankins, ‘Exclusivist Republicanism and the Non-​Monarchical Republic,’ Political Theory, 38 (2010), pp. 452–​83: 468–​69. 27 See G. Pedullà, ‘Francesco Patrizi e le molte vite dell’umanista,’ in Atlante I, pp. 457–​63. 28 Patrizi’s highly original analysis of the Athenian constitution is an excellent example. See G. Pedullà, ‘The Renaissance and Machiavelli,’ in G. Giorgini and D. Pavan (eds.), Companion to the Reception of Athenian Democracy (Brill, forthcoming 2019). 25

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fifteenth century, confirming the persistent intellectual vitality of Aristotelianism in this field as well (contrary to the claims of Quentin Skinner).29 It is precisely in Patrizi’s praise of concord that his eclecticism appears most strikingly. In just two pages the reader encounters all the images generally used to describe the necessity of “mutual caritas” between citizens: the bees and the ants (from Aristotle, Politics I.2); a ship’s crew (from Plato, Republic 487c–​ 489d); the fable of the old father and the unbreakable spears (from Plutarch’s Sayings of Kings and Commanders); Rome and Athens; and a popular proverb about the only city walls that cannot be breached. The bees and the ants are not simply animals of little account; rather, they should serve as examples to us, because they all work together, live in company, and in company provide for their own preservation. They are protected by the same defenses, in danger they fight the common enemy and they watch over their goods, their young and their people. Who indeed can be considered a good citizen if he only works alone to his own benefit, shunning others, and because of his greediness accepts with difficulty even to provide for the nourishment of his children and spouse? The State should be viewed as similar to a ship, which needs the hands and efforts of everyone who travels aboard it. And, in accordance with his strength, each individual must pledge to prevent it from shipwreck but also to ensure that it reaches a safe port. And just as in the ship someone is at the helm, another manages the sails, another takes care of the ropes, another looks after other tasks and there is a single plan for preserving the ship, similarly all citizens must endeavor to help the State, some with counsel, some with diligence, some with wealth, some with labor and effort, so that it is preserved but also so that it becomes more powerful every day. Citizens who are moved by these sentiments must be considered the best and, indeed, it is thanks to them that the State prospers. As a matter of fact, no tribute makes a city bigger and safer than does the concord of its citizens in rendering themselves worthy in its eyes; conversely, no power and wealth is stable enough when the people’s minds waver and are divided, as Scilurus taught with a wonderful example. Brought close to death by age and illnesses, he had his eighty sons called to him and, taking in hand a bundle of javelins of the same number, offered it to each son in his turn, ordering him to break it. Since they told him they were unable to do so, Scilurus broke [the javelins] easily one by one and warned his sons that no force would be able to overcome them, and they would be stable and powerful much longer as long as they remained in concord; while, if they were in strife and discord, they would find themselves extremely weak, easily offering any enemy the opportunity to defeat them. Although this precept apparently concerns a single family, it applies to the whole community, which, when united by the same sentiments, is held upright with a concordant will, according to the ancient saying: “The State is a long-​lived, immortal animal that never declines, unless it does violence to itself and procures its own death.” 29 Q. Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, 2 vols. (Cambridge University Press, 1978). For a different opinion: E. Garin, ‘La fortuna dell’etica aristotelica del Quattrocento,’ in E. Garin, La cultura filosofica del Rinascimento italiano (Sansoni, 1979), pp. 60–​71; N. Rubinstein, ‘Le dottrine politiche del Rinascimento,’ in Studies I, pp. 201–​49; A. Lines, Aristotle’s “Ethics” in the Italian Renaissance (Brill, 2002).

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The Romans ruled the entire world as long as they abstained from shedding their fellow citizens’ blood and from civil war. But when the ambition of Cinna, the ignoble exiles of Sulla, the massacres of Marius, the armies of Caesar and Pompey were introduced into the republic, the Romans –​victors and masters of the world –​became the object of scorn for plebs and barbarians alike. In the same way, because of discord the Athenians were defeated by the Spartans under Lysander’s command, despite the fact that they had been under Athenian dominion for so long and were far inferior in number, forces and wealth. Consequently, in a free city, no education may be more useful than one that cultivates concord, thanks to whose effects even the smallest cities grow and enjoy liberty without end. This is the safe wall; these are the adamantine towers the poets sing about, which no power, no battering ram and no lightning of Jupiter can destroy. (De institutione reipublicae V.2)

Since these are all traditional images, the only unusual thing about Patrizi’s list is its exhaustiveness. Even his attention to the visual impact of the anecdotes is nothing exceptional. Patrizi is simply employing the technique used both by preachers and humanists of the age known as enárgeia, which consists in making objects perceptible to the reader (or to the audience) through vivid imagery.30 According to this principle, his description of the effects of concord and discord aims to make his precepts more memorable  –​a rhetorical strategy that foreshadows the golden age of emblems. And not surprisingly, the “effigy of discord” would be a centerpiece in Renaissance criticism of parties and factions, as in this passage from a renowned preacher: [The female figure of Discord], letting forth the sound and clamor of her tuba, her horsehair and braids bristling, raises her Stygian and diabolical head to the sky, mouth filled with solid, frozen blood, eyes darkly sinister, with furious teeth encircled and trussed by rust, tongue tufted and quivering, gnarled and stuttering, blocked from speaking by superabundant fury, features like dragons and poisonous snakes. In her right hand she holds (and will always hold if the beautiful Astrea does not return from Heaven) a bloody lamp that, being held in her trembling hand, spreads its poison over all the animals. And especially over the men, whose members are so full of venom, that an immortal conspiracy arises amongst them, one member usurping the office of the other, so that the eye takes away the ministration from the foot, and the foot from the hand, whereby the whole state of nature dissolves.31

Hence, the famous description of Discord in Cesare Ripa’s iconographic encyclopedia (1593) is simply the final outcome of a widespread trend.32 Compared to this tradition, then, Patrizi’s passage is striking above all for the breadth of its sources. In just a few lines readers are presented with multiple images drawn from highly diverse fields –​as if to suggest that all of creation L. Bolzoni, The Web of Images (Ashgate, 2004). 31 Antonio dalla Rocca Contrada, Libro de pace e de armonia cristiana (Zoppino, 1536), p. 19r (for Sallust’s motto:  p.  9v). See Petronius, Satyricon, cxxiv, quoted by Crinito, Honesta disciplina XIII.2. 32 Cesare Ripa, Iconologia, ed. S. Maffei (Einaudi, 2012), p. 137. See also Sperone Speroni, ‘Dialogo sulla discordia,’ in Sperone Speroni, Opere, 4 vols. (Occhi, 1740), I, pp. 133–​65: 133–​35. 30

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conspired to repeat this single teaching. Indeed, the principle of analogy (entis analogia), deeply rooted in medieval and early modern culture, finds its ideal application in these pages, in which the State, the family and the cosmos speak in unison. And the same is true also for historical exemplification because, in the end, there is no real difference between the lesson one can draw from the Romans, the bees, or a ship’s crew: concordia parvae res crescunt, discordia maxumae dilabuntur. The constant search for memorable images and mottos, moreover, is directly related to the primacy of education in humanist thought. For fifteenth-​century political theorists, the fight against tumults is part of a broader pedagogical process meant to strengthen man’s humanity. It is certainly not by chance that book IV of Patrizi’s De institutione reipublicae, book I of Matteo Palmieri’s Vita civile, and a good part of book II of Lauro Quirini’s De republica (to name just a few) are explicitly devoted to this goal. These sections, which to the modern reader might easily appear hypertrophic or even out of place in a political work, are not in the slightest bit incongruous from the humanists’ perspective. On the contrary, to put it simply, one must recognize that the pedagogical attitude is the dominant characteristic of their writing (as well as the true bridge between princely and republican treatises).33 With a little updating, the paradigm of the “civilizing process” put forward by Norbert Elias to explain the rise of good manners applies very well to techniques of government as well.34 The deep relationship between the two projects is obvious. If Giovanni della Casa’s (1503–​56) Galateo and De officiis inter potentiores et tenuiores amicos, for example, can both be profitably read as political treatises against the discord that arises over (often inadvertent) minor offenses in small communities, then the sum of fifteenth-​century de republica tracts can in their turn be interpreted as a single manual on etiquette, designed to teach citizens how to contain their selfish motivations in the public arena and subordinate private interests to the common good. For a culture in which ethics, economics (household management), and politics were in no way separate or separable, there was nothing strange about this affinity.35 In this difficult process of domestication the humanists assigned a critical role to the lesson of the Ancients  –​also as a potential antidote to internal conflicts. Bartolomeo Platina (1421–​81) writes, for example: While Themistocles was officiating at a sacrifice before Xerxes, the Persian king, so as not to be forced to wage war against Athens, he drank the blood of a bull taken from a See J. Hankins, ‘The “Baron Thesis” after Forty Years and some Recent Studies of Leonardo Bruni,’ Journal of the History of Ideas, 56 (1995), pp. 309–​38; J. Hankins, ‘Humanism and the Origins of Modern Political Thought,’ in J. Kraye (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism (Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 118–​41; A. Quondam, Forma del vivere (il Mulino, 2010); G. Cappelli, Maiestas (Carocci, 2016). 34 N. Elias, The Civilizing Process (Blackwell, 1969). 35 J. Kraye, ‘Moral Philosophy,’ in C.B. Schmitt and Q. Skinner (eds.), The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy; Quondam, Forma, pp. 49–​56. 33

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cup for the sacrifices, preferring to die rather than harm his homeland. If this example had been presented to Coriolanus, Marius, Cinna and Gnaeus Carbo before they turned against Rome, surely, along with their lives, they would not have also shamefully lost the glory they had won at the price of so many labors. Indeed, as declared enemies of the city that had raised them, in the end they paid for their misdeeds.36

Platina’s diagnosis betrays a precise political design.37 If a pedagogical failure led even Rome to ruin, the humanists’ objective will be to ensure that any future Coriolanus knows the appropriate episodes from ancient history and draws the right lesson from them before he embarks on any undertakings fatal to his city. Indeed, it is this confidence in the exemplarity of the past and in the power of the word that explains the frequency of perorations to readers in fifteenth-​century treatises. As Seneca had taught, “provide a model, men will copy it” (Epistulae XCV.66). Humanist political thought may seem repetitive and, from a certain point of view, it is. However, this is hardly the right criterion –​or at least not the only one  –​for judging it. Renaissance tracts must be read with the same attitude Pierre Hadot recommended for Greek and Roman philosophers:  rather than always seeking an originality of doctrine, one must take note of the common lifestyle they all promote, even beyond divergences in schools of thought. For the Ancients, the most important thing was to persuade listeners to embrace certain behaviors.38 But the same is true of the humanists: Sallust’s motto can be cited again and again because what counts is not the novelty of the concepts but their assimilation into everyday practice and, as the proverb teaches, repetita iuvant.39 Why express differently what has already been stated so eloquently in the past? If the aim is to convince, it makes much more sense to repeat Micipsa’s phrasing, which –​thanks to its recognized efficacy –​has proven to have a greater chance of etching itself on the soul. In these cases, then, originality is hardly at issue: the challenge lies much more in the how than in the what. If the well-​being of the community depends on its citizens’ determination to refrain from socially harmful actions,40 the primary ally of politics is rhetoric (which, by moving hearts and minds, persuades men to conform to the good examples of the past), not philosophy.41 Once again it is Patrizi who offers us 36 Bartolomeo Platina, De principe, ed. G. Ferraù (Il Vespro, 1979), p. 191. 37 Francisco Rico overlooks the political component of what he has called “the dream of Humanism” (El sueño of humanismo, Crítica, 2014). 38 P. Hadot, What is Ancient Philosophy? (Belknap, 2004). Juliusz Domanski applied Hadot’s approach to Renaissance authors with modest results (La philosophie, théorie ou mode de vie, Editions du Cerf, 1996). 39 It is worth recalling an apt comment by Roland Barthes:  “While I  do not know whether, as the saying goes, ‘things which are repeated are pleasing,’ my belief is that they are significant” (Mythologies, Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1972, p. 9). 40 See Petrarch, De remediis utriusque fortunae II.74.2. For the Greek origins of this idea: Loraux, Divided City, pp. 63–​89. 41 See H.H. Gray, ‘Renaissance Humanism: the Pursuit of Eloquence,’ Journal of the History of Ideas, 24 (1963), pp. 497–​514.

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the best representation of the link between education and political success. At the beginning of book V, the De institutione reipublicae focuses on the value of concord and on Rome’s destruction at the hands of civil strife; then –​with an apparent non sequitur, easily baffling for modern readers –​it seamlessly moves on to the Platonic conception of the soul: Our citizen, who we want to be the best of all, will be so if –​following Pythagoras’ and Plato’s opinion –​he knows that our soul is divided into three parts. Of these, the main one is reason, placed in the head, like in the citadel of the body, so that, being immortal, it is always nourished by contemplating the highest things. […] In it is located all human rationality, which establishes what to do, measures time, reconnects the present to the past and seeks to predict the future. [The citizen] shall recognize two other parts, separate from the higher one (in the chest, anger, and located under the heart, desire), which do not partake of reason […]. While reason leads to a quiet, placid life directed towards tranquility and knowledge of the human and the divine, the other parts lead us instead to anger, desire and troubled feelings. […] From all these it follows that we are strangers to ourselves, and due to ignorance we wander too long in the darkness […]. May our citizen order his soul so as to adhere to his task. Indeed, it is man’s duty to make use of reason (which is responsible for commanding) and to cultivate desires that do not move him to chase after anything filthy or ugly. Just as the kicking horse is governed by an excellent rider, so desire is guided by reason, to which it must always submit and never resist if it wants to be a good citizen: with its own reins, the wise soul controls all the motions which obey its commands. (De institutione reipublicae V.2)

Patrizi’s reasoning is clear, but what is the relationship between the soul and the tumults he wrote about shortly before? If this were an isolated case, one might put it down to a simple whim. But the same arguments appear in at least one other humanistic treatise: De republica by the Venetian Lauro Quirini (c. 1420–​75/​9). Plato represents the State as similar to the soul. Just as the soul has three parts –​rational, concupiscent and irascible –​so the State has three types of men: the man who takes the decisions (corresponding to the rational soul), the man who pursues gain (corresponding to the concupiscent soul) and the man who provides aid (corresponding to the irascible soul). And the irascible soul submits to reason, if [it] has not been corrupted by bad habits.42

Quirini is even more explicit than Patrizi: tumults in the city can be overcome by first defeating the tumults in the soul. Control of the passions is thus a necessary precondition for friendship among citizens.43 Of course, this was not a new idea, as the same precept was insisted upon by one of the texts from the patristic tradition most widely read throughout the Middle Ages:  Prudentius’s Psychomachia, in which the virtues and vices Lauro Quirini, ‘De republica,’ eds. C. Seno and G. Ravegnani, in V. Branca et al. (eds.), Lauro Quirini umanista (Olschki, 1977), pp. 123–​61: 152. See also Castiglione, Courtier IV.17. 43 “Virtue is nothing else than right reason” (Seneca, Epistulae LXVI.32). On the link between passions and discord: Cicero, De finibus I.13.44; Cicero, Brutus 96.329. 42

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compete for the protagonist’s soul  –​concluding, as expected, with the victory of Concord over Discord. The important point here is that the battle is relentless, and human beings must never lower their guard, lest the irrational part of the soul gain victory and the city winds up destroyed. The sections of fifteenth-​century treatises dedicated to tumults almost always close, therefore, with a warning on the dangers of divisions and an appeal to the reader’s vigilance against selfish desires.44 Not unexpectedly, then, the most important stylistic feature of humanist political thought is the hortatory subjunctive, as in the passage from Patrizi cited earlier: “May our citizen order his soul so as to adhere to his task.”45 This call to self-​discipline applies equally to the Aristotelians. In their eyes, it is true, human beings are animals spontaneously predisposed to live in society, but this does not change the fact that education can (and should) help to ensure that the impulse toward cooperation wins out over feral, egoistic instinct. In short, it is only thanks to the studia humanitatis (that is, Greek and Latin education) that man can fully realize his own humanity, in both private and public life.46 The humanists’ pedagogical obsession is not accompanied, however, by real reflection on discord and civic enmity. In most cases their analysis results in a list of vices (mainly pride, avarice and envy, as in Inferno VI.74–​75) that receive the habitual admonitions. Consequently, in de republica tracts tumult represents a sort of Stone Guest: an intruder constantly conjured up only to be immediately dismissed, as if it were impossible to truly speak about what frightened Renaissance citizens most. And this is already a step beyond the complete silence of the mirrors for princes, where the problem is presumably resolved by assigning power to a single man. Overall, the humanists reveal an even greater propensity to dispel the issue of conflict than the ancient authors on whom they so heavily relied. In a series of now classic essays on the Athenians’ reluctance to theorize political discord, Nicole Loraux showed that one of the ways in which conflict (stásis, diástasis) could be made more “speakable” was by associating it with the less traumatic category of constitutional change (metabolé, metástasis).47 This was the route taken by Aristotle, in whose pages fifteenth-​century political thinkers could read a detailed list of the reasons a government could fall into crisis and be overthrown (Politics V.3).48 While the scholastics had welcomed these See M. Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire (Princeton University Press, 1994). Because Nussbaum concentrates on the Hellenistic period, though (and rejects the idea that the concept of ethics as therapy is to be found in Plato), her book neglects the strong political implications of this idea. 45 See also Palmieri, Vita civile III.154. 46 For an anecdote verifying the success of humanistic pedagogy:  Giovanni Cavalcanti, Istorie fiorentine, ed. G. Di Pino (Martello, 1944), XIV.15. 47 Loraux, Divided City; N. Loraux, La tragédie d’Athènes (Seuil, 2005). Among the few exceptions: Plato, Republic 545c–​d. 48 In Leonardo Bruni’s translation, Aristotle’s list reads as: (1) lucrum or avaritia: when injustices are committed out of greed; (2) honos: when some citizens are arbitrarily excluded from the 44

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insights with curiosity, the humanists ignored them and instead read tumults in an exclusively moral key.49 Thus, even a strict adherent of Aristotle like Patrizi prefers to join in the chorus and writes: It would take too long to number all the causes of sedition and list how many ways by which a State is brought down; therefore one need simply conclude that the community is preserved and enhanced by virtue, while the vices not only weaken but destroy it from its foundations. (De institutione reipublicae VI.5)

For the humanists, as for the Greeks and Romans, conflict is both imminent and yet, simultaneously, on the margins of their thought: in other words, it is too threatening to be made into an object of any serious analysis beyond mere condemnation. This is why Loraux’s writings are so relevant for a better grasp of early-​modern political theory as well. Just as in Athens, an excessive desire for exemplarity (the perfect civic friendship) pushed disputes of any sort into the realm of misfortunes that could be deplored but not studied and understood. Thus, refusing to truly deal with internecine divisions, in their works the humanists easily slid from “minimization” (discord is uncommon and merely accidental) to “denial” (there is no place for discord in healthy cities) and back again –​to use the psychoanalytical jargon dear to Loraux.50 Of course there are exceptions. While humanistic theory was bound to describe (and prescribe) how citizens ought to be, other writings intermittently offered precious glimpses of the conflictual nature of associative life.51 distribution of honors; (3)  praepotentia: when some citizens are mistreated; (4)  metus: when someone fears being punished for a previous act or suffering an injustice; (5) gubernatio: when a single member of the community becomes too powerful; (6) contemptus: when too many citizens are excluded from the government; (7) incrementus excessivus or mutationes: when the power of an office grows disproportionately, creating constitutional imbalance; (8) verecondia: when an unworthy citizen occupies an important position; (9) negligentia: when offices are allowed to be occupied by adversaries of the government; (10) pusillitas: when small changes provoke a fracture (this concept also appears, almost proverbially, in Florentine authors: Dante, Paradise I.34; Cavalcanti, Istorie VII.31); and (11) dissimilitudo: when there is an irremediable ethnic difference between citizens. On Aristotle and conflicts: A.W. Lintott, Violence, Civil Strife and Revolution in the Classical City (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982), pp. 239–​51; B. Yack, The Problems of a Political Animal (University of California Press, 1993); K. Kalimzis, Aristotle on Political Enmity and Disease (State University of New York Press, 2000); R. Weed, Aristotle on Stasis (Logos, 2007); S.C. Scultety, ‘Delimiting Aristotle’s Conception of Stasis in the Politics,’ Phronesis, 54 (2009), pp. 346–​70. 49 For an exception:  Pietro Barozzi’s ‘De factionibus extinguendis’ (in appendix to F.  Gaeta, Il vescovo Pietro Barozzi, Istituto per la collaborazione culturale, 1958), whose second book is almost entirely devoted to Aristotle’s analysis of dissensions. 50 Loraux’s theses have been developed by B. Gray, Stasis and Stability (Oxford University Press, 2015), and challenged by V. Azoulay, ‘Repolitiser la cité grecque, trente ans après,’ Annales, 69 (2014), pp. 689–​719. 51 Considering their insistence on the importance of linguistic traditions, Pocock and Skinner have curiously neglected the influence of literary genres on political writing. See J.  Hankins, ‘Rhetoric, History and Ideology: The Civic Panegyrics of Leonardo Bruni,’ in Civic Humanism, pp. 143–​78.

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Concordia parvae res crescunt

Alongside the literary genres that refused to recognize any tension in the civic body (oratory, official letters, eulogies, etc.) or those that mentioned discord only as the negation par excellence of politics (philosophical treatises, sermons, etc.), there was also a small number of texts that treated conflict as a phenomenon that, however dangerous, was nevertheless innate to human communities –​primarily historiography, but also novellas, in which riots are often portrayed in a comic vein, as seen in Aretino. Not surprisingly, then, modern scholars have acknowledged that the most acute suggestions for interpreting Communal factions come not from political tracts, but from histories and chronicles, as if for the humanists telling stories about the normality of conflict (through an endless series of unique cases incapable of establishing a general rule) was easier than theorizing that normality.52 The limits of fourteenth-​and fifteenth-​century reflection on tumults reside in this gap separating descriptive and prescriptive moments. Perpetually oscillating between flat empiricism and absolute “repression,” the humanists failed to go beyond a generic condemnation of selfish passions and instead went on interpreting civil strife exclusively in ethical terms. Certainly, this was insufficient. But it is only against this backdrop that Machiavelli’s work can be appreciated in all its unsettling originality.

Najemy has rightly criticized the humanists for failing to recognize any role played by the “dialog of power,” even though he believes that before Savonarola and Machiavelli the Florentine chroniclers embodied a sort of anti-​tradition (‘Dialogue,’ p. 287). The other possible exceptions are the novella writers. 52

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2 “A Necessary Inconvenience” The Demystification of Political Concord

“Is there any reason why Concord is considered a goddess, but Discord is not?” Augustine, De civitate Dei “They say great discord reigns between you, Discords: by this they mean that one of you is a good, natural thing, which is called divine, and the other quite the opposite, which they view no differently from the three Furies of Hell  –​ because from her spring all hatreds, enmities, wars, violent deaths, and the destructions of cities and provinces that exist amongst mortals. […] Some of Discord’s effects are most salutary, some harmful: one creates and preserves, the other ruins and destroys […]. For these and other reasons […] many believe […] there to be two Discords:  one heavenly, the other infernal, one a creator, the other a destroyer of worldly things, and consequently one good and another bad.” Sperone Speroni, Dialogo della Discordia

From Philosophy to History The Discourses are a work without precedent. In fact, as Carlo Dionisotti rightly pointed out, before them “there is no commentary of any kind on Livy, and none like it on any classical author.”1 At the beginning of the sixteenth century the literary genre of commentary allowed for two codified types, and Machiavelli’s book corresponds to neither. The first model included the scholastic expositions of the revered Greek and Arab philosophical authorities and the gloss to Justinian’s Corpus iuris civilis, and was immediately recognizable for its size

C. Dionisotti, ‘Machiavelli, Man of Letters,’ in A. Ascoli and V. Kahn (eds.), Machiavelli and the Discourse of Literature (Cornell University Press, 1993), pp. 17–​51: 44. 1

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28 TABLE 2.1  Types of Renaissance commentaries SCHOLASTIC COMMENTARIES

HUMANISTIC CASTIGATIONES

yes

/ no

MACHIAVELLI’S DISCOURSES

yes

Discuss a single work

yes

Reproduce the commented text

yes

no

no

Elucidate the text nearly word by word

yes

no

no

Ignore philological-erudite issues

yes

no

yes

and format: large volumes, where the original work was printed in the center of the page and methodically annotated almost word by word in smaller font along the margins. More recent was, on the other side, the humanistic collection of philological castigations or “corrections”: a form of commentary at once selective and discontinuous, flexible and extensible, and potentially open-​ended but entirely focused on textual criticism and erudite linguistic and stylistic issues (in particular cases –​such as Angelo Poliziano’s Miscellanea, first published in 1489 –​a single volume could even discuss passages taken from different authors and works). With the Discourses, Machiavelli sets down a new path, introducing a distinct form of exegesis. His choice to address a single writing recalls the university commentaries of the scholastics and the jurists, while the freedom with which he selects the passages to be discussed resembles the tactics of the humanists. And yet, unlike the university commentaries, the Discourses do not reproduce the discussed work and, in contrast to the humanistic ones, are not limited to textual criticism. As a result, Machiavelli’s Livy appears at times to be nothing more than an excuse for a reflection “that goes beyond the base text and aims to elucidate general questions.”2 (See Table 2.1.) Few authors had benefited from the humanists’ editorial labors as much as Livy, but efforts to that point had aimed to make his history as complete and philologically accurate as possible.3 Machiavelli, however, is little interested in discussing grammatical exceptions, reviewing mythological references or 2 Ibid. On Machiavelli and Florentine philologists:  P. Godman, From Poliziano to Machiavelli (Princeton University Press, 1998). 3 G. Billanovich, La tradizione del testo di Livio e le origini dell’umanesimo (Antenore, 1981).

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finding the most authoritative versions; in his pages no concern for textual criticism or antiquarian issues ever surfaces. Instead, the Discourses’ gamble is to draw directly from Livy what Machiavelli considers the highest source of all political wisdom: Rome’s practical experience. Machiavelli’s contemporaries were quick to note the novelty of his approach. Even decades later the historian Jacopo Nardi (1476–​1563), a member of the Orti Oricellari, would describe the Discourses as “a work certainly on a new topic and never again attempted (as far as I know) by any other author.”4 In light of assessments of this kind, modern studies should have more strongly emphasized the break that Machiavelli’s discourse-​form marked in Renaissance political theory as an original method of interpretation and discussion. Placing Livy in a position that until then had only been occupied by Aristotle, Machiavelli assigned history an unprecedented role as a guide in the vita activa. And, in so doing, he gave new value to a corpus of texts that, before he came along, had been read with reverence, but had never been asked similar questions.5 Fifteenth-​century political thinkers had continued to emulate and rewrite Greek and Roman philosophers, in the hope of retying a thread that had been broken during the Middle Ages, and used Livy, Valerius Maximus, or Sallust at most as sources of elegant maxims or examples of virtue and vice that were particularly effective for illustrating the general principles of the Politics or the De officiis. Of course, constant imitation of the ancient authorities did not exclude the possibility of improving upon or even replacing them; thus, for instance, Lauro Quirini explains that he wrote his De republica to provide readers with a more accessible presentation of Aristotle’s theory, stripped of the overabundance of obscure allusions to Greek history,6 while Patrizi justifies his decision to compose his De institutione reipublicae with the void opened up by the loss of Cicero’s De republica.7 Still, this choice did force the humanists to follow their models very closely. And from this perspective, although still referring to the lesson of the classics, Machiavelli’s decision to take Livy as the truest repository of Roman political prudence produced a decisive shift –​from philosophy to history. Machiavelli was not the first to praise practice over theory, of course. In the fifteenth century, some humanists –​commonly referred to as “antiquarians” –​ had devoted considerable energies to bringing Roman civilization back to life by very humbly collecting as many direct accounts as possible on a wide variety of topics (from religion to law and from everyday customs to warfare);8 when 4 Jacopo Nardi, Istoria della città di Firenze, ed. A. Gelli, 2 vols. (Le Monnier, 1858), II, p. 72. 5 On Machiavelli’s attitude toward historical knowledge, see J.M. Najemy, ‘Machiavelli and History,’ Renaissance Quarterly, 67 (2014), pp. 1131–​64. 6 Lauro Quirini, ‘De republica,’ eds. C. Seno and G. Ravegnani, in V. Branca et al. (eds.), Lauro Quirini umanista (Olschki, 1977), pp. 123–​61: 123. 7 Patrizi, De institutione reipublicae I.2. 8 A. Momigliano, ‘Ancient History and the Antiquarian,’ in Contributi I, pp. 67–​106; R. Weiss, The Renaissance Discovery of Classical Antiquity (Humanities, 1969); A. Momigliano, The

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it came to politics, they loved to cite a passage on Rome from Livy (XXVI.22) in clear polemic with the abstractions of the philosophers: Let men now make sport of those who admire what is old. For my part, if there should be a city-​State of sages such as philosophers imagine rather than actually know (fingunt magis quam norunt), I am inclined to think that the leaders could not possibly be of more solid worth and more self-​controlled as regards the lust for power, nor could the people show a more lofty character.9

In the masterpiece of the greatest fifteenth-​ century antiquarian, Flavio Biondo (1392–​1463), for example, one reads: As we are to show the functioning of the Roman State, we realize that we have undertaken a work that goes beyond the forces of one man, because in a few short books we strive to illuminate over a thousand years of decisions, thoughts and a quasi-​divine government, along with almost everything that has come down to us from start to finish and was preserved for us by the strongest and wisest people of all […]. But no one, I think, will be so hostile to us that he will not rather praise our attempts (however beyond our capacities). Nor will he demand an explanation impossible to provide on an infinite subject and expect it to be perfect. I would be so bold as to promise this: we will describe the functioning of the Roman State with such an abundance of institutions (institutis) and examples that anything written up until now on politics […] and on the republic and on princes and principalities by the Greeks and by the most learned, wise and eloquent men from other peoples and nations and from Rome itself will be considered lesser and inferior to the deeds  –​not theorized and taught by us (as we would be incapable of doing), but devised with prudence and virtuously accomplished by our ancestors and only preserved by us –​which created and made grow such a great and glorious empire.10

To help their contemporaries orient themselves in the past, during an epoch when retelling Greek and Roman history was unthinkable “because in the main it could be written only as Livy, Tacitus, Florus, and Suetonius had written it,”11 the antiquarians developed a method based on identification, comparison and discussion of all the surviving records. In broad terms, this involved explaining classical authors through other authors’ words, juxtaposing passages drawn from texts of any sort to trace unknown elements back to known ones –​similar to how mathematicians solve equations. Our knowledge of Rome is very much indebted to them on a great number of subjects and occasionally their technique even provided highly sophisticated results, as when the antiquarians Classical Foundations of Modern Historiography (University of California Press, 1990); P. Jacks, The Antiquarian and the Myth of Antiquity (Cambridge University Press, 1993). 9 See Flavio Biondo, ‘Roma triumphans,’ in Flavio Biondo, Opera (Froben, 1559), p.  119; Bernardo Rucellai, ‘De Urbe Roma,’ in L.A. Muratori (ed.), Rerum Italicarum Scriptores. Accessiones Florentinae, 3 vols. (Allegrini e Pisoni, 1770), II, cc. 783–​1131: 949. 10 Biondo, ‘Roma triumphans,’ p.  54. See also Francesco Patrizi, De institutione reipublicae I.2 (and, beyond them, Cicero, Tusculanae disputationes I.1–​2). 11 Momigliano, ‘Ancient History,’ p. 75.

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31

discussed general historical problems, such as the reasons for the rise and fall of the different States (some examples of which we will see in Chapters 3 and 5). Today, readers seem generally incapable of appreciating the immense effort (and intelligence) these investigations required. Nevertheless, fifteenth-​century antiquarianism is indispensable for understanding the Discourses. Unlike Biondo and his disciples, Machiavelli certainly has no interest in clarifying the nature of Roman institutions, which in most cases is taken for granted; rather than offering a simple historical reconstruction, the Discourses stand out primarily for the passion with which they brandish the past against the present,12 in an attempt to persuade the Florentines to follow the Romans’ example (an aspiration that one never finds in the antiquarians). One strong shared conviction does remain, however: that the most precious legacy of the Ancients for the vita activa is the practical experience of Rome, and that this heritage should be sought primarily in historical accounts –​not in the detached treatises of the philosophers. Until one accepts that Machiavelli’s innovation also depends on his choice of a different canon of reference (namely, the historians) and an original method of interpretation (the discourse-​form), rather than on any particular thesis, he risks missing the main distinctive feature of the Discourses. Put simply, Machiavelli refused to compose yet another treatise in the manner of Aristotle or Seneca (who, in his view, did not have much to teach him), preferring to give Livy an unprecedented “function as master of political thought that in antiquity” historians “had seldom performed.”13 And the Discourses’ modernity consists first and foremost in this innovative gesture. Both Machiavelli and the humanists revered the Ancients, but their attitudes toward them must not be confused. As Leo Strauss wrote, quite rightly, “Machiavelli’s admiration for the political practice of classical antiquity and especially of republican Rome is only the reverse side of his rejection of classical political philosophy.”14 Schematically, if the works of the humanists constituted the last original offshoot of classical political thought, for Machiavelli –​who continued to refer to the Greeks and Romans but stopped writing like them, and inaugurated a completely new philosophical genre with the Discourses –​ the concept of political classicism seems much more apt. This expression has the further advantage of emphasizing that, in Europe, the “Machiavellian moment” coincided precisely with a period when Italian literary models enjoyed undisputed primacy, founded on the imitation of the Ancients and the strict codification of the rules they had followed.15 In this context, the C. Dionisotti, ‘Dalla republica al principato,’ in C. Dionisotti, Machiavellerie (Einaudi, 1980), pp. 101–​53: 150. 13 A. Momigliano, ‘The Place of Ancient Historiography in Modern Historiography,’ in Contributi VII, pp. 13–​36: 16. 14 L. Strauss, Natural Right and History (University of Chicago Press, 1953), p. 178. 15 On Machiavelli in the Renaissance debate on imitation: G. Pedullà, ‘Sulle tracce degli antichi?,’ in Atlante I, pp. 732–​38. On classicism as a truly European movement: A. Quondam, Rinascimento e classicismi (il Mulino, 2013). 12

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“A Necessary Inconvenience”

commentary on Livy was destined to be incredibly successful, disseminating the discourse-​form across the continent and promoting history as the principal “handmaiden” (ancilla) of political theory.16 For approximately the next three centuries, one of the main currents of modern thought (from Francesco Guicciardini to Donato Giannotti, Jean Bodin to Giovanni Botero, Virgilio Malvezzi to Algernon Sidney, Walter Moyle to Montesquieu, Adam Ferguson to Mably, and Jean-​Jacques Rousseau to the Founding Fathers) would observe politics through Machiavelli’s eyes. As James Harrington (1611–​67) summed it up, “no man can be a politician, except he be first a historian or a traveller.”17 Without the Discourses, a similar attitude would have been simply unimaginable for political theorists. The sense of this break with the past was probably best explained by Alberico Gentili (1552–​1608), the famous Italian jurist who emigrated to England to escape religious persecution. In book III of De legationibus (1585), while describing the training of a perfect diplomat, Gentili insists that an ambassador must have a thorough knowledge of history, and then goes on to discuss what kinds of philosophical learning will be required. Here, he includes brief but incisive praise of Machiavelli: To achieve a knowledge of history we must also acquaint ourselves with the part of moral philosophy that deals with customs and civic life. Indeed, this is almost the soul of history, which creates unity and makes it possible to explain the causes of all things (those said, those made, and those that happen). It also ensures that historical information will not be barefaced and disarmed but rather lead to safe, useful experiences. Nor shall I be embarrassed to state that Machiavelli is better than anyone at this activity and suggest that he and his valuable observations on Livy be imitated. […] We want history books to be used to think philosophically, not to learn grammar (non grammatizet sed philosophetur).18 In truth, each discipline needs the other. A philosopher devoid of historical knowledge is like someone who embarks on a straight path but, because he moves forward in the dark, can never know where he is; nor can he avail himself of the goods that are only visible when the sun is high in the sky. The historian proceeds instead in full daylight amidst the brilliance of the great undertakings of the past, but, being unable to follow the road (because the view opens up freely all around him), he ends up proceeding at random and with no destination. Indeed, when the time comes to pass into action what will happen, I ask you, if the historian tries to make use of the many examples he has observed? For every example there is a counter-​example […]. Thus, C. Zwierlein, Discorso und Lex Dei (Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2006). 17 James Harrington, The Commonwealth of Oceana, ed. J.G.A. Pocock (Cambridge University Press, 1992), p.  205. On Harrington’s debt toward Machiavelli’s method, see L. Campos Boralevi, ‘James Harrington’s “Machiavellian” anti-​Machiavellism,’ History of European Ideas, 37 (2011), pp. 113–​19. 18 See also Michel de Montaigne, Essays, ed. D.M. Frame (Stanford University Press, 1943), I.26: “I have read in Livy a hundred things that another man has not read in him, or not taken notice of at least. Plutarch has read in him a hundred besides the ones I could read, and, perhaps, besides what the author had put in. For some it is a purely grammatical study, for others the skeleton of philosophy.” 16

3

From Philosophy to History

33

it is the philosopher’s job to judge the examples. […] With this eulogy I welcome philosophy united with history:  may each give orders as a commander in its own right, without wavering and without flattering the other, and may each determine simply which examples we must follow and which we must avoid. I shall accept nothing else. I do not accept a philosopher-​ambassador without a profound knowledge of history. […] Those who are experts in these matters teach that politicians who have studied a little philosophy are completely useless to state government: they understand nothing (as everyday experience also shows), they are much less fit than others to run public affairs and even lack common sense. […] A  pure philosopher is unsuited for these undertakings. (De legationibus III.9)

From Gentili’s perspective, the Discourses sketch out a sort of “third option” by teaching people how to read the examples of the past in a fresh way. In lieu of adding to the already endless rewritings of the precepts of Plato and Aristotle, or of the abstract moral lessons imparted by tutors from the pages of Sallust, Valerius Maximus, or Livy, Machiavelli was the first to meld philosophy and history, softening the doctrinaire rigidity of the former and curbing the dispersive tendency of the latter. To draw on a neologism coined by Jean Bodin (1530–​96) for Philo the Jew just a few years earlier, in Gentili’s eyes Machiavelli embodied the prototype of the perfect philosophistoricus (“philosophistorian”).19 These aspects of Machiavelli’s approach must be emphasized because, over the last two centuries, the dual nature of the Discourses (“ancient” in their focus on the Roman model, yet “modern” in their historical hermeneutics) has been overshadowed by Romantic prejudices against European classicism and the principle of imitation. Because Machiavelli was situated at the origins of a political modernity understood as the victory of scientific realism over idealism, it was truly puzzling that the same man who had broken once and for all with the past in his quest for “effectual truth” in The Prince would somehow turn back to the Ancients in the Discourses. A Machiavelli who was both realist and classicist was simply unconceivable. The supposed contradiction between The Prince (resolutely modern) and the Discourses (hampered by their backward gaze toward Rome) has thus probably engaged twentieth-​century scholars no less than the presumed opposition between the pro-​Medicean Prince and the republican Discourses.20 In their view, Machiavelli’s much vaunted realism could only be that of modern science and the inductive method (according to an approach probably originating as Jean Bodin, Method for the Easy Comprehension of History, ed. B. Reynolds (Columbia University Press, 1945), p. 368. 20 The most paradoxical argument for accepting the Discourses’ classicism comes from Friedrich Meinecke, who “redeems” Machiavelli by making him a proto-​ Romantic:  “The spirit of antiquity was certainly not signalized in him (as it was in so many humanists of the Renaissance) by a merely learned and literary regeneration. […] With a romantic longing he gazed toward the strength, grandeur, and beauty of life in antiquity, and toward the ideals of its worldly glory” (The Doctrine of Raison d’État, Yale University Press, 1957, p. 31). 19

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“A Necessary Inconvenience”

far back as in Francis Bacon), but this implied that the “good” Machiavelli (the precursor to Galileo) had to be clearly separated from the “bad” one (the classicist, victim of the prejudices of his time).21 One hundred and fifty years of widespread neglect of the Discourses (c.  1800–​c. 1950)  can in part be explained as an effect of the enduring Romantic and post-​ Romantic devaluation of Classicism. Yet, to properly interpret Machiavelli’s commentary on Livy, one must recognize, first, that his rupture with the past fully depends on a specific and highly original way of conceiving the imitation of the Ancients –​not on a refusal of imitation –​and also that, while it is impossible to explain this break through the deduction–​ induction binary, the Discourses’ novelty has much to do with the abandonment of Aristotle for the Romans. This choice could not fail to affect Machiavelli’s analysis of conflict as well. “Relishing the Savor” vs. “Hearing” Tumults take center stage almost immediately in the Discourses. In the initial chapters, Machiavelli shows a clear systematic intent that recalls the classification of different princely governments structuring the first half of The Prince. A staunch proponent of a comparative approach, Machiavelli feels the need to situate Romulus’ experiment within a broader constellation before zeroing in on Rome. Hence, in a series of binary alternatives, one first encounters (in Disc. I.1) those cities founded by an illustrious citizen (such as Athens, Venice, and Rome –​if one takes Romulus as its founder) versus those founded by a foreign people (in turn split into colonies, like Alexandria and Florence, and free-​ born cities, like Rome again –​if one takes Aeneas as its founder). In the next The notion of Machiavelli as scientist so dear to Leo Olschki (Machiavelli the Scientist, Gillick, 1945) and Ernst Cassirer (The Myth of the State, Yale University Press, 1946) was used by Herbert Butterfield (The Statecraft of Machiavelli, Bell, 1940) to cleanse the Discourses, at least in part, of the stain of classicism. According to Butterfield, Machiavelli’s greatness lay in his progressive detachment from deductive processes (a synonym for classicism) in favor of Baconian induction. His work sparked lively debate about Machiavelli’s method:  F. Chabod, ‘Machiavelli’s Method and Style,’ in F. Chabod, Machiavelli and the Renaissance (Bowes & Bowes, 1958), pp. 126–​48; M. Martelli, ‘Il buon geométra di questo mondo,’ introduction to Niccolò Machiavelli, Tutte le opere (Sansoni, 1971), pp. xi–​xlvii. In keeping with his preference for the republican Machiavelli, Felix Gilbert considers the use of historical examples to be deductive in The Prince and inductive in the Discourses (‘The Composition and Structure of the Discorsi,’ Journal of the History of Ideas, 14, 1953, pp. 136–​56). More recently, Strauss’s disciples minimized Machiavelli’s debt to the classical world in order to make of him the father of a diabolical modern politics, along with Hobbes. See H.C. Mansfield, ‘Bruni and Machiavelli on Civic Humanism,’ in Civic Humanism, pp.  223–​ 46:  234 (“Since the Ancients had no Ancients, the consequence of imitating them is to leave them behind”:  a paralogism similar to the so-​called “liar’s paradox” resolved by Alfred Tarski in 1969 with a proper distinction between level and meta-​level); P.A. Rahe, ‘Situating Machiavelli,’ ibid., pp. 270–​308: 308. On the importance of imitation for Machiavelli: H. Sluga, Politics and the Search for the Common Good (Cambridge University Press, 2014), p. 70. 21

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“Relishing the Savor” vs. “Hearing”

35

chapter Machiavelli begins by suggesting a second way of classifying cities, this time according to their political institutions. Here the first alternative is set up between the six simple forms theorized by the Ancients (monarchy, aristocracy, and popular government along with their degenerate variants  –​tyranny, oligarchy, and licentiousness) and the mixed constitutions such as Sparta and Rome. Following the Greek and Latin authors, the Discourses suggest the mixed constitution is the best option, thanks to its mutual control of the magistracies that makes the State “more solid and more stable” (Disc. I.2). Unlike Sparta, however, which was ordered immediately at the very moment of its founding, Rome reached its definitive political organization only at the end of a long process. As we will see in Chapter 4, this positive assessment on “mixed government” was not unusual during the Renaissance; the only thing that distinguishes the Discourses from fifteenth-​century treatises in this regard is the importance Machiavelli gives to the theme in his opening pages. And here, early on, he throws readers a deliberately surprising curve:  “Rome,” he writes, “attained this perfection through the disunion of the plebs and the senate, as will be demonstrated at length in the next two chapters” (Disc. I.2). His most ambitious work thus begins under the banner of internal divisions.22 It is tempting to see Machiavelli’s special sensitivity to the tensions affecting the civic body as a repercussion of his own life. By the mid 1510s, when he put his thoughts on paper, the former secretary of the Florentine Republic had personally witnessed three violent regime changes. Two of them were a consequence of new balances of power in Italy:  the invasion of Charles VIII in 1494 (when the republic was fully restored after sixty years of informal rule by the Medici), and the defeat of the French at the hands of the Spaniards in 1512 (when the Medici returned to the city). The third change had instead come to a head entirely from within, when Francesco Valori’s (and Girolamo Savonarola’s) government was struck down in 1498. As a result of that defeat, the Dominican friar was tried for heresy, tortured, and burned at the stake. To understand Machiavelli’s analysis of social struggles, though, one needs to examine the deep logic underlying the Discourses. An ancient tradition dating back at least to the Church Fathers (Arnobius, Augustine, Orosius) rebuked Rome for the constant conflict between its orders, and this condemnation had enjoyed special favor among the humanists. While some merely drew attention to this weakness without coming to more general conclusions (Petrarch and Cristoforo Landino), most fifteenth-​century authors used it either to castigate Christians’ excessive involvement in earthly life in toto (Poggio Bracciolini, 22 Machiavelli begins two other works with a reference to discord: the Florentine Histories (where in the Preface he confesses having rethought the general structure to underscore the civil strife that Bruni and Bracciolini had discussed too briefly) and the Discourse on Our Language (where internecine conflicts are mentioned in a parallel between somebody who does not defend his mother tongue and a “parricide” who “makes himself an enemy of his native country”).

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Zanobi Acciaiuoli); to argue for the superiority of princely rule (Giovanni Conversini of Padua, Enea Silvio Piccolomini, Aurelio Lippo Brandolini); or to extol Venice’s exceptional concord in comparison to the Roman republic (Georg of Trebizond, and Bracciolini once again).23 These (often ferocious) attacks called into question the very exemplarity of the Roman experience. It comes as no surprise, then, that in presenting Rome as a model, Machiavelli had to engage with these criticisms at the start of his work: without a refutation of them, the entire project of the Discourses would have come into the world stillborn. Machiavelli’s pugnacious tone is evident already in the title of Disc. I.4, for to state that “the disunion between the plebs and the Roman senate made that republic free and powerful” was to directly oppose the concordia parvae res crescunt that had until that point encapsulated the very essence of classical and humanistic reflection on social life. I do not want to neglect discussing the tumults that existed in Rome from the death of the Tarquins until the creation of the tribunes, and then several things contrary to the opinion of many who say that Rome was a tumultuous republic, and so full of confusion that, had good Fortune and military virtue not compensated for its defects, it would have been inferior to every other republic. (Disc. I.4)

Machiavelli is perfectly aware that to stigmatize Rome as a “tumultuous republic” (republica tumultuaria) means to deny any value to its political system and imply that all its successes were the result of either incredible luck (Plutarch’s idea, later challenged in Disc. II.1) or mere military virtue (an idea that can be traced back to Cicero, Valerius Maximus, and Vegetius).24 I say that those who condemn the tumults between the nobles and the plebs appear to me to be blaming the very things that were the first reason for Rome’s remaining free and to be paying more attention to the shouts (romori) and cries (grida) that these tumults aroused than to the good effects they generated; and they do not consider that in every republic there are two different humors, the people and the mighty (grandi), and that all laws promoting freedom arise from their disunion. (Disc. I.4)

The redundancy of the first-​ person singular pronoun  –​symptom of a hypertrophic subject’s pride often appearing at key moments in Machiavelli’s work25  –​constitutes in itself a significant clue. In taking up Rome’s cause, Machiavelli not only defends the conflicts between patricians and plebeians, 23 G. Pedullà, ‘Machiavelli and the Critics of Rome,’ in D.C. Johnston, N. Urbinati, and C. Vergara Gonzales (eds.), Machiavelli on Liberty and Conflict (University of Chicago Press, 2017), pp. 87–​112, where I refute the conclusions reached by G. Sasso, ‘Machiavelli e i detrattori, antichi e nuovi, di Roma,’ in Antichi I, pp. 401–​536. 24 Pedullà, ‘Critics,’ pp. 90–​95. 25 On the pervasive presence of Machiavelli’s first-​person pronoun: E. Raimondi, ‘L’arte dello Stato e i ghiribizzi dell’esistenza,’ in E. Raimondi, Politica e commedia (il Mulino, 1998), pp. 17–​ 36: 32. For the polemical tone of Machiavelli’s Prefaces: J.-​J. Marchand, ‘Machiavelli in limine,’ in Cultura e scrittura di Machiavelli (Salerno, 1998), pp. 311–​26.

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“Relishing the Savor” vs. “Hearing”

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but he also counterattacks, blaming his predecessors for having systematically misunderstood the historical record. In the general Preface to the Discourses, Machiavelli had made clear that his contemporaries did not know how to read Roman and Greek authors, bitterly remarking that “in establishing (ordinare) republics, preserving States, governing kingdoms, setting up militias and conducting warfare, judging their subjects, and extending power, not one prince or republic can be found who consults ancient examples.” Having noted the enormous difference between politics and disciplines such as law and medicine (but also poetry and sculpture), which were built on the lessons of the Greeks and Romans, Machiavelli is forced to ask why, conversely, “the extremely virtuous deeds that the histories show us” have been “admired rather than imitated.” His answer is that at the heart of this failure there lies an error in interpretation: modern politicians learn nothing from the Ancients not because they do not bother to “consult” them, but because, when they do so, they do not ask the right questions. And, accordingly, they cannot “extract the meaning from them or relish the savor they contain. Thus it comes to pass that countless people who read them take pleasure in hearing about the variety of events that they contain without thinking to imitate them, deeming imitation not only difficult but impossible.” This is one of Machiavelli’s typical accusations: readers of Livy and other classical historians had only scratched the surface –​that is to say, they focused on appearances. If elsewhere this inability is explained with the difference between sight and touch (Prince 18), here there is a hearing-​ taste opposition.26 The diagnosis, however, does not change: men fall victim all too easily to the illusionistic dimension of politics and fail to question in greater depth (metaphorically, to employ the internal senses of taste and touch), so that true understanding remains the privilege of the few. Machiavelli therefore conceives the Discourses as a special pedagogy designed to remedy the “weakness of contemporary men, caused by their weak education” (Disc. III.27). In fact, after the fall of Piero Soderini (1452–​1522), the Standard-bearer of Justice (Gonfaloniere di giustizia, the highest political office in Florence), Machiavelli imagined himself in the role of a new Chiron, trying to persuade first the Medici and then the young aristocrats gathered in the Orti Oricellari to follow in the footsteps of the Romans. The admiration without imitation typical of his contemporaries –​a purely rhetorical knowledge –​actually constitutes firm proof for Machiavelli that the humanists had failed in their pedagogical work. If young people were incapable of establishing a constructive relationship with the Ancients, the fault must be laid at the feet of their teachers, who did not lead them beyond the first stage of any reading.27 On the sense of smell: “A prudent man should always go along paths beaten by great men and imitate the most excellent, so that, if his virtue does not arrive there, at least it gives off some scent of it” (Prince 6). 27 G. Barberi Squarotti, Machiavelli o la scelta della letteratura (Bulzoni, 1987), p. 221. 26

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Obviously Machiavelli has nothing against those who read Livy for entertainment only. His reproach becomes clearer when one remembers that for the Ancients (echoed by the humanists) the historian had to keep two aims –​ pleasure and utility –​constantly in sight.28 By neglecting utility, Machiavelli’s contemporaries are thus guilty in his eyes of squandering Greek and Roman histories, which in their hands are metaphorically torn in half.29 The Discourses insist heavily on this omission. As Machiavelli explains in the Preface, his commentary on Livy was conceived so that “those who read these explanations of mine may more easily derive from them that utility for which one should seek the knowledge of histories.” It is thus particularly important that, when approaching internal conflicts in Disc. I.4, Machiavelli presents his contemporaries’ misunderstanding in auditory terms, just as he did in the Preface. The Discourses suggest that the Roman tumults are crucial not merely because the exemplarity of the ancient republic depends on how one judges them, but also because they are the most sensational instance of a general misinterpretation of the Ancients. As proof that this is not an isolated case, the same image returns a few lines later. Against those who say that “these ways (modi) were extra-​ordinary and almost wild, to see the people together crying out (gridare) against the senate, the senate against the people, running tumultuously through the streets, barring the shops, the whole plebs fleeing Rome” (my emphasis), Machiavelli responds that “all these things frighten only those who read about them” (Disc. I.4).30 Thus, to move beyond this bookish attitude, the Discourses invite the readers to focus on the results of those struggles instead of the noise, and to consider that, actually, Roman tumults rarely involved exile and even more rarely bloodshed. It is therefore impossible to deem these tumults harmful or a republic divided if, in so much time, because of its dissensions it exiled no more than eight or ten citizens and executed quite few and did not levy fines against very many. (Disc. I.4)

Starting afresh from this imbalance between reality and appearances (or between taste and hearing), Machiavelli is certain that his hermeneutic lesson will bring with it a more mature understanding of Roman social struggles as well. 28 L. Canfora, ‘Il pensiero storiografico,’ in G. Cavallo, P. Fedeli, and A. Giardina (eds.), Lo spazio letterario di Roma antica, 5 vols. (Salerno, 1989–​91), IV, pp. 47–​90; M. Kempshall, Rhetoric and the Writing of History, 400–​1500 (Manchester University Press, 2011), p. 507. 29 In his Preface to Florentine Histories Machiavelli will insist on the “utility” of knowing the causes of strife (the term appears three times in just a few lines). 30 Machiavelli’s comment is best understood in light of the complex Florentine legislation against rallying calls: R. Davidshon, Storia di Firenze, ed. E. Dupré-​Theseider, 8 vols. (Sansoni, 1956–​ 68), IV, p. 298. In his chronicle Giovanni Villani opens nearly all of his accounts of the tumults with the calls that began the uprisings. On political offenses:  R.C. Trexler, ‘Correre la terra? Collective insults in the late Middle Ages,’ Mélanges de l’École française de Rome. Moyen âge, 96 (1984), pp. 845–​902.

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Battles over Chronologies

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Battles over Chronologies The first teaching of the Discourses concerns chronology. Indeed, the striking contrast between the reassuring image of Rome offered by Machiavelli and that of a city endemically afflicted by civil wars, common in his time, poses no few problems. Bracciolini, for example, writes: [Rome] was never free from private conflicts, internal fighting, family disputes, and internal or external wars. While it obeyed its kings, to the point that they loathed the virtue of their citizens, [Lucius Junius] Brutus was forced to hide his magnanimity by pretending to be crazy. And once [the city] was free, we know about the secession of the plebs, about their prolonged wars with the patricians and the conflicts between them that escalated into murder; we know about the seditious actions of the tribunes, the exile of the best citizens who deserved to be rewarded by the State, so that Rome appears to have always been troubled by wars or civil struggles. […] Why talk about such violent and nefarious civil wars that tore it apart? The massive bloodshed, the illness, and the huge conflagration that they caused in Rome, in Italy and almost all around the world is hard to believe. Too often there have been conflicts between armed citizens that have ended up in a massacre.31

The difference with the Discourses is so pronounced that if one did not know that Bracciolini and Machiavelli were both talking about Rome one might question whether this was the same city. Yet, the contradiction can be explained by the fact that writers like Bracciolini, who accuse Rome of having been a “tumultuous republic,” do not refer to the same events as Machiavelli. The Discourses’ lesson on chronology is that these two Romes correspond to two different moments: the most ancient period, lasting roughly up to the destruction of Carthage in 146 BCE (when the conflict of the orders had not yet degenerated into civil war), and the last century of the republic (when warfare became a standard tool of political competition). While detractors easily projected the traits of the latter phase onto the original republic,32 Machiavelli considers this move illegitimate, and with great clarity establishes the limits of his defense of Roman conflicts:  “from the Tarquins to the Gracchi, in more than 300 years,” as Disc. I.4 reads (376 years, to be precise, counting from 509 to 133 BCE, or 352 years, starting from the death of Tarquin the Proud in 495 BCE).33 Tiberius Gracchus’ attempt at agrarian reform, which ended with his murder, thus marks a crucial turning point. From that moment on, the city was plagued with violence, as would be

31 Poggio Bracciolini, ‘De miseria humanae conditionis,’ in Poggio Bracciolini, Opera, ed. R. Fubini, 4 vols. (La bottega di Erasmo, 1964–​69), I, pp. 88–​131: 124. 32 See also Innocent Gentillet, Contre-​Machiavel, eds. A. D’Andrea and P.D. Stewart (Casalini, 1974), III.31. 33 It is inaccurate to say that Machiavelli “did not attempt to distinguish different phases of republican history”, like H.I. Flower, Roman Republics (Princeton University Press, 2010), p. 9. See instead C. Vivanti, Niccolò Machiavelli (Princeton University Press, 2013), p. 112.

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demonstrated only ten years later by the killing of his brother Caius, who also was spearheading an ambitious land redistribution project (123 BCE).34 Condemnations of the propensity to conflict in the early republican period could easily be countered with Livy, who in the first decade consistently underscores the moderation of opposing parties and their rejection of violence, as retrospectively theorized at the end of book VII. Upon the conclusion of the first Samnite war (324 BCE), Rome found itself in unexpected crisis, when the legions assigned to protect Capua were planning to take possession of it in contempt of the covenant and, when the plan was discovered by the senate, openly rebelled and marched on Rome. The situation appeared desperate, but as soon as the insurgents saw the standards of dictator Marcus Valerius Corvinus’ army, “all were at once reminded of their fatherland, and their anger cooled.” Livy is quick to comment: “Men were not yet so hardy in shedding the blood of countrymen; they knew no wars but those with outside nations, and thought that frenzy could go no further than secession from their people” (VII.40). The dictator thus took advantage of the commotion to give a speech in which one of the main arguments that persuaded the mutineers to put down their arms was precisely the moderation of the earlier conflicts: “You shall therefore sooner draw sword on me than I on you. It is on your side that the trumpets will sound, on your side that the battle-​cry will be raised and the attack begin, if fight we must. Steel your hearts to do that which neither your fathers nor yet your grandfathers could resolve upon –​neither those who seceded to the Sacred Mount [494 BCE], nor those who later encamped upon the Aventine [449 BCE].” (VII.40)

This passage is significant but certainly not exceptional. Livy regularly stresses the patricians’ and plebeians’ caution in archaic times, and especially praises the plebs’ ability to stop just before the fracture becomes irreparable. For him all of early Roman history must be inscribed with the hallmarks of prope, vix, ni and nisi (“almost,” “barely,” “if… not…”): indicating that internal violence very often loomed on the horizon but was avoided thanks to the moderation of the people and the foresight of the patricians.35 Indeed, on every occasion both parties preferred compromise to civil war (II.29; II.35; II.55; II.56; III.1; III.14; III.16; III.30; III.54; V.7, V.25, V.30; VI.42; VII.40; X.6). Greek and Roman historians were unanimous in connecting the Gracchi’s project for land reform to the qualitative leap destined to clear the way for civil wars. From Plutarch (Tiberius Gracchus 20) to Velleius Paterculus (Historiae II.11.2), Florus (Epitome II.2), Valerius Maximus (De dictis VI.2.3), and Augustine (De civitate Dei II.21; III.24), most authors viewed the killing of the See also:  “Because these [controversies] continued until the time of the Gracchi, when they caused the ruin of free life…” (Disc. I.6); Disc. I.37; “As long as Rome continued to be well-​ ordered (which was until the time of the Gracchi), there was never any soldier who made war his only occupation” (Art of War, p. 18). 35 For the use of nisi in Livy’s narrative: T.J. Luce, ‘Design and Structure in Livy,’ Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, 102 (1971), pp. 265–​303. 34

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two brothers as a point of no return.36 The choice of words, too, highlights the worsening spiral of internal disputes and their obvious difference from earlier conflicts. In Latin, bellum civile is not a new term for an old thing (seditiones); rather, it denotes a completely different reality, consisting of battles in an open field between regular armies and professional soldiers. The murder of the Gracchi thus fits exactly halfway between these two points:  no longer a bloodless dispute but not yet one of the military clashes that Marius and Sulla would make tragically common just a few years later. Refusing to make such distant events the joint object of a single condemnation, Machiavelli merely reclaims a judgment widely shared by the Ancients and not entirely unknown to the moderns.37 His position is far more radical, however, because the Discourses not only refute the arguments of the anti-​ Roman tradition, but also hold up the archaic conflicts as a model for all republics to come. Machiavelli achieves this partly by showcasing a few voices that previously had received little attention. One example is the Greek historian Appian of Alexandria, who at the very beginning of his Civil Wars had spoken admiringly of the ancient struggles.38 The plebeians and the senate of Rome were often at strife with each other concerning the enactment of laws, the cancelling of debts, the division of lands, or the election of magistrates. Internal discord did not, however, bring them to blows; there were dissensions merely and contests within the limits of the law, which they composed by making mutual concessions, and with much respect for each other. Once when the plebeians were entering on a campaign they fell into a controversy of the sort, but they did not use the weapons in their hands, but withdrew to the hill, which from that time on was called the Sacred Mount. Even then no violence was done, but they created a magistrate for their protection and called him the tribune of the plebs, to serve especially as a check upon the consuls, who were chosen by the senate, so that political power should not be exclusively in their hands. From this arose still greater bitterness, and the magistrates were arrayed in stronger animosity to each other from this time on, and the senate and plebeians took sides with them, each believing that it would prevail over the other by augmenting the power of its own magistrates. It was in the midst of contests of this kind that Marcius Coriolanus, having been banished contrary to justice, took refuge with the Volscians and levied war against his country [491–​488 BCE]. This is the only case of armed strife that can be found in the ancient seditions, and this was caused by an exile. The sword was never carried into the assembly, and there was no civil butchery until Tiberius Gracchus, while serving as a tribune and bringing forward new laws, was the first to fall a victim to internal commotion; and with him many 36 T.P. Wiseman, ‘The Two-​Headed State:  How Romans explained Civil War,’ in B. Breed, C. Damon, and A. Rossi (eds.), Citizens of Discord: Rome and Its Civil Wars (Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 25–​44. 37 See i.e. Benvenuto of Imola, Romuleo, ed. G. Guatteri (Romagnoli, 1867), VII.31; VII.36; Biondo, ‘Roma triumphans,’ p. 121. 38 Sasso, ‘Detrattori,’ pp. 459–​63. Appian’s Guerre civili de’ Romani had also been translated into Italian by Machiavelli’s predecessor at the Florentine chancery, Alessandro Braccesi.

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others, who were crowded together at the Capitol round the temple, were also slain. (The Civil Wars I.1–​2)

Appian’s recurring comparison between the early seditions and subsequent fighting must have stimulated Machiavelli. Indeed, all five books of The Civil Wars constantly signal the unstoppable progression of the conflicts and highlight the transformation of political behaviors after the Gracchi: the first confrontation ending in bloodshed; the first time that someone illegally appointed himself dictator for life; the first battle between legionaries; the first sacking of a Roman city by its own soldiers; the first list of proscriptions, and so on. In this sense Appian’s history presents itself as a genuine etiology of the evils afflicting Rome at the time of the struggles between Caesar and Pompey and between Octavian and Mark Antony: it investigates the remote causes of the crisis that spawned an empire for which, incidentally, Appian repeatedly proclaims his sincere admiration. Compared to the Ancients’ writings, however, the Discourses are considerably more clear-​cut. With Livy, Velleius Paterculus, Florus, Valerius Maximus, Appian, Plutarch, and Augustine, the rehabilitation of early conflicts remained only relative. For Machiavelli, while the first tumults are redeemed (as less harmful) in contrast to the disasters of the last republican phase, their intrinsic value is also demonstrated through a twofold argument  –​both institutional and psychological –​that subverts the categories previously used to frame the conflict of the orders until that point. Because both halves of the argument are so highly original, it is worth treating them one at a time. Tumults, Tribunes, and “Mixed Government” It makes the most sense to begin with the institutions. For every complex question, Machiavelli presents a careful calculation of the gains and losses of each alternative  –​a method that has been likened to the double-​entry bookkeeping (partita doppia) of Florentine merchants.39 In the case of tumults, where the expenses column is left blank (showing only “shouts” and “cries”), it remains to be seen if there is any positive result that can be listed as income. And it is here, as the first of the “good effects,” that one finds nothing less than the “fulfillment” (perfezione, from Latin perficere) of the Roman constitution. This was Machiavelli’s conclusion as early as Disc. I.2: ordered by Romulus in an excellent, albeit incomplete, manner, Rome reached its definitive political form only with the tribunate after the secession of 494 BCE, when the republic finally became a “mixed government” with the introduction of a popular magistracy alongside the senate and the consuls.40 39 J.-​L. Fournel and J.-​C. Zancarini, La politique de l’expérience (Edizioni dell’Orso, 2002), pp. 19, 222, 331–​32. 40 Developing Toni Negri’s categories in an original way, Filippo Del Lucchese interprets the nexus of laws and tumults through a theory of the constituent power as a force that constantly exceeds the constituted power (Conflict, Power, and Multitude in Machiavelli and Spinoza, Continuum,

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According to the most widely accepted hypothesis, this reconstruction comes from Polybius. In his Histories (VI.3–​10) he was the first to develop the theory of the cycle of governments, and described how Sparta and Rome adopted a mixed constitution. Whereas Sparta immediately found its definitive institutional configuration, Machiavelli (echoing Polybius) writes that Rome developed it step by step. As a matter of fact, despite [Rome] not having Lycurgus at its foundings to establish (ordinare) it so it could live free for a long time, nevertheless, so many accidents occurred because of the disunion between the plebs and the senate that what a lawgiver had not done chance did. For, if Rome was not endowed with Fortune’s first gift, it was endowed with the second one; for, if its initial institutions (ordini) were defective, nevertheless did not deviate from the straight path that could bring them to perfection. For Romulus and all the other kings made many good laws liable to free life; but as their aim (fine) was to found a kingdom and not a republic, when Rome became free it lacked many things that were necessary to establish (ordinare) in favor of freedom that those kings had not established (ordinate). Even though those kings lost their power […], nevertheless, those who expelled them, because they quickly appointed two consuls to replace the king, expelled the royal name but not the royal power; thus, since there were the consuls and a senate in that republic, it came to be a mixture (mista) of two of the three forms mentioned above, that is, the princely and the aristocratic. There remained merely to grant a place to the popular government; hence, when the Roman nobility became arrogant […], the people rose up against it, and the nobles were constrained to concede a share of power to the people in order not to lose it all; on the other hand, the senate and the consuls remained with so much authority that they could keep their rank in the republic. And thus arose the creation of the tribunes of the plebs; after which, the condition of the republic became more stable since all three forms of government had a share in it. (Disc. I.2)

Machiavelli differs from Polybius in at least two significant ways, however. First, for the Greek historian, the transition from one constitution to another is always the product of a crisis, but this crisis is not linked specifically to internal conflicts. In speaking of the tormented process that led the Romans to implement institutions similar to Sparta’s, Polybius uses a somewhat vague expression that may be an allusion to the tumults but could just as easily refer to its wars against neighboring peoples, since the terms chosen (di’agónon kái pragmáton, meaning “by a series of crises”)41 fit both equally well (Histories 2009). While Del Lucchese is right in noting that the moment of the foundation of the law (in all its arbitrariness) is always present to Machiavelli, his interpretation neglects the fact that in the Discourses constitutions tend toward “perfection” –​that is toward “mixed government.” In the case of Rome, this fulfillment was achieved through the tribunes and coincided with a long period of institutional (but not socio-​political) stability. Rather than an oscillation or circularity between constituent and constituted power, in Machiavelli there are brief moments of discontinuity and prolonged stasis. 41 F.W. Walbank, A Historical Commentary on Polybius, 3 vols. (Oxford University Press, 1957–​ 79), I, p. 662. The first published Latin translation, by Volfangus Musculus, rendered the passage in an equally generic fashion: per multa certamina et negocia (Herwagen, 1549, p. 200).

4

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VI.10). And Polybius –​who in describing the Roman magistracies at the time of the Punic Wars has little interest in the details of the process –​never resolves this uncertainty. Machiavelli’s second innovation concerns the vital role assigned to the tribunes. For Polybius, the popular element of the Roman constitution lies in its assemblies (to the point that the tribunes are not even mentioned in his discussion of the people’s prerogatives in Histories VI.17), whereas the Discourses focus on the importance of the plebs’ representatives.42 In Chapter 6 we will see how Machiavelli came to this reinterpretation of Rome’s “mixed government”; for now it is sufficient to note that his insistence on the nexus between secession and tribunate appears all the more significant in light of the tribunes’ poor reputation. Since antiquity, the tribunate traditionally faced criticism for three reasons: (1) The fact that it arose out of discord; (2) the tribunes’ status as non-​magistrates (since they were elected exclusively by, and represented only, the plebeians); and (3) the vast reach of its powers (including the right of veto, or intercessio, on all new laws, and the ability to prosecute any citizen before the popular assembly, patricians included). Marked by this threefold stigma, the tribunes are depicted in ancient sources as a danger to public order, rather than legitimate defenders of freedom.43 Even authors like Livy, who certainly appreciates the institution, criticize the demagoguery of its representatives and take every opportunity to rail against their threat to civic concord, writing for instance that “there is never a lack of tribunes to promote disturbances” (VII.18).44 As a result, the first ten books give ample space to the harangues of the consuls and senate against the plebs’ representatives, from Cincinnatus to Titus Quinctius Capitolinus Barbatus, Marcus Genucius Augurinus, Caius Curtius, Appius Claudius Crassus, and Fergus Millar chastises Machiavelli for not discussing sufficiently the assembly voting mechanisms but, more generally, it is the legislative process in itself that receives little attention in the Discourses (The Roman Republic in Political Thought, Brandeis University Press, 2002, pp. 74–​77). Skinner misses this point, as (following Polybius) he considers the popular assembly as the true balance of the senate and goes so far as to read the plebeian–​patrician dualism in terms of modern bicameralism (‘The Republican Ideal of Political Liberty,’ in Machiavelli and Republicanism, pp.  293–​309:  305). This reconstruction not only distorts Machiavelli’s text, but also Roman history: the laws decreed by the plebeian assemblies (the plebiscita) required the approval of the senate only between 339 and 287 BCE, because in 287 BCE (thanks to the Lex Hortensia de plebiscitis) they were effectively equated to senate’s provisions, without further need of a second legislative step; before 339 BCE the plebiscita had jurisdiction only over the plebs. On Roman and Athenian assemblies in Machiavelli’s work:  J.P. McCormick, Machiavellian Democracy (Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 77–​78, 97. 43 See T. Lanfranchi, Les tribuns de la plèbe et la formation de la République romaine (École française de Rome, 2015), pp. 551–​603. 44 See also: Livy II.24; IV.48; IV.60; V.2. 42

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Marcus Furius Camillus (to mention only the most important). The list of orators who speak out against the tribunes’ alleged inability to uphold the common good even in times of extreme danger is truly striking (III.19; III.67–​ 68; IV.2; V.3–​6; V.51–​55), and it must have made a strong impression on Machiavelli’s contemporaries –​despite Livy’s frequent criticism of the overly embittered tone of some attacks. Most importantly, Livy is not an isolated example. Similar critiques are anything but infrequent and, sticking just to easily accessible authors, also appear in Florus (Epitome II.1) and in Cicero’s De legibus.45 In the latter, Marcus Tullius’ brother Quintus attacks both the behavior of the elected members and the institution itself: But, my dear brother, I certainly want to ask your opinion of this power. For it seems to me a mischievous thing, born in civil strife (in seditione) and tending to civil strife (ad seditionem). For if we take the trouble to recall its origin, we shall see that it was begotten in the midst of dissension among citizens, after parts of the city had been occupied and besieged by armed forces. Then, after it had been quickly put to death, as the Twelve Tables instruct that terribly deformed infants shall be suppressed, it was soon revived again, somehow or other, and at its second birth was even more hideous and abominable than before. Of what crimes has it not been guilty! Its first acts –​deeds worthy of its impious nature –​were to deprive the senators of all their privileges, make the lowest equal to the highest everywhere, and produce utter confusion and disorder. But even after destroying the authority of the aristocracy, it never rested. For, to omit the cases of Caius Flaminius [in 232 BCE] and others, which occurred so long ago that they seem obsolete, what rights did the tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus leave to the best citizens? Yet it was all of five years before Gracchus [in 138 BCE] that the plebeian tribune Caius Curiatius, the meanest and vilest of human beings, committed an act that was absolutely without precedent, casting into prison the consuls Decimus [Giunius] Brutus and Publius Scipius  –​and what men they were! Furthermore, was it not the overthrowing of Caius Gracchus and the casting of daggers into the forum, so that citizens might use them to stab one another (this is Gracchus’ own description of what he did) that through the tribunate brought about a complete revolution in the State? Why should I go on to mention [Lucius Apuleius] Saturninus, [Publius] Sulpicius [Rufus],46 and all the other tribunes from whom the republic could not protect itself without resorting to the sword? (III.8–​9)

In the debate that follows, Cicero assumes a much softer position, although he does not deny his brother’s objections. You see the faults of the tribunate very clearly, Quintus, but in an attack on any institution it is unfair to omit all mention of its advantages, and enumerate only its disadvantages, picking out its special shortcomings. Even the consulship can be condemned by the use of such a method, if you collect the bad deeds of certain consuls whom I do not care to name. And indeed I acknowledge that there is an element of evil in the power of the tribunate itself; but without the evil you refer to, we would not Dio Cassius IV.15 was less accessible. 46 Saturninus and Sulpicius were both killed by the aristocrats, respectively in 100 and 88 BCE. 45

46

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have the good that was intended when the office was established. “The tribunes of the plebs have too much power,” you say. Who can deny it? But the power of the people themselves is much more cruel, much more violent; and yet because there is a leader to control it, this power is sometimes milder in practice than if there were none. For a leader is conscious that he is acting at his own risk, whereas the impulse of the people has no consciousness of any risk to itself. “But,” you object, “the tribunes sometimes excite the people.” Yes, and they often calm them too. For what college of tribunes could be of such a desperate character than not a single one of the ten retained his sanity? Why, the downfall of Tiberius Gracchus was caused not only by the fact that he disregarded another tribune’s veto, but he even deprived him of his powers. For what else brought him down except his act of expelling his colleague from office when he exercised the right of veto against him? But consider the wisdom of our ancestors in this matter. When the senate had granted this power to the plebeians, conflict ceased, rebellion was at an end, and a measure of compromise was discovered which made the more humble believe that they were accorded equality with the nobility; and such a compromise was the only salvation of the State. “But we have had the two Gracchi,” you say. Yes, and you could mention many more besides; for when a college of ten is elected, you will find some tribunes in every period whose activities are harmful, and perhaps more who are irresponsible and without influence for good; but in the meantime the senatorial order is not subject to envy, and the common people conduct no desperate struggles for their rights. Thus it is clear that either the monarchy ought never to have been abolished, or else that real liberty, not a pretense of it, had to be given to the common people; but this liberty was granted in such a manner that the people were induced by many excellent provisions to yield to the authority of the nobles. (III.10)

Despite Marcus Tullius’ defense, the image of the tribunes issuing from the De legibus retains its dark tones. Not only is the dispute deliberately left open, for in the end Quintus restates his condemnation, but, as the tribunate is the sole institution to come under such fierce scrutiny in De legibus, the simple fact that no other office needs to be defended counts far more than any argument subsequently deployed to legitimize their role as a bulwark of popular freedom. The readers thus have the impression that Cicero carved out for himself the role of the people’s friend, taking advantage of the fictional dialogue to express his own resentment through his brother (as Quintus recalls in another passage, the tribunes were responsible for Marcus Tullius’ previous exile). The fifteenth-​century reception of this passage from De legibus confirms this reading. Along with some discomfort regarding the unique status of tribunes as non-​magistrates, Quintus’ ideas prevailed among the antiquarians –​especially the suspicion attached to the institution’s origins. In De magistratibus Romanorum by Pomponio Leto (1425–​98), for example, the tribunate is called “a plague of the Republic” and “a magistracy that is always seditious” precisely because of the circumstances that had led to its adoption.47 As a result, the Pomponio Leto, De Romanorum magistratibus (Stephanus, 1549), pp. 86–​87. Lucius Fenestella (Andrea Fiocchi) is more neutral (De magistratibus sacerdotisque Romanorum, Stephanus, 47

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condemnation of the tribunes became a commonplace48 that influenced even those humanists most inclined to recognize their precious role as defenders of “public freedom from the arrogance of the nobles” (as Patrizi writes in De institutione reipublicae I.4). For the way they are formulated, the rare attempts to redeem the tribunes also indirectly confirm this general aura of suspicion –​as in this passage by Antonio de’ Ferrariis, known as Galateo (1444–​1517): There are some defenders and supporters of the nobility who define the tribunes of the plebs as seditious, windbags, swindlers and envious of the glory of the nobles and patricians; others instead consider them to be defenders of political freedom (defensores publicae libertatis) and view them as the only bulwark (unicum presidium) against the fury of the nobles and against the arrogance, not to say tyranny, of the patricians. Anyone who does not believe this statement should read the entire De bello Iugurthino, whose author is noble, not plebeian: more than a historian, he seems to be holding a trial against the nobility.49

In such an unfavorable context, rehabilitating Roman tumults with the argument that they led to the “creation of tribunes” (as does Machiavelli) would seem to be an almost hopeless undertaking. Since opponents of the tribunate after Quintus had always warned against its dangers and insisted upon its seditious origins, the few supporters of the plebs’ representatives had tried to minimize that association as much as possible.50 Surprisingly, Machiavelli decided instead to insist on the very circumstances that led to this new institution, only to reach the opposite conclusion. It is true, he argues, that the tribunate was the result of the first major conflict between patricians and plebeians. And yet, since Rome became a “mixed government” when this last piece of the constitutional puzzle was finally adopted, the tribunes should be viewed as the best proof that civil struggles may be beneficial to republics, contrary to the apologists of concord at any cost. Thus, whereas the standard argument was that the tribunes were bad because they derived from tumults, which themselves were bad, the Discourses overturn the traditional relationship of cause and effect to praise the tumults for the utility of the tribunes.

1549, pp. 43–​45), while Biondo does not openly take a stance and, after summarizing Quintus’ attacks, amply cites Marcus Tullius’ defense (‘Roma triumphans,’ p. 57). 48 Giovanni Conversino, Dragmalogia de eligibili vitae genere, ed. H.L. Eaker (Associated University Presses, 1980), p. 124; Poggio Bracciolini, ‘Oratio in laudem reipublicae Venetorum,’ in Bracciolini, Opera, II, pp. 925–​37: 927. 49 Antonio Galateo, ‘Ad Gelasium, de nobilitate,’ in Antonio Galateo, Epistulae, ed. A. Altamura (Centro di Studi Salentini, 1959), pp. 267–​90: 276–​77. This letter was used by Machiavelli for his famous oration in Florentine Histories III.13: G. Pedullà, ‘Una nuova fonte per il Ciompo,’ in M. Israëls and L.A. Waldman (eds.), Renaissance Studies in Honor of Joseph Connors (Officina Libraria, 2013), pp. 73–​82. For another favorable judgment: Petrarch, Familiares XI.16.26–​27. 50 I.e. in Biondo the tribunes’ origin is not mentioned at all.

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Tumults and “Humors” Still, Roman tumults do not “deserve high praise” solely for having led to “mixed government.” If this were so, positive conflicts would have been confined to a particular moment in Roman history, up to the fulfillment of its constitution, fifteen years after the foundation of the republic.51 And, at most, they would have been a sort of appendix to the uprising that had caused the expulsion of the Tarquins. This is not the case. In fact, a careful reading reveals that already in the opening lines of Disc. I.4 Machiavelli promises to deal with two distinct but related issues that cannot be conflated (even if scholars tend to combine them):  the analysis of “the tumults that existed in Rome from the death of the Tarquins [495 BCE] until the creation of the tribunes [494 BCE],” and the broader accusations of those who “say that Rome was a tumultuous republic, so full of confusion that had good Fortune and military virtue not compensated for its defects, it would have been inferior to every other republic.” Only with the second issue does Machiavelli’s break with the classical and humanistic tradition of concord become irreversible. Even regardless of the tumults’ effect on the institutions, Machiavelli has no doubt: the Roman example teaches that “in every republic there are two different humors” and that “every city must have its own modes (modi) with which the people can vent (sfogare) its ambition.” This is the most innovative and radical point of his argument, for what is at stake now is no longer a crucial (but still limited) moment in the history of Rome, but a general law of politics. Despite the dangers they bring with them, tumults are inevitable.52 This new query implies a new order of reasoning. Machiavelli “the antiquarian,” who cross-​references and discusses many historical sources, makes way for Machiavelli “the anthropologist,” who draws his judgments directly from his knowledge of the human soul. And the use of the term umori (“humors”), with which the Discourses allude explicitly to Hippocratic medicine (as Anthony Parel first showed),53 is a way to signal that tumults are to be regarded as a natural element of political life, well beyond their impact on the Roman constitution during the first years of the republic.54 51 According to Sasso one of the differences between Machiavelli and Polybius is that, for the latter, conflicts between patricians and plebeians disappeared with the implementation of the mixed constitution (‘Detrattori,’ p. 79; Machiavelli, il Mulino, 1980, p. 462). 52 Also the division of Livy’s year-​by-​year narrative into external (foris) and internal (domi) events –​wars and seditions, essentially –​must have led Machiavelli to consider tumults as a natural phenomenon (especially given that, on the contrary, Livy places special emphasis on the exceptionality of their absence every time they fail to occur). 53 A.J. Parel, The Machiavellian Cosmos (Princeton University Press, 1992), pp. 101–​12. 54 Reading Machiavelli through Hobbes, Pocock misses this point. For him the mixed constitution occupies a role analogous to that of the contract in the Leviathan, marking a break between the moment of conflict and that of civic life: “The Romans were innovating in a context not yet sufficiently stable to permit of legitimized behavior, when they established by their own efforts a structure of legitimacy; we must consequently look for actions not themselves legitimate,

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When speaking of “humors,” Machiavelli refers to a concept universally understood in his time. According to Renaissance science, diseases were not believed to result from an attack on the body by external pathogens. Rather, they originated from an imbalance (dyscrasia) in the four basic components of the organism: black bile (corresponding to the earth, and rooted in the spleen); yellow bile (fire, rooted in the liver); phlegm (water, rooted in the head); and blood (air, rooted in the heart). The predomination of any one of these fluids could trigger any number of pathologies that required prompt correction in accordance with the principle of contrarium agens in contrarium. Whenever the forces of nature failed to restore equilibrium (eucrasia), a physician was called in to help the ailing person by administering a special diet or substances, so that the patient could expel –​through perspiration, mucus, urine, vomiting, or diarrhea –​excess and corrupted “matter” (materia peccans) in a risky but ultimately salutary crisis.55 Machiavelli’s adoption of the Hippocratic metaphor has two important results. First, the equation of social groups with “humors” acknowledges that a city in perfect concord is impossible to achieve. The “humors” of the body have a tendency to try to prevail over each other, making good health something very similar to a moment of respite in an endless sequence of imbalances. For this reason it would be simply absurd to blame Rome for what is a standard condition in the life of all States.56 Second, the metaphor suggests that none of the “humors” that comprise the city can or should be eliminated. In analogy with the human body, the health of the republic is not associated with the tranquility that accompanies the uncontested supremacy of either the people or the mighty but with their dynamic equilibrium. And this means that, even in its radicalism, Machiavelli’s theory of tumults is incompatible with the modern concept of revolution as the complete overcoming of a political order for the benefit of a different one (i.e. through the definitive elimination of the wealthy).57 To describe the “enmities” (inimicizie) between the people and the mighty, in Florentine Histories III.1 Machiavelli would choose two binding adjectives: which nevertheless contributed to such a result” (The Machiavellian Moment, Princeton University Press, 1975, p. 194). In short, while Skinner eliminates the conflicts through their “parliamentarization” (the bicameralism thesis discussed above, in note 40), Pocock erases the tumults by relegating them to a pre-​political moment (in the passage cited, the key expression is “not yet”). 55 N.G. Siraisi, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine (University of Chicago Press, 2006), pp. 104–​6; N. Arikha, Passions and Tempers (Ecco, 2007). 56 The idea that conflict between rich and poor is a natural phenomenon is quite widespread in the fifteenth-​century histories: Poggio Bracciolini, Historia Florentini populi, ed. G.B. Recanati (Hertz, 1715), p. 78; Giovanni Cavalcanti, Istorie fiorentine, ed. G. Di Pino (Martello, 1944), I.1; III.2; XIII.4; XIII.9; Rucellai, ‘De Urbe Roma,’ c. 954. However, it is basically absent from humanistic political tracts; an exception is Patrizi: “scarcely can there be concord between the people and the senators” (De institutione reipublicae VI.5). 57 Parel, Machiavellian Cosmos, pp. 109–​111.

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“natural” (naturali)  –​since, as we have seen, conflicts are inescapable;58 but also “serious” (serie) –​since he never underestimates the dangers of tumults (in fact, the indiscriminate apology of internecine struggles will be attributed to him with obvious polemical aims only by accusers like Gentillet –​or, for opposite reasons and with an opposite appraisal, by Marxist scholars). How to handle something that is “serious” yet also “natural”? If conflict is inevitable, but not necessarily destructive, one answer (Machiavelli’s answer) might be to try to control it. Once division and conflict are accepted as givens, the problem becomes how to prevent them from leading the republic to self-​ destruction. The example of the early Romans is so relevant precisely for this reason. Indeed, Machiavelli believes that the riots so vehemently condemned by modern readers can be a valuable ally in the difficult task of preventing strife from getting out of hand. Because they are largely innocuous, popular uprisings appear to be less a sign of collapsing civic concord than a precious safety valve for a flow that, according to the hydraulics of the humoral theory, must be channeled  –​not suppressed. The famous paragraphs in The Prince (25) on the dykes and banks that are needed to stave off Fortune suggest something similar. Machiavelli’s predilection for medical terminology is not particularly unique,59 given that the representation of the State as a body had a long history well before the Discourses60 and it is often used by Livy –​i.e. in the fable of the belly and the members with which Menenius Agrippa convinced the plebs to return to Rome at the time of the first secession (II.32),61 or in Appius Claudius Crassus’ oration, when the proud senator accused the tribunes of having deliberately prevented Rome from enjoying stable concord by forcing the patricians to beg each time for new agreements in exchange for increasingly burdensome concessions:  “They are like quack-​salvers seeking employment,

58 See also Florentine Histories II.12:  “Only those humors were still excited that are naturally (naturalmente) wont to exist in all cities between the powerful and the people.” 59 The term “to vent” is almost always used in the Discourses with regard to internecine quarrels to describe the eruption of discontent (Disc. I.5; I.7; I.37); in Disc. I.7 alone it appears seven times (C. Lefort, Machiavelli in the Making, Northwestern University Press, 2012, p. 237). 60 P. Archaumbault, ‘The Analogy of the Body in Renaissance Political Literature,’ Bibliotheque d’Humanisme et Renaissance, 29 (1967), pp. 21–​ 53; J.M Najemy, ‘The Republic’s Two Bodies: Body Metaphors in Italian Renaissance Political Thought,’ in A. Brown (ed.), Language and Images of Renaissance Italy (Clarendon, 1995), pp. 237–​ 62; C.J. Nederman, ‘Body Politics. The Diversification of Organic Metaphors in the Later Middle Ages,’ Pensiero politico medievale, 2 (2004), pp. 59–​87; G. Briguglia, Il corpo vivente dello Stato (Bruno Mondadori, 2006); R. Brock, Greek Political Imagery (Bloomsbury, 2013), pp. 69–​82; G. Cappelli, Maiestas (Carocci, 2016). 61 The fact that Machiavelli never mentions Menenius Agrippa’s eulogy of concord is significant in itself. See G. Pedullà, ‘Against Peacemakers. Machiavelli on the End of Tumults,’ in A. Bloch, C.  James, and C. Russell (eds.), The Art and Language of Power in Renaissance Florence (University of Toronto Press, forthcoming 2019).

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since they desire that there should always be some disease in the body politic, that there may be something which you may call them in to cure” (V.3).62 In the Discourses the traditional image takes on yet another meaning, which refers neither to concord between the organs (as in Menenius Agrippa and many medieval authors)63 nor to the perverse relationship between physicians and disease (as in Appius Claudius): instead, it is meant to offer an unprecedented justification of civil conflict. For Machiavelli, since the city is a body, it too is subject to a series of cyclical alterations that force it to rid itself of fluids that are not necessarily damaging but that cannot be allowed to accumulate, at the risk of them erupting in more violent forms.64 Tumults should accordingly be regarded as one of the “modes” by which the republic spontaneously discharges excess “matter.” Not even the image of purgation (humorum vacuatio) suggested by the verb “to vent” is in itself entirely original in Renaissance political thought. One finds it with a certain frequency in fifteenth-​century authors, who –​contrary to Machiavelli –​associate it especially with the idea that republics should rid themselves of the lowest strata of the population by occasionally expelling any inhabitants who by their mere presence could disturb the city’s harmony (i.e. paupers, beggars, and vagabonds). Historians generally trace the repressive reform of charity to the sixteenth-​century glorification of work, linking measures to control the socially marginalized to the great disciplining process of the Counter-​Reformation.65 In reality, although it is true that debates over the needy intensified at the beginning of the 1500s and forced hospitalization became universal only at the end of that century, the tension between a Christian paradigm of charity and a secular paradigm of control dated back far earlier, as fifteenth-​century political thinkers had already identified the indigents as a major threat to public order.66 The humanists commonly suggested that only by banning inactive citizens (meaning, the poorest members of the urban proletariat who do not contribute Appius repeats this accusation shortly after in the same oration (Livy V.5). It is not unthinkable that Guicciardini had this passage in mind when he criticized Machiavelli’s idea with the argument that “praising discord is like praising a sick man’s illness, because the remedy that has been used on him is the right one” (Considerations on the “Discourses” I.4); the same criticism will be leveled by Gentillet, Contre-​Machiavel III.31. 63 John of Salisbury, Policraticus V.2.67; V.9.81; VI.20.125–​26; Remigio dei Girolami, ‘De bono communi,’ in Remigio dei Girolami, Dal bene comune al bene del comune, ed. E.  Panella (Nerbini, 2014), pp. 146–​221: 156; Marsilius of Padua, Defensor pacis I.2.3; I.5.4; I.5.7; John of Cusa, De concordantia Catholica III.91. 64 In Disc. II.5 the word “purgation” (purgazione) refers to the pestilences that naturally freed a region of overpopulation, but in some ways the mechanism is the same as for popular grudges. For a similar use of the concept of “purgation”: Matteo Palmieri, La vita civile, ed. G. Belloni (Olschki, 1982), III.140. 65 B. Geremek, Poverty: A History (Wiley, 1991); P. Pissavino, ‘I poveri nel pensiero politico italiano tra Cinque e Seicento,’ in D. Zardin (ed.), La città e i poveri (Jaca Book, 1995), pp. 151–​89. 66 Probably some authors followed Plato’s Laws 735e–​736a. 62

52

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to the collective wellbeing because they cannot find work) would it be possible to prevent tumults.67 The idea was essentially to conduct a periodic pruning in an attempt to ensure, as Matteo Palmieri (1406–​75) writes, that “whoever is idle and unproductive and does harm in the city, if he is not prevented from doing so by a just cause, will be forced to work or truly sent outside, so that the city purges itself (fa una purgazione) of the noxious plebs.”68 The idea is so widespread that even a thinker like Patrizi, who favors granting full citizenship to a portion of small craftsmen (the hard-​working opifices) and admitting them to the management of public affairs, has no reservations about expelling all the others (De institutione reipublicae I.8).69 Machiavelli disagrees. Drawing once more upon the same metaphor, he employs the image of liberation from bad “humors” to replace the traditional purgation of the “harmful plebs” (objective genitive, in which the city is what frees itself of its most wretched members) with the “venting” of the people’s “ambition” (subjective genitive, in which it is the people who frees itself of its resentment toward the mighty). This is the meaning of a sentence like, “I say that every city must have its own modes (modi) with which the people can vent its ambition” (Disc. I.4).70 Even as he admits that republics are riven by streams of “humors” needing to be kept under control, Machiavelli rejects the idea that the best way to manage popular effervescence is to dispose of the destitute. As explained more fully in Chapter 5, for him a large population is actually the main prerequisite for the success of a State, because in the long run only a sizeable army will be capable of keeping it safe from its neighbors. To give up on a portion of the inhabitants in the hope of obtaining an ultimately impractical social peace is therefore the worst of solutions –​one that would not only fail to achieve its goal (the perfect concord) but that would also, over time, make the city more vulnerable.71 The point lies elsewhere. In Machiavelli’s view neither the plebs nor its tumults are damaging, whereas popular animosity toward the nobles may be, if it is not provided with a suitable outlet. Resentment, and resentment alone –​ not the poor citizens who embody it –​is what the republic must periodically M. Mollat, The Poor in the Middle Ages (Yale University Press, 1986), pp. 254–​56. 68 Palmieri, Vita civile IV.178. 69 See also Leon Battista Alberti, De re aedificatoria, eds. R. Benelli and P. Portoghesi (Il Polifilo, 1966), V.8; Marcantonio Sabellico, ‘Exempla,’ in Marcantonio Sabellico, Opera, 4  vols. (Herwagen, 1560), IV, p. 104; Antonio da Rocca Contrada, Libro de pace e de armonia cristiana (Zoppino, 1536), p. 29r. 70 The same idea appears in an anti-​popular vein in Petrarch, Rerum memorandarum libri III.26. 71 Lucius Valerius Potitus’ words during the second plebeian secession against the decemvirs could easily be adopted by Machiavelli as his own: “What is that authority, decemvirs, to which you cling with such tenacity? Is it to roofs and walls you will render judgment? Are you not ashamed that your lictors should be seen in the Forum in almost larger numbers than the other citizens? What do you mean to do if the enemy should come to the City?” (Livy III.52). 67

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expel, taking great care that the purgation occurs in innocuous forms. Under these conditions, as preventive therapy against more violent protests and uncontrolled dissent, tumults can even contribute to social stability,72 as indeed they did in Rome for three centuries. Tumults thus actually deserve “high praise” also as an antidote to greater evils. As we will see in Chapter  7, Machiavelli’s baroque followers uniquely and unilaterally valued this aspect, drawing from it a lesson in political conservatism. More recently, scholars fascinated by the modernity of the Discourses’ conflictualism have for opposite reasons silently passed over the stabilizing effects of purgation. However, although Machiavelli acknowledges that tumults can make an important contribution to stability, his theory has nothing to do with Renaissance (and later Baroque) strategies to prevent the popular classes from taking on a leading political role. To use nineteenth-​century terminology, no idea of “social prophylaxis” against the “dangerous classes” ever surfaces in the Discourses: what the republic really needs, Machiavelli teaches, are other forms of drainage. In the Discourses tumults are therefore simultaneously a threat (because no one knows in advance how they will end) and an opportunity. Still, this means that, in contrast to the prestigious ancient tradition asserting that the excellence of a constitution depends on the degree of pax and tranquillitas experienced by its citizens, conflict is a neutral event:  positive or negative, depending on the presence or absence of other factors. And, according to Machiavelli, this is the lesson to be gained from Rome, as the republic experienced plebeian rebellions almost annually, for centuries, and nevertheless managed to extend its dominion over the entire Mediterranean region. The “Modes” of Tumults Machiavelli returns to the question of tumults at the end of Disc. I.17, where he examines the difficulties of establishing a free government, in cities that have long been subject to princely rule, due to “corruption of the matter.” Rome was very lucky that these kings became corrupt quickly so that they were expelled from it before their corruption passed into that city’s bowels; this lack of corruption was the reason why the countless tumults that took place in Rome did not harm but benefited the republic, since the people had good aims (fine). And one can draw this conclusion: whenever the matter is corrupt, tumults and other scandals do not harm; whenever it is corrupt, well-​ordered (bene ordinate) laws are ineffective unless they are driven by someone who with an extreme force ensures their observance so that the matter becomes good.73 For a similar use of the concept of “purgation,” see Leonardo Bruni’s discussion of the stability that followed the fall of Giorgio Scali’s government (Historiae Florentini populi, ed. J. Hankins, 3 vols., Harvard University Press, 2001–​7, IX.47). 73 See also Disc. III.8. 72

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To Machiavelli, who again reverses the traditional relationship between cause and effect, conflict between fellow citizens should not be seen as a sign of corruption, as it is for the theorists of concord; on the contrary, it is moral degeneration that makes social conflicts dangerous and “good laws” ineffective. The case of Rome demonstrates that, as long as one knows how to neutralize their perils, tumults helped restore on a higher level the same unity that the original legal division into patricians and plebeians had endangered. Contrary to the claims of accusers like Gentillet, then, Machiavelli does not intend to reassess tumults as such. Indeed, as we have seen, even while stipulating that tumults are neither good nor bad in themselves, the Discourses cannot help but clearly divide struggles that strengthened the republic from those that, in a later phase, led it to ruin. At the same time, compared to the classic and humanistic tradition, Machiavelli differentiates these struggles according to completely new criteria; and, since in corrupted States tumults worsen the situation by speeding up the crisis, one of these criteria is the “quality” (qualità) of the “matter” (materia) described in Disc. I.17 –​that is, the mores of the citizens.74 Nevertheless, for Machiavelli the most important distinguishing element concerns the “modes” of conflict. Modo is one of the Discourses’ crucial terms, with shades of meaning that range from an attitude (or custom)75 to a means or expedient by which to achieve a given aim.76 However it is understood, “mode” represents the main object of political prudence: which, as taught by Aristotle and Cicero, does not select the goal but only the best way to reach it. As a fifteenth-​century historian put it: “the mode (modo) is the true architect of everything one desires.”77 This interest in “modes” implies a special emphasis on the forms of political disputes, and thus, since there is no dialogue without friction, on the forms of conflict. Machiavelli has very clear ideas on where the new line should lie. If there is no bloodshed, the tumult will be considered positive; reversely, when the struggle takes a violent turn, it will be roundly condemned. Est modus in rebus, as the saying goes.78 It is important not to forget that in medical language corrupt “humors” were called materia peccans or, in Italian, materia peccante. 75 “The city of Rome had this mode” (Disc. I.4); “It was possible for such a mode to arise and be maintained without tumult” (Disc. I.6). 76 In expressions like “there are three modes” (Prince 5). 77 Giovanni Cavalcanti, Istorie fiorentine VI.18. See also Palmieri, Vita civile II.46. 78 See Sallust on the evolution of the modes of political struggle: “The Gracchi, to be sure, lacked sufficient restraint in their eagerness for victory (haud satis moderatus animus fuit); but it is preferable for a good man to be defeated than to triumph over a wrong in a wicked manner (malo modo). And so, the nobles abused their victory to gratify their passions; they put many mortals out of the way by the sword or by banishment, and they gained for themselves a greater measure of intimidation than of power for the future. It is this spirit which has commonly sent great nations crashing down, when one party desires to triumph over another by any means at all (quovis modo) and to take vengeance on the vanquished with excessive cruelty” (Bellum Iugurthinum 42). 74

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While both patricians and plebeians are to be admired for their efforts to avoid armed conflict, in the Discourses merit is awarded primarily to the plebs for the harmless forms of struggle they devised. In addition to the “modes” common to all republics (outcries, minor scuffles, barred shops, and so on), Machiavelli focuses on two that were peculiar to Rome: (1) The “fleeing” of the plebs (secessio), described by Livy in II.32–​33 and III.50–​52, with the people camping out on one of the hills surrounding the city and refusing to return to Rome until the patricians take their requests into consideration; and (2) the refusal to “lend their name to going to war” (detractio militiae), in III.69 defined by Livy as “an extremely powerful weapon against the patricians” (telum acerrimum adversus patres) and deployed many times by the plebs in the first ten books. It is no coincidence that secessio and detractio militiae are both passive forms of political combat that allow the people to make its voice heard without risk of bloodshed. Still, in both cases, violence appears to be displaced rather than eliminated.79 The secret to this tactic of “withholding” is the external war looming on the horizon, which makes the threat to withdraw support from the senate all the more troubling. Livy very carefully describes how the plebs quickly learned to exploit the emergency situation to their advantage, forcing the nobility to negotiate. Without the menace of an enemy, neither the secessio nor the detractio militiae would make any sense, and Livy mentions the irony of the senators toward the tribunes who threaten to ban military conscription in peacetime (IV.12) and, conversely, the relief with which the news of an attack by neighboring populations is welcomed by the tribunes (IV.55). As Precisely because of the role played by external threats, it is a mistake to read the secessio as a forerunner of modern strikes, even if this comparison is common among scholars of Roman law (less so among historians): G. Grosso, ‘Il diritto di sciopero e l’intercessio dei tribuni della plebe,’ in G. Grosso, Scritti storico-​giuridici, 4 vols. (Giappichelli, 2000–​1), I, pp. 303–​9; P. Catalano, Tribunato e resistenza (Paravia, 1971), pp. 21–​25; F. Fabbrini, ‘Tribuni plebis,’ in A. Zara and E. Eula (eds.), Nuovissimo Digesto Italiano, 21  vols. (Utet, 1957–​75), XIX, pp. 778–​822; G. Lobrano, Il potere dei tribuni della plebe (Giuffrè, 1982); L. Polverini, ‘Il tribunato della plebe,’ Il Pensiero Politico, 40 (2007), pp. 360–​68. However, sometimes even historians interpret the secessio as a sort of strike:  F. von Fritz, ‘The Reorganization of the Roman Government in 366 BCE and the so-​called Licinio-​Sextian Laws,’ Historia, 1 (1950), pp. 3–​44; A. Piganiol, La Conquête Romaine (Presses Universitaires de France, 1995), p. 6; G.E.M. de St. Croix, The Class Struggle in the Ancient World (Cornell University Press, 1981), p. 335; R.E. Mitchell, Patricians and Plebeians (Cornell University Press, 1990), p.  13; W. Eder, ‘Zwischen Monarchie und Republik,’ in Bilancio critico su Roma arcaica tra monarchia e repubblica (Bardi, 1993), pp. 97–​ 127; T.J. Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome (Routledge, 1995), pp. 256–​71; L.M. Mignone, The Republican Aventine and Rome’s Social Order (University of Michigan Press, 2016), pp. 17–​18. No more pertinent are references to civil disobedience, like in D. Daube, Civil Disobedience in Antiquity (Edinburgh University Press, 1972), pp. 123–​50; R. Laudani, Disobedience in Western Political Thought  (Cambridge University Press, 2013), p.  19; D.E. Howes,  Freedom without Violence (Oxford University Press, 2016). 79

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a matter of fact, the ingenuity of these “modes” lies entirely in the ability to transform the Volscians or the Veientes into instruments of pressure, so as to combine maximum efficiency with minimum risk. Moreover, when Livy’s books are read straight through, popular insurgencies take on an almost ritualized pattern, as if following a script set out in three stages: (1) The plebs threaten to move away from the city, in arms; (2) the menace of the neighboring populations increasingly alarms the patricians, forcing them to discuss the plebeians’ requests; and (3) unity is finally restored thanks to the patricians’ concessions, until the cycle starts up again. This type of conflict poses no serious danger to the republic (or at least not from within). Such reasoning becomes even more significant, however, when read in light of Florentine history (a reference always implicit in the Discourses). Thanks to the chroniclers, today readers know what a medieval riot was like: gatherings in the square, armed clashes in the streets, massive use of cavalry, powerful crossbows and catapults placed on roofs, even the recourse to fire (extremely dangerous because just a minor change in the wind could turn the flames against the houses of those who had ignited them).80 In this case the barred shops and the people “rushing tumultuously through the streets” mentioned by Machiavelli with regard to Rome (Disc. I.4) were simply the prelude to many other forms of strife in cities where the urban landscape (narrow alleyways, towers, the aggregation of factions by neighborhood, and so on) seemed expressly designed to instigate violence. As Palmieri bitterly notes about Florence: “In our city Guelphs and Ghibellines fought partly to decide who should rule but mostly who was to be dispersed and who was to stay in Italy. This is why these wars to choose who should lead were crueler than those later conducted against the neighboring cities.”81 Early Rome is very distant indeed, and even apparent similarities rendered the comparison starker. In medieval Florence, for example, an armed exit from the city did not open a phase of frantic negotiations between the two sides, but was the preamble for far bloodier clashes in the open field, as families fled the urban area to seek refuge in their country estates, where they could make war on their own Commune with even more determination, often in

80 On urban battles:  A.A. Settia, ‘Scontri urbani:  i modi e i luoghi,’ in A.A. Settia, Tecniche e spazi della guerra medievale (Viella, 2006), pp. 133–​ 65. M.me de Stäel would write about Florence’s narrow streets that “the city appears formed for civil war” (Corinne, Burt, 1833, p.  309); see also L. Martines, ‘Political Violence in the Thirteenth Century,’ in L. Martines (ed.), Violence and Civil Disorder in Italian Cities (University of California Press, 1972), pp. 331–​53: 345. 81 Palmieri, Vita civile III.78–​79.

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coalitions with rival cities. In such a context, it is not difficult to understand Machiavelli’s admiration for secessio and detractio militiae.82 In addition to these two “modes,” Machiavelli also gives special importance to a third one, which he describes as the tribunes’ power “to accuse citizens before the people, or any magistracy or council, whenever they act in any way against free government” (Disc. I.7). Of the three “modes” peculiar to Rome, this latter receives the most extensive treatment in the Discourses, where two full chapters are devoted to it.83 Once again Machiavelli’s position is diametrically opposed to the traditional stance. Ancient political thinkers had always associated popular juries with the unrestrained power of democratic assemblies in Greece, and Aristotle’s severe judgment of them (Politics VI.5) had often been positively cited in the fifteenth century. However, while Aristotle condemned assembly trials in an eminently political light, the humanists rearticulated his position with moral undertones and described the trials in terms of ingratitude toward the city’s most illustrious citizens.84 The story of Scipio the African, conqueror of Carthage (202 BCE), who ended his days far from his homeland in order to escape an ignominious accusation (183 BCE), provided one of the main arguments against the tribunes.85 This is an important point because it shows how, in breaking sharply with the traditional hostility toward the tribunes, Machiavelli went on the offensive, praising as a “good institution” (buono ordine) that very tribunician power to The comparison between Roman and Florentine modes becomes explicit in Florentine Histories III.1: “For the enmities between the people and the nobles at the beginning of Rome that were resolved by disputing were resolved in Florence by fighting.” 83 Scholars generally neglect Disc. I.7–​8. Only Lefort (Making, pp.  234–​37), Harvey Mansfield (Machiavelli’s New Modes and Orders, Cornell University Press, 1979), and recently McCormick (Machiavellian Democracy) have insisted on the close connection with the previous chapters. 84 On the dangers of ingratitude: Cavalcanti, Istorie fiorentine IV.17; V.11; Patrizi, De institutione reipublicae III.1. For Renaissance criticism of Athenian ingratitude: G. Pedullà, ‘Late Middle Ages and Early Humanism,’ in G. Giorgini and D. Pavan (eds.), Companion to the Reception of Athenian Democracy (Brill, forthcoming 2019); G.  Pedullà, ‘The Renaissance and Machiavelli,’ ibid.. Opposition to popular trials was particularly strong in Venice (Bracciolini, ‘Oratio,’ p. 934; Gasparo Contarini, De magistratibus et republica Venetorum, Froben, 1544, pp. 125–​26). 85 The entire episode is in Livy XXXVIII.50–​53 (with a harsh judgment against the tribunes). Roman ingratitude, discussed by Machiavelli in Disc. I.28–​30, is an eminently Augustinian topic (De civitate Dei III.21), very common in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. See Giovanni Villani (Nuova cronica, ed. G. Porta, Guanda, 1991, XIII.44), Petrarch (De remediis utriusque fortunae I.94; Familiares I.2.26–​27; XIII.4.12; ‘Camillus’ and ‘Scipio Africanus,’ in De viris illustribus), Bracciolini (‘De miseria,’ p.  96), Francesco Filelfo (Commentationes Florentinae de exilio, ed. J.  De Keyser, Harvard University Press, 2013). Biondo (‘Roma triumphans,’ p. 91), and Patrizi (De institutione reipublicae III.9) are more understanding of the Romans. Machiavelli likewise tends to justify the behavior towards Scipio, Camillus, and Coriolanus (Disc. I.24; I.29; I.58; III.1). As noted by Francesco Bausi, Machiavelli’s short poem On ingratitude should be considered an “exquisitely literary product,” characterized “by a more limited theoretical commitment and by a greater adhesion to generic canons and topoi” (‘Fonti classiche e mediazioni moderne nei Discorsi machiavelliani,’ Interpres, 7 (1987), pp. 159–​90: 171). 82

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prosecute any citizen before the assembly which had previously been branded a threat to civic concord. In other words, the Discourses go against the current by making the most controversial prerogative of the tribunes one of the main reasons for appreciating them.86 Trying to justify such a bold position, Machiavelli indicates “two very useful  effects” of this institution.” The first is quickly dealt with:  the existence of the tribunes ensures that “out of fear of being accused, citizens do not attempt anything against the State, and if they do, they are crushed immediately and without hesitation” (an issue that will be explored further in Chapter 3). The second point is much more complex and directly concerns the question at hand: The other is that an outlet is given by which to vent humors that, in whatsoever way (in qualunque modo) and against whatsoever citizen, arise in cities: and when these humors have not an outlet by which they may be vented ordinarily (ordinariamente), people resort to extra-​ordinary modes (modi straordinari) that bring down an entire republic. Therefore nothing does so much to make a republic so stable and steady as to establish (ordinare) it in a mode (modo) so that any alteration in the humors that upset it has a way (via) to be vented that is established (ordinate) by the laws. (Disc. I.7)

Along with the “modes,” the “humors” to be “vented” make a return appearance here from Disc. I.4. The two chapters are in fact closely connected not only because in Rome the indictment of those who menaced the “free life” was one of the primary duties of the very same tribunes who led the plebs into tumults, but also and especially because Machiavelli continues to hover around the same question: how can the conflicts that inevitably accompany the life of every community be prevented from harming it? Like the question, his answer remains the same. Instead of calling for some impossible form of concord, the Discourses promote the same model of purgation through popular trials encountered in connection with tumults –​and which in this case too is meant to avoid more dangerous consequences. The story of Coriolanus, who was hated by the people for his proposal “to punish the plebs” with famine and who would have been “tumultuously (tumultariamente) killed, had the tribunes not summoned him to appear and defend his cause” (se gli tribuni non lo avessero citato a comparire e a difendere la causa sua), represents the paradigm of this reasoning for Machiavelli (note the se… non…, an exact translation of Livy’s nisi in Italian). The fact that the trial prevented a violent confrontation between the senate and the people definitively proves in his eyes 86 Regarding Machiavelli’s interest in “accusations,” Nicola Matteucci noted that the “two major institutions that he accepts and praises are, for Rome, not the popular assemblies but the plebeian tribunals; and, for France, not the Estates General, but the Parliaments, organs whose function was eminently judiciary” (‘Niccolò Machiavelli,’ in N. Matteucci, Alla ricerca dell’ordine politico, il Mulino, 1984, pp. 31–​67: 57).

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how useful and necessary it is that republics provide an outlet by law (con le leggi loro) for the collectivity to vent its anger against an individual citizen; for when these ordinary modes (modi ordinari) do not exist, people resort to extra-​ordinary ones (straordinari), and these unquestionably produce far worse effects than do the former. (Disc. I.7)

This is a particularly interesting consideration, not least because of the formula “far worse effects” (molto peggiori effetti) chosen to describe the result of the “extra-​ordinary modes,” as if Machiavelli wanted to make it clear that he did not underestimate the dangers of “venting.” It all comes down, then, to examining what alternative might have been available. To do this Machiavelli offers a consummate exercise in counterfactual history (a method of argumentation learned from Greek and Roman historians, and from Livy in particular,87 and used with great skill in the Discourses): Everyone should consider how much evil would have resulted for the Roman republic had he been killed tumultuously (tumultuariamente), since this would have been an offence by private individuals against private individuals, which engenders fear; fear seeks for defense, and for defense partisans are sought; from partisans arise factions in cities and from factions comes the ruin of cities. (Disc. I.7)

This entirely hypothetical Rome, where factions and partisans rule, reminds Machiavelli of another political reality much closer to him:  Florence. Thus, while until this point the parallel between Ancients and moderns remained implicit (albeit very clear), it is now made explicit, retrospectively illuminating the previous chapters before becoming one of the major interpretative tools in the Florentine Histories (general Preface and III.1). To show the damage that can be caused by the absence of such an institution, Machiavelli proposes a comparison between Coriolanus’ trial and two very famous episodes in Florence’s recent history, starting with the riot that caused Savonarola’s fall in 1498. In our time we have seen how much disorder was caused in the republic of Florence by the impossibility for the multitude to vent their feeling ordinarily (ordinariamente) against one of its citizens, as happened when Francesco Valori was like a prince of the city. Since many considered him ambitious and a man who wished to rise above his citizen status by his boldness and spite and because there was no way (via) in the republic to resist him except with a rival sect, it came about that, since he feared only extra-​ordinary modes (modi straordinari), he began to gather supporters to protect him; on the other hand those who opposed him, having no ordinary way (via ordinaria) to restrain him, turned to extra-​ordinary ways (vie straordinarie) until they resorted to arms. And if one could have opposed him in an ordinary manner (per l’ordinario), his authority would have been stamped out with harm to him alone; but since it had to be stamped out in an extra-​ordinary manner (per lo straordinario), harm came not only to him but to many other noble citizens. (Disc. I.7)

87 See i.e. Livy II.1; VI.20; IX.17–​19; XXVIII.42.

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The second parallel is briefer, but perhaps even more significant. The example chosen is the expulsion of Piero Soderini, which in the summer of 1512 cleared the way for the Medici’s return to Florence. Machiavelli is convinced that if the Roman system had been available to the republic, Soderini’s aristocratic opponents “would have vented their feelings without calling in the Spanish army” and without dragging the republic into its fall.88 At stake with the question of accusations, then, is the possibility of demanding accountability at any time from those who have served (or are still serving) without resorting to armed confrontation. Given this danger, Machiavelli warns, a republic needs to endow itself with institutions that can resolve conflicts through legal means so that those who wield power can be prosecuted and, when necessary, peacefully replaced. Unfortunately, considering that “the judges must be numerous, because the few always behave like (a modo) the few,” the Otto di Guardia (the Florentine police magistracy responsible for internal security) is unable to ensure this will happen. As a consequence, the very juries criticized by the anti-​ popular tradition become the only viable alternative. And tribunician power proves indispensable.89 A third example, drawn once again from Roman history, is included in the very same Disc. I.7. In V.33 Livy recounts that, to obtain justice from a young Tuscan noble who had raped his sister, a certain Arruns of Chiusi, “being unable to get revenge […] because of the rapist’s power, went to the French.” He convinced them to cross the river Po and lay waste to the Etruscan lands, triggering a chain of events that would lead to the sack of Rome in 390 BCE. Arruns’ decision to turn to the Gauls must have attracted Machiavelli in part because it allowed him to multiply the terms of his comparison (as he often does in the Discourses) by introducing the Etruscans alongside the Romans and the Florentines. It may be, however, that the episode was especially compelling because of the analogies between Arruns’ actions and those of the Duke of Milan Ludovico Sforza and Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere (the future Pope Julius II), who, on the eve of 1494, persuaded the French King Charles VIII to invade the peninsula. Recent Italian misadventures echoed Etruscan history too obviously for a Florentine of that time not to reflect carefully on it; consequently, all three key dates of the Florentine Republic –​1498, 1512 and, implicitly, 1494 –​are evoked in Disc. I.7 (albeit in different forms). The most important element of this chapter, nonetheless, remains its deep connection with Disc. I.4. The link between tumults and accusations is not As for Machiavelli’s judgment of Soderini, it is worth noting that the passage also hypothesizes a different outcome: “or, if [Soderini] were not living badly, the citizens would not have dared to act against him, for fear that they too might be accused.” Machiavelli thus suggests that at the time of his ouster Soderini still enjoyed popular support. 89 As McCormick has recently argued, “Machiavelli posed the question of elite accountability more sharply than any major figure in the Western political canon” (Machiavellian Democracy, p. 3). Accountability is recognized as one of the characteristics of popular government as far back as Otan’s famous speech on democracy (Herodotus III.80). 88

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limited to the tribunes (who promote both), or to the common reference to purgation. Equally significant is the fact that the criterion used to judge both tumults and accusations is the “modes” of confrontation, as Machiavelli’s obsessive repetition of a few keywords clearly shows. “Ordinarily,” “extra-​ ordinarily,” and “tumultuously” appear thrice, once, and twice, respectively, but the overall effect is reinforced by cognate expressions such as “ordinary modes,” “ordinary way,” and “in an ordinary manner” (twice, once, and once) as opposed to “extra-​ordinary modes,” “extra-​ordinary way,” and “in an extra-​ ordinary manner” (thrice, once, and once). In short, Disc. I.7 reintroduces the binary opposition of Disc. I.4 between regulated and violent conflicts to replace the traditional pairing of concord and discord. The only difference is that here the new binary is applied to struggles pursued through appropriate judicial instruments (“ordinarily”) and those resolved “extra-​ordinarily” or “tumultuously”  –​that is, through an extra-​legal battle with unpredictable outcomes.90 Here, the accusations labeling Machiavelli as a fomenter of discord are exposed in all their inconsistency. Repeatedly condemning armed conflicts and “extra-​ordinary modes,” the Discourses neither eliminate nor attenuate the caesura that classical theory placed between concord and discord; rather, they shift the boundary in order to admit into normal civic life a whole series of non-​violent forms of dissent:  outcries, bloodless riots in which nobody is hurt, secessio, detractio militiae, and, of course, popular trials.91 However, this is not a simple adjustment of traditional categories, for, through the opposition between “ordinary” and “extra-​ordinary modes,” Machiavelli completely redraws the map of what is harmful and what is beneficial to republics. This becomes even clearer in Disc. I.8, where Machiavelli compares accusations and calumnies. In the Discourses “extra-​ordinary” is anything that does not pass through a regulated channel and that is not “put into a form,” so to speak, even if it does not result in violence. This is why, there, “calumnies” are included among the “extra-​ordinary modes” in opposition to trials. From simple rumors, explains Machiavelli, there is no refuge. Trials, however, allow malicious gossip to be verified, giving the accused an opportunity to prove his innocence. The end of Titus Manlius is a perfect example: when summoned to provide evidence for the defamatory accusations he had spread against the senate in the hope of gaining the support of the plebs, the ambitious 90 Leo Strauss (Thoughts on Machiavelli, University of Chicago Press, 1978, p. 259) and Harvey Mansfield (‘Machiavelli’s New Regime,’ in H.C. Mansfield, Machiavelli’s Virtue, University of Chicago Press, 1996, pp. 235–​57: 245) wrongly interpret the contrast between “ordinary” and “extra-​ordinary modes” as “moral” and “immoral modes.” 91 Machiavelli adopts the same method in The Prince, justifying a series of behaviors that were at that time reputed to be explicitly tyrannical (such as the preventative killing of political adversaries): G. Pedullà, ‘Machiavelli’s “Prince” and the Concept of Tyranny,’ in N. Panou and H. Schadee (eds.), Evil Lords: Theory and Representations from Antiquity to the Renaissance (Oxford University Press, 2018), pp. 191–210.

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TABLE 2.2  “Ordinary modes” vs. “extra-​ordinary modes” “ORDINARY MODES” (494–​133 BCE)

“EXTRA-​ORDINARY MODES” (133–​45 BCE)

Secessio, detractio militiae, shops barred, bloodless riots Limited (targeted) exiles Popular trials No parties and factions under an ambitious leader

Violent riots, military battles in the open field Mass exiles, proscriptions Calumnies Parties and factions under an ambitious leader

citizen was condemned by these same plebs for not being able to provide the slightest proof to corroborate his charges.92 Despite the obvious differences, the use of the same “ordinary”/​ “extra-​ordinary” binary in Disc. I.4 and Disc. I.7–​8 shows that for Machiavelli calumnies (the ancestral evil of Florence)93 are to accusations what bloody tumults are to Roman secessions –​and not only because calumny was traditionally considered one of the main causes of civil disputes (“hatred arose on every side; whence they came to division, from division sects, from sects ruin,” as Disc. I.8 reads). The need to watch out for slanderers was an old political precept, widely asserted in the fifteenth century as well,94 but nobody before Machiavelli had gone so far as to associate physical violence with defamatory practices. Thus, as surprising as it may initially sound, the Discourses ask the reader to redefine the hierarchy of dangers and to view calumnies as more harmful than the spectacular (but bloodless) early tumults described in Livy’s work (see Table 2.2). But this, too, is what rediscovering the “meaning” and “savor” of history means.95 One thing needs clarification. It is important not to confuse Machiavelli’s insistence on “modes” and “forms” (an eminently classicist attitude) with a simple proposal to judicialize conflict. He appreciates the tribunes’ right of veto and their “authority to accuse” (Disc. I.6), but these are not the only indispensable functions that the Discourses assign to them, for Machiavelli does not McCormick suggests that one of Discourses’ goals is precisely to persuade Florentine aristocrats that popular trials could be favorable to them (Machiavellian Democracy, p. 116). 93 Regarding the profusion of calumnies in Florence, Sasso (Machiavelli, p. 504) rightly points to the speech by Riccardo Gianfigliazzi in Bruni, Historiae XI.75. 94 Palmieri, Vita civile IV.212; Bartolomeo Platina, De optimo cive, ed. F. Battaglia (Zanichelli, 1942), p.  200; Patrizi, De institutione reipublicae VI.1; Francesco Patrizi, De regno (Zetner, 1608), IV.6; Giovanni Pontano, De Sermone, ed. A. Mantovani (Carocci, 2002), II.8. 95 The distinction between “ordinary” and “extra-​ordinary modes” will return in Disc. I.18 in regard to the reform of corrupt republics. But it is worth remembering also Disc. III.28 on the “public or private modes” through which men earn the favor of their citizens (a chapter inspired by Sallust, De coniuratione Catilinae 11). The critique of “sects” in Florentine Histories VII.1 comes from this chapter. 92

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believe in popular spontaneism and never forgets that “a multitude is useless without a head” (Disc. I.44). And when necessary, as Livy clearly shows, the tribunes (who are not proper magistrates) lead the plebs in (unarmed) confrontations with patricians and organize them for detractio militiae and secessio. This point is essential because, while Marxist scholars tend to conceive of the tribunes solely as a tool for inciting new tumults (forgetting the right of veto and the trials),96 at the opposite extreme the Cambridge School (and curiously also some of its opponents) have eviscerated Machiavelli’s thesis by interpreting the “ordinary modes” as “government of the law.”97 Skinner especially has invested considerable energy into reformulating the Discourses’ theory of conflict in less radical terms, concealing all its most vital aspects in order to minimize the differences between Machiavelli, the humanists, and the Ancients. Skinner does this in two ways:  first, by erasing all extra-​ constitutional elements from Machiavelli’s work (the role assigned to fear in restraining the nobles and to tumults in purging the “bad humors” of the people); and, second, by admitting just one form of institutional confrontation, that is, the legislative process, completely eliding the trials.98 For Skinner, there is simply nothing outside of the electoral or parliamentary dialectic, to the point that in his view the dualism of patricians-​plebeians and senate-​ tribunes simply prefigures modern bicameralism. Indeed, as Skinner writes, Machiavelli first considers what induced the Roman people to legislate so prudently for the common good when they might have fallen into factional conflicts. He finds the key in the fact that under their republican constitution they had one assembly controlled by the nobility and another by the common people, with the consent of each being required for any proposal to become law. Each group admittedly tended to produce proposals designed merely to further its own interests. But each was prevented by the other from imposing them as laws. The result was that only such proposals as favored no faction could ever hope to succeed. The laws relating to the constitution thus served to ensure that the common good was promoted at all times.99

96 The institutional functions of the tribunes are absent, for example, in B. Guillemain, Machiavel (Droz, 1977), pp. 292–​93; Del Lucchese, Conflict. 97 L. Baccelli, Critica del repubblicanesimo (Laterza, 2003), p. 123. See also E. Benner, Machiavelli’s Ethics (Princeton University Press, 2009), pp. 372–​73. 98 Q. Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, 2 vols. (Cambridge University Press, 1978), I, p. 181; Q. Skinner, Machiavelli (Oxford University Press, 1981), p. 61. 99 Skinner, ‘Republican Ideal,’ pp.  305–​6. Skinner is likely influenced by Harrington’s polemic against Hobbes, in which his defense of Rome (and Machiavelli) is also built on an exaltation of its presumed bicameralism: “he holdeth the commonwealth of Rome to have consisted of one assembly, whereas it consisted of the senate and the people” (Commonwealth of Oceana, p.  14). Harrington returns to this issue shortly thereafter:  “as the wisdom of the commonwealth is in the aristocracy, so the interest of the commonwealth is in the whole body of the people” (ibid., p. 24).

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This is a reductive interpretation, but one that (as we will see in Chapter 7) makes Skinner the most accomplished heir to the eighteenth-​century British tradition that read the Discourses as the best defense of parliamentary dialectic between majority and constitutional opposition. Unfortunately, without the tumults in the streets, the popular trials, the secessio and the detractio militiae, Machiavelli is simply no longer Machiavelli –​he becomes Cicero or perhaps the aristocratic and conservative Guicciardini100 (from this point of view, John McCormick was correct in writing that for the republican “grand narrative” of the Cambridge School it would be more accurate to speak of a “Guicciardinian moment” than a “Machiavellian moment”).101 For this reason, when reading the Discourses one must never forget that the plebeians constantly fought their political battles on two levels, as the great Marxist historian Moses Finley rightly remarked: It would not be far from the truth to say that the Roman populus exercised influence not through participation in the formal machination of government, through its voting power, but by taking to the streets, by agitation, demonstration and riots, and this long before the days of the gangs and private armies of the civil-​war century.102

There is every reason to believe that Machiavelli would have agreed. Between Friends and Enemies By revaluating conflict, Machiavelli aims to do nothing less than rethink political order from the ground up. The difficulty of such a project is first evident 100 Viroli’s elitist republicanism is even more extreme:  “a well-​ordered republic” is “a republic which is kept in order by the rule of law and by constitutional arrangements that ensure that every component of the polity has its proper place” (Machiavelli, Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 116: emphasis mine). 101 J.P. McCormick, ‘Machiavelli against Republicanism:  On the Cambridge School’s “Guicciardinian Moments”,’ Political Theory, 31 (2003), pp. 615–​43. See also J.S. McClelland, The Crowd and the Mob (Routledge, 2010), p. 81; M. Geuna, ‘Skinner, Pre-​humanist Rhetorical Culture and Machiavelli,’ in A. Brett and J. Tully (eds.), Rethinking the Foundations of Modern Political Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 50–​72: 61–​62. Still, even McCormick (who has rightly stressed the role of popular trials in the Discourses) risks transforming the tribunes into ordinary magistrates, for, to suggest that they be introduced into the constitution of the United States, Machiavellian Democracy must omit all their extra-​constitutional tasks. The dual condition of the tribunes is instead perfectly grasped by Miguel Vatter (Between Form and Event: Machiavelli’s Theory of Political Freedom, Fordham University Press, 2014, pp. 102–​3). 102 M.I. Finley, Politics in the Ancient World (Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 81. See also E.S. Gruen, The Last Generation of the Roman Republic (University of California Press, 1974, p. 448: “The establishment did not normally crush urban dissent by force. Outlets for popular discontent existed. The ruling class generally tolerated rather than suppressed outbursts. Demonstrations, even violence, were extensions of the plebsʼ prerogative to voice its need; they did not present a challenge to the Stateʼs authority”); A. Yacobson, ‘Popular Power in the Roman Republic,’ in N. Rosenstein and R. Mortstein-​Marx (eds.), Companion to the Roman Republic (Wiley, 2007), pp. 383–​400.

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in his lexical choices, which alternate innovative solutions with much more traditional usages, sometimes creating confusion. Take for example the word “tumult.” Consistent with the overall thrust of his interpretation, Machiavelli uses this term in a neutral sense because, as readers are repeatedly told, there are good uprisings and bad ones. But the adjective “tumultuous” (tumultuario), frequently employed in the very same pages, maintains patently negative connotations, in keeping with the tradition of civic concord otherwise contested in the Discourses. Readers are thus presented with the paradox of a Machiavelli that tenaciously defends Rome against the accusation of being “tumultuous” (Disc. I.4), despite the “countless tumults” that only a few pages later (Disc. I.17) are unhesitatingly ascribed to it.103 Nor is this an isolated case. In Disc. I.4, for instance, shortly after Machiavelli has stated that “disunion (disunione) between the plebs and the senate” made Rome “free and powerful” and praised the same “disunion” (disunione) for its effects on the form of government, the text says: “it is therefore impossible to deem those tumults harmful or a republic divided (divisa).” The two statements sound irreconcilable. One might even ask if Machiavelli is distinguishing between two different kinds of separation (positive “disunion” and negative “division”), but a quick check easily shows that the two terms  –​disunione and divisione –​are normally used as perfect synonyms. Hence it is necessary to conclude that, as with the pair “tumult”/​”tumultuous,” the real difference lies between the noun “disunion,” redefined in accordance with the revisionist thesis of the Discourses, and the adjective “divided,” which retains the traditional pejorative connotations. These uncertainties allow us to observe Machiavelli’s language and concepts in their making  –​that is, in the midst of a still imperfect process of “technification,” when, although the words begin to assume an increasingly unequivocal and precise meaning, old linguistic conventions occasionally return and even prevail.104 In this case, however, something else is also at work. The idea of a “disunion” that fortifies republican institutions instead of destroying them sounds so original that it can only be expressed by pushing language to the verge of oxymoron.105 Does such a thing as an “undivided disunity” exist? And what about a “non-​tumultuous tumult”? Machiavelli does not say so explicitly, but this is just the kind of solution his text suggests. The self-​defense used by Rousseau in the Social Contract (II.4) perfectly applies to the Discourses as well:  “Attentive readers, please do not rush to accuse me of contradiction. I  have not been able to avoid it verbally, in 103 Note the non-​pejorative use of the adverb “tumultuously” (tumultuariamente) in Disc. I.4. 104 F. Chiappelli, Studi sul linguaggio di Machiavelli (Le Monnier, 1952); F. Chiappelli, Nuovi studi sul linguaggio di Machiavelli (Le Monnier, 1969). 105 G.M. Barbuto, ‘Machiavelli e il bene comune. Una politica ossimorica,’ Filosofia politica, 17 (2003), pp. 223–​44.

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view of the poverty of language, but wait.” At the same time, however, behind Machiavelli’s terminological fluctuations, one must also recognize an age-​old problem of Florentine politics and, more generally, of the Italian Communes: namely, how to create a space for political dissent that does not instantly lead to armed conflict. Not by chance an analogous linguistic swing can be found in the work of fourteenth-​century chronicler Giovanni Villani, who, in describing the “division” between popolani that arose in 1323 and was resolved without bloodshed (Nuova cronica X.271), writes that, unusually, the “Florentine government was renewed anew without novelty” (rinnovellato nuovo stato in Firenze sanza niuna novità). Now, the positive exception of this “newness without novelty” recalls the “non-​tumultuous tumult” and the “non-​ divided disunity” of the Discourses. Here, too, the expression (only apparently contradictory) simply means that the ruling government was replaced without passing through those res novae that in Latin designate dangerous, possibly violent, innovations (in Villani’s text, novità is a clear Latinism). And, since in Florence this “newness without novelty” was such a rare phenomenon, the chronicler did not want to miss the opportunity to signal it “as an example” (per asempro) for future generations.106 Like Villani before him, Machiavelli is thinking about a specific relationship between citizens that is neither enmity nor friendship, for which the existing political terminology offered no suitable expression. This difficulty can probably be traced back to the rise of the paradigm of political concord in the late thirteenth century. After the recovery of ancient civic ethics, Aristotle and the Roman authors supplied the ruling classes of unstable Italian cities (accustomed until then of thinking in terms of parties and factions) with an invaluable aid for constructing a neutral political space protected from the ambitions of the different clans.107 At the same time, however, the new ideology of “common good” imposed its own silences and euphemisms, making it increasingly difficult to represent internecine conflict in any terms other than the simple ruin of the city. From then on, fourteenth-​and fifteenth-​century writers would always cite this passage from Cicero: Those who propose to take charge of the affairs of government should not fail to remember two of Plato’s rules: first, keep the good of the people so clearly in view that regardless of their own interests they will make their every action conform to that; second, care for the welfare of the whole body politic and do not serve the interests of one party to betray the others. For the administration of the government, like the office of a trustee, must be conducted for the benefit of those entrusted to one’s care, not of those to whom it is entrusted. Now, those who care for the interests of a part of the citizens and neglect another part introduce a dangerous element into the civil For another positive exception: Villani, Nuova cronica XI.109. 107 E.I. Mineo, ‘Cose in comune e bene comune,’ in A. Gamberini, J.-​P. Genet, and A. Zorzi (eds.), The Languages of the Political Society (Viella, 2011), pp. 39–​67; E.I. Mineo, ‘Caritas e bene comune,’ Storica, n. 59 (2014), pp. 7–​56. 106

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service  –​dissension and party strife. The result is that some are found to be loyal supporters of the democratic party, others of the aristocratic party, and few of the nation as a whole. As a result of this party spirit, bitter strife arose in Athens, and in our own country there broke out not only dissensions but also disastrous civil wars. (De officiis I.25.85–​86)108

In histories of political thought, the rediscovery of the primacy of the “common good” is still often signaled as the moment of an ideal handover from Rome and/​ or Athens to Florence. Nevertheless, it is rarely noted that the emergence of this new attitude resulted not only in the abandonment of certain forms of competition for less violent ones (such as the fight for offices in lieu of armed conflict), but also in a completely unprecedented criminalization of political opponents. Historians who study techniques of political exclusion have discovered a dramatic change, in just a few decades, of the practices and languages through which the defeated faction was persecuted and often banished from the city. When Charles I of Anjou descended into Italy (1270), his supporters did not hesitate to reveal themselves as a “party” when they expelled their enemies. A generation later, at the beginning of the next century, on the contrary, the group in power never refers to itself with the name given to it by contemporaries (the Parte Nera, for example) when sentencing its enemies: alternatively, it claims to be acting on behalf of the popolo, the Commune, or the once united Parte Guelfa, and for this reason sentences its opponents as common criminals. In other words, the losing faction is accused of attacking the “common good” and betraying the pact that binds them to their fellow citizens. This new charge allows the accusers to adopt unheard-​of punitive strategies, replacing explicit political trials (the long lists of citizens condemned to exile or confinement for a certain number of years) with a series of sentences for fraud or high treason. The cult of unity and concord (and the consequent denigration of any partisan stance) thus also increased the persecution of opposing factions –​something that was unthinkable with the thirteenth-​ century categories –​and closed down many of the spaces previously open to the political dialectic.109 From this time on, the only people branded as partisans by any political faction would be its adversaries.110 Because the losing party members were 108 Among others Cicero’s text is quoted by Brunetto Latini, Li livres dou Tresor, eds. P. Barrette and S. Baldwin (Garland, 1993), II.85; dei Girolami, ‘De bono communi,’ p. 152; Remigio dei Girolami, ‘De bono pacis,’ in dei Girolami, Dal bene comune, pp. 222–​47: 224; Palmieri, Vita civile III.136–​37, III.172; Platina, De optimo cive, p. 220; Patrizi, De institutione reipublicae I.6; Raffaele Maffei, De institutione christiana (Mazochius, 1518), VIII.3; Contarini, De magistratibus, pp. 98–​99. 109 G. Milani, L’esclusione dal comune (Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo, 2003), especially p. 421 (the whole book is deeply influenced by Carl Schmitt’s thought). See also F. Ricciardelli, The Politics of Exclusion in Early Renaissance Florence (Brepols, 2007); P. Lanteschner, The Logic of Political Conflict in Medieval Cities (Oxford University Press, 2015). 110 One sees the same evolution in the opinions of the jurists on the legitimacy of associations, with a clear shift from a general rule (always good, as long as…) to an exception (not good, unless…):  W. Ullmann, ‘The Mediaeval Theory of Legal and Illegal Organizations,’ Law

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now accused of damaging the “common good,” they became the legitimate target of any discriminatory measure whatsoever: including the label of hostis publicus, public enemy. One major ramification of this new attitude (which means, for example, that in his history Leonardo Bruni presents the Ghibellines not as a Florentine faction but as opponents of Italian freedom who sold out to the German barbarians) was the progressive inability to think about conflict between citizens as something fundamentally different from the fight against an external power. And, pushing any form of dissent into the realm of illegality, such a view paradoxically led to the radicalization of civic strife.111 With regard to the influence of classical authors on the political thought of the Communes, one might well speak of a “dialectic of civic humanism,” somewhat like the “dialectic of Enlightenment” coined by Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno in the 1940s. The point being stressed in this case is that while the recovery of Cicero’s and Aristotle’s works contributed to the birth of “a new political style” founded on service to the community and the rejection of violence, it also wound up denying any legitimacy to the “dialogue of power” between the different social and political groups. This phenomenon became particularly evident in Florence after the tumult of the Ciompi (1378), when the Guilds gradually lost their political influence.112 Hence, to use Nicole Loraux’s lexicon, humanists, like their classical predecessors, fell victim to a “vertigo of the One” that made it intolerant of any disagreement113 and, by eliminating all potential intermediate degrees between Quarterly Review, 60 (1944), pp. 285–​91. On the thirteenth-​century legitimization of factions: J. Heers, Parties and Political Life in the Medieval West (North Holland, 1977); E.  Peters, ‘Pars, Parte:  Dante and an Urban Contribution to Political Thought,’ in H.A. Miskimin, D. Herlihy, and A.L. Udovitch (eds.), The Medieval City (Yale University Press, 1977), pp. 113–​40; J.-​C. Maire-​Viguer, Cavaliers et citoyens (EHESS, 2004), p. 362. 111 See Bruni (Historiae I.39) and Palmieri (Vita civile III.78–​80) respectively on the ferocity of Roman and Florentine dissensions. Already Augustine had underscored the greater intensity of civil wars compared to external ones (De civitate Dei III.29–​30). 112 Najemy describes the contradictory effects of the defeat of factionary culture characteristic of the thirteenth-​century magnati in two very important (and complementary) essays. In ‘The Dialogue of Power in Florentine Politics’ (in City-​States, pp. 269–​88), Najemy demonstrates how the governi di popolo and the recovery of classical culture changed the rules (and the language) of political conflict, “domesticating” the nobles and converting them to the ideology of the “common good” and civic virtue. In ‘Civic Humanism and Florentine Politics’ (in Civic Humanism, pp.  75–​104), Najemy underscores how the same political culture served in the course of the fifteenth century to negate the traditional idea that the decisions of the city arose out of competition-​negotiation between different social groups, spurred by divergent interests (the Guilds). For Najemy this evolution can be characterized metaphorically as the abandonment of the image of fraternity among the Guilds in favor of the metaphor of the family (with its presumed natural hierarchies). See also J.M. Najemy, History of Florence (Wiley, 2006). 113 N. Loraux, The Divided City (Zone Books, 2002), p. 70. In Renaissance Italy, however, the condemnation of factions never implied an obsession for unanimity. On the contrary, the humanists had no trouble recognizing the value of dissension as long as it was finalized toward finding the best solution through debate: Bracciolini, Historia, p. 260; Leon Battista Alberti,

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friend and enemy, made conflicts even more difficult to mend.114 Now, this rigidly Manichean attitude is precisely what Machiavelli is reacting against. Downplaying the threat of the tumults and arguing that the opposition between grandi and popolo constitutes a natural phenomenon (whose outcomes are not necessarily bad), the Discourses try to legitimize the presence in the city itself of adversaries and opponents who are not automatically also enemies. In other words, focusing on “modes” of struggle also means theorizing an intermediate political subject, in order to reopen a space for (even radical) dissent.115 This point has often been either overlooked or misunderstood. For instance, Skinner denies the Discourses’ any recognition of the importance of partisan interests as such (“cancel out all sectional interests” … “guarantee that the only enactment which actually passed into law were those which benefited the community as a whole”;116 “although motivated entirely by their selfish interests, the factions will thus be guided, as if by an invisible hand, to promote the public interest in all the legislative acts”)117 and equates them with corruption (“two basically corrupt and self-​interested groups”).118 Apart from the fact that there is no trace of such condemnations in the Discourses, in doing so Skinner fails to grasp just how cutting-​edge Machiavelli’s theory of tumults was in early sixteenth-​century political culture. Even if Machiavelli undoubtedly remained within the tradition of “common good,” what distinguishes the Discourses is precisely their effort to relegitimize conflict by liberating that very concept of “common good” from the consensualist implications that had always accompanied it (as we will see in more detail in Chapter 5). The history of Florence after 1494 helps us fully appreciate the Discourses’ attempt to escape the concord/​discord dichotomy. The expulsion of the Medici had ushered in a new political season because, with an unprecedented number of citizens having become involved in public affairs after the admission of approximately 3,500 to the Great Council (Consiglio Maggiore), the rules of the game ‘De Iciarchia,’ in Leon Battista Alberti, Opere volgari, ed. C. Grayson, 3 vols. (Laterza, 1966), II, pp. 187–​286: 285; Platina, De optimo cive, p. 231; Sabellico, ‘Exempla,’ p. 126. 114 The idea that every division is the harbinger of disaster was likely projected onto the past. In thirteenth-​century Florentine texts there is a strong awareness of Florence as a mixed community, formed in successive waves: from the Chronica de origine civitatis to the later Libro fiesolano, historians kept a positive memory of that long process of miscegenation. Only with Dante would the foundational divisions become an argument against the Florentines and be viewed as a cause of their endemic tendency toward conflict. The first chronicler to pick up on Dante’s lead was probably Villani (Nuova cronica II.1; IV.1; V.7). See A. De Vincentiis, ‘Origini, memoria, identità a Firenze nel XIV secolo. La rifondazione di Carlomagno,’ Mélanges de l’Ecole française de Rome. Moyen âge, 115 (2003), pp. 385–​443: 391. 115 In Chantal Mouffe’s terminology, one could say that Machiavelli is trying to separate good “agonism” from bad “antagonism” (The Democratic Paradox, Verso, 2000, pp. 102–​03). 116 Skinner, Foundations, I, p. 181. 117 Skinner, Machiavelli, p.  61. Note Skinner’s use of Adam Smith’s metaphor of the “invisible hand” to describe unintended social benefits resulting from self-​interested actions. 118 Q. Skinner, ‘Virtues in an Age of Princes,’ in Visions II, pp. 118–​59: 157.

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had changed. As the political field grew wider, the old factions that were essentially based on family alliances lost power, while in their place coalitions of a new type began to emerge, often provoking cleavages in the old clans.119 In his Storia fiorentina, the chronicler Piero Parenti (1450–​ 1519) defines these as “understandings in spirit” (intelligenze in spirito), that is, “forged not through writings or oaths but through a similarity of opinions and the same consensus and will.”120 The many names by which the various groups are identified in period texts has created no dearth of problems for scholars, divided between those who acknowledge the existence of genuine “party embryos”121 (precursors to political parties as we know them) and those who consider this interpretation overly “modernizing.”122 The crucial point is that these names identify shifting alliances, not permanent organizations like contemporary political parties. This is why, depending on the issue at hand, the members of the Great Council can be divided into supporters of Savonarola (the so-​called Piagnoni, also known as Frateschi, Girolamisti, and Pinzoccheroni) and his opponents (the so-​called Arrabbiati, Disperati, or Tepidi), or between partisans of the new popular regime (the Bianchi) and those nostalgic for the Medici (the Bigi or Palleschi), without these groups indicating any stable identity.123 During Machiavelli’s political upbringing, Savonarola had adopted two conflicting lines to confront this unprecedented situation. After the expulsion of the Medici, the friar initially presented himself as an enemy of factions, personally striving to procure a general amnesty, in line with the traditional stance of the Mendicant Orders (as shown by his insistence on the need for “peace,” 119 “Dissension over the matter of the friar separated brother from brother and fathers from their sons” (Francesco Guicciardini, History of Florence, ed. M. Domandi, Harper, 1970, p. 117). 120 Piero Parenti, Storia fiorentina, ed. A. Matucci, 2 vols. (Olschki, 1994–​2005), II, p. 40. 121 S. Bertelli, ‘Embrioni di partiti politici alle soglie dell’età moderna,’ Annali della Facoltà di scienze politiche, 17 (1980), pp. 17–​35; G. Silvano, “Vivere civile” e “governo misto” a Firenze nel primo Cinquecento (Patron, 1985), pp. 17, 165; A. Brown, ‘Partiti, correnti o coalizioni: un contributo al dibattito,’ in A. Fontes, J.-​L. Fournel, and M. Plaisance (eds.), Savonarole (CIRRI, 1997), pp. 59–​79; A. Brown, ‘Ideology and faction in Savonarolan Florence,’ in S.R. Fletcher and C. Shaw (eds.), The World of Savonarola (Ashgate, 2000), pp. 22–​41. 122 N. Rubinstein, ‘Politics and Constitution in Florence at the End of the Fifteenth Century,’ in Studies II, pp. 197–​226; D. Weinstein, Savonarola (Yale University Press, 2011); H.C. Butters, Governors and Government in Early Sixteenth Florence (Clarendon, 1985), pp. 23–​27; R. Pesman Cooper, ‘The Florentine Ruling Group under the “Governo popolare” (1494–​1512),’ Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, 7 (1984–​5), pp. 71–​181; R. Pesman Cooper, ‘Prosopography of the “Prima Repubblica”,’ in VV.AA., I ceti dirigenti della Toscana del Quattrocento (Papafava, 1987), pp. 239–​56; L. Polizzotto, The Elect Nation (Clarendon, 1991), pp. 9–​10, 44–​46. 123 Parenti clarifies this well: “the whole city was divided in these two parties: Girolamisti and enemies of friar Ierolamo. These same two factions were also a mixture of Bianchi and Bigi, of popolani and gentiluomini” (Storia fiorentina, I, p. 320). What Parenti tells us is not that there were six different political parties but that, depending on the situation, the other two oppositions (Bianchi vs. Bigi and popolani vs. gentiluomini) could be rekindled setting aside the distinction between friends and enemies of Savonarola.

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“friendship,” “union,” and “concord”124). Later, when faced with a strong opposition, he became a radical advocate of battle against those contrary to his moral reform and accused his adversaries of preparing the way for a tyrant and of being enemies to religion, thus loading the traditional criminalization of opponents with apocalyptic tones. Historians generally date this turning point to 1496, when Savonarola decided to openly endorse Francesco Valori’s election as Standard-bearer of Justice: a choice accompanied by a deep change in his sermons, which subsequently focused on the divine vengeance destined to strike anyone who had not yet accepted his previous peace offerings.125 The outcome of his preaching was thus the opposite of what Savonarola had initially hoped for.126 Four years of Savonarola’s preaching could hardly have failed to influence Machiavelli. Fortunately there is at least one testament to how the friar’s politics helped the young Machiavelli develop his original thoughts on conflict: the famous letter of 9 March 1498 to Riccardo Becchi, where the portrait of Savonarola is structured around his approach to friendship and division. He invited his entire audience to take communion on the Carnival day in San Marco […]. He did this, some say, in order to unite his partisans and to strengthen their defense of him, fearing lest the new Signoria […] might be against him. […] He started in with great scenes of horror; with explanations that were quite effective to those not examining them closely, he pointed out that his adherents were excellent people while his opponents were most villainous, and he drew on every expression that might weaken his opponents’ party and fortify his own. […] After he had given this short address, he delineated two ranks: one, which soldiered under God, that is, himself and his adherents; the other, under the Devil, that is, his adversaries. […] After he had digressed as is his wont, in order to weaken his adversaries further and to provide a bridge to his next sermon, he continued by pointing out that our dissension might cause a tyrant to rise up who would bring down our houses and lay waste to our land. […] The next morning, still expounding Exodus and coming to that passage where it says that Moses slew an Egyptian, he said that the Egyptian represented evil-​doers and Moses the preacher who slew them by exposing their vices. […] Then he added […] that he wanted to give the Egyptian another stab wound, a big one. He said that God had told him that there was someone in Florence who sought to make himself a tyrant […]. Afterward, since the Signoria had written to the pope in his behalf and he realized that he no longer needed On the importance of pacification in Savonarola’s preaching:  E. Garin, ‘Savonarola,’ in E. Garin, La cultura filosofica del Rinascimento italiano (Sansoni, 1961), pp. 183–​ 200; Weinstein, Savonarola; P. Prodi, ‘Gli affanni della democrazia,’ in G. Garfagnini (ed.), Savonarola e la politica (Sismel, 1997), pp. 27–​74; F. Bruni, La città divisa (il Mulino, 2003), pp. 318–​41. In 1497 the magistracy of the “Paciali” was implemented with the specific purpose of overcoming these divisions. 125 Zancarini, Politique, pp. 55–​73. Besides the numerous examples Zancarini cites, see Girolamo Savonarola, Prediche sopra Amos e Zaccaria, ed. P. Ghiglieri, 2 vols. (Belardetti, 1971–​2), I, p. 151; Girolamo Savonarola, Prediche sopra Ruth e Michea, ed. V. Romano, 2 vols. (Belardetti, 1962), I, pp. 269, 405. 126 Polizzotto, Elect Nation, p.  8 (but this judgment also frequently appears in contemporary chronicles). 124

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to be afraid of his adversaries in Florence, instead of trying, as he once had, solely to unite his party through hatred of his adversaries and through frightening them with the word “tyrant,” he has changed coats –​now that he understands that he no longer needs to act in this way. So, he urges them to the union that was initiated, and he no longer mentions either the tyrant or the wickedness of the people; he seeks to set all of them at odds with the Supreme Pontiff.127

Most likely, Machiavelli did not have to wait for Savonarola’s sermons to become disenchanted with the Scholastic lexicon of peace and the humanistic rhetoric of concord.128 Still, the radicalization of the categories of friend and enemy, and Savonarola’s constant recourse to religion in identifying supporters and critics must have prompted Machiavelli to reflect more deeply on the deceptiveness of such appeals to unity.129 As noted, this change in perspective entailed a great deal of work on the language. This means above all that in the Discourses conflicts are evaluated primarily through adverbs and adjectives rather than nouns. The reasons for this choice are clear. Since “natural enmities” can lead the republic to divergent outcomes, words like “tumult”, “disunion” or “vent” indicate actions impossible to judge until other elements contextualize them.130 A  fight conducted through “civil modes” and resolved in “ordinary ways” will be good, as opposed to another carried out “tumultuously” or through “extra-​ordinary modes.”131 So, instead of determining the degree of friendship and concord J.B. Atkinson and D. Sices, Machiavelli and his friends (Northern Illinois University Press, 1996), pp. 8–​10. For the Thomistic elements of this preaching: A.H. Gilbert, Machiavelli and his Forerunners (Barnes & Nobles, 1938), pp. 195–​96. 128 In Francesco Bruni’s view, Savonarola is the principal target of Disc. I.4 (La città divisa, p. 465). 129 According to Fournel, it was Savonarola who discovered the need to consider friendship and enmity together, while Machiavelli, following his path, arrived at the first true conceptualization of the internal enemy (J.-​L. Fournel and J.-​C. Zancarini, La grammaire de la République, Droz, 2009, pp. 125–​57). In this case what interests Fournel is Machiavelli’s discovery of the conflictual nature of politics, whereas I  stress his attempt to transfer civil conflicts onto a plane that is neither friendship nor enmity, opening up a space for an adversary who is not necessarily an enemy. With some stretching, Mansfield (‘Burke and Machiavelli on Principles in Politics,’ in Mansfield, Machiavelli’s Virtue, pp. 79–​108) and Guillemain (Machiavel) argue that the Discourses offer the first theorization of the legitimacy of political parties; as we shall see in Chapter 7, a similar interpretation was already spread in eighteenth-​century England. For N.L. Rosenblum, on the contrary, while “holist antipartytism […] sees all parts […] as parts against, rather than parts of, the Whole,” Machiavelli belongs to a “second glorious tradition of antipartytism, which accepts political pluralism and partiality but not parties. Not division but divisiveness is anathema” (On the Side of the Angels: An Appreciation of Parties and Partisanship, Princeton University Press, 2008, p. 59). 130 A verification of the texts disproves Victoria Kahn’s claim that Machiavelli uses “disunion” (disunione) in the Discourses primarily in a positive way as opposed to the negative “disorder” (disordine) and “sects” (sette): ‘Reduction and the praise of disunion,’ Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 18 (1988), pp. 1–​19: 6. Like tumults, “disunion” is neutral. 131 In Disc. I.14 the same categories recur in the comparative analysis of the ways Lucius Papirius Cursor Appius and Claudius (in reality Publius) Pulcher received the auspices:  “prudently” (prudentemente) and “temerariously” (temerariamente). 127

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that binds citizens together, Machiavelli insists, one must establish whether their inevitable disputes take place “civilly” (civilmente) or “with arms” (the expressions used in the Florentine Histories):  that is, “ordinarily” or “extra-​ ordinarily” (most frequent in the Discourses). In short, while classical historiography used adverbs and adjectives in civil war narratives primarily to amplify their pathos,132 there is nothing ornamental about the way they are used in the Discourses and The Prince.133 Without adverbs and adjectives a verdict can simply no longer be expressed, and Rome would risk being confused with Florence. In this case, then, stylistic choices betray a conceptual effort:  the (deeply Machiavellian) conviction that since neither alternative is faultless, careful politicians should opt for the least flawed one. Simply, in a world where “prudence consists in recognizing the qualities of inconveniences and picking the less bad as if it were good” (Prince 21), adverbs and adjectives express better than nouns the nuances of a reality that is by definition contradictory. And this is why the Discourses use them so creatively. Niccolò Machiavelli is a fundamentally adverbial thinker. The “Aims” of Tumults The “modes” of conflict (Disc. I.4–​5 and I.7–​ 8) and the “quality” of the “matter” (Disc. I.17) are not the only criteria introduced by the Discourses to overcome the traditional opposition between concord and discord. Machiavelli returns to the problem later, in Disc. I.37, where he lays a few more important cornerstones:  from the analysis of the biological roots of disputes (“desire,” which grows faster than it can be satisfied) all the way to the historical reconstruction of the Gracchi reforms, the civil war between Marius and Sulla, and Caesar’s victory over Pompey, which brought Rome’s republican experience to an end. As already seen, ancient historians identified the Gracchi as the caesura par excellence: the beginning of a long sequence of struggles conducted with unprecedented brutality that had nothing in common with early conflicts. Accordingly, it must have been vital to explain the reasons for this regression, especially for thinkers like Machiavelli, who insisted so much on the discontinuity between the different phases of republican history in order to reassess the first tumults. The Discourses thus introduce a new element to explain the fracture. Over the centuries, Disc. I.37 reads, the plebeians shifted from a largely defensive posture to a more aggressive one  –​more specifically, from the “necessity” to “protect themselves” to the “ambition” to strip the nobility For Livy’s debts toward the “tragical school” of Hellenistic historiography: A.H. McDonald, ‘The Style of Livy,’ Journal of Roman Studies, 47 (1957), pp. 155–​72. 133 In Disc. I.2, praising its institutions, Machiavelli specifies that Sparta had survived for more than 800 years “without any dangerous tumult” (emphasis mine). For a similar use of adverbs in Bruni see his Historiae, IV.104 (especially in the fifteenth-​century Italian translation by Donato Acciaiuoli, who opposes arrogantemente to civilmente). 132

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of “public offices and properties, since these are what men most prize.” To Machiavelli this development appears rooted in life itself; indeed, “nature has created men such that they can desire everything but cannot obtain everything; thus, since desire is always greater than the power to acquire, the result is discontent and dissatisfaction of what men have.” The origin of the “disease that gave birth to the struggle over the agrarian law” (note the use of medical language once again) must therefore be sought here: in desire and its bad influence on the “aims” (fini) of a given conflict. As Machiavelli well knows, the agrarian laws had a long history before the Gracchi and they could be summarized in “two main articles”: (1) “That no citizen could own more than so many hectares of land.” (2) “That land taken from the enemy should be divided among the Roman people.” Livy stated several times that it had been a particularly contentious issue from the outset. In addition to chapter II.41, which the commentaries always refer to on this point (“This was the first proposal for agrarian legislation, and from that day to within living memory it has never been brought up without occasioning the most serious disturbances”), there are many other passages in which the seditious nature of the proposals to redistribute the lands taken from subjugated peoples were openly condemned and even compared to a “poison” (II.52; II.54; IV.48; VI.11).134 Following in Livy’s footsteps, the humanists had also described the agrarian laws as one of the main causes of conflict in the early period, and often in the same passages in which they attacked the tribunes. Unlike the tribunes, however, the agrarian laws found no defenders in the fifteenth century. Even Biondo, who generally balances each affirmation with opposing examples, in this case limited himself to a brief but sharp opinion (their project was a “fire” more than a law).135 The only partial exception comes from Patrizi, who in his detailed reconstruction of Greek and Roman land reforms complains about the greed of the mighty and the difficulty of enforcing the ager publicus (“public land”). In the end, though, the idea that these proposals damage civic concord prevails, and despite a few words of sympathy for the Gracchi, Patrizi too joins in on the condemnation, closing the chapter with a heartfelt appeal: “I dwelt on this topic so that those who propose agrarian laws will be more prudent” (De institutione reipublicae VI.3).136 Machiavelli partially shares this harsh judgment. If up to a certain point in the history of Rome land redistribution proposals had turned “the city The other main source of information on the subject was the De lege agraria, in which Cicero first expresses his feigned approval of the Gracchi’s proposal, only to then accuse the two brothers of having almost destroyed the republic. 135 Biondo, ‘Roma triumphans,’ pp. 90–​91. 136 In his short survey, Ronald Ridley ignores the humanist tradition (‘Leges Agrariae. Myths Ancient and Modern,’ Classical Philology, 95 (2000), pp. 459–​67). 134

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upside down” without leading to armed struggle, with the Gracchi the conflict exploded in all its severity, as happens every time a law “that looks far backward” is introduced (Disc. I.37). Contrary to the intentions of the two brothers, the attempted restoration of the republic’s social foundations had ended in the collapse of freedom: For it found the power of its adversaries doubled and, because of this, so much hatred arose between the plebs and the senate that they resorted to arms and bloodshed, beyond any civilized mode and habit (modo e costume civile). So, since the public magistrates could provide no remedy and none of the factions had any confidence in them any longer, they had recourse to private remedies (rimedi privati), and each of the parties thought of how to make itself a head to defend it. (Disc. I.37)

The “private remedies” Machiavelli alludes to here are clearly linked to “extra-​ ordinary modes” (in the sense of the violent or extra-​ institutional solutions referred to in Disc. I.4–​5 and I.7–​8), just as, according to the same logic, “civilized modes and habits” are opposed to “arms” and “bloodshed.” Thus, if the previous chapters did not explain why at a certain point the “modes” changed and the conflict became violent, now the Discourses suggest that the forms of conflict are directly connected to the issue at stake and that strife over “properties” must be necessarily harsher. Earlier, Machiavelli had already noted “the countless tumults that took place in Rome did not harm but benefited the republic, since the people had good aims” (Disc. I.17). Now, in light of the Gracchi, the meaning of that statement becomes clearer: when conflict focuses on “properties,” the people may be led by the pure and simple desire “to have more,” namely to take advantage of its position in its turn.137 As Machiavelli proceeds, he thus gradually shifts attention from the relationship between “modes” and “effects” to the link between “effects” and “aims.”138 However, despite the disastrous outcome of the Gracchi’s actions, Machiavelli holds firm to his belief in the goodness of tumults. Indeed, after comparing the various types of conflicts on the basis of their “final causes” –​ either “necessity” or “ambition”  –​he goes so far as to argue that even the agrarian laws should be considered a lesser evil if, thanks to them, the nobles’ arrogance was curbed for so long:

The same perspective will be taken up in Florentine Histories III.1: “This diversity of effects may have been caused by the diverse aims (fini) these two peoples had, for the people of Rome desired to enjoy the highest honors together with the nobles, while the people of Florence fought to be alone in the government without the participation of the nobles. And because the desire of the Roman people was more reasonable, offenses to the nobles came to be more bearable, so that the nobility would yield easily (facilmente) and without resorting to arms.” 138 Note Machiavelli’s proximity to vernacular historiography: “All civic discord arises from the many appetites of men: because each person thinks differently from the others, but, although seeking different ways (vie) and modes (modi), everyone has the same aim (fine): and this is the leadership in the republic” (Cavalcanti, Istorie fiorentine XIV.32). 137

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Such, therefore, were the beginning and the end (fine) of the agrarian law. And although we have shown elsewhere that the enmities between the senate and the plebs kept Rome free because laws favoring freedom arose from them, and although the end (fine) of the agrarian law appears not to conform to such a conclusion, I state that I will not abandon that opinion, because the ambition of the mighty is so great that unless they are struck down (sbattuta) in a city through various ways and modes (per varie vie e in vari modi), it quickly brings the city to its ruin. So if the conflict over agrarian law took three hundred years before enslaving Rome, it would perhaps have been enslaved much sooner had the plebs not always checked (frenato) the nobles’ ambition both by this law and by its other desires. (Disc. I.37)

The Gracchi example allows Machiavelli to formulate a general rule: One also sees through this how much more men prize property (roba) over honors. For the Roman nobles always yielded these offices up to the plebs without extra-​ordinary scandals (scandali straordinari); but when it came to property (roba), so great was its obstinacy in defending it that the plebs resorted to the extra-​ordinary modes (quegli straordinari) discussed above to satisfy its desire. The driving forces behind this disorder were the Gracchi, whose intention one must praise more than their prudence. (Disc. I.37)

The transition from “ordinary” to “extra-​ordinary scandals” and “modes” thus unfolds as the stakes evolve from “honor” to “property” (note the significant reprise of the same adjectives that earlier distinguished good tumults from bad ones). It is not the plebs, but its leaders –​the Gracchi –​who come out looking bad in Machiavelli’s narrative.139 Seduced by the prospect of “property,” the people did nothing worse than surrender to the logic of desire (as the mighty do all the time), while the two brothers embarked upon a highly risky project without foreseeing the possible consequences. Although well-​intentioned, Tiberius and Caius lacked the most important political virtue: “prudence” (prudenza) –​ the technical (Aristotelian) term that, in Renaissance philosophical and medical language, denoted the ability to select the right tools to achieve one’s goals.140 Eric Nelson reconstructed how the Ancients and some humanists (Bracciolini, Platina, Patrizi) judged the Gracchi’s agrarian laws, showing that the Greeks (Appian and Plutarch) viewed them much more positively than the Roman historians and their fifteenth-​century followers (The Greek Tradition in Republican Thought, Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 49–​86). In this context Machiavelli’s stance toward the brothers appears much less negative than has heretofore been claimed. Besides the texts against the Gracchi quoted by Nelson, see: Petrarch, Rerum memorandarum III.38; Petrarch, De remediis I.95; Petrarch, Familiares XVIII.1.31; Petrarch, Seniles VI.8.69; Leonardo Bruni, ‘Vita Ciceronis,’ in Leonardo Bruni, Opere, ed. P. Viti (Utet, 1996), pp. 416–​99: 432; Francesco Filelfo, Satyrae II.3.76; Bartolomeo Platina, De principe, ed. G. Ferraù (Il Vespro, 1979), pp. 64, 93; Giovanni Pontano, De magnanimitate, ed. F. Tateo (Istituto Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento, 1969), II.5. For a favorable account of the Gracchi: Vespasiano da Bisticci, Le vite, ed. A. Greco, 2 vols. (Istituto Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento, 1976), II, p. 431. 140 On medical prudence:  E. Berriot-​Salvatore, ‘Théories et pratiques de la prudence dans la médecine,’ in E. Berriot-​Salvadore, C. Pascal, F. Roudaut, and T. Tran (eds.), La Vertu de prudence entre Moyen Âge et âge classique (Garnier, 2012), pp. 339–​54. 139

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For Machiavelli, the two tribunes were therefore misguided idealists, destined to harm the very homeland whose “disorders” they wanted to heal. And it is probably no coincidence that the same words of condemnation (“one must praise their intention and not their prudence”) will reappear later (Disc. III.6) in denunciation of the recklessness of aspiring tyrannicides, a couple of whom caused Machiavelli to be imprisoned and tortured in the aftermath of the Medici’s return. Suggesting that the Gracchi’s “prudence” was comparable to that of Pietro Paolo Boscoli and Agostino Capponi, the two inept conspirators who in 1513 plotted to assassinate Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici (the future Pope Leo X), must have seemed to him the most sarcastic of compliments.141 Apart from its exposition of the Gracchi’s faults, there is no agreement on the general purpose of this chapter. For the majority of scholars, Machiavelli’s message is that the Gracchi went too far, by shifting the conflict onto the economic plane and thoughtlessly instigating the people’s desire for the patricians’ properties.142 Other readers point on the contrary to his final statement, that in the absence of the agrarian laws Rome “would perhaps have been enslaved much sooner,” arguing that, all things considered, Machiavelli ultimately admits that the brothers were in the right.143 Both these solutions leave open a problem of interpretation. Disc. I.37 in fact presents a dead-​end situation. Once the nobility begins its wanton accumulation of wealth, readers are told, any attempt to curb it by reviving old, outdated laws144 only makes things worse. At the same time, resigning oneself to the status quo is not a solution, since the conquests achieved by republics incapable of “keep[ing] the public rich, the private poor” (exactly like Rome during this phase) are destined to become their “ruin,” as Disc. II.19 reads. So, Machiavelli seems to be saying that if certain degenerative processes are not immediately stemmed, afterwards it will be too late to remedy the situation. History might have taken another route, but all hope was lost the instant the plebs failed to pass the first land redistribution measures, in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. The opportunity missed, the republic started out on the long downward slope, that led slowly –​but inevitably –​to collapse. Only in the eighteenth century did the Gracchi’s politics begin to be interpreted as a failed revolution rather than a conspiracy: M. Raskolnikov, ‘Caius Gracchus ou la révolution introuvable,’ in C. Nicolet (ed.), Demokratia et aristokratia. A propos de Caius Gracchus (Publications de la Sorbonne, 1983), pp. 117–​34. 142 A. Renaudet, Machiavel (Gallimard, 1942), p. 150; R. Esposito, La politica e la storia (Liguori, 1983), pp. 70–​ 74; Vatter, Between Form, p.  229; M. Gaille-​ Nikodimov, Conflit civil et liberté (Champion, 2004), pp. 107–​08; M. Geuna, ‘Machiavelli ed il ruolo dei conflitti,’ in A. Arienzo and D. Caruso (eds.), Conflitti (Dante & Descartes, 2005), pp. 19–​57; G.M. Barbuto, Machiavelli (Salerno, 2013), p. 167; G. Sasso, Su Machiavelli (Carocci, 2015), pp. 42, 130–​131. 143 Lefort, Making, p. 264; T. Negri, Insurgencies (University of Minnesota Press, 1999), p. 67. 144 Machiavelli is probably repeating a similar observation from Livy III.59: “it is not good to rake up old offences, already blotted out of memory.” But it is also worth remembering Appian, who discusses in detail the numerous reasons why it was impossible to establish what lands were illegally occupied by the patricians (Civil Wars I.28). 141

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The idea that, as “mixed bodies,” all States are destined for corruption and can at most delay the time of their death was very common amongst the Ancients and the humanists,145 and the aporetic reasoning of Disc. 7.37 fits in quite well with such pessimistic thought on the fragility of any human construction. Another possibility deserves to be taken into consideration, however. As Eric Nelson, Jérémie Barthas, and especially John McCormick have pointed out in recent years,146 an alternative type of reformer emerges in the Discourses –​ one who seeks to respond to enormous social inequalities with radical measures designed to bring his city back to its past greatness. Two of these were the Spartans Agis and Cleomenes (explicitly evoked in Disc. I.9), whose actions are known to us primarily through Plutarch’s biographies, where they are significantly coupled with those of Tiberius and Caius Gracchus. Born a generation apart, the two Spartan kings faced a problem not all that different from the one the two tribunes would later tackle, for in Sparta, too, Lycurgus’ original sumptuary laws had fallen into disuse, so that the republic had “lost much of its former virtue and consequently much of its power and empire” (Disc. I.9). Perfectly aware of the causes of the problem, Agis had attempted to restore the ancient provisions but almost immediately ran into opposition from the ephors, who had him assassinated “early in his rule.” Fifteen years later, learning from his predecessor’s fate, Cleomenes understood he could not do this good for his country unless he became the sole authority; since it seemed to him that, because of men’s ambitions, he could not do something useful to the many against the will of the few, he seized on a suitable opportunity and had all the ephors and anyone else who could oppose him killed; then he fully restored (rinnovò) Lycurgus’ laws. That decision could have revived Sparta and given Cleomenes the reputation that Lycurgus had, were it not for the power of the Macedonians […]. For after this reorganization, attacked by the Macedonians, he was defeated […]; and his project, however just and commendable, remained unfinished (imperfetto). (Disc. I.9)

The Discourses do not refer explicitly to Agis and Cleomenes when talking about the Gracchi, but readers from Machiavelli’s generation had the background to make the connection on their own, especially in light of the Petrarch, De remediis II.74.8. In discussing the inevitability of decline, Patrizi contrasts Plato and Cicero, who both argued against Xenophon’s idea that a State supported by the virtue of its citizens could endure forever (De institutione reipublicae VI.5). 146 Nelson (Greek Tradition, pp. 49–​86, who nonetheless fails to fully explore the parallel between the Gracchi and the Spartan reformers); J. Barthas, “L’argent n’est pas le nerf de la guerre” (École française de Rome, 2011), pp. 382–84; J.P. McCormick, ‘Machiavelli’s Agathocles: from criminal example to princely exemplum,’ in M. Lowrie and S. Lüdemann (eds.), Exemplarity and Singularity (Routledge, 2015), pp. 123–​39. The relationship between the Gracchi and Cleomenes was first noted by Pocock, Machiavellian Moment, p.  205; see also the seminal study by G.  Cadoni, ‘Machiavelli e i tardi riformatori di Sparta,’ in G.  Cadoni, Crisi della mediazione politica (Jouvence, 1994), pp. 47–​91. 145

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elaborate comparison concluding Plutarch’s four biographies.147 In his parallel, the breadth of the two Spartans’ reforms is appreciated, even if not considered worth justifying Cleomenes’ violence. The enterprise and boldness of their attempted reforms were certainly very different in magnitude. For in their political activities Caius had in view the construction of roads and the founding of cities, and the boldest of all the projects of the Romans were, in the case of Tiberius the recovery of the public lands, and in that of Caius the reconstitution of the courts of justice by the addition of three hundred men from the equestrian order; whereas Agis and Cleomenes in their reforms, considering that the application of trifling and partial remedies and excisions to the disorders of the State was nothing more than cutting off a Hydra’s heads (as Plato says), tried to introduce into the constitution a change which was able to transform and get rid of all evils at once; though perhaps it is more in accordance with the truth to say that they banished the change which had wrought all sorts of evils, by bringing back the State to its proper form and establishing it therein. […] But the most important consideration is that through the political activity of the Gracchi Rome made no advance in greatness, whereas, in consequence of the achievements of Cleomenes, within a short time Greece beheld Sparta mistress of the Peloponnesus and carrying on a struggle for the supremacy with those who then had the greatest power, the object of which struggle was to set Greece free from Illyrian and Gaulish troops and array her once more under descendants of Heracles. […] Cleomenes […] undertook his change of the constitution with too much rashness and violence, killing the ephors in unlawful fashion, when it would have been easier to win them over to his views or remove them by superiority in arms, just as he removed many others from the city. For a resort to the knife, except under extreme necessity, is not the mark either of a good physician or statesman, but in both cases shows a lack of skill, and in the case of the statesman there is added both injustice and cruelty.148

Unlike Plutarch, Machiavelli considers the use of force unavoidable in Disc. I.9. Agis and Tiberius tried to reform institutions within the legal system, but they clashed with their opponents and paid for their attempts with their lives. Coming later, Cleomenes and Caius were in the position to learn from recent events and not repeat the same mistake, but while the Spartan adapted his means to his goals and was only defeated by the military intervention of the Macedonians, the Roman deluded himself into thinking that his reform could be implemented using “ordinary modes.” In other words, he failed to realize

Cicero also presents the connection between Agis and the Gracchi, in a negative light of course (De officiis II.23.80). Humanist references to the two Spartan reformers are very rare: aside from Petrarch (De remediis utriusque fortunae; II.39.12 on Cleomenes as a tyrant), I  have found only Pontano (De liberalitate 12 and 48, respectively, on Agis and on Cleomenes’ use of largesse as a means for grasping tyranny). 148 Plutarch, Comparison of Agis and Cleomenes and the Gracchi 2–​ 3. In Machiavelli’s day Comparison had not yet been translated into Latin, but its use by Guicciardini (see below) shows that the text was not known only to scholars of Greek. 147

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that when material goods are involved the rules of conflict also inevitably change.149 Cleomenes reappears in Disc. I.18 in regard to the need to “come to extra-​ ordinary modes” (venire allo straordinario) and to use “violence and arms” to reform a corrupted city, following the general principle that, “when the ordinary modes (modi ordinari) are bad, respecting the ordinary limits (termini ordinari) is not enough.” These passages are not without consequence for our reading of Disc. I.37. Is Machiavelli suggesting that, faced with the impasse of the second century BCE, the Gracchi should have gone down the route of violence so as to win an opposition that could not be subdued with the traditional legislative tools and bloodless tumults of the early period? The Discourses do not say so explicitly, but the question is legitimate, and several clues suggest that Machiavelli carefully meditated upon Plutarch’s biographies, such as the remarkable similarity between them and the idea of Disc. III.1 that “in order for a religion or a republic to endure, it has to be taken back frequently toward its origins.”150 The brothers’ mistake was not having raised the question of economic inequality (certainly not a secondary concern for Machiavelli, since the people’s impoverishment undermines the republic’s military capabilities), but rather their choice of “modes” for achieving their “aims.” In short, it’s not that the Gracchi were too radical in their demands; it’s that they were too cautious in the means they chose to implement them, because, as McCormick wrote, “in pursuit of their redistributive agenda,” the two tribunes “should have violently eliminated the senate rather than allow themselves to be violently eliminated by it.”151 The suggestion with which the chapter concludes  –​to “delay the problem” (temporeggiare, according to another well-​known principle of Hippocratic medicine)152 rather than to “make a law that looks far backward” so as to “take away a disorder that has arisen in a republic”  –​ therefore would apply only to legislative means and not generally to all types of political intervention. The “ordinary” tumults and the “extra-​ ordinary” violence of reformers like Cleomenes correspond to two equally legitimate therapeutic strategies On this point it is impossible to agree with Benner: “All the good effects that are commonly cited to justify extraordinary measures –​forcing the ambitious to stay within due limits, purging corruption, preventing tyranny –​can be produced more reliably through ordinary modes” (Ethics, p. 385). 150 Livy’s influence on this expression is also likely:  sic res Romana in antiquum statum rediit (III.9). 151 J.P. McCormick, ‘ “Keep the public rich, but the citizens poor”,’ Cardozo Law Review, 34 (2009), pp. 879–​92: 889. 152 See also Disc. I.33. Hippocrates taught that since diseases follow their own course, gaining and losing strength by themselves, it is wise not to oppose them while they are strongest: J. Jouanna, Hippocrates (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999). 149

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for Machiavelli. In 1992 Anthony Parel’s The Machiavellian Cosmos brought definitive clarity to some aspects of the Discourses’ conflictualism, forcing scholars to take seriously the profound conceptual implications of the humoral metaphor chosen to describe the struggles between patricians and plebeians. Nevertheless, Parel’s book drew attention to only one aspect of Renaissance medicine (as have all subsequent studies on the question),153 while Machiavelli’s contemporaries actually conceived of three different therapies. As Parel noted, the first two, diet and pharmacological treatment, both aimed to help the body restore the balance between the four humors on its own. Unfortunately, however, these remedies were not always effective; with certain diseases, more radical (and dangerous) solutions were required, such as surgery, whose techniques included “cupping (with and without sacrification), cautery, phlebotomy, and the use of leeches and plasters.”154 But this was not surprising, for Hippocrates himself had taught that “to extreme diseases, extreme remedies are best” (Aphorisms I.6). So, as the humoral analogy allowed the conflict between the grandi and the popolo to be described in terms of a natural process, similarly the image of the knife that incises the flesh to remove an illness could also be given specific political connotations. This was not particularly new either, though, for Greek and Roman authors had already made use of it, mainly to urge rulers to restrict death sentences to only the most serious crimes, as in this passage from Seneca: A physician, in the case of slight disorders, tries at first not to make much change in his patient’s daily habits; he lays down a regimen for food, drink, and exercise, and tries to improve his health only through a change in the ordering of his life. His next concern is to see that the amount (modus) is conducive to health. If the first amount and regimen (modus et ordo) fail to bring relief, he orders a reduction and lops off some things. If still there is no response, he prohibits food and disburdens the body by fasting. If these milder measures are unavailing he opens a vein, and then, if the limbs by continuing to be attached to the body are doing it harm and spreading the disease, he lays violent hands on them. No treatment seems harsh if its result is salutary. Similarly, it becomes a guardian of the law (legum presidem), the ruler of the State, to heal human nature by the use of words, and these of the milder sort, as long as he can, to the end that he may persuade a man to do what he ought to do, and win over his heart to a desire for the honorable and the just, and implant in his mind hatred of vice and esteem of virtue. Let him pass next to harsher language, in which he will still aim at admonition and reproof. Lastly, let him resort to punishment, yet still making it light and not irrevocable. Extreme punishment let him appoint only to extreme crime. (De ira I.6) I.e. Gaille-​Nikodimov, Conflit civil; L. Zanzi, Il metodo di Machiavelli (il Mulino, 2013). 154 K. Park, Doctors and Medicine in Early Renaissance Florence (Princeton University Press, 1985), p.  52. On surgery:  V. Nutton, ‘Humanistic Surgery,’ in A. Wear, R.K. French, and I.M. Lonie (eds.), The Medical Renaissance of the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 75–​99; Siraisi, Medicine, pp. 153–​86. 153

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Following in the footsteps of the Ancients, the same principle was widely acknowledged by the humanists.155 As usual, Patrizi is especially valuable: If necessity presses and a city cannot be cured in any way but through the blood of some wicked man, citizens should imitate the best doctors, who, after having seen that no remedy can cure the members infected by the illness, even unwillingly and with the pain of the rest of the body, nonetheless mutilate and amputate it, so as not to damage the other parts of the body […]. If in the beginning a sickness is easily cured (malum siquidem nascens facile opprimitur),156 often a long-​existing sickness risks being incurable. (De institutione reipublicae VI.5)

Not surprisingly, Machiavelli also uses the image of the scalpel, in Disc. I.58, when referring to murder as the only way to get rid of tyrants:  “for a bad prince […] the only remedy is the knife (ferro)”; “if words are sufficient to cure the people’s illness […] the knife (ferro) is needed to cure a prince’s.” Perhaps even more relevant to the case of Cleomenes, however, is a passage by Guicciardini who, in his youthful Discorso di Logrogno (1512), evokes the possibility of resorting to “Lycurgus’ knife” (with an expression taken directly from Plutarch) to heal Florence’s corruption:157 In one day [Lycurgus] eradicated from Sparta all wealth and sumptuousness; he put together all the property of all the inhabitants, then divided it equally among them; he prohibited the use of money and all the activities for which wealth is sought: sumptuous display, banquets, many servants, luxurious clothes and fine houses. It was certainly a most remarkable achievement, bringing about in one day in his city such moderation in living and such zeal for virtue and such low esteem for wealth, as well as the many fine and glorious activities he made to flourish in it.158

In the following paragraphs Guicciardini would reveal his doubts about the chances of successfully repeating such a risky procedure.159 Machiavelli, on the contrary, does not harbor any such qualms about taking up the physician’s 155 Cicero, De officiis I.24.83; I.38.136; III.6.32; Livy, XLII.40; Palmieri, Vita civile III.97; Filippo Beroaldo, De optimo statu et principe (Benedictus Hectoris, 1497), without indication of page; Erasmus of Rotterdam, De institutione principis christiani VI.12. 156 Cicero, Philippicae V.11.30. 157 For Lycurgus as a physician: Plutarch, Lycurgus 4–​5; however, the metaphor of the knife is only in Plutarch, Comparison 4. 158 Francesco Guicciardini, ‘How the popular government should be reformed,’ in J. Kraye (ed.) Cambridge Translations of Renaissance Philosophical Texts, II, transl. R.  Price (Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 218–​59: 231. On this passage: Pocock, Machiavellian Moment, p.  135; Nelson, Greek Tradition, p.  71; and especially N. Regent, ‘A “Medical Moment”: Guicciardini and Lycurgus’ Knife,’ History of European Ideas, 34 (2008), pp. 1–​13. 159 As noted by Regent (who acknowledges the relationship with Cleomenes but not with the Gracchi), Guicciardini praises the use of violence much more in ‘Delle buone leggi e della forza,’ in Francesco Guicciardini, Opere inedite, ed. G. Canestrini, 10 vols. (Barbera e Bianchi, 1867), X, pp. 379–​81 (“I conclude therefore […] that the good physicians should be imitated, who, when they cannot cure the disease with ointments and sweet medicines, resort to iron and fire”).

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knife.160 Quite the opposite: in his commentary on Livy, surgery (referred to explicitly in Disc. I.9–​10, I.18, and implicitly in I.37) is presented as a necessary complement to the “dietetic” practices prescribed in Disc. I.4–​8 –​ to the point that the text suggests, not very covertly, that Caius Gracchus should have taken the route drawn out by Cleomenes. A key advantage of this reading is that it welds the Discourses and The Prince in a single (anti-​aristocratic) project of restoring popular power by means of “extra-​ordinary modes.”161 At the same time, however, it also sheds light on a crucial but misunderstood element of Machiavelli’s conflictualism, demonstrating that in the Discourses no real discontinuity ever arises from tumults, as bloodless confrontations (including secessio and detractio militiae), very often play a largely stabilizing role through: (1) The impetus to attain constitutional “perfection” (Disc. I.2–​3) and, more generally, to make “laws and institutions in favor of public freedom” (Disc. I.4); (2) the purgation of the people’s bad “humors,” allowing dissension to be channeled into safe forms (Disc. I.4–​5 and I.7–​8); and (3) the curbing of the mighty’s ambition, obliging them through threats to respect republican freedom (Disc. I.3–​4 and I.37). Contrary to what is argued by scholars who adopt the “constituent paradigm,” the Discourses say nothing about early Roman tumults as an instrument to produce a drastic renewal in the political and social order. In fact, as Machiavelli later clarifies, “if princes are superior to the people in establishing (ordinare) laws, forming civil societies, establishing (ordinare) new statutes and institutions (ordini), the people is […] superior in preserving the things that have been established (ordinate)” (Disc. I.58). Yet this means that the decisive turning points –​like the transformations Sparta desperately needed in the third century BCE, or Rome at the time of the Gracchi, and Florence in the aftermath of Soderini’s fall –​can only come from the resolute action of a radical reformer: ready, if necessary, to take Lycurgus’ scalpel in hand.

160 On Machiavelli’s rebuttal to Seneca’s authority: P. Stacey, Roman Monarchy and the Renaissance Prince (Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 207–​311. 161 On The Prince as a disguised “advice” (parere), similar to those Machiavelli wrote previously for Soderini:  G. Pedullà, ‘L’arte fiorentina dei nodi,’ introduction to Niccolò Machiavelli, Il principe (Donzelli, 2013), pp. v–​cvii: xviii–​xxviii.

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3 Fear and Virtue The Rebuttal to Humanistic Pedagogy

“The need of this poor city is to have matters managed with dread and exemplary justice, since otherwise it is impossible to stop such rage.” Francesco Guicciardini “The punishment of one deters thousands of others.” Giovanni Botero, The Reason of State

A Precarious Freedom How does a republic die? That is, what tortuous course of events tests, threatens, and ultimately terminates the exercise of “free life”? Machiavelli never stopped asking himself these questions. But in this he was not alone. The same concerns, in various forms, echoed repeatedly throughout the works of the humanists, who during the fifteenth century had handed them down from generation to generation, in an epoch when for many small communes the expansionism of larger urban centers was no less threatening than the tyrannical ambitions of the mighty. It should come as no surprise that here, too, the history of Rome offered particularly fertile ground for analysis. As close readers of the classical historians and fervent proponents of the moderns’ ability to learn from the past, the humanists were naturally led to seek answers to their doubts in the writing of the Ancients on the rise and fall of States. As seen in Chapter 1, the most widely accepted interpretation asserted that Roman freedom had been suffocated beneath the weight of internal divisions.1

1 Matteo Palmieri, La vita civile, ed. G. Belloni (Olschki, 1982), III.141; Francesco Patrizi, De institutione reipublicae (Zetner, 1608) V.2; VI.5; Piero Vaglienti, Storia dei suoi tempi, eds.

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In addition to such internecine fissures, however, the humanists were generally inclined to add another explanation for the crisis of the Republic, blaming the enormous influx of wealth that followed its encounter with the eastern world –​even citing avaritia (greed) and luxuria (opulence), alongside unbridled jockeying for status, as the true causes of the civil wars of the first century BCE.2 Sallust had advanced this latter argument with particular vigor in both his monographs as well as the Epistulae ad Caesarem (I.7; II.7–​8), which at the time were believed to be authentic. In De coniuratione Catilinae, the Roman historian had contrasted the ancient past, when “citizen vied with citizen only for the prize of merit” (9), with the period following the destruction of Carthage (146 BCE), when “after Lucius Sulla had regained control of the State by arms and brought about bad results despite good beginnings (83–​80 BCE), all men began to rob and pillage; one coveted a house, another lands; the victors showed neither moderation (modum) nor restraint, but did shameful and cruel deeds against their fellow citizens” (11). For the humanists, such a reading had the additional advantage of fitting seamlessly with the Christian condemnation of usury and excessive earthly prosperity. As Petrarch put it: “Wealth conquered Rome, once the conqueror of nations. Nor is there any doubt that, on the same road that poverty left Rome, the shameful acts of foreigners entered.”3 Focusing on the corruption of the mos maiorum (the unwritten code from which the Romans derived their social norms) meant emphasizing the destruction of Carthage and the contemporary conquest of Greece (146 BCE) as a decisive turning point. Generally speaking, all the humanists concurred in dating the origin of the crisis to that period4 –​but the same argument could be given very different inflections. It could, for example, offer a valid objection to Leonardo Bruni (1370–​1444), who, inspired by Tacitus, had at the beginning of the fifteenth century traced Rome’s decline to the end of republican self-​government during the civil wars, and had even glimpsed in this tragic turn of events a foreshadowing of the fall of the Empire at the hands of the barbarians.5 Bruni’s thesis quickly won many followers, in Florence and elsewhere.6 If it could be demonstrated that the erosion of the Republic began earlier, however, G. Berti, M. Luzzati, and E. Tongiorgi (Nistri-​Lischi e Pacini, 1982), p.  117; Piero Vaglienti, ‘Apologia,’ ibid., pp. 249–​58: 253; Giordano da Pisa, Prediche, ed. D.M. Manni (Viviani, 1739), p. 315; Giacomo della Marca, Sermones dominicales, ed. R. Lioi, 3 vols. (Biblioteca Francescana, 1978–​82), II, pp. 15–​16, 19–​20. 2 P. Jal, La guerre civile à Rome (Presses Universitaires de France, 1963), pp. 377–​91. 3 Petrarch, Letters on Familiar Matters, ed. A.S. Bernardo (Italica, 2005), XI.16.23. 4 Poggio Bracciolini, De avaritia, eds. C. Piga and G. Rossi (Aragno, 2015), p. 118; Francesco Patrizi, De institutione reipublicae (Zetner, 1608), V.10; Aurelio Brandolini, De comparatione reipublicae ac regni, ed. J. Hankins (Harvard University Press, 2009), II.23. 5 For Tacitus’s judgment (only concerning eloquence): Historiae I.1. Leonardo Bruni, ‘Laudatio Florentinae Urbis,’ in Leonardo Bruni, Opere, ed. P. Viti (Utet, 1996), pp. 568–​ 647:  606; Leonardo Bruni, Historiae, ed. J. Hankins, 3 vols. (Harvard University Press, 2001–​7), I.38. 6 Poggio Bracciolini, ‘De praestantia Scipionis et Caesaris,’ in D. Canfora (ed.), La controversia di Poggio Bracciolini e Guarino Veronese su Cesare e Scipione (Olschki, 2001), pp. 111–​18: 118;

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it would be far more difficult to condemn Julius Caesar alone for its collapse. This is precisely the argument put forward by Guarino Guarini (1374–​1460) in his heated 1434 exchange with Poggio Bracciolini on the respective merits of Scipio the African and Caesar, in which Guarino defends the latter with the argument that, when he fought with Pompey for supremacy, “the old discipline of the Roman people had been forgotten, its integrity corrupted, its ardent love of country already extinguished.”7 Once luxuria had been identified as the sole cause of the “calamity of the subsequent centuries,” it was easy to conclude that “Caesar was not to blame, rather the blame lay solely with the crimes of men and the error of the preceding era, especially after the spread of greed, which is the mother and source of all evils.”8 One finds the same backdating of the crisis in the two major fifteenth-​ century antiquarians, as well:  the aforementioned Flavio Biondo and the Florentine aristocrat Bernardo Rucellai (1448–​1514). For Biondo, the crisis of the mos maiorum was so important that he devoted several pages of his Roma triumphans (1459) to the “origins of luxury.” Compiling evidence from a wide range of authors, Biondo had concluded that the Romans had been “infected” by the people they had subjugated in the course of their campaigns to the East. While the earliest warning signs were already apparent with the taking of Syracuse by Marcus Claudius Marcellus (212 BCE), the true corrosion of Roman morality was proliferated by the army that fought in Asia, during the third Macedonian war (171–​168 BCE):9 Of [Quintus Caecilius] Metellus [Macedonicus], Macrobius writes these words in his Saturnalia, borrowing from Sallust:  “men who had vanquished whole nations vanquished themselves by luxury.” But, unlike Livy and Sallust, Pliny adds these thoughts regarding luxury: “It was the conquest of Asia which first introduced luxury into Italy. […] Luxury came into being simultaneously, with the downfall of Carthage, a fatal coincidence that gave us at one and the same time a taste for the vices.”10

Biondo’s verdict is clear, but not as irrevocable as one might expect. Roma triumphans differs from other contemporary works due to its tendency to blur the lines between the various periods of Roman history, and for its

Poggio Bracciolini, ‘Defensio,’ ibid., pp.  141–​ 67:  149; Poggio Bracciolini, De infelicitate principum, ed. D. Canfora (Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura), p. 38; Lauro Quirini, ‘De republica,’ eds. C. Seno and G. Ravegnani, in V. Branca et  al. (eds.), Lauro Quirini umanista (Olschki, 1977), pp. 123–​61: 134. For a different interpretation of their querelle: G. Pedullà, ‘Scipione e i tiranni,’ in Atlante I, pp. 348–​55. 7 Guarino Guarini, ‘De praestantia Scipionis et Caesaris,’ in Canfora, Controversia, pp. 119–​40: 138. 8 Ibid., pp. 123–​24. See also Francesco Patrizi, De regno (Zetner, 1608), I.13. 9 For the diffusion of luxury:  Livy’s books XXV and XL; Pliny, Naturalis historia, XXXIII.148; XXXIII.150. 10 Flavio Biondo, ‘Roma triumphans,’ in Flavio Biondo, Opera (Froben, 1559), p. 184. See also p. 122.

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conviction that the only irreversible caesura happened when the Visigoths sacked Rome (410 CE). Just as it took several centuries for the crisis of the State and its institutions to culminate in the dissolution of the Empire, customs too were corrupted only gradually. Although he clearly distinguishes the “virtues of the first Romans” from those of their descendants, Biondo thus tends to soften his critique of the late Republic and the Principate by stressing their continuity with the modern pontificate.11 Hence, Roma triumphans emphasizes how, even at the time of Marius and Sulla, the old manners remained alive and well, so much so that it was virtually impossible to find anyone who would purchase the proscribed citizens’ properties (though Biondo would go on to admit that few of these qualities survived until the end of that century).12 By backdating the crisis, Biondo attempted to reduce the scale of Roman decadence. Moral corruption had set in more than a century before the end of the Republic, and had only continued to spread throughout the imperial era until the sack of Rome, which for Biondo (like Augustine before him) was the decisive event of the ancient age. A gradual decline thus replaced the violent death of freedom so lamented by Bruni and his followers. This portrait recurs in De Urbe Roma, by Bernardo Rucellai (known to Machiavelli scholars primarily as the founder of the Orti Oricellari, which Niccolò would visit regularly after Bernardo’s death).13 Though his book is essentially a topographical reconstruction of the city, it does not lack for observations of broader interest. Borrowing repeatedly from Biondo, Rucellai also traced the crisis of the Republic to its conquests  –​“avarice grows with power,”14 he writes –​but he chose to focus far longer on the nefarious Sulla: That luxury grew with empire has already been amply stated; although it had its origins long before, it nevertheless flourished under Sulla. Indeed, in his effort to hold onto the army that he had led into Asia, Sulla defied tradition and acted in an excessively lavish and feeble manner. Day by day, pleasure and indolence corrupted the hitherto hardened souls of the soldiers. But after the dictator Caesar followed in this direction, other princes, whether by personal inclination or the influence of his example, surrendered to luxury.15

Unlike Guarino, Rucellai did not believe that an inquiry into the origins of moral corruption implied an exculpatory attitude toward Caesar. Indeed, he considered luxury to be the foremost ally of tyrants, reintroducing the link 11 Ibid., p. 116. 12 Ibid., p. 117. Even if Vespasian is the only emperor praised, Biondo explicitly refutes Bruni’s thesis in the opening of his Decades. 13 On Rucellai and Machiavelli: F. Gilbert, ‘Bernardo Rucellai and the Orti Oricellari,’ Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 12 (1949), pp. 101–​31; C. Dionisotti, ‘Dalla repubblica al principato,’ in C. Dionisotti, Machiavellerie (Einaudi, 1980), pp. 101–​53: 138–​42. 14 Bernardo Rucellai, ‘De Urbe Roma,’ in L.A. Muratori (ed.), Rerum Italicarum Scriptores. Accessiones Florentinae, 3 vols. (Allegrini e Pisoni, 1770), II, c. 960. 15 Ibid., c. 961. See also cc. 930, 958, 1067.

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between immoderate wealth and the rise of the Principate, which Biondo had considered of secondary importance: Good fortune weakens men’s character. In a corrupt city, this can lead to licentiousness and then luxury. It was because of the latter, after the Greeks’ customs had begun to influence the Roman passion for building well in advance of Marcus Claudius Marcellus, at the time of Sulla and Pompey, when a wicked form of ambition animated the souls of the generals, that they abandoned all limits (modum). Indeed, after the fiercest of the nobles, Lucius Sulla, had taken the State by force of arms only to come to such a sorry end, Rome reached a point where the ambition of the generals, led by his example, were encouraged to seize absolute power. After the consulate of Pompey and Marcus Licinius Crassus (55 BCE), even when the republic was led by men of honor they desired nothing else but to gain the principate. From that moment on, because of their unfettered power, their successors pursued luxury in excess, and the generals sought to live like kings, and as a result the curia, the theaters, and other sites of this kind, which had previously been public, began to be constructed for the use of private citizens.16

Still, even Rucellai cannot completely denigrate the imperial era, which is entirely understandable since his work focuses on the monuments and the urban planning of the capital of the ancient world. Faced with the architectural legacy of the emperors, even a fervent admirer of the Republic like Rucellai finds himself forced to admit with some amazement (“I do not understand how…”) that the advent of the Principate did not lead to artistic impoverishment, but rather, pace Bruni,17 coincided with an era of extraordinary urbanistic ferment.18 Despite these variations, fifteenth-​century culture produced a fairly coherent portrait of the end of the Republic, with a slight tendency to explain institutional changes through mores (corruption as the origin of the Principate) rather than the reverse (the Principate as a cause of corruption). To put it succinctly, after coming into contact with the eastern world, the Romans had adopted the customs of the people they had conquered, until “Fortune began to be savage and to throw all into confusion” (De coniuratione Catilinae 10). And this historical lesson was equally valid for the present and future: no city could remain free for long, once it had opened the doors to luxury. The Fragility of Virtuousness It is not an exaggeration to say that all of fifteenth-​century humanism conceived of the collapse of the Roman republic (and of republics more generally) in Sallustian terms. However, the early chapters of De coniuratione Catilinae are not the only place where Sallust discusses the origins of the crisis. In fact, Ibid., c. 967. 17 Ibid., c. 1113. 18 Ibid., cc. 966–​67. Rucellai’s dissent from Bruni is marked through explicit praise of Tacitus’ times (c. 1120). 16

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in Bellum Iugurthinum (41) one finds an alternative explanation for moral decline: The institutions of political groups and factions, and afterward of all evil practices, originated at Rome a few years before this as the result of peacetime and of an abundance of those things that mortals prize most highly. For before the destruction of Carthage, the people and senate of Rome together managed political affairs between them peacefully and with moderation (placide modesteque). There was no strife among the citizens either for glory or for mastery; fear of the enemy abroad (metus hostilis) kept the State within the bounds of good morals. But when that dread departed from the minds of the people, there arose, of course, those vices which tend to be fostered by prosperity: promiscuity and arrogance. Thus the peacetime for which they had longed in time of adversity, after they had gained it, proved to be more cruel and bitter than adversity itself. For the nobles began to abuse their standing and the people their liberty, and every man took, pillaged, and plundered for himself. […] As soon as there were discovered among the nobility those who preferred true glory to unjust power, the State began to be disturbed and civil dissension arise, like an upheaval of the earth.19

The interpretive advances in this new reading are obvious, beginning with the disappearance of any reference to Fortune. It is in part for this reason that the theory of metus hostilis has enjoyed such extraordinary staying power in European political thought since the sixteenth century, as Neal Wood and Ioannis Evrigenis have recently demonstrated.20 And yet, despite the widespread fame of Sallust’s work, what stands out is its curious absence in the writings of the humanists.21 What might account for this virtually unanimous neglect? Interpreting silence is always a risky business; in this case, however, it is not so difficult to guess why the argument put forward in the Bellum Iugurthinum failed to receive a positive reception before the Discourses. The humanists had learned from the ancient philosophers that there could be no virtue without free will; Aristotle, for example, had denied virtue to all those who were not fully responsible for their own actions (such as children, slaves, barbarians, In his text Sallust repeatedly highlights the novelty of the situation (oriri, incedere, coepere, ubi primum). 20 N. Wood, ‘Sallust’s Theorem:  A Comment on “Fear” in Western Political Thought,’ History of Political Thought, 16 (1995), pp. 174–​89; I.D. Evrigenis, Fear of Enemies and Collective Actions (Cambridge University Press, 2008). See also: M. Gelzer, ‘Nausicas Widerspruch gegen die Zerströrung Karthagos,’ in M. Gelzer, Kleine Schriften 2 vols. (Steiner, 1963), II, pp. 39–​72; H. Fuchs, ‘Der Friede als Gefahr,’ Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, 63 (1958), pp. 365–​85; G. Bonamente, ‘Il “metus punicus” e la decadenza di Roma in Sallustio, Agostino ed Orosio,’ Giornale italiano di filologia, 27 (1975), pp. 137–​69; H. Bellen, Metus Gallicus, metus Punicus (Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, 1985); I. Ramelli, ‘La dialettica tra guerra esterna e guerra civile da Siracusa a Roma,’ in M. Sordi (ed.), Il pensiero sulla guerra nel mondo antico (Vita e Pensiero, 2001), pp. 45–​63; D. Kapust, ‘On the Ancient Uses of Political Fear and its Modern Implications,’ Journal of the History of Ideas, 69 (2008), pp. 353–​73. 21 Palmieri connects otium and delitiae to the disappearance of a foreign menace, but does not say anything about the end of metus (De captivitate Pisarum, ed. A. Mita Ferraro, il Mulino, 1996, pp. 4–​6). 19

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and women), while Cicero had sought to associate virtue with indifference to the outside world: that is, with the “ability to check the passions” (De officiis II.5.18) in the manner of the Stoics, virtuous because they were free and free because they were virtuous. And if, for the humanists, figures like Lucius Junius Brutus or Scipio the African deserved to be held aloft as role models, it was because when forced to choose between virtue and vice (as in the myth of Hercules),22 they had not hesitated to make the right decision. Attributing their actions to external constraints (such as fear of a powerful enemy) would mean stripping them of all merit. The theory of metus hostilis could thus be turned against the beloved Romans. As the humanists were well aware, Sallust had already been exploited to this end in the most radical attack ever leveled on the pagan world: the De civitate Dei. For Augustine, a genuine love of virtue could only stem from knowledge of the true God, which the pagans of course had not possessed (De civitate Dei V.12–​14); the various Horatii, Mucii, and Furii led their exemplary lives solely to satisfy their desire for glory –​a vice considered a virtue only insofar as it served to discourage other vices –​not to mention their fear of falling to adversaries. Hence, such figures could not be considered truly virtuous. Whereas Sallust had used metus hostilis to explain the remote origin of the crisis of the Republic, Augustine had capitalized on his work to cast doubts upon the glory of earlier centuries, shrouding them in the darkness of a world that had not yet been brought out into the light of the one true faith: even at the apex of their grandeur, the Romans’ moral superiority had been nothing more than a simulacrum.23 For Augustine (who also made use of Sallust’s lost Historiae), the fall of Carthage had at most accelerated Rome’s slide into decadence. But even the earliest history of the Republic could be explained in this vein, thanks to Sallust –​who, Augustine wrote, “admits that only a short time after the government had been transferred from kings to consuls, acts of oppression by the powerful took place in the City with the resultant secession of the people from the patricians as well as other disorders” (De civitate Dei II.18).24 The self-​satisfied virtue of the Romans was thus praiseworthy only in comparison with the other ancient peoples. And it is precisely this argument that Augustine would employ to explain how divine providence bestowed upon Rome the monarchy of the world (De civitate Dei V.15). The narrative of De civitate Dei is also marked by the presence of another figure, one not mentioned by Sallust, but whom Augustine may have encountered 22 On the importance of Hercules for the humanists: E. Panofsky, Hercules am Scheidewege und andere antike Bildstoffe in der neueren Kunst (Teubner, 1930); E. Garin, ‘La storia nel pensiero del Rinascimento,’ in E. Garin, Medio Evo e Rinascimento (Laterza, 1954), pp. 192–​210: 209–​10. 23 Bonamente, ‘Metus.’ 24 See also De civitate Dei III.16.

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either through Plutarch (How to Profit by One’s Enemy; Marcus Cato 27), Velleius Patercolus (Historiae II.I.1–​2), or Florus (Epitoma I.31; I.47.2).25 This was Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica: the Roman general and jurist who, in the years immediately before the Third Punic War (149–​146 BCE), had perceived the opportunistic nature of Roman virtue, and thus opposed the resumption of hostilities with Carthage, foreseeing the devastating effects of excessive security. He is the true hero of De civitate Dei, repeatedly lauded for having been the only one to understand that, without the incentive provided by a powerful enemy, all of Rome’s moral qualities would soon wither, including the legendary concord of its beginnings: That Scipio, your chief pontiff, the best man of all in the judgment of the whole Senate, because he feared that calamity, refused to agree to the destruction of Rome’s rival for empire, Carthage, and said the opposite of Cato [the Censor], who advised its destruction. For he feared security as the enemy of unstable minds and saw that fear was indispensable to the citizens to serve, as it were, as guardian (tutorem) of their immaturity. In this opinion he was not mistaken, for the outcome showed how truly he spoke. Of course, once Carthage was destroyed, which meant that the great bugbear of the Roman republic had been beaten off and annihilated, these mighty evils sprang up as a sequel to prosperity. First, harmony was crumpled and breached in the fierce and bloody strife of parties. Next, there followed, by a chain of evil causes, civil wars, which brought such great massacres, so much bloodshed, such effervescence of cruelty induced by the craving for proscriptions and plunder, that those who, when life had more integrity, feared the evils enemies might bring, now when that integrity of living went by the board, suffered greater cruelties from fellow citizens. Finally, that passion to rule which among the other vices of mankind was found more concentrated in the Roman people, when it had won victory in the case of a few more dominating men, subjected the others, worn out and tired, to the yoke of slavery. (De civitate Dei I.30)

Scipio Nasica appears yet again in De civitate Dei, where he is used to distinguish the virtue that is the fruit of an authentic “love for justice” from that produced by mere metus (De civitate Dei II.18), even leading Augustine to suggest paradoxically that Carthage wounded Rome more deeply when it was destroyed than it had in the course of all its military campaigns. This latter passage is particularly significant for the way it ultimately reconnects the birth of the empire to the fear of internecine conflicts: [Augustus] appears in every way to have wrested from the Romans that liberty which was no longer even in their own eyes glorious, but rather productive of discord and destruction, and now quite feeble and inert, and […] reintroduced the absolute power of kings, and, as it were, restored and renewed the State when it was sunk in senile decay. (De civitate Dei III.21) 25 See also Orosius, Historiae IV.23. For the idea that the absence of external enemies increased the number of internal ones (with a reference to Carthage), see Lactantius, Divinae Institutiones VII.15.14.

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Augustine’s reinterpretation probably explains the absence of the metus hostilis from fourteenth-​and fifteenth-​ century political theory. Ever since Petrarch, the humanists had invested considerable energy in downplaying the clash of civilizations, showing how the Christian ethos of sacrifice and the pagan thirst for glory were not incompatible. For those who supported this position, the very same De civitate Dei offered several passages in which Augustine’s admiration for the Romans seemed less ambiguous. Biondo, for instance, seizes on these passages in Roma triumphans, when (with some effort) he portrays Augustine’s supposed hostility toward classical culture as a tremendous misunderstanding: I know that there have been some, and that there are still many among us today, who, philosophizing with words without engaging in true philosophy, praise through gritted teeth (as they say) those much-​discussed customs of the Romans, as though to criticize them, because they did not pursue virtue more for love of virtue itself than for desire of glory and fame. We say this openly, and add that the desire for glory always counted for a great deal, to the degree that it still moves men today in our own century. And we do not say this because we have forgotten that the salvation of the soul, for those born after the coming of Christ, is the first thing man must seek, or because we ignore that many of the Ancients sought virtue for love of virtue itself, but because the love of glory has always had a power to preserve society, so that it cannot be dismissed either by those who agonize over the salvation of the soul or those who love virtue for the fame it confers.26

Within the framework of this cultural war, the theory of metus hostilis furnished a powerful argument to the opponents of the humanist project, and this seems to have shaped the scant fortunes of Scipio Nasica before Machiavelli. The example of Petrarch, at once an avid reader of Augustine and an admirer of the Ancients, is indicative in this regard. The desultory references to Scipio Nasica in his works are always used to obscure the “scandalous” nexus between virtus and metus. In the mirror of prince addressed to the Grand Seneschal of the Kingdom of Naples Niccolò Acciaiuoli in 1352, for instance, the entire subject is re-​read in an eminently private light: a demonstration that the toughest battles are those fought with oneself, that it is easier to triumph over others than over one’s own character, and that Fortune strikes with ever greater violence the more men believe themselves immune to its assaults.27 Any judgment of Rome, evidently, has disappeared. Petrarch’s approach would not change even in his later years. In a letter attempting to convince the Genoans to treat the recently defeated Venetians with magnanimity, for instance, he would draw on Scipio Nasica’s anecdote to recall a parallel between healthy purges and wars, without which excessive tranquility can threaten to unleash internal conflicts  –​a risk which, as 26 Biondo, ‘Roma triumphans,’ p. 117. Cfr Disc. I.12. 27 Petrarch, Familiares XII.27. See also Petrarch, Rerum memorandarum libri IV.3; Petrarch, De viris illustribus, ed. G. Martellotti (Sansoni, 1964), p. 678.

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in Rome, always lingers menacingly over very prosperous cities (Familiares XIV.5.30).28 And in De remediis utriusque fortunae (I.106) the Carthaginian episode also would provide solely a warning not to grow complacent or let oneself be corrupted by indolence. Petrarch’s strategy thus seems clear: Scipio Nasica can only be accommodated by cancelling out the potentially anti-​Roman implications of the metus hostilis. Accordingly, in his writings, Carthage’s menace is never indicated as a source of the morality of the Republic’s heroes (as it is in Augustine), even if here and there Petrarch does admit that fear helped keep virtue alive. At most, however, he draws on Scipio Nasica to illustrate that man can never rest on his laurels, not even in his moment of (temporary) triumph, because vice always lurks just around the corner. Still, the clearest demonstration of the humanist conundrum with respect to Sallust’s theory of metus hostilis can probably be found in the introduction to the biographies of the Strozzi family by the great Florentine book-​merchant Vespasiano da Bisticci (1421–​98). Indeed, while the De civitate Dei provides the general scaffolding here as well, Vespasiano’s summary of Roman history reveals profound differences, as he shows unconditional admiration for the great men of the past, and Rome’s corruption serves only as a preamble to his praise of its “singular men,” and as a justification of his own efforts to bequeath the deeds of his most illustrious contemporaries to posterity: The Carthaginians being very powerful, the Romans were wary that the peace would not last, and that it would be broken by the Carthaginians, and so they maintained the greatest unity. Their wariness of ill fortune bid them from doing otherwise. And wise was the counsel of Scipio Africanus, who argued that their prosperous fortunes would not change unless Carthage were destroyed, removing this incentive from before their eyes. His counsel was most worthy. And blessed would be the republic, if only it had accepted it! But then the Romans took Carthage and destroyed it, upon the advice of Cato and others, who did not know what Scipio knew, with the results that all can see.29

As in Petrarch, the beneficial effects of the metus hostilis are reduced to an “incentive before their eyes,”30 useful at best for preserving qualities the Romans already possessed. With similar premises, it should come as no surprise that, leaving behind all mention of Carthage, Vespasiano shortly thereafter appropriates the old argument regarding oriental contagion (“it is evident that all these evils came upon this republic as the result of excessive prosperity”).31 Unless the thesis of the Bellum Iugurthinum could be repurposed without compromising Rome’s exemplary status, it was of no use; what was needed, clearly, was for someone to reconceive the relationship between virtue 28 See also Petrarch, Rerum memorandarum IV.2.1. 29 Vespasiano da Bisticci, Le vite, ed. A. Greco, 2  vols. (Sansoni, 1976), II, p.  430. Vespasiano clearly confuses Scipio Nasica and Scipio Africanus. 30 Ibid., p. 431. 31 Ibid.

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and fear, and to be willing to confront Augustine’s argument head on. What was needed was for Machiavelli to compose his Discourses.32 Terror: “The Greatest Master There Is” The theory of metus hostilis resurfaces throughout the Discourses. One first encounters it as an explanation for why the Roman people had ceased to elect the most virtuous citizens as consuls after the destruction of Carthage, preferring instead those who were the most masterful at winning over the masses with favors and concessions:33 Because after the Romans tamed Africa and Asia and brought almost all Greece to submission, they grew sure of their freedom and thought they no longer had any enemies to fear. This assurance and the enemies’ weakness made the Roman people, in bestowing the consular office, seek not virtue but pleasantness, choosing for the office those who were best at getting along with men, not those who were best at defeating the enemy; afterwards, from those who were most pleasing, they descended to bestowing it on those who had the most power. (Disc. I.18)

Machiavelli returns to this question several chapters later, reflecting on the reasons why “in hard times true virtue is sought, while in easy times men with wealth and powerful relatives, not the virtuous ones, obtain more favor.” And he concludes again that the city of Rome resisted for a while; but once it had defeated Carthage and Antiochus (as has been said elsewhere), and no longer feared wars, it, too, felt it could entrust its armies to anyone it wished, not valuing virtue as much as the other qualities that obtained the favor of the people. (Disc. III.16)34

“Carthage and Antiochus” (instead of “Africa” and “Asia”) provide more precise spatio-​temporal coordinates for the decay of ancient customs (Carthage was won in 146 BCE, Antiochus in 188 BCE). At the same time, however, Machiavelli makes it clear he is discussing a broader principle by referring to the sorry display of the Florentine army at Pisa, in 1507, after the Florentines foolishly (and not dissimilarly) replaced the one man who “showed how armies were to be commanded: that was Antonio Giacomini” (Disc. III.16). But the theory of metus hostilis also intrigued Machiavelli for reasons that range far beyond the subject of elections. The Bellum Iugurthinum offered Machiavelli an opportunity to re-​interpret the decline of the mos maiorum in eminently political terms, without bringing up moral contagion or misfortune The only exception I know of is Marcantonio Sabellico, ‘Exempla,’ in Marcantonio Sabellico, Opera, 4 vols. (Herwagen, 1560), IV, p. 77. 33 The problem of “elections” is already in Patrizi, De institutione reipublicae III.3. 34 According to Sasso, “one does not understand how Rome could have kept the private poor and the public rich for 400 years” (Machiavelli, il Mulino, 1980, p. 496); metus hostilis is clearly the answer. 32

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and helping him tackle the age-​old question of the relationship between mores and leges (customs and institutions) in more complex terms. Indeed, this is one of the central themes of Disc. I.18, where Machiavelli reflects on the difficulty of endowing a corrupt republic with good institutions and, conversely, the insurmountable obstacles that tyrannical projects encounter in States that have maintained their virtue. Thinking of Rome, Machiavelli concludes that what brought on the end of the Republic was not so much a sudden change as the immobilism of a ruling class incapable of adapting its political system to the new context created by the dominion over the Mediterranean. If the very laws that ensured Rome’s success had helped clear the path for the Principate, the conclusion was that “different institutions (ordini) and modes (modi) of living have to be established (ordinati) for a bad subject and for a good one: the form cannot be the same in a completely opposite matter (materia)” (Disc. I.18).35 For Machiavelli, moreover, the moral of the metus hostilis applies far beyond Rome.36 As readers of the Discourses are aware, paura, or “fear” –​along with its corollaries timore and sospetto, “dread” and “suspicion” –​forms one of the key concepts of Machiavellian psychology, frequently cited in connection with tumults. Nevertheless, for Machiavelli fear has two faces. On the one hand, as taught by the scholastics following in the footsteps of Aristotle, who had listed fear among the causes of civil wars (Thomas Aquinas, De regimine principum I.11; Giles of Rome, De regimine principum II.2.13), a lack of security contributed to ill-​advised decision-​making; to quote Cicero, “the wrongs […] are often the result of fear” (De officiis I.7.24). And Machiavelli continues in this tradition,37 arguing on several occasions that one prerequisite for peaceful co-​existence is the absence of threats: Thus we can see how harmful it is to a republic or a prince to keep the minds of subjects in uncertainty and fear by continual punishments and injuries, […] because men who begin to suspect imminent evil secure themselves against dangers however they can, and become bolder and less hesitant about attempting new things (cose nuove). (Disc. I.45)38

But this is only one side of the coin. In fact, even ancient philosophers had noted that another sort of menace possessed completely different characteristics and could be a powerful ally of politicians.39 To distinguish this variant from 35 It is always in the difference of the “matter” that one must seek the reasons why the first tyrannical attempts by Spurius Cassius and Manlius Capitolinus were easily rejected, while, in the last century of the republic, customs having been corrupted, Marius and Sulla could overthrow the institutions (Disc. III.8). 36 In Florentine Histories II.2 Machiavelli ties the foundation of Florence “on the plain” to the end of the metus punicus. 37 Many of the civil conflicts described in the Florentine Histories were born of the fears of one’s adversaries. The Florentine chroniclers had already alerted readers of the risk of “suspect and envy” toward fellow citizens (to use Giovanni Villani’s lexicon). 38 See also Prince 19. 39 For political uses of fear, see i.e. Politics V.7; VII.13.

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the fear-​stimulus, which by suspicion leads men to hastily conceived projects out of pure desperation, one might call it fear-​inhibition for the way it dissuades troubled souls from undertaking actions that might be harmful to the collective. Indeed, as Seneca had written, “fear in moderation checks (cohibet) men’s passions, but the fear that is constant and sharp and brings desperation arouses the sluggish to boldness” (De clementia I.13). The best check is of course the threat inherent in law: but Machiavelli clearly demonstrates his belief that dread, regardless of the form it takes, is an absolutely indispensable tool of government. If, as seen in Chapter 2, “nature has created men such that they can desire everything but cannot obtain everything” (Disc. I.37), the corrective effects of fear are made necessary by the human condition itself, for men are never satisfied. Every “appetite” not checked by the threat of sanction would ultimately reveal itself to be incompatible with civic life. And this is the reason why, while the Ancients and the humanists list in their works every single vice that can ruin States, Machiavelli only names desire in general. In the Discourses, licenza (“licentiousness,” intended as absence of any control and as the opposite of liberty) potentially lurks around every corner. In this precarious situation, only fear preserves republics –​for the rule of law can only be based upon terror, as Lucretius must have precociously taught Machiavelli.40 Given that men “all err equally when they all can err without fear” (Disc. I.58) and they “will always turn out wicked for you if they are not made by some necessity to be good” (Prince 23), the task of the prudent politician must be to organize the State in such a way that all those opportunities to “err” (that is, “turn out wicked”) are reduced to the bare minimum.41 Among the effective tools to check desire, the Discourses also invoke “religion,”42 “oath,”43 and indeed “necessity” (“necessity makes for virtue” is a recurring theme);44 “fear,” however, undoubtedly occupies a privileged place on this list. But one must not get carried away, of course: and Machiavelli knows perfectly well that the fear-​ inhibition of free republics and well-​ordered kingdoms must not be allowed to degenerate into the destructive fear-​stimulus that characterizes States held together by tyranny or in the throes of anarchy. 40 Lucretius, De rerum natura V.1145–​51. See A. Brown, The Return of Lucretius to Renaissance Florence (Harvard University Press, 2010), pp. 80, 87. 41 This is what, for Machiavelli, happened in France, “a kingdom that is governed more by laws than any other kingdom that we know of in our time” (Disc. I.58). Also in Disc. I.16 France is presented as the land of “security” par excellence, where the maximum of fear-​inhibition goes with the minimum of fear-​stimulus (see also Disc. I.19; I.55; III.1). 42 Besides Polybius and Lucretius, for the link between religion and fear, Emanuele Cutinelli-​ Rendina mentions Pontano’s Urania (Chiesa e religione in Machiavelli, IEPI, 1998, p. 165). 43 P. Prodi, Il sacramento del potere (il Mulino, 1992), pp. 235–​37; Cutinelli-​Rendina, Chiesa, pp. 167–​73. 44 I.e. Disc. II.12. Such expressions were already proverbial in the fifteenth century:  Palmieri, Vita civile II.77–​79. On the importance of necessity for Machiavelli: L. Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli (University of Chicago Press, 1978), pp. 249–​52.

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Compared to the Ancients and the humanists, Machiavelli’s originality lies in his clear preference for fear over all other available political tools to keep selfish passions in check; as Francesco Vettori recalled with some alarm in a letter to Machiavelli dated August 5, 1526, “I have heard you say on several occasions that terror is the greatest master there is.” Fifteenth-​century political thought, in particular, had placed all its hopes in education, reserving threat only for the members of the community most resistant to the appeal of virtue. According to the humanists, whereas in infancy and adolescence prohibitions and sanctions obviously played a central role in the pedagogical process, in adulthood other expedients were necessary. This is why Palmieri, Quirini, Patrizi, and Platina devote ample portions of their political treatises to a discussion of the most effective ways to instill future citizens with a love of virtue and sense of sacrifice for the fatherland, without which no republic could last. Faced with the irresistible, divisive power of the passions, only an ambitious pedagogy that teaches men to resist their selfish impulses by themsleves is in their view capable of winning the battle against avaritia and luxuria.45 Aristotle had already argued that, if these “appetites” were not first tamed, not even the material equality that comes from the division of land into equal shares (as proposed by Phaleas of Chalcedon) could offer a definitive solution to the problem, since “men do not do wrong for the sake of the bare necessities only,” but also “to gain pleasure and to satisfy desire,” because “appetite is in its nature unlimited, and the majority of mankind lives for the satisfaction of desire.” What was needed was a sort of philosophical therapy, whose guiding principle, “rather than leveling estates, is to train those that are respectable by nature so that they may not wish for excessive wealth” (Politics II.4). Indeed, as Palmieri writes, returning to the standard Hippocratic metaphor, “philosophy is the first and true medicine of the soul, it purges hasty and disordered passions, curbs avarice and the appetites, and banishes any cowardly weakness of soul” (Vita civile II.2). As Strauss has shown better than anyone else, it is on education that Machiavelli marks a definitive break with all previous political theory.46 Whereas

45 Part of the struggle against passions is the subordination of love for the family to that for the whole city: Cicero, De officiis I.7.22; Brunetto Latini, Li livres dou Tresor, eds. P. Barrette and S. Baldwin (Garland, 1993), II.108; Remigio dei Girolami, ‘De bono communi,’ in Remigio dei Girolami, Dal bene comune al bene del comune, ed. E. Panella (Nerbini, 2014), pp. 146–​221: 152–​53; Marsilius of Padua, Defensor pacis I.1.4; Palmieri, Vita civile III.136–​ 139; Bartolomeo Platina, De optimo cive, ed. F. Battaglia (Zanichelli, 1942), pp. 250, 270; Enea Silvio Piccolomini, ‘De ortu et auctoritate imperii romani,’ in G. Kallen, Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini als Publizist (Stuttgart, 1939), p. 80; Patrizi, De institutione reipublicae V.2. Less often cited is a similar chapter (De officiis I.17.54):  Latini, Tresor II.113; Ptolemy of Lucca, De regimine III.4; Platina, De optimo, p. 247. 46 Strauss showed how Machiavelli’s lack of faith in the educative process goes with his exceptionally positive estimation of fear: in Strauss’ view, rejecting “as unrealistic” the classical pursuit of virtue, Machiavelli was the first to have indicated threat as the true basis of modern

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for the Ancients and the humanists the pedagogical process would ultimately allow the vir bonus (good man) to govern himself, Machiavelli never ceases to insist that only external constraints offer a true bulwark against desire. If other fifteenth-​century writers thus sought to give their readers instructions to help them reject the false promises of the voluptas inhonesta (dishonest pleasure) and develop a lasting habitus (habit) by referring to virtuous examples from the past, for Machiavelli such lessons no longer apply. And the only substitute for education is fear, which is why it receives such close attention in both The Prince and the Discourses.47 This is not to say that either the humanists or Aristotle were ignorant of just how powerful a tool fear could be. But in their writings they save threats for the uneducated and those believed to be unresponsive to teaching, in the hopes of rendering such legal sanctions superfluous for everyone else. As Aristotle writes: Most people (Multitudo) obey necessity rather than argument, and punishments rather than the sense of what is noble. […] Punishments and penalties should be imposed on those who disobey and are of inferior nature (inobedientes et hebetiores) […]. A good man […], since he lives with his mind fixed on what is noble, will submit to argument, while a bad man, whose desire is for pleasure, is corrected by pain like a beast of burden. (Nicomachean Ethic X.9)

The elitist inferences of this distinction, which are largely left unspoken by Aristotle and the humanists, emerge from time to time just the same, as in this passage by Bracciolini, where the division between the few individuals capable of pursuing virtue by choice and the many who must be coerced carries clear social implications: Wise, prudent, and moderate men have no need of laws. They have given themselves rules for living, educated by nature and study (natura et studio) to seek virtue and good manners. The mighty (Potentes) disdain and reject the laws, whereas they are appropriate for weak men, wage laborers, manufacturers, artisans, the indolent, and men of

politics (‘What is Political Philosophy?,’ in L. Strauss, What is Political Philosophy?, University of Chicago Press, 1959, pp. 9–​ 55:  40). On Machiavelli’s disinterest in the pedagogical moment:  S.S. Wolin, Politics and Vision (Princeton University Press, 2004), p.  212; P. Rahe, Republics Ancient and Modern, 3 vols. (University of North Carolina Press, 1992), II, p. 36; J. Hankins, ‘Machiavelli, Civic Humanism, and the Humanist Politics of Virtue,’ Italian Culture, 32 (2014), pp. 98–​109. Skinner, too, recognizes that Machiavelli “has little to say about the relationship between education and the promotion of virtù and nothing at all about the specific training that might be expected to provide the best preparation for a life of citizenship” (‘Machiavelli on Virtue and the Maintenance of Liberty,’ in Visions II, pp. 160–​85: 171); still, he is mistaken when he argues that, in doing so, Machiavelli does not “question the conventional wisdom” (p. 170). Machiavelli is curiously neglected by C. Robin, Fear: The History of a Political Idea (Oxford University Press, 2004). 47 Benner fails to recognize Machiavelli’s novelty by attributing to him a very traditional theory of “self-​restraint” (Machiavelli’s Ethics, Princeton University Press, 2009, especially pp. 153–​56).

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low social extraction (qui censu tenui sunt), who are governed more by force and fear of punishment than by laws (magis vi et metu poenae quam legibus reguntur).48

Aside from the extraordinary explicitness of its pro-​aristocratic argument, this passage from Bracciolini contains nothing uncommon to humanistic thought; the position staked out by Machiavelli, in contrast, is truly singular for its complete lack of faith in moral improvement through philosophy. In part, this is also a question of numbers. The very size of the Great Council alone had made it unrealistic to conceive of a republic run by a small handful of admirers of Cicero and Aristotle. But, well beyond the immediate circumstances in Florence, there is no doubt that Machiavelli’s suspicion of the humanists’ pedagogical ideal also stems from the fact that he is always thinking of a political stage much larger than that of his predecessors.49 This resolute stance also has consequences for Machiavelli’s thinking on tumults. Indeed, a careful re-​reading of certain sentences of the Discourses against the backdrop of the humanistic project –​“good examples derive from good education, good education from good laws, and good laws from those tumults that many people condemn thoughtlessly” (Disc. I.4), for instance –​ shows that Machiavelli is in fact breaking with that tradition in three distinct ways:50 (1) He reclaims a new place for conflict by making “good laws” the direct result of those upheavals that, with their “shouts” and “cries,” represented for the humanists the embodiment of a feral world from which they hoped to emancipate their pupils; (2) he argues that even “good education,” which for the humanists depended on a special curriculum of study and on a personal pursuit of virtue, is in its turn merely the outcome of the republic’s “good laws.” In this way, the Discourses obviate the distinction, so typical of humanistic thought, between the ruling elite (to be educated) and the people (to be checked by fear), recommending the same measures for all; and (3) the most profound rupture, however, comes with the third point. Since Machiavelli is in fact discussing a specific “good law” –​the institution of the tribunes, with their “power of accusing” and their role in promoting tumults –​it must be understood that “good laws” are those that constrain citizens to behave appropriately through threats (in this case, the threat of trials and new uprisings), restraining men’s natural propensity toward licentiousness. And this implies that fear is called upon to replace rational self-​control. Poggio Bracciolini, ‘Utra artium medicinae an iuris civilis prestent,’ in E. Garin (ed.), La disputa delle arti nel Quattrocento (Poligrafico dello Stato, 1982), pp. 14–​28: 26. 49 Strauss perfectly understood the anti-​elitist implications of Machiavelli’s refusal to distinguish the mass (to be threatened) from the few (to be educated), and for this reason sternly judged him. 50 Strauss reads this passage as evidence of Machiavelli’s immorality and accordingly uses “the most shocking things” as a synonym for the bloodless tumults (Thoughts, p. 255). 48

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No classical thinker had ever gone so far. Indeed, according to a passage from Cicero often cited in the fifteenth century,51 nothing good could come from fear (not even fear of the law), for by precluding rational choice, it opened the door to vice just like any other disorder of the soul. There are two [passions] proceeding from an idea of good, one of which is exuberant pleasure, that is to say, joy excited beyond measure by the idea of some great present good; the second is the intemperate longing for a supposed great good, and this longing is disobedient to reason, and may be rightly termed desire or lust. Therefore these two classes, exuberant pleasure and lust springing from the idea of good, disturb the soul just as the two remaining, fear and distress, cause disturbances by the idea of evil. For fear is the idea of a serious threatening evil and distress is the idea of a serious present evil of such sort that it seems a due reason for anguish; now that means that the man who feels the pain believes that he ought to feel pain. We must, however, with all our might and main resist these disturbances which folly looses and launches like a kind of evil spirit upon the life of mankind, if we wish to pass our allotted span in peace and quiet. (Tusculanae disputationes III.11.25)

Of course, rejecting fear meant refusing an important instrument of political intervention. From the humanists’ perspective, when faced with moral corruption (like that which afflicted Rome after the discovery of eastern luxury), there was no other option but to appeal to the rationality of the individual, persuading as many people as possible to choose virtue. At most, one might devise very specific measures, as in the case of the sumptuary laws conceived on the model of the Lex Voconia de luxu (169 BCE), the first legislation adopted by the Romans to curb unbridled wealth, which even in its own time had been perceived as a watershed –​distinguishing an era in which there was no need for legislative action to defend traditional mores from a later period in which such provisions had become both indispensable and ineffective.52 Machiavelli tries to counteract the corruption of the “matter” with a completely different type of therapy. As the end of the metus hostilis instructed, virtue does not constitute a foundation beyond which there is nothing; on the contrary, leges and mores are tightly interconnected, as Machiavelli writes in Disc. I.18, while discussing the metus punicus: “for just as good habits need laws to maintain themselves, so laws need good habits so as to be observed.” If the ones hold any influence over the others (as is clearly the case), then this influence works in both directions. And this is why Machiavelli, analyzing the crisis of the Roman republic, does not merely retrace the paths by which morality became a political problem (after the transformation of the “matter”), but, exploiting Bellum Iugurthinum’s suggestion, moves in the opposite direction as well (before the crisis of the mos maiorum), to find the origins of the decadence in a major political event like Carthage’s fall. And this is good news, 51 Palmieri, Vita civile II.94–​97; Patrizi, De regno IV.8. 52 Platina, De optimo, p. 225. Machiavelli, conversely, does not believe in the efficacy of sumptuary laws (Disc. I.18).

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because it means that, if fear and absence of fear influence public behaviors, further space opens up for intervention. The insightful pages Machiavelli spends on the importance of customs have frequently overshadowed the other side of his reasoning, which is precisely what separates him from previous thinkers. Skinner, for example, wrote that in modern political theory there would be fundamentally two different approaches to the question of the relationship between the virtue of citizens and the health of the State: one stresses that government is effective whenever its institutions are strong, and corrupt whenever its machinery fails to function adequately. (The greatest exponent of this outlook is Hume.) The other approach suggests by contrast that if the men who control the institutions are corrupt, the best possible institutions cannot be expected to shape or constrain, whereas if the men are virtuous the health of the institutions will be a matter of secondary importance.53

For Skinner, Machiavelli is (along with Montesquieu) the main representative of this second line of thought. However, as the passage from Disc. I.18 cited earlier clearly shows, the Discourses actually emphasize the “interdependence”54 of laws and mores. And, as Claude Lefort has perceptively written, “there are not on the one side good institutions and on the other good citizens. The two terms are always taken simultaneously in a history.”55 Although the Discourses often reiterate that corruption constitutes the main obstacle for those who intend to arrest the process of decline through standard legislative means, the “health of the institutions” cannot in any way be considered “a matter of secondary importance” (as Skinner writes). When virtue begins to waver, men have no other way of reversing the process except by threat. Machiavelli held no illusions regarding the viability of this solution, once bad habits had spread throughout the political body; and yet, the Discourses offer no other solutions. Naturally, this logic concerns not only states that are already on the road to decadence. If the Discourses do not take advantage of the many opportunities provided by Livy to discuss the Roman system of education, this is because Machiavelli doubts that a course of study can truly arm the rational self with all the tools it needs to check the “appetites”:  or at least he suggests that a wise politician should not depend too heavily on this rational self. Simply put, “good laws” (as a form of external discipline) always constitute a safer remedy than education (as a form of internal discipline). Indeed, since man’s desires 53 Q. Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, 2 vols. (Cambridge University Press, 1978), I, pp. 44–​45. 54 A. Lintott, The Constitution of the Roman Republic (Clarendon, 1999), p. 241. 55 C. Lefort, Machiavelli in the Making (Northwestern University Press, 2012), p. 262. See also J.-​J. Marchand, ‘Les institutions (ordini), les lois et les moeurs (costumi) chez Machiavel,’ in A.  Fontana, J.-​L. Fournel, X. Tabet, and J.-​C. Zancarini (eds.), Langues et écritures de la République et de la guerre (Name, 2004), pp. 259–​74.

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tend to grow until someone or something opposes them, surveillance must preferably come “from the outside”  –​an “outside” that coincides with the space of political intervention. “To presuppose that all men are evil,” as Machiavelli invites us to do in Disc. I.3, thus has nothing to do with any “anthropological pessimism,” but rather means that a wise politician will never entrust his projects to others, relying solely on individuals’ willingness and ability to defuse the anti-​social charge of their “appetites” on their own. In short, Machiavelli does not deny that men can rationally control their own desires, nor that there are many individuals for whom the philosophical therapy of the humanities can be effective, but he suggests that one should not place his full trust in them. This is the same logic that led him in Prince 17 to counsel not to “found” oneself on gratitude –​not because people are incapable of being appreciative, but because every power that relies on the will of others is by definition weak (“a wise prince must found himself on that which is his, and not on that which belongs to others”).56 It is in this context that one must read the Discourses’ approval for the metus hostilis. At the same time, however, with respect to the anecdote on Scipio Nasica, Machiavelli clearly does not share the idea that it is possible (or even desirable) to voluntarily abandon the logic of conquest after one had successfully embarked on this road (as we will see in Chapter 5). But the same is true for social conflicts. As Livy notes (III.53), when the consuls Lucius Valerius Potitus and Marcus Horatius Barbatus were sent by the senate to subdue the plebeian secession that followed the expulsion of the decemvirs (449 BCE), this was their reprimand: “almost before you are free yourselves, you are wishing to lord it over your adversaries.” And Machiavelli approves: “While men try not to fear, they begin to make others fear; and they inflict on others the same injuries they shun for themselves: as if it were necessary either to harm or be harmed” (Disc. I.46). The Many Faces of Fear Machiavelli often reiterates that external threats, and even war, frequently make a significant contribution to the internal unity of a State. In Disc. II.19, for example, one reads that Swiss cities “can live in unity within their walls because they have an enemy nearby who would seize the opportunity to seize them if ever they got discord”; shortly thereafter, in a chapter titled “Attacking a divided city in order to capture it thanks to its division is a bad purpose,” he writes that “most of the time the cause of division in republics is idleness and peace; the cause of unity is fear and war” (Disc. II.25).57 One would look in vain for a better definition of metus hostilis. G. Pedullà, ‘L’arte fiorentina dei nodi,’ introduction to Niccolò Machiavelli, Il principe (Donzelli, 2013), pp. v–​cvii: lxxvii–​lxxxix. The Prince’s arguments against mercenaries are a product of the same reasoning. 57 See Niccolò Machiavelli, The Ass V.58–​60, V.94–​96. 56

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While the first of the two passages quoted above forms part of a (thoroughly Sallustian) reflection on the dangers of conquest for States that lack Roman-​ style institutions, the second comments on a passage from Livy (II.44) on the vain efforts of the Veians and Etruscans to “extinguish the Roman name” by exploiting the disputes between patricians and plebeians in 480 BCE. In fact, Machiavelli writes, “had the Veians been wise, the more they saw Rome divided, the more they would have kept war from them and sought to crush them with the arts of peace” (Disc. II.25). Machiavelli’s declaration here refers to a specific event, but this is not the only place in Livy where external threats contribute to Rome’s internal cohesion (see VI.28 and IX.27, for instance). Here, too, is it possible to speak of metus hostilis, even if this phenomenon is somewhat distinct from that described in the Bellum Iugurthinum. Indeed, the moral effects of fear of a powerful enemy, which in Sallust concerns only two limited periods in Roman history  –​the earliest years of the Republic, until the death of Tarquin (509–​495 BCE), and the struggle with Carthage (264–​146 BCE) –​emerge in Livy as a constant feature of Rome’s struggles with its neighboring peoples. As seen in Chapter  2, Livy’s account of the conflicts between patricians and plebeians follows a repetitive scheme:  just when nothing seems capable of cooling flared tempers, the need to confront a common enemy brings the two sides back together, channeling “internal conflicts toward the hostis”58 (although on occasion Livy places more of an accent on the negative effects of peace, which stimulates the tribunes’ crusade against the senators hostile to the plebs’ requests). This phenomenon recurs most frequently in the second and third books (II.39; II.42; II.52; II.54; II.63–​64; III.9; III.16; III.25–​26; III.30), but it reappears through at least the seventh (V.7; V.17; VI.27; VII.12), making it one of the primary threads binding Livy’s narrative.59 As the consuls Marcus Geganius Marcellinus and Gaius Iulius Iullus note, when harmony reigns between Rome’s patricians and plebeians, its enemies –​ aware of their inferiority  –​dare not attack, but when discord between the two orders grows precipitously, it is the coalition of Latins and Etruscans that allows Rome to regain its unity (III.65). The mechanism described by Livy runs like clockwork: the Romans’ successes arouse the envy of the neighboring populations and at the same time stoke the plebs’ desire to participate in government, reigniting their conflict with the patricians; Rome’s adversaries delude themselves into thinking they can take advantage of its internal divisions, and attack; the resulting danger forces patricians and plebeians to reconcile, and

58 N. Matteucci, ‘Machiavelli politologo,’ in N. Matteucci, Alla ricerca dell’ordine politico (il Mulino, 1984), pp. 69–​108: 87. 59 For an exception: Livy VI.3. The importance of the metus hostilis for Livy escaped Wood and Evrigenis, but not Kapust (who, however, cites no examples from the first decade). See also G.B. Miles, Livy (Cornell University Press, 1995), pp. 77–​78.

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opens up the possibility of new triumphs. The cycle then repeats itself: the envy of enemies, the plebs’ desire, and so on, each time on a larger scale. Unlike in Sallust, in Livy’s first ten books external threats have consequences that are extremely short-​lived, but influence the political tactics of the two orders far more than their customs. For Livy, metus hostilis describes a limited phenomenon, such that, in comparison to Carthage, one might even speak of a metus minor (minor fear) or metus annualis (yearly fear). But this is not the only meaningful distinction. It is also clear, for instance, that in its insistence on both the dangers of success and the benefits of insecurity, the Livian metus hostilis could just as easily be viewed as a positive (because war encourages harmony) as it could a negative (for, if peace nourishes discord and external threats are immediately replaced by internal tensions, a republic knows no peace). In contrast, Sallust, having observed the Roman republic at the moment of its fall, had almost exclusively emphasized the latter aspect. The gap separating the two historians is even greater, however, for in Livy’s first ten books there is no mention of the Sallustian corruption of the mos maiorum. The potentially pessimistic implications of Livy’s reasoning would instead be drawn out by the very same humanists who, as we have seen, were uncomfortable with the idea that the great Romans’ virtues were the product of fear alone. In fact, in their historical works, Bruni, Bracciolini, and Giovanni Cavalcanti (c. 1381–​1451) often make use of the nexus between peace and discord in order to reprimand Florence. Theirs is a bitter tale: war alone provides a break from factional strife; yet as soon as the external danger disappears, an internal menace immediately arises to take its place. For fifteenth-​century historians, the mechanism described by Livy seems to function only in reverse:  the Florentines’ conquest of Arezzo (1384) and Pisa (1406) and the acquisition of unrivalled supremacy in Tuscany encourages the resumption of domestic in-​fighting;60 the end of the war of the “Eight Saints” (1378) leads to the revolt of the Ciompi;61 the postponement of a military campaign provides fresh fuel for internal rivalries;62 the death of Duke Gian Galeazzo Visconti (1402) and the end of the conflict with Milan ushers in the decline of virtue, and so on.63 As Cavalcanti succinctly notes, “the Florentine always finds peace within, when there is war and toil without.”64 Moreover, when turning from Rome to the present, the beneficial effects of the metus hostilis can only be invoked as a missed opportunity.65 It is not surprising, then, that the same difficulty in reusing Livy’s lesson in a positive light also characterizes Machiavelli’s Florentine Histories. Even though he does 60 Bruni, Historiae IV.26; IV.40. 61 Ibid., IX.1; Poggio Bracciolini, Historia Florentini populi, ed. G.B. Recanato (Hertz, 1715), p. 78. 62 Ibid., p. 122. 63 Giovanni Cavalcanti, Nuova Opera, ed. A. Monti (Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 1989), p. 53. 64 Cavalcanti, Istorie I.10. See also ibid., X.5; IX.27; IX.28; III.17. 65 Bruni, Historiae II.63. Among the humanists, the nexus between fear and concord (but not that between fear and virtue) is in Patrizi, De institutione reipublicae VIII.14.

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not lack for examples of internal divisions warded off by the appearance of an external threat (such as the conflict between the Uzano and the Medici described in Florentine Histories IV.11), for Machiavelli, as well, in the post-​ classical world the connection between peace and discord clearly predominates over that between war and harmony (Florentine Histories I.15). And from this perspective, too, Florence appears to be the anti-​Rome: a sort of photographic negative of the republic to which the Tuscan city absurdly proclaims itself the rightful heir. One final characteristic of Livy’s metus annualis distinguishes it from Sallust’s: in the first ten books, the different orders consciously seek to manipulate external threats to their own advantage. The patricians, in particular, demonstrate a keen awareness of the effects of the metus hostilis when they use military conscription to thwart the tribunes’ claims, knowing full well that citizens, once they had sworn their oath as soldiers, could no longer disobey their consuls’ commands (Machiavelli himself would remark in Disc. I.37 that the Romans “delayed” the agrarian laws “by assembling an army”). Naturally, Livy does not argue that the patricians would have gone to war solely to force the plebs to withdraw their demands.66 In classical thought such an action was considered the stuff of tyrants, similar to the stratagem of deliberately fomenting internal discord to reconcile citizens later on (for an example, see Plato’s Republic 566e–​567a);67 in the first ten books, then, the wars fought by the Romans are always depicted as defensive. At the same time, however, such repetition cannot help but raise the reader’s suspicion that, for the patricians, military conscription was also one of many legitimate techniques to govern the people.68 On one hand, the Discourses share the disconsolate outlook of the Sallustian metus hostilis, seeing in it proof that every republic, no matter how perfect, must one day succumb under the weight of its own triumphs:  “It is impossible for a republic to succeed in remaining peaceful and enjoying its freedom and its little dominion. […] If it did not have an external enemy, it would find one at home, as seems necessarily to happen to all great cities” (Disc. II.19).69 Machiavelli had already expressed this idea just at the beginning of his commentary on Livy, arguing, in reference to a hypothetical State secure from all threats of external conflict, that such idleness would “make it either effeminate or divided; these two things together, or each by itself, would be 66 The idea of weakening Carthage, preventing it from conducting any military action (as stipulated by the peace treaty following the First Punic War), is attributed to the Romans by Hasdrubal (Livy XXX.44). 67 In De regimine principum III.2.15, Giles of Rome does not hesitate in suggesting this stratagem. 68 In Appian Machiavelli read how, after the killing of Tiberius Graccus, the consul Caius Sempronius Tuditatus led an expedition in Illyria in order to avoid applying the reforms already delivered (Civil Wars I.19). 69 On the contrary, for Aristotle larger cities, having a larger middle class, were safer from internecine conflicts. On this point see Chapter 4.

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the cause of its ruin” (Disc. I.6). But he would also subsequently repeat it in the Florentine Histories (V.1) where one reads that “virtue gives birth to quiet, quiet to leisure, leisure to disorder, disorder to ruin; and similarly, from ruin, order is born; from order, virtue; and from virtue, glory and good fortune.” In the long run, history seemed destined to prove Sallust’s pessimism correct.70 On the other hand, however, things could also take a very different turn, at least in the short term. If in fact the threat of external enemies is but an instrumentum regni, it cannot be excluded that one might conceive of other remedies against the degenerative effects of peace and excessive prosperity, even in the absence of war. Polybius, for example, had suggested that the perfection of the Roman constitution depended upon its capacity to function well even in the absence of an outside threat: Whenever the menace of some common danger from abroad compels them to act in concord and support each other, so great does the strength of the State become, that nothing which is required can be neglected. […] When again they are freed from external menace, and reap the harvest of good fortune and affluence which is the result of their success, and in the enjoyment of this prosperity are corrupted by flattery and idleness and wax insolent and overbearing, as indeed happens often enough, it is then especially that we see the State providing itself a remedy for the evil from which it suffers. (Histories VI.18)

Machiavelli’s particular interest in the tribunes should be viewed in this context, all the more so when one considers that in the Discourses the plebs’ representatives are characterized mainly by the fear-​inhibition they induce as public accusers. The contrast with the humanists, who were obsessed with the people’s ingratitude, could hardly be any clearer,71 as Machiavelli’s apologia for Athenian ostracism (as a form of “pre-​emptive” exile) easily shows in Disc. I.28.72 In Machiavelli’s eyes, public trials are so necessary to a republic that it is better to accept some of their excesses than to deprive oneself of such a powerful instrument. Once again it is only the “quality” of the “matter” that determines whether these provisions are destined to help or harm a State: A comparison to Baldassar Castiglione is instructive: The Book of the Courtier, ed. D. Javitch (Norton, 2002), IV.27. 71 For Machiavelli, “well-​ordered republics establish rewards and punishments for their citizens, and never offset one with the other” (Disc. I.24). 72 Some of the humanists had already referred to ostracism to interpret (and defend) modern prohibitions against citizens suspected of conspiracy against the republic, but never in such radical terms as Machiavelli: Alamanno Rinuccini, ‘Dialogus de libertate,’ ed. F. Adorno, Atti e memorie dell’Accademia La Colombaria, 8 (1957), pp. 265–​303:  286; Platina, De optimo p. 193; Patrizi, De institutione reipublicae VI.5; Antonio Galateo, ‘Ad Gelasium, de nobilitate,’ in Antonio Galateo, Epistulae, ed. A. Altamura (Centro di Studi Salentini, 1959), pp. 267–​90: 278. The ostracism was known to Humanists primarily through Cornelius Nepo (Cimon 3)  and Aristotle’s Politics III.7, III.11, V.2, V.7. See G. Pedullà, ‘The Renaissance and Machiavelli,’ in G. Giorgini and D. Pavan (eds.), Companion to the Reception of Athenian Democracy (Brill, forthcoming 2019). 70

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Although these modes (modi) produce great evils in a republic that has fallen into corruption and often lead it rather to tyranny, as happened in Rome when Caesar took by force what ingratitude denied him; nevertheless, they are a source of great benefits in an uncorrupted republic and allow it to live free since men remain better and less ambitious because they fear punishment. (Disc. I.29)

The same Machiavelli who fights against the purgation of the city through the expulsion of the poor thus sets aside all caution when it comes to removing the mighty suspected of plotting against the republic. In the Discourses, however, tribunes and external enemies share more than just their efficacy in spreading fear. Following in the footsteps of Livy (II.9; II.21) and Augustine (De civitate Dei II.18), Machiavelli describes their institution at the time of the first secessio on Sacred Mount as a corrective made necessary by the end of the threat from the Tarquins: After the expulsion of the Tarquins, there seemed to be very great unity in Rome between the plebs and the senate; the nobles seemed to have put aside their arrogance and become popular in spirit and tolerable for anyone, no matter how lowborn. As long as the Tarquins were alive, this deception remained hidden and its cause was not seen, since the nobility acted kindly toward the plebs because they feared the Tarquins and were afraid that the plebs, if ill-​treated, might side with them. But as soon as the Tarquins died and the nobles’ fear had disappeared, they began spitting out all the poison against the plebs that they have kept pent up in their hearts and they injured them every way (modi) they could. This corroborates what I said above: men never do good except out of necessity; but where choice abounds and there is room for licentiousness, suddenly everything is full of turmoil and disorder. That is why it is said that hunger and poverty make men industrious and laws make them good. Wherever something works well by itself without a law, the law is unnecessary; but when such sound habit fails, the law is immediately necessary. So when the Tarquins were gone and fear of them no more checked (tenevano a freno) the nobility, a new institution (ordine) had to be thought up that would make the same effect that the Tarquins made while they were living. (Disc. I.3)

Once the Tarquins disappeared, the tribunes found themselves curbing the aristocrats’ ambition –​a task that, in the earliest years of the Republic, had been performed by the exiled king and his offspring. As a matter of fact, thanks to them Rome became at least somewhat self-​sufficient, adding the check of public trials to that of external threats (subject to the whims of neighboring peoples, and with unpredictable consequences).73 The perfecting of the constitution alluded to in Disc. I.3 thus implies that henceforth such correctives would also come from within (see Table 3.1). A few years later, Machiavelli would put forward the same storyline for Florence as well. So, in describing the disputes of the end of the thirteenth century  –​“while the Ghibellines made them fear, this humor [the nobles’ Regarding dependence on the fear of enemies for stability as a form of weakness, see Evrigenis, Fear, p. 63. 73

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108 TABLE 3.1  Types of metus hostilis SALLUST / AUGUSTINE

LIVY

yes

no

no

yes

no

yes

no

yes

yes

no

yes

yes

MACHIAVELLI

External threats exerted their moralizing effects only for some brief periods (509–495 
and 264–146 
) External threats preserved the mos maiorum from a corruption that began immediately after the end of the monarchical power

Both patricians and plebeians repeatedly exploited external threats in the struggle of the orders Occasionally other hazards produced the same moralizing effects of external threats (tumults, trials, dictatorship, religion)

Note: Although Machiavelli clearly knows and follows Sallust (and Augustine), the version of metus hostilis in the Discourses is closer to Livy’s (except for Livy’s optimism about early Romans’ impenetrability to vices).

refusal to submit to the laws of the Commune] was not discovered; but as soon as they were subdued, its power was revealed. Every day someone of the people was injured” (Florentine Histories II.12) –​Machiavelli is simply interpreting the creation of the Ordinances of Justice (Ordinamenti di giustizia) in 1293 by Giano della Bella through the example of the tribunes. Just like the Tarquins in the Discourses, the intimidating presence of the Ghibellines serves as an effective counter to the “arrogance” of the magnati; and here, too, the absence of an external menace and recrudescence of the aristocratic violence against common citizens make new measures in the defense of liberty necessary. As Bruni had Giano suggest: It seems to me that the liberty of the people consists in two things:  its laws and its courts. Whenever the power of these two things prevails in the city over the power of any individual citizen, then liberty is preserved. But when some people are permitted to scorn the laws and the court with impunity, then one has to conclude that liberty is gone. (Historiae IV.28)

Trials are precious not only because they let the people “vent” its “humors” in “ordinary modes” (as seen in Chapter 2), but because of the positive effects

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of fear on the mighty. For this reason, even in his late Discursus Florentinarum rerum Machiavelli would attack Maso degli Albizzi’s regime (which aristocratic Florentines like Guicciardini viewed as the most exemplary period in the city’s history, from 1382 to 1434), bitterly criticizing it for not having provided an institution comparable to the tribunate to protect the republic from the nobles’ ambitions: “nothing was established to cause fear in great men, so that they would not set up factions, which are the ruin of a government.”74 The victory of Cosimo in 1434 and inauguration of the Medicis’ rule over the city had likewise been a consequence of that void. To Machiavelli, the tribunes and the Ordinances of Justice both appear to constitute a first, effective stand-​in for metus hostilis. The Discourses seem even to suggest that all fears stem from the archetypical fear of the enemy to be confronted with weapons in hand on the battlefield: a sort of originary juxtaposition charged with Lucretian echoes that confirms (as if any such confirmation were still necessary) the profound bond between war and politics in Machiavelli’s thought.75 Nevertheless, the tribunes are but one of several “modes” through which a republic can take advantage of the moralizing effects of fear even in the absence of a foreign threat. Livy himself in fact offers Machiavelli at least one additional suggestion in this vein when he recalls how the wise Numa, having inaugurated a long reign of peace, still found himself faced with the problem of preventing indolence from softening men and rendering them permanently unsuited for war. To avoid such corruption of the spirit, Numa had resolved to replace the fear of enemies, which disappeared once the city adopted a more pacific stance, with an equivalent fear of the gods, which proved to be particularly effective with “a populace which was ignorant and, in those early days, uncivilized” (I.19).

Niccolò Machiavelli, ‘A Discourse on Remodeling the Government of Florence,’ in Niccolò Machiavelli, The Chief Works, ed. A. Gilbert, 2 vols. (Duke University Press, 1989), pp. 101–​ 115:  102. In recent years, many scholars have called attention to the tribunician functions of the Florentine standard-​ bearers (gonfalonieri):  M. Marietti, Machiavelli:  l’eccezione fiorentina (Cadmo, 2005), p. 184; J.M. Najemy, History of Florence (Wiley, 2006), p. 439; J.P. McCormick, ‘Contain the Wealthy and Patrol the Magistrates: Restoring Elite Accountability to Popular Government,’ American Political Science Review, 100 (2006), pp. 147–​63; J.P. McCormick, Machiavellian Democracy (Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 103–​ 07; J.M. Najemy, ‘Machiavelli’s Florentines Tribunes,’ in M. Israëls and L.A. Waldman (eds.), Renaissance Studies in Honor of Joseph Connors, 2 vols. (Officina Libraria, 2013), II, pp. 65–​ 72; J. Barthas, ‘Il pensiero costituzionale di Machiavelli e la funzione tribunizia nella Firenze del Rinascimento,’ in L. Tanzini (ed.) Il laboratorio del Rinascimento (Le Lettere, 2016), pp. 237–​54. 75 For Livy’s special emphasis on fear in battle:  P.J. Walsh, ‘The Literary Techniques of Livy,’ Rheinisches Museum für Philologie, 97 (1953), pp. 97–​114: 114. 74

10

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Just as the tribunes had impeded the patricians from injuring “free life,” religion played an analogous role in Roman history, checking the people and preventing harm from below. It is in this light that one must read Disc. I.13, titled “how the Romans used religion to reorder (riordinare) the city, to pursue their campaigns, and to stop the tumults.”76 In fact, Machiavelli explains, even if the instruments are clearly different –​attacks from neighbors, popular trials, bloodless upheavals and, now, the punishment of God –​the function and the basic mechanism of coercive fear remain unchanged and are perfectly interchangeable in their effects.77 In analogy with metus hostilis, one could even take these phenomena as the different tesserae of an unprecedented theory of metus civilis, in which terror is generated entirely from within –​a theory that inspires some of the most original passages of the Discourses, although it is never fully developed (at least in the explicit terms proposed here). The Empty Throne Many of the building blocks of Machiavelli’s thoughts on fear come from Livy, but the core of his thesis does not, as the Roman historian never praises the tribunes for the trepidation they aroused in the patricians. All the same, Livy’s full awareness of the affinities between the benefits of terror of the gods and terror of enemies demonstrates that the two authors share the same basic premise: for both, fear constitutes a fundamental attribute of political power, one that can take on many different forms but always remains indispensable. Even more than with the tribunes, however, Livy connects dread to those magistracies that retain some monarchical element. This is the case in the opening to the second book, for example. Here, too, Livy writes of regius metus:  but unlike the preceding chapters, he does not allude to the anxiety created by the Tarquins’ efforts to return to Rome but to the terror that the seven legendary kings provoked among Rome’s first inhabitants. It was only because of this terror, he argues, that the exiles and fugitives gathered by Romulus became law-​abiding people. Such a transformation would be inconceivable under a republican constitution, however, precisely because annual magistracies could not instill such an acute sense of fear: What would have happened if that rabble of shepherds and vagrants, having deserted their own people, and under the protection of inviolable sanctuary having possessed themselves of liberty, or at least impunity, had thrown off their fear of kings only to be stirred by the ruffling storms of tribunician demagogues, breeding quarrels with This idea is already in Biondo, ‘Roma triumphans,’ p. 10. 77 Thomas Berns (Violence de la loi, Kimé, 2000, p. 81) rightly underscored the analogy between the “necessity” provoked by the poverty of the site (Disc. I.1), and those tied to the threat of the tribunes (Disc. I.3), and to the arrival of the Gauls (Disc. III.1). Similarly, Evrigenis saw the relationship between the constriction imposed by poverty, by fear of God and by fear of the enemy (Fear, pp. 55–​59). In Machiavelli, however, the principle is even more general. 76

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the senators of a city not their own, before ever the pledges of wife and children and love of their very place and soil (an affection of slow growth) had firmly united their aspirations? The nations would have crumbled away with dissension before it had matured. But it was favored by the mild restraint of the government (tranquilla moderatio imperii), which nursed it up to the point where its ripened powers enabled it to bear good fruit of liberty. (II.1)

In Livy’s words, the king represents the simplest version of the metus civilis. And here too the similarities with the Discourses are anything but superficial, when one considers that Machiavelli attributes to the king the same (positive) effects as religion, writing that “where no fear of God exists, that kingdom either must crumble or it must be sustained by fear of a prince who compensates for the lack of religion” (Disc. I.11). The point is especially important in relation to the role of the princeps (whether a Roman consul, a Venetian doge, or a Spartan king) in the “mixed government.” The best Machiavelli scholars have all insisted on the very particular conception of “civic life” that unfolds in the Discourses, where the most staunch republicanism goes hand in hand with a recognition that only autocratic powers are capable of stopping the citizens’ corruption (Disc. I.9–​10; I.18). Living alongside the irresolute Soderini, Machiavelli had experienced just how ineffective a republican princeps who was unable or unwilling to exploit fear to check the mighty could be. The aristocracy had looked upon the militia suggested by Machiavelli with apprehension, concerned it would be used against the political opponents of the Standard-​bearer of Justice (as Guicciardini recounts in his History of Florence), and among scholars there is a lively debate between those who think that the assumption of Cesare Borgia’s principal collaborator in April 1506, the infamous Don Micheletto, was the prelude to a coup d’état,78 and those who do not.79 Whatever Soderini’s true 78 C. Dionisotti, ‘Machiavelli, Cesare Borgia e don Micheletto,’ in C. Dionisotti, Machiavellerie, pp. 3–​59; S. Bertelli, ‘Petrus Soderinus Pater Patriae,’ Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance, 31 (1969), pp. 93–​114; S. Bertelli, ‘Pier Soderini “Vexillifer Perpetuus Reipublicae Florentinae”,’ in A. Mohlo and J. Tedeschi (eds.), Renaissance Studies in Honor of Hans Baron (Sansoni, 1971), pp. 333–​59; S. Bertelli, ‘Machiavelli and Soderini,’ Renaissance Quarterly, 28 (1975), pp. 1–​16; S. Bertelli, ‘Uno magistrato per a tempo lungho o uno dogie,’ in VV.AA., Studi di storia medievale e moderna per Ernesto Sestan, 2 vols. (Olschki, 1980), II, pp. 451–​94; P. Larivaille, ‘ “Amo la patria mia più dell’anima”: la passione per Firenze nella genesi del “Principe” e dei “Discorsi,” ’ in Marchand (ed.), Niccolò Machiavelli (Salerno, 1996), pp. 97–​120 (especially pp. 112–​ 14); J.  Barthas, ‘Un giardino, due congiure,’ in Atlante I, pp.  102–​ 06; R. Black, Machiavelli (Routledge, 2013), pp. 46–​ 48; R. Black, ‘Machiavelli and the Militia:  New Thoughts,’ Italian Studies, 69 (2014), pp. 41–​50. 79 G. Sasso, ‘Machiavelli, Cesare Borgia, don Micheletto e la questione della milizia,’ in Antichi II, pp. 57–​117; R. Pesman Cooper, ‘Machiavelli, Francesco Soderini, and don Micheletto,’ Nuova Rivista Storica, 66 (1982), pp. 342–​67; R. Pesman Cooper, ‘Machiavelli, Pier Soderini, and “Il principe”,’ in C. Condren and R. Pesman Cooper (eds.), Altro Polo (University of Sidney, 1982), pp. 119–​44; H.C. Butters, Governors and Government in Early Sixteenth Florence (Clarendon, 1985), pp. 108–​13; M. Hörnqvist, ‘ “Perché non si usa allegare i romani.” Machiavelli and the Florentine Militia of 1506,’ Renaissance Quarterly, 55 (2002), pp. 148–​91; J.M. Najemy,

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intentions, that weapon was not unsheathed, and in the end the mighty had taken their revenge by helping the Medici come back to Florence. This is why, in Machiavelli’s eyes, learning the proper lessons from 1512 also means recognizing the absence of institutions that produce fear, all too often characteristic of republics, and finding a remedy for this absence if at all possible.80 Failing to do so would be to admit that there could be no lasting alternative to a seigneurial regime, and that the citizens of free communes are destined to tear each other to shreds until a prince comes along to restore order (just as the humanists hostile to republican rule had repeatedly argued in the fifteenth century). Reconciling liberty and fear is thus one of the primary objectives that Machiavelli assigns to mixed constitutions. Even in Rome, when in 509 BCE the kings had been deposed and the throne left vacant, religion and the tribunes had immediately stepped in to fill the impending vacuum: Fortune was so favorable to Rome that, although it passed from kingly and aristocratic governments to a popular one […], still, authority was never entirely taken away from the kingly magistracy to give authority to the aristocracy, nor was the aristocrats’ authority reduced to give it to the people, but, remaining mixed (mista), Rome established a perfect republic. (Disc. I.2)

Machiavelli’s unusual appreciation of the Roman dictatorship (Disc. I.33–​35) unfolds in this context, and it is all the more significant because fifteenth-​century authors showed so little interest in this emergency magistracy.81 Before the Discourses, the few writers to refer to it were almost always antiquarians,82 from whom it was possible to outline a preliminary idea of the dictator’s prerogatives: (1) The Romans turned to dictatorship as the “last refuge in the highest danger” (Pomponio Leto) to confront the most serious of threats, ‘Machiavelli, the Militia and Guicciardini’s Accusation of Tyranny,’ in J. Barthas (ed.), Della tirannia: Machiavelli con Bartolo (Olschki, 2007), pp. 75–​108; A. Guidi, Un segretario militante (il Mulino, 2009), pp. 294–​320. 80 Nicholas Scott Baker demonstrated the reluctance of the Republican regimes to use capital punishment against adversaries (unlike the Medici): ‘For Reason of State. Political Executions, Republicanism, and the Medici in Florence (1480–​1560),’ Renaissance Quarterly, 62 (2009), pp. 444–​78. 81 On the more general implications of Machiavelli’s interest in dictatorship:  G. Pedullà, ‘Una “tirannide elettiva,” ’ in F. Benigno and L. Scuccimarra (eds.), Governo straordinario e stato di eccezione (Viella, 2007), pp. 7–​51. The issue has recently received increasing attention: A. Moudarres, ‘On the Threshold of Law: Dictatorship and Exception in Machiavelli and Schmitt,’ I Tatti Studies, 18 (2015), pp. 349–​70; M. Geuna, ‘Machiavelli and the Problem of Dictatorship,’ Ratio Juris, 28 (2015), pp. 226–​41; A.M. Ardito, Machiavelli and Modern State (Cambridge University Press, 2015), pp. 149–​ 53; M. Geuna, ‘Extraordinary Accidents in the Life of Republics: Machiavelli and Dictatorial Authority,’ in D. Johnston, N. Urbinati, and C. Vergara (eds.), Machiavelli in Liberty and Conflict (University of Chicago Press, 2017), pp. 280–​306. 82 Lucius Fenestella (Andrea Fiocchi), De magistratibus sacerdotisque Romanorum (Stephanus, 1549), II.8; Biondo, ‘Roma triumphans,’ pp.  56–​ 57; Pomponio Leto, De Romanorum

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against which ordinary magistracies were not sufficient. It was first used to combat the Tarquinian menace, or, according to a different tradition, the alliance of the forty Latin cities, but in either case shortly after the foundation of the Republic. (2) The dictator was nominated by the senate and/​or by the consuls; in the early centuries of the Republic he was chosen exclusively from the patricians. (3) Compared to the consuls, the summa potestas (highest power) of the dictator was marked by the absence of collegiality and the dismissal of the traditional right to appeal to the people (provocatio al populum), which in fact allowed the dictator to make decisions about the life and death of his fellow citizens at will (Livy III.20).83 All ordinary magistracies expired at the moment of his nomination, with the singular exception of the tribunes, who nevertheless lost their veto power. Given the extent of dictatorial powers, the position could only be held for one non-​renewable six-​month term. (4) The dictator named a magister equitum (master of the cavalry) as his collaborator. (5) Only occasionally, however, did the antiquarians tell the story of the institution’s origins (the most widespread hypothesis being that the Romans had imported it from the Falisci). In a single case the decline of the institution was traced to the age of Sulla and Caesar, who were accused of using the dictatorship as a “pretext” for their own ambitions (Lucius Fenestella). In the political treatises of the time, however, the dictator is invoked only fleetingly and with a certain embarrassment, as if the humanists did not know exactly what to make of it. The few who allude to dictatorship employ it in general as an argument in favor of monarchy, essentially merging the two concepts;84 from this perspective, the fact that even under the Republic the Romans had been forced periodically to entrust all the power to a single citizen appeared to confirm the weakness of popular government, which was incapable magistratibus, ed. L. Conforti (Rubettino, 2003), pp. 20–​23; Raffaele Maffei, Commentarii Urbani (Marnio, 1603), p.  1099. Other than Livy, the principal source of information was Roman law:  Digestum 1.2.2.18. On Roman dictatorship and its legacy:  F. Bandel, Die Römischen Diktaturen (Breslau, 1910); G. Meloni (ed.), Dittatura degli antichi e dittatura dei moderni (Editori Riuniti, 1983); F. Hinard (ed.), Dictatures (De Boccard, 1988); F. Saint-​ Bonnet, L’état d’exception (Presses Universitaires de France, 2001); A. Kalyvas, ‘The Tyranny of Dictatorship: When the Greek Tyrant Met the Roman Dictator,’ Political Theory, 35 (2007), pp. 412–​ 42; G.K. Golden, Crisis Management during the Roman Republic (Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 11–​41. 83 Actually, the right of appeal was introduced only in 449 BCE, and in 300 BCE the Lex Valeria established that the provocatio was permitted also against the dictator’s decisions. 84 Even Biondo, to demonstrate the continuity between the pagan and Christian worlds, ties papal power back to Roman dictatorial power: Roma instaurata, ed. A. Raffarin, 2 vols. (Les Belles Lettres, 2005–​12), III.87.

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of maintaining itself without violating its own basic principles.85 Alternatively, for republican authors, ever mindful of the title of dictator perpetuus (perpetual dictator) assumed by Caesar in 44 BCE, after his victory over Pompey, dictatorship offered an opportunity to criticize lifetime magistracies as a preamble to tyranny.86 In both cases, however, there are only occasional references and the same tendency to clarify the apparently contradictory statute of the dictator (as a temporary republican princeps with absolute powers) by likening its office to that of a regular monarch –​that is, by tracing dictatorship back to the closest form of government in the traditional tripartite classification (at the cost of eliding its peculiar role as an emergency magistracy).87 This embarrassment was already evident in Polybius, whose narrative contains brief mentions of dictatorship here and there, but not in his systematic analysis of the Roman constitution in the sixth book because it does not easily fit into the tripartite monarchy-​aristocracy-​democracy scheme (an excellent example of the difficulty encountered when conceptualizing Roman institutions through Greek philosophical categories).88 Machiavelli must have been aware that few of his readers had clear ideas on the subject if, in introducing the issue, he felt obligated to explain the term: “naming a dictator, that is giving one man power to make decisions without consultation and to execute his decisions without any appeal” (Disc. I.33).89 In the Discourses, however, dictatorship plays quite an important role, for at least two reasons: (1) With respect to neighboring peoples, during a war, it allowed Rome to overcome one of the principal flaws of republican government –​that is, indecision (Disc. I.38); and (2) inside the city it instilled a much more acute sense of fear than ordinary institutions.

Piccolomini, ‘De ortu,’ p. 60; Patrizi, De regno I.13; Brandolini, De comparatione III.81; III.92. The same argument is already used by medieval Aristotelians. 86 Patrizi argues against the dictator perpetuus, not against the dictatorship in itself (De institutione reipublicae III.5). 87 One finds the same difficulty in a letter by Leonardo Bruni on the superiority of the dictator over the imperator: Epistulae, ed. L. Mehus, 2 vols. (Paperino, 1741), II, pp. 57–​61. 88 Polybius (Histories III.87) speaks very briefly of the dictator, indicating three differences from the two consuls: (1) the twenty-​four lictors all act upon his orders; (2) he does not need anyone’s cooperation; and (3) all of the other magistrates, with the exception of the tribunes, give up their power in his presence. 89 In the same period Ludovico Ariosto presented dictatorship with these words: “As Rome and other republics would often do in cases of public danger, yielding power to a single dictator who would work to keep them all from harm, so now Alcina was commissioned to consider what force or stratagem was to be used; for she would have each of the others ready to help at her every request” (Cinque canti, eds. A. Sheerts and D. Quint, University of California Press, 1996, I.31). Sasso maintains that there was a “tortured debate” on dictatorship “already in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries” (Machiavelli, p. 529), but texts of the period do not confirm such a claim. 85

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Here the relevant aspect is the second. Since the first public appearance of the dictator, Livy highlights the terror of the Romans, writing that “a great fear came over the plebs and caused it to be more zealous in obeying orders. For there was no recourse in this case, as with the consuls, who shared the powers of their office equally, to the assistance of the man’s colleague, nor was there any appeal nor any help anywhere but in scrupulous obedience” (II.18). But the connection between dictator and terror also recurs frequently in subsequent pages (VI.16; VI.28; VI.38), so that Machiavelli’s interest in the ability of this “royal power” (potestà regia) to moderate men’s behavior is anything but surprising. In the context of the metus civilis, the dictator is asked to provide a unique instrument of correction.90 If the tribunes, with their tumults and their trials, were designed to check the patricians, the dictator could exert an analogous check over the plebs, restoring that very fear of absolute power without which, in the long run, every republic is destined to fall into decadence.91 It is not strange, then, that in Disc. I.18  –​that is, the same chapter that returns to the metus hostilis –​Machiavelli suggests that one can only escape corruption by returning the city “more toward a royal government than toward a popular one, so that those men who cannot be corrected for their unruliness by laws, might be checked (frenati) in some way by a quasi-​royal power.”92 Moreover, the idea that the fear-​inhibition represents a bulwark against degeneration will reappear again in one of the key chapters of the commentary on Livy:  Disc. III.1, in which Machiavelli argues for the need to periodically take the State back “towards its origins,” citing the tribunes (along with the Cleomenes-​like social reformers already mentioned in Disc. I.9 and I.18) as an example: This good rises up in republics through either the virtue of a man or the virtue of an institution (ordine). As for the latter, the institutions (ordini) that drew the Roman republic toward its origins were the tribunes of the people, the censors, and all the other laws against men’s ambition and arrogance. (Disc. III.1)

If through exemplary “actions” (those that are “exceptional and noteworthy”) a State can arrest or even reverse the process of corruption, the key While McCormick has perfectly grasped the importance of fear in Machiavelli’s project, he has neglected the role of the dictator. The presumed contraposition of the monarchical institutions, “repressive,” and republican ones, “expressive” of social humors, proposed by Matteucci (‘Niccolò Machiavelli,’ in Matteucci, Alla ricerca, pp. 31–​67: 53), is proved erroneous by both the dictator and the tribunes. 91 It must be remembered that for Machiavelli the dictatorship is in its turn fruit of the metus hostium (Disc. I.34). The importance of the tribunes and dictator in the Machiavellian “political economy of fear” (and thus in the theory of the metus civilis) escaped Evrigenis. 92 The relationship between the two passages was noted by Harvey Mansfield (Machiavelli’s New Modes and Orders, Cornell University Press, 1979, pp. 114–​15), who underscored how the expression “royal power” is used in Disc. I.2 with regard to the power passed by the king to the consuls in the transition to the Republic. 90

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element is, yet again, “fear.” What is most important thus is that not too much time be allowed to elapse between one intervention and the next: There should not pass by more than ten years between one such action and another: because once this time has passed, men start to alter their customs and break the laws; unless something happens to remind them of punishment and rekindle fear in their hearts, there are soon so many delinquents coming together that they can no longer be punished without danger. Those who ruled the Florentine government from 1434 until 1494 used to say in this regard that it was necessary to take back the state every five years, otherwise it was difficult to keep it. They called “taking back the state” putting the terror and fear in men that had been put in them when taking it, since they had at that time punished those who had done wrong, according to that mode (modo) of living. But because the memory of that beating dies out, men start daring to attempt new things (cose nuove) and to speak ill; therefore, it is necessary to provide for this by taking the state back towards its origins. (Disc. III.1)

Obviously, even without the “prudence” of a Cosimo or Lorenzo,93 States could still benefit from an unforeseen external threat, as in Rome at the time of the Gallic invasion (390 BCE). As further confirmation of the functional equivalency between the metus hostilis and the metus civilis, Machiavelli notes that in similar cases an “external beating” can have the same effect as an intervention from within, even if the former presents a much greater risk: Therefore it can be concluded that there is nothing more necessary in a community, whether it is a sect, a kingdom, or a republic, than to restore to it the reputation that it had at its beginnings and to strive for this result to be produced either by good institutions (ordini) or good men, and not to have it produced by an external force. For although sometimes that is an excellent remedy, as it was in Rome, it is so dangerous that it is in no way to be desired. (Disc. III.1)

With the Gauls (and even more so with Carthage), things could have been much, much worse.94 For this reason, given that “the ambition of the mighty is so great that unless they are struck down in a city through various ways (vie) and modes (modi), it quickly brings the city to its ruin” (Disc. I.37), popular trials, the fear of the gods, and especially bloodless tumults (not to mention the fasces of the dictator) prove themselves to be the safest devices to preserve republican freedom.

The data on the waves of exiles imposed by the Medici in 1434–​5, 1439, 1444, 1458, 1460, 1466–​8, and 1478 corroborate Machiavelli’s count:  A. Brown, ‘Insiders and Outsiders. The Changing Boundaries of Exile,’ in W. Connell (ed.), Society and Individual in Renaissance Florence (University of California Press, 2002), pp. 337–​83. 94 On the ways Rome transformed its own defeats into a stimulus, see M. Engerbeaud, Rome devant la défaite (Les Belles Lettres, 2017). 93

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4 “The Guard of Liberty” The Rejection of Aristotelian Balance

“Surely in all of Roman history, nothing is discussed so much, so often, and given such importance, as the tribunes of the plebs, and their actions.” Antonio Ciccarelli, Discorsi sopra Tito Livio “Against so many people who blame what they do not know, I admire as the most beautiful of institutions this tribunician magistracy, which so many times saved Roman freedom.” Gracchus Babeuf

Checks without Balance The opening chapters of the Discourses unfold along a single, uninterrupted line of reasoning. But it is precisely this fluidity that makes it difficult at times for a modern reader to fully grasp the implications of certain arguments. Such is the case, for example, in Disc. I.5. At the end of Disc. I.4, while provisionally summarizing his thoughts on tumults, Machiavelli had defended bloodless quarrels with the argument that they had led to the birth of the tribunate, “to safeguard Roman freedom” (per guardia della libertà romana). Returning to this idea in the title of the following chapter, Machiavelli poses two new questions: (1) “Whether the guard of liberty (guardia della libertà) is more securely placed in the people or in the mighty”; and (2) “Who have greater cause to make tumults, either those who seek to acquire or those who seek to maintain.” In both cases, Machiavelli takes the side of the people (that is, “those who seek to acquire”), adding another brick to his anti-​aristocratic project. While the significance of this choice has been duly noted, what has gone largely unremarked is the 117

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novelty of Machiavelli’s two questions, even more than his answers. Thankfully, Guicciardini’s Considerations on the “Discourses” (written in 1530), in which he discusses his friend’s (as yet unpublished) commentary on Livy, show that these questions were anything but ordinary. In general, the pro-​aristocrat Guicciardini reveals his disagreement with Machiavelli by proposing various responses (many simply contrarian) to questions whose importance he otherwise fully acknowledges. But this is not the case with his notes on Disc. I.5, where Guicciardini writes, perplexed: “I do not understand the chapter title, what it means to entrust the guard of liberty either to the people or to the mighty.” To fully grasp the meaning of Machiavelli’s argument one must start here. What is it, exactly, that Guicciardini does not understand? The expression that sounds least familiar to modern readers is undoubtedly the “guard of liberty”; there are good reasons to believe, however, that an early sixteenth-​century Florentine would not have much of a problem comprehending what Machiavelli was referring to. That the “free life” needed defending against aristocratic conspiracies, popular insurrections, and tyrannical ambitions was a widely shared concept. After all, had not Florence maintained  –​for nearly 150  years  –​a magistracy called the Otto di Guardia? Moreover, everyone knew just how vulnerable republican institutions could be; if it was true that “freedom is a natural characteristic of our city” (as Guicciardini writes in his Discorso di Logrogno), it was equally undeniable that “it is not just because our ancestors have bequeathed it to us as a fine tradition that we gladly embrace a free way of life; we are ready to defend it, if necessary, with all the means at our disposal, and even to lay down our lives for it.”1 A quick linguistic survey lends further credence to the hypothesis that the expression was common. Indeed, guardia della libertà describes Livy’s definition of the tribunes almost to the letter  –​munimentum libertati, “bulwark of liberty” (III.37), arces libertatis tuendae, “fortress of liberty” (III.45), and praesidia libertatis, “safeguards of liberty” (III.53)  –​but one can easily cite other classical authors2 or uses of the term guardia that confirm the widespread acceptance of the concept in the fifteenth century. In Giovanni Cavalcanti, for example, one reads that Lycurgus reserved “the guard of laws” (la guardia delle leggi)3 for the senate; while in the vulgarization of Bruni’s Laudatio Florentinae urbis by Friar Lazzaro of Padua it is said that the role of “guard of the citizens” (guardia dei cittadini) falls to the magistrates, and that “the office” of the 1 Francesco Guicciardini, ‘How the popular government should be reformed,’ in J. Kraye (ed.) Cambridge Translations of Renaissance Philosophical Texts, II, transl. R.  Price (Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 200–​37: 205. 2 Cicero, De lege agraria II.15: praesidem libertatis custodemque; Sallust, Historiae III.48: telum a maioribus libertati paratum; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Antiquitates (Froben, 1532), VI.42, p. 331: custodes libertatis. See also Antonio de’ Ferrariis’ epistle quoted in Chapter 2. 3 Giovanni Cavalcanti, Trattato politico-​morale, ed. M.T. Grendler (Droz, 1973), p. 136. In his Istorie fiorentine (ed. G. Di Pino, Martello, 1944, I.10) Cavalcanti uses the expression “guard of their liberty” (guardia della loro libertà) in regards to vigilance against external threats.

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captains of the Parte Guelfa (the Florentine political organization instituted between 1267 and 1280 to protect the Guelph faction, and which later became an oligarchic stronghold) “is almost like that of a guard”4 on the model of the Roman censors, the Athenian areopagites, and the Spartan ephors.5 Whatever surprised Guicciardini therefore must have been something else entirely. As in other instances where he departs from Machiavelli, Guicciardini tries above all to show how the institutional framework of the republic was actually much more complex than the Discourses suggest. In particular, having studied law, Guicciardini is always careful not to confuse legal and social categories, refusing for instance to identify the patricians with the wealthy and the plebeians with the poor (as the Discourses habitually do).6 As a result, in this particular case he asserts that the Romans should have avoided the “distinction” of citizens into two separate orders, so as not to introduce into the city unnecessary conflict (Considerations I.4). On the topic of the “guard of liberty,” Guicciardini replies to Machiavelli that in Rome the protection of freedom was not the exclusive responsibility of the tribunes, and praises consuls and dictators for their equally committed defense of the republic. However, his reproach becomes clearer only at the end of the chapter, when his historically grounded objections are joined by arguments of a more theoretical nature, and Guicciardini explains that a partisan guard is in itself incompatible with “mixed government,” since this latter requires a sort of reciprocity among magistracies and that no one of them should have the upper hand over the others (as would occur if either one were invested with such an awesome power): But as for the title of the chapter, I shall always praise a mixed constitution, as described above, more than all others, and in such a government I prefer that the guard of liberty against those who seek to oppress the republic belong to everybody, always avoiding as much as possible the distinction between nobility and plebs. A mixed government is of necessity so balanced (temperato) that one order is the guard against the other in favor of freedom. (Considerations I.5)

The reason for Guicciardini’s initial confusion must thus be sought in what, in his view, is the contradictory attitude of Machiavelli  –​who, after having affirmed the superiority of “mixed government” in Disc. I.2–​3, immediately retracts his own claim by assigning the role of guard to the representatives of the plebs alone.

4 Leonardo Bruni, Panegirico della città di Firenze, ed. G. da Toffol (La Nuova Italia, 1974), p. 85. 5 On early-​modern interpretations of Roman censorship, see J. Parson, ‘The Roman Censors in Renaissance Political Imagination,’ History of Political Thought, 22 (2001), pp. 365–​86. 6 On Guicciardini’s juridical education:  O. Cavallar, Guicciardini giurista (Bocca, 1988); D. Quaglioni, ‘Politica e diritto in Guicciardini,’ in E. Pasquini and P. Prodi (eds.), Bologna nell’età di Carlo V e Guicciardini (il Mulino, 2002), pp. 181–​95; P. Carta, Francesco Guicciardini tra diritto e politica (Cedam, 2008).

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There is cause to believe that such a critique would not have sounded senseless to Machiavelli’s contemporaries. Since antiquity, all supporters of a mixed constitution (mikté, in Greek) had argued that it fostered domestic harmony through the balance of powers. Whether understood in terms of the original blending of oligarchic and democratic elements (Aristotle’s good politía) or the combination of all three simple forms (as in Plato, Polybius, and –​less frequently –​Aristotle), this equilibrium had always been described as its main strong point.7 In his praise of Sparta’s institutions, for example, Plato emphasized how the original monarchy had been saved precisely by the introduction of the other magistracies (Laws 693d). For his part, Aristotle, also speaking of Sparta, noted that “if a constitution is to be preserved, all the sections of the State must wish it to exist and to continue on the same lines” (Politics II.6); and later on, in his description of the just politía, he applauded how, thanks to reciprocal checks and balances, “no section of the State whatever would even wish for another constitution” (Politics IV.7). Polybius’ opinion is no different either. Indeed, Lycurgus united in [the Spartan constitution] all the good and distinctive features of the best governments, so that none of the principles should grow unduly and be perverted into its allied evil, but that, the force of each being neutralized by that of the others, neither of them should prevail and outbalance another but that the constitution should remain for long in a state of equilibrium like a well-​trimmed boat. (Histories VI.10)

The subsequent good fortunes of “mixed government” in western political thought would depend on this relationship between balance and concord, beginning with the musical inflection given to the idea by Cicero in De republica (in a passage handed down to modern-day readers by Augustine): As when the lyres or flutes accompany the voices of singers, a kind of harmony should be maintained out of separate sounds, and the trained ear cannot endure any false note or disagreement, and such harmony, concordant and exact, may be produced by the regulation even of voices most unlike (ex dissimillimarum vocum moderatione), so by combining the highest, lowest and between them the middle class of society, as if there were tones of different pitch, provided that are regulated (moderata) by due proportion, the State may produce a unison by agreement of element quite unlike. The agreement that musicians call harmony in singing is known as concord in the body politic. (De civitate Dei II.21)

7 On the mixed constitution see: K. von Fritz, The Theory of the Mixed Constitution in Antiquity (Columbia University Press, 1954); G.J.D. Aalders, Die Theorie der gemischten Verfassung im Altertum (Hakkert, 1968); W. Nippel, Mischverfassungstheorie und Verfassungsrealität in Antike und früher Neuzeit (Klett, 1980); C. Carsana, La teoria della “costituzione mista” nell’età imperiale romana (New Press, 1990); the special number on the mixed constitution of Filosofia Politica, 19 (2005); M. Gaille-​Nikodimov (ed.) Le gouvernement mixte (Publications de l’Université de Saint-​ Etienne, 2005); D. Taranto, La mikté politeia tra antico e moderno (FrancoAngeli, 2006); D.H. Hahm, ‘The Mixed Constitution in Greek Thought,’ in R.K. Balot (ed.), A Companion to Greek and Roman Political Thought (Wiley, 2009), pp. 178–​98; D. Felice (ed.), Governo misto (Liguori, 2011).

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Remaining faithful to such assessments, Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–​74) would also approve of the mixed constitution, claiming that it prevents internal conflicts by checking the various powers and bringing citizens from the different orders into government (In libros Politicorum II.7.245);8 among the humanists, meanwhile, Pietro Paolo Vergerio (1370–​1444) would point to its ability to reconcile the extremes by combining the best of republican and princely institutions (utroque laudabilium extremorum participat); Lorenzo de’ Monacis (1351–​1428), to the solidity of its political system (super solidiori petra firmatus est); Lauro Quirini, to its virtuous condition as a status medius, “middle State”; and Francesco Patrizi, to its temperamentum (moderation) as a guarantor of stability (quo melior firmiorque esset).9 Even Machiavelli, incidentally, strikes the same tone. In Disc. I.2, “mixed government” possesses the advantage of being “more solid and more stable,” and enjoys exceptional durability and an enviable “peace” (in opposition to the “brevity” and the “arrogance of the mighty and the licentiousness of the people” that characterize democracies such as Athens). In this context, the meaning of Guicciardini’s charge becomes clearer. If the distinctive feature of the mixed constitution is its perfect equilibrium, and if the reciprocal checks and balances indeed represent its primary attraction, why risk all of this by attributing the “guard of liberty” to a single magistracy rather than to all of them? What sense is there, in other words, in a mixed constitution that is weighted toward one of the various magistracies that comprises it? The question is not illogical, particularly in light of the unprecedented importance assigned to the mikté in the Discourses. Not only does Machiavelli open with a paean to this form of government (in itself a novelty), but, unlike his predecessors, he also condemns all those monarchies, aristocracies, and democracies traditionally deemed to be good. So, in his Considerations, Guicciardini does nothing more than turn Machiavelli against himself, recalling how the Discourses had indicated reciprocal restraints as one of the strong points of mixed constitutions (the expression “because one checks (guarda) the other” comes from Disc. I.2). In a certain sense, Guicciardini notes, it is as if, having erected a solid intellectual edifice, Machiavelli himself inexplicably set out to destroy the work he had done thus far by tilting the State toward only one of its extremes.

8 Thomas Aquinas combines the Aristotelian themes of the tempering of the magistrates and of social consent in Summa Theologiae I–​II.105.2. 9 Pier Paolo Vergerio, ‘De republica veneta,’ in D. Robey and J.E. Law (eds.), ‘Venetian Myth and the “De republica veneta” of Pier Paolo Vergerio,’ Rinascimento, 15 (1975), pp. 38–​50: 39; Lorenzo de’ Monacis, Chronicon (Remondini, 1758), pp. 276–​77; Lauro Quirini, ‘De republica,’ eds. C. Seno and G. Ravegnani, in V. Branca et al. (eds.), Lauro Quirini umanista (Olschki, 1977), pp. 123–61: 137; Francesco Patrizi, De institutione reipublicae (Zetner, 1608), I.4 (on Lycurgus). Guicciardini will assert the superiority of the Venetian model with similar arguments: Dialogue on the Government of Florence, ed. A. Brown (Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 103.

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The Considerations are a precious resource because they allow modern scholars to observe the Discourses through the eyes of a contemporary who was both perceptive and skeptical, as Guicciardini’s attacks point always to the most innovative (and philosophically relevant) aspects of Machiavelli’s work. Still, at least in this case, there are good reasons to think that what Guicciardini views as a contradiction is actually part of a deliberate theoretical project, designed to hold on to both “mixed government” and tumults in the face of a tradition that had always presented the former as the finest antidote to the latter. In fact, there is nothing incongruous in Machiavelli’s choice. The “guard of liberty” is simply the conceptual tool that enables him to introduce the binary between rich and poor (or patrician and plebeian) into the mikté as well, and to ensure that his preference for “mixed government” does not become a panegyric on to equilibrium. For this reason, no matter how many terminological antecedents one might find, the “guard of liberty” remains a completely original notion: conceived specifically to break the classical bonds between social mixtio (mixture), institutional contaminatio (combination) of powers, and civic harmony. As a result, in the Discourses the mixed constitution proves to be the best political system for confronting the dangers connected with the inevitable disputes between rich and poor, but it no longer has the task of preventing conflict –​nor could it. If Guicciardini does “not understand the chapter title,” this is because Machiavelli is reshaping conventional categories, and does not simply assume a set position on the conceptual grid furnished by Greek and Roman philosophers. Whereas classical authors had theorized a sort of supra-​model, one outside of the traditional alternatives (government by one, the few, or the many) and thus potentially ecumenical, the Discourses identify the mixed constitutions as a family of republics that share common characteristics but nevertheless remain distinct from one another. Polybius had already taken some steps in this direction, showing how there was more than one species within the genus of the mixed constitution. The Discourses draws on him for two of the characteristics that distinguish Rome from Sparta: the process, whether linear or circuitous, that led the two cities to adopt their respective forms of government (Histories VI.10 and Disc. I.2), and their disparate military capabilities (Histories VI.50 and Disc. I.6). The second point will be examined in depth in Chapter 5. For now, however, it is important to underscore how Machiavelli also incorporates domestic policy in his comparison, and discusses an additional issue: the popular nature of Rome’s mixed constitution and the aristocratic nature of its Spartan counterpart. And it is precisely the “guard of liberty” that allows Machiavelli to take a step away from tradition. Machiavelli is so focused on what characterizes the different species of mixed constitutions that in Disc. I.6 he would even forget to cite the ephors, which, according to the Ancients, constituted the democratic magistracy of Sparta

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(“Sparta established a king and a small senate to govern itself”; “Sparta was governed by a king and a restricted senate”). This omission left the Discourses vulnerable to a variety of critiques,10 and some scholars even suggested that Machiavelli might have changed his mind (presumably as a result of a hasty reading of his sources), now placing Sparta among the “aristocratic monarchies.”11 In reality, his silence concerning the ephors signals only that, once the relationship between Sparta, Rome and Venice is assumed (under the common genus of mixed constitutions), Machiavelli zooms in on Lycurgus’ institutions to emphasize the point that truly interests him: that, having assigned the “guard” to the senate, Sparta was a “mixed government” tilted toward the nobility. This idea was so original that Guicciardini was not the only one to find himself at a loss over the apparent self-​contradiction of such an unbalanced mixed constitution. His hesitation, however, is but further proof of the novelty of Machiavelli’s thought. Roughly a century later, and completely independent of the Considerations (which remained unpublished until 1859), James Harrington would pose a similar question: Which doubt of his ariseth through the want of explaining his term, for the “guard of liberty” can signify nothing else but the result of the commonwealth; so that, to say that the guard of liberty may be committed unto the nobility is to say that the result may be committed to the senate, in which case the people signify nothing.12

Unfortunately, the extreme creativity with which Machiavelli reshaped the idea of “mixed government,” liberating it from its promise of balance, has not received the attention it deserves in more recent decades either. On the contrary, today the category of balance is most often used to describe the Discourses’ political project by scholars largely associated with the Cambridge School. Pocock, for instance, cites Rome, Sparta, and Venice as examples of a “balanced constitution”;13 Skinner, meanwhile, repeatedly refers to the perfect equilibrium of Roman “mixed government” (“a tensely-​balanced equilibrium which ensured that neither party was able to oppress or ignore the interests of the other”;14 “a tensely-​balanced equilibrium between these opposed social forces”;15 “a tense equilibrium”);16 and in the same vein, Viroli does not hesitate to speak of the “perfectly institutional balance” (a synonym for “moderate constitution”)17 achieved in Rome after the introduction of the tribunate. 10 H.C. Mansfield, Machiavelli’s New Modes and Orders (Cornell University Press, 1979), p. 48. 11 G. Sasso, ‘Machiavelli e Polibio,’ in Antichi I, pp.  67–​118:  110–​11. See also G. Inglese, Per Machiavelli (Carocci, 2006), pp. 120–​1. 12 James Harrington, The Commonwealth of Oceana, ed. J.G.A. Pocock (Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 170. 13 J.G.A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment (Princeton University Press, 1975), p. 19. 14 Q. Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, 2 vols. (Cambridge University Press, 1978), I, p. 181. 15 Q. Skinner, Machiavelli (Oxford University Press, 1981), p. 61. 16 Q. Skinner, ‘Republican Virtues in an Age of Princes,’ in Visions II, pp. 118–​59: 157. 17 M. Viroli, From Politics to Reason of State (Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 172.

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A closer examination of Machiavelli’s text, however, reveals that the Discourses never speaks of the Roman constitution (or other “mixed governments”) in such terms, and that here too the scholars of the Cambridge School prefer to gloss over those traits that make Machiavelli an atypical thinker within the tradition of republican thought. For example, not only does the term equilibrio (or similar) fail to appear even once in the Discourses, but the word bilanciamento is never used to refer to the “checks and balances” of modern constitutions. Only in Disc. I.6 can one find the verb “to balance” (bilanciare), but here it describes a merely hypothetical State outside of the flux of history:  “If the thing could be held balanced … but since all human things are in motion and cannot remain stable”; “Since one cannot, as I believe, balance this thing…”. Quite simply, the Discourses’ constitutional engineering is not that of The Spirit of the Laws (even if Montesquieu would in fact take a great deal from Machiavelli). The Roman magistracies of the Discourses do not stabilize each other: if anything, they test each other. It is in part for this reason that the verb Machiavelli uses most frequently to describe relations between the various branches of government is “to check” (frenare, tenere in freno, guardare). And “checking,” here, is described as an ongoing process that does not call for any single balancing point, nor eliminate the tendency of different social groups (and the institutions that represent them) to overwhelm one another.18 Among the many effects of such mutual testing, nothing, obviously, precludes the possibility of a temporary balance; still, Machiavelli never mentions this balance because he prefers to place the accent on the dynamic process rather than on the final result (the potential equilibrium). And this silence itself reflects a significant choice.19 To put it more succinctly, one might say that in Machiavelli there are checks but no balance: conflict is always omnipresent. That Guicciardini might fail to understand such a position is not surprising, then, given the persistence and pervasiveness of the idea that in mixed constitutions balance and concord are one and the same. Indeed, it is all the more worthy of note how, in the same period, another of Machiavelli’s closest interlocutors did understand and appreciate the insight contained in the Discourses. In his Repubblica fiorentina, written just after the Medici’s definitive return to his city (1530), Donato Giannotti Machiavelli “accepts the mixed regime as desirable, but he does so neither on Aristotelian nor on Polybian terms, but rather on his own terms, i.e. in the terms of the theory of humors”: A.J. Parel, The Machiavellian Cosmos (Princeton University Press, 1992), p. 109. See also G. Sfez, Machiavel, la politique du moindre mal (Presses Universitaires de France, 1999), pp. 210–​11. 19 In Medieval and Renaissance culture, while “Aristotle projected, in the end, a reassuring sense of balance” (J. Kaye, A History of Balance, 1250–​1375, Cambridge University Press, 2014, p. 181), in the physicians’ works and especially in Galen’s, health was described as “an ever-​ shifting” equilibrium (ibid., p. 144). Thus, on this point too Machiavelli appears to be closer to the medical tradition. 18

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(1492–​1573) reformulated Machiavelli’s thesis on the “guard of liberty” in the following terms: I say, then, that this mixture (mistione) can be accomplished in two ways (modi): one, when the three species of republic described above are each tempered (temperate) in such a manner (modo) that one possesses the same strength as the other; the other is when the three species of republic are tempered in such a manner (modo) that one of them exerts greater overall power than each one does for itself, as if a physician composed a medicine so that one simple cure had greater strength than each element separately.20

Following Machiavelli,21 Giannotti opts for the second solution, although he immediately clarifies that “when I  say that the republic must tilt toward one side, I do not say that that side has all the authority and the other must be excluded from administration, but that it is less dependent and the other much more so.”22 Otherwise, obviously, it would no longer be a mixed constitution. There is thus no contradiction between the “mixed government” and the “guard of liberty” (whether popular or aristocratic). Having established this, Giannotti radicalizes Machiavelli’s argument in Disc. I.5, and suggests that Rome paid with centuries of internal strife for not having conceded greater power to the people.23 What Giannotti refuses to accept, however, is the positive value of tumults: If, after the expulsion of the Tarquins, the republic were established (ordinata), so that the senate were dependent on the people and not the people on the senate, it would have been the most peaceful republic and would have lived on longer than it did, because it would not have given birth to those disputes that occurred between them. Because the people never starts a tumult, if it is not incited with some deceit or offended by others. […] There are some who say that it was impossible for Rome to grow without tumults and popular dissent. This judgment is true, presupposing Rome was run in the way (modo) it was, because if the people did not make themselves heard when offended, the republic would have become a tyranny, if not in the hands of one then in the hands of more than one. But I say that it was possible for Rome to grow more than it did, without any popular dissent. This would have taken place if the republic had tilted (inclinato) toward the people and not toward the senate.24

Donato Giannotti, La repubblica de’ fiorentini, ed. G. Silvano (Droz, 1990), III.3, pp. 155–​56. 21 Specifically on the relationship between the two authors:  R. Starn, ‘  “Ante Machiavelli”: Machiavelli and Giannotti,’ in M.P. Gilmore (ed.), Studies on Machiavelli (Sansoni, 1972), pp. 287–​93; G. Procacci, Machiavelli nella cultura europea dell’età moderna (Laterza, 1995), pp. 13–​14; S. Anglo, Machiavelli: The First Century (Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 25 (with a surprising underestimation of Giannotti’s debt toward Machiavelli). 22 Giannotti, Repubblica, pp. 157–​58. 23 Noteworthy here is the typically Machiavellian argument that “the mighty want to rule,” while “the people, wanting to live freely, wishes to maintain and not destroy the common good” (ibid., p. 161). 24 Ibid., pp. 164–​65. Pocock rightly noted that Giannotti is uninterested in the tribunes because he does not judge the tumults positively (Machiavellian Moment, p. 308). 20

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La repubblica de’ fiorentini cannot possibly be any further from the Considerations, where the refusal to make any legal distinction among the citizenry heralds a defense of the aristocrats’ pretensions to make all important decisions (albeit naturally, as Guicciardini assures us, in the interests of the entire community). And yet, upon closer examination, Machiavelli’s two friends share at least one trait in common. Both men advance the idea of an alternative vision of Roman history, in which a perfectly balanced constitution (Guicciardini) or a government deliberately more tilted in favor of the people (Giannotti) would have resolved internal conflicts once and for all. And such an unexpected convergence easily demonstrates how, of all the revolutionary ideas contained in the Discourses, it is precisely the defense of tumults that was by far the most difficult to accept. Two or Three? The second question posed by Disc. I.5 is just as original as the first. On the surface, asking “who have greater cause to make tumults, either those who seek to acquire or those who seek to maintain” –​that is, either the people or the mighty  –​would not seem all that unprecedented. A  time-​honored tradition, rooted in the Latin and Greek authors, assigned specific moral and psychological qualities to both the aristocrats and the ordinary citizens (Sallust, for example, was famous as one of the most indefatigable critics of the so-​ called potentia paucorum, “the mighty”). While we normally see the people associated with defects like volatility, naiveté, and unpreparedness, the nobility is commonly characterized by unrestrained ambition and a refusal to obey the laws (in Historiae III.76, Bruni writes for example that pride and ambition are its habitual evils). In this context, tumults are often portrayed as the result of the difficult interaction between these two very different temperaments: indeed, as humanists of all political shades unceasingly argued, while the people is fundamentally innocuous so long as no one provokes it, it becomes extremely dangerous as soon as the aristocrats, like so many sorcerer’s apprentices, enlist it to fight their battles, thus awakening a strength capable of endangering the very existence of the republic. Based upon these traditional views, weighing the pros and cons, it would not seem difficult to choose one or the other. Yet this is precisely the step that fifteenth-​century authors hesitate to make. What is missing before Machiavelli is not a description (even a very detailed one) of different social groupings, with their strengths and weaknesses, but a clear alternative like the one laid out in Disc. I.5. A look at the humanists’ philosophical models, however, explains their reluctance. To put it simply, from the time that Aristotle’s work spread throughout the west at the end of the thirteenth century, European political thinkers had learned that such a question made no sense, since one of the Politics’ first teachings was that both sides were equally dangerous. While the

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rich were less suited for associative life because of their overabundance of material wealth, connections, and power, for the poor it was their lack of means that made full political participation impossible. In the opinion of Aristotle, in fact, the essential trait of free governments is the alternation of office, thanks to which the citizens “rule and are ruled in turn” (Politics VI.2), giving orders and obeying them depending on the circumstances. The excessively rich and the excessively poor (characterized by a tendency toward pathological activity or passivity, respectively) know how to do only one or the other of these things –​ and this makes them useless, if not outright dangerous, to the State. By process of elimination, thus, the only trustworthy people in a republic are those who live between these two extremes –​the medii or mediani or mediocres (in the language of fifteenth-​century Latin translations): In all States there exist three divisions of the State, the very rich, the very poor, and thirdly those who are between the two (inter hos medii). Once it is admitted that what is moderate or in the middle is best (mediocritatem et medium esse optimum), it is manifest that the middle amount of all of the good things of fortune is the best amount to possess. For this degree of wealth is the readiest to obey reason, whereas for a person who is exceedingly beautiful or strong or nobly born or rich, or the opposite –​exceedingly poor or weak or of very mean station  –​it is difficult to follow the bidding of reason. […] Thus, both these tendencies are harmful (utraque damnosa) to States. Moreover, those who have an excess of fortune’s goods, strength, wealth, friends and the like, are not willing to be ruled and do not know how to be, […] while those who are excessively in need of these things are too humble. Hence the latter do not know how to rule but only how to be ruled in a servile way, while the former do not tolerate to be ruled, and only want to rule despotically. The result is a State consisting of slaves and masters, not of free men. (Politics IV.9)

Aristotle speaks of three homogenous groups of citizens distinguished by common psychological traits that are based primarily, but not only, on the material goods in their possession. The reference to differences in strength and beauty is illuminating because it shows how the Greek philosopher thinks less in terms of social classes than of groups of individuals who share the same condition of superiority or inferiority (that is classes in a purely mathematical sense, at best). But while politics is powerless in regard to the beauty or physical strength of citizens, it can affect their economic conditions, attempting to broaden the segment of the population interested in preserving the status quo. For Aristotle, the ideal city would in fact be composed entirely of mediocres –​ anchored firmly to those in the middle and, as a result, immune to internal conflicts: The ideal of a State is to consist as much as possible of persons that are equal and alike, and this similarity is most found in the middle classes. […] They do not themselves covet other men’s goods as do the poor, nor do the other classes covet their substance as the poor covet that of the rich; and because they are neither plotted against nor plotting, they live free from danger. Because of this it was a good prayer of Phocylides: “In many things

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the middle have the best (Mediocribus optima multa); be mine a middle station.” It is clear therefore also that the political community administered by the middle class is the best, and that it is possible for those States to be well governed that are the kind in which the middle class is numerous, and preferably stronger than both the other two classes, or at all events than one of them, for by throwing in its weight it sways the balance and prevents the opposite extremes from coming into existence. Hence it is the greatest good fortune if the men that have political power possess a moderate and sufficient substance, since where some own a very great deal of property and others none there comes about either an extreme democracy or an unmixed oligarchy (vel plebs infima insurgit, vel paucorum potentia illa extrema), or a tyranny may result from both of the two extremes (propter utrunque excessum) […]. That the middle form (media) of constitution is the best is evident; for it alone is free from faction (sola seditionibus caret) […]. And the great States are more free from factions (minus seditionibus subiacent) for the same reason, because the middle class (mediocrium hominum multitudo) is numerous, whereas in the small States it is easy to divide the whole people in two parties leaving nothing in between (ut nihil in medium relinquatur), and also almost everybody is needy or wealthy. (Politics IV.9)

Relying on a center that should hopefully cover entirely or almost entirely the civic body, Aristotle sketches a city-​State in which concord is ensured by immobility while, conversely, every movement seems to coincide with crisis –​ an idea that inevitably brings to mind his physical theory of natural places, where motion is defined in terms of stillness, as its absence. In such a framework, social composition and form of government are also destined to correspond. Aristotle’s preference for the politía over the “unilateral” forms of oligarchy and democracy is the inevitable corollary of his attitude toward the (excessively) rich and the (excessively) poor. If entrusting the governance of the city-​State to temperate individuals is a different solution from combining monarchical, aristocratic, and democratic elements together, the goal of “middle-​ness” and “mixture” nevertheless remain the same: providing balance (and concord). The Politics further makes it clear that institutions alone are insufficient to guarantee stability, and that the “mixed government” (which for Aristotle is essentially a combination of oligarchic and democratic elements) would find it hard to survive for long without the proper social base.25 Several passages from the Politics suggest in fact that the equilibrium obtained through the hegemony of the mediocres would be even more stable than that produced in the mikté through the reciprocal tempering of simple constitutional forms.26 “Aristotle hardly seems to view them separately or to regard one as prior to the other; they are simply inseparable” (T.A. Sinclair, A History of Greek Political Thought, World Publishing, 1968, p. 226). See also E. Baker, The Political Thought of Plato and Aristotle (Dover, 1959), p. 480. 26 J.M. Blythe, Ideal Government and the Mixed Constitution (Princeton University Press, 1992), pp. 24, 57–​58. Blythe’s book has been the source of much confusion because he employs the term mixed constitution for too large a variety of phenomena (i.e. the sovereign’s delegation of some of his duties to selected officials). This choice obscures the novelty of Machiavelli’s decision to open the Discourses with a reference to “mixed government.” 25

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There is obviously nothing impartial about the Aristotelian turn away from the binary model.27 As Domenico Musti has clearly shown, the theory of the middle class was created in response to the crisis of fifth-​century Athenian democracy, when the institutions of the polis had fallen victim to repeated clashes between oligarchic and popular parties. Interpreting the political field as a three-​player game, and thus betting on the center as the fulcrum upon which the system could find balance, meant offering a completely different reading of events from that put forward by the historians, Thucydides in particular, who had told the history of Athens as a frontal clash between two warring factions. And Aristotle must have viewed learning to think of the political community in terms of a tripartite and not binary scheme as the first step toward ending such conflicts (along the lines of the evolution in Athenian society that actually took place during the fourth century BCE).28 Keeping this in mind, it is not hard to understand why the idea that the mediocres represented one of the primary bulwarks against internal conflict was so widely adopted by fourteenth-​and fifteenth-​century thinkers, along with its critique of the extremes of wealth and poverty.29 Simply put, from the end of the thirteenth century onward Politics offered the intellectual instruments to legitimize not only the exclusion of the recalcitrant members of the feudal aristocracy (the so-​called magnati) from the ruling ranks of the communes, but also the barring of precise social categories, often described with special care in the city’s statutes: generally, the poor, as well as the farmers, recent immigrants, and some types of laborers and artisans, including all the workers and employers in the mechanical arts.30 Although Thomas Aquinas did not directly address this point, the Aristotelian thesis resurfaces in De regimine principum (III.2.33) by Giles of Rome (1243/​7–​1316), while in the same years the great jurist Bartolus of Sassoferrato (1314–​57), noting the large number of citizens of moderate means who lived there, used it to explain Venice’s proverbial concord.31 From Coluccio Salutati (1331–​1406) to Leonardo Bruni, Lauro Quirini to Girolamo Savonarola, fifteenth-​century writers had continued down this 27 For the “middleness” as a typical oligarchic argument against democracy, see E. Caire, Penser l’oligarchie à Athenes aux Ve et IVe siècle (Les Belles Lettres, 2016), pp. 321–​50. 28 D. Musti, Demokratía (Laterza, 1995), pp. 191–​94. For the evolution in the fourth century: M.A. Hansen, The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes (University of Oklahoma Press, 1999). 29 N. Rubinstein, ‘Le dottrine politiche del Rinascimento,’ in Studies I, pp. 201–​49: 245–​48. On the tripartite division of society in medieval historiography before the rediscovery of Aristotle: G. Constable, ‘Was there a Medieval Middle Class? Mediocres (mediani, medii) in the Middle Ages,’ in G. Constable, Three studies in Medieval Religious and Social Thought (Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 342–​59. 30 E.I. Mineo, ‘States, Orders, and Social Distinction,’ in A. Gamberini and I. Lazzarini (eds.), The Italian Renaissance State (Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 323–​44; E.I. Mineo, ‘Preminenza e distinzione in Italia tra XIV e XV secolo. Alcuni problemi,’ in J.-​P. Genet and E.I. Mineo (eds.), Marquer la prééminence sociale, École française de Rome (2014), pp. 195–​214. 31 F.C. Lane, Venice, A Maritime Republic (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), p. 114.

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path,32 even though compared to Politics they demonstrated a tendency to blur the economic facts and reinterpret middle-​ness as an exclusively moral quality: the ability to pursue a virtue identified, in Aristotelian terms, with the “golden mean” (aurea mediocritas). This shift appears to have been given a decisive push by Roman authors; Cicero, for example, had avoided mentioning differences in wealth, warning only that “the private individual ought […] to live on fair and equal terms with his fellow-​citizens, with a spirit neither servile and groveling nor yet domineering” (De officiis I.34.124).33 The humanistic image of the good citizen as one who neither flaunts offices and honors, nor shirks one’s duty when the fatherland calls, clearly contains echoes of this re-​ interpretation, in which the mediocres are replaced by the moderates (men not from the extremes yet devoid of social connotations). Rather than list all the fifteenth-​century works that applaud the wisdom of the middle class, it will suffice here to recall the parody of the Momus, where Leon Battista Alberti (1404–​72) tells the story of the dispute that arises among the gods concerning Jupiter’s plan to recreate the universe and transforms the medium quoddam genus (intermediate group) into a gathering of opportunists, who expect to learn the result of the debate before declaring themselves in favor of the winner: In the middle was the third faction of gods who thought it a serious and dangerous undertaking to head an ignoble and fickle crowd, and also refused to obey someone who was not in public life. They said that they would serenely await the outcome of the fight, and intended to jump safely and at the appropriate moment onto whichever side seemed likely to win.34

It is worth spending a few more words on Francesco Patrizi. As seen in Chapter 1, the Sienese humanist stood out for his creative use of Aristotelian categories, and indeed the pages he devotes to the mediocres offer an excellent opportunity to verify this assertion. The De institutione reipublicae introduces them almost immediately, in a chapter titled, “How many are the forms of States and what is the aim of each of them” (I.4). As a member of the elite of the Monte dei Nove that had long dominated the political scene in Siena (1287–​ 1355), Patrizi unsurprisingly begins by recalling the “ineptitude of the plebs” and criticizing its “cruel dominion,” although he quickly dismisses the possibility of an oligarchic regime (De institutione reipublicae I.4). On the contrary, 32 Leonardo Bruni, ‘Sulla costituzione fiorentina,’ in Leonardo Bruni, Opere, ed. P. Viti (Utet, 1996), pp. 776–​87: 777; Quirini, ‘De republica,’ p. 151; Girolamo Savonarola, Compendium totius philosophiae (Giunta, 1542), pp. 583–​84. According to Witt, Salutati was the first author to connect the peculiar qualities of the mediocres to the defense of republican government: ‘The Rebirth of the Concept of Republican Liberty in Italy,’ in A. Molho and J.A. Tedeschi (eds.), Renaissance Studies in Honor of Hans Baron (Sansoni, 1971), pp. 175–​99 (but in this case I am not sure that it has to do with Aristotelian mediocres). 33 See Palmieri’s translation: Vita civile, ed. G. Belloni (Olschki, 1982), II.190. 34 Leon Battista Alberti, Momus, eds. V. Brown and S. Knight (Harvard University Press, 2003), III.20.

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Patrizi holds that the people must be involved in government, and declares his appreciation for the tribunes as a bulwark against the prevarications of the mighty. At the same time, however, as a good Aristotelian he seeks to achieve the coveted equilibrium primarily by orchestrating the proper social composition and relying on the citizens of the middle class, who “are neither contemptible nor overly emboldened by the power that comes from nobility” (De institutione reipublicae I.4). Up to this point, aside from its unusually favorable treatment of the tribunes, Patrizi’s reasoning is rather conventional: the virtue of middle-​ness, the rationality of the mediocres, the search for balance at the center. The novelty emerges only in the following pages, where Patrizi reveals a growing skepticism concerning the possibility that such an equilibrium based on the mediocres is genuinely achievable. Despite his obvious debt to Aristotle, which should resolve the question once and for all, Patrizi unexpectedly asks himself which of the two extremes would be more trustworthy in case one should be forced to choose. And he remarks: However, if it is necessary that the nobility or the plebs should rule alone (vel sola nobilitas, vel sola plebs), I  believe it is much safer to deal with the nobility than the plebs. Seldom do those who are accustomed to upholding with the honor of their ancestors behave poorly or indecorously. But those who are not of illustrious birth seem to assign less weight to the thing, if occasionally they stray from the right path. Certain virtues are inborn with the most noble, or they fall under the sway of their forebears. We read that the Bruti were inflamed with passion for liberty more than all the others, and I believe that their descendants followed the example of that [Lucius Junius] Brutus who was the avenger of violated freedom and modesty. (De institutione reipublicae I.4)35

For the purposes of this study it matters perhaps less that Patrizi leans toward one solution over the other, than it does that he recognizes the legitimacy of the question that Aristotle had taught the humanists never to raise. It is impossible to say what led Patrizi to make this rather unpredictable move, but his query constitutes an important precedent with respect to Disc. I.5. Certainly, there was no shortage of reasons to be unsatisfied with the solution offered by the Politics. In the first place, it is entirely fair to ask whether Aristotle truly succeeded in eliminating conflicts or whether he only managed to conceal them. The tripartite scheme of representation refers necessarily to a static reality, and so it offers a somewhat abstract image of relations between groups of citizens, defined according to certain economic and/​or psychological elements they had in common, rather than the actual disputes that shake every community. In a real city, at any given moment, there are conflicts taking place between two sides that did not exist before the fight began and evolve over time, depending on the stakes at play (the efficacy of the binary scheme stems precisely from its ability to capture this ever-​changing situation). 35 The same consideration on families returns in Disc. III.46.

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Contrary to Aristotle, to speak of patricians and plebeians, rich and poor, Guelphs and Ghibellines, or magnati and popolani, as the two sides line up in the heat of the battle, means describing a particular state of things without applying any a priori criteria. And it is not even necessary for these groups to constitute stable units, since the political alternatives at stake suffice on their own to cement friendships and hostilities that, in any case, remain reversible (supporters and opponents of a war, proponents and critics of a law, and so on). In light of these considerations it is not difficult to understand why in the vast majority of cases historians  –​including the humanists  –​tend to prefer the binary model. Dividing citizens into three large classes according to their psychological makeup, Aristotle introduces a quantitative criterion (too much, too little, just right) that allows him to look past opposing interests but cannot fully erase the suspicion that a city dominated by the mediocres only appears free from disputes because the tripartite representation captures the different political groups in a stationary pose from either before or after the conflict: the suspicion, that is, that as soon as serious reasons for division resurface, the binary logic will once again seize the upper hand. The Aristotelian theory also has a second weakness. If the mediocres are always on the verge of disintegrating, because polarization can occur at any moment, their precariousness is further accentuated by their lack of pronounced features. To read the descriptions in the Politics, medietas seems devoid of any concrete attributes, almost as if those who occupy the middle were characterized exclusively by what they are not (neither too rich nor too poor, too strong nor too weak, too humble nor too proud). They constitute a numerical majority (or at least so Aristotle hopes), but they remain elusive. Patrizi’s mediocres are equally difficult to identify: If they excel at the virtue of modesty, or shine in the realm of study, or are useful for some honest activities, the medii between the plebs and the nobility concern themselves with the State in the best of ways and govern in a secure fashion. In fact, as Aristotle argues, their middle-​ness pleases almost everyone (mediocritas illa pene omnibus grata est): it is free from the pride and wealth of the mighty and devoid of the cowardice and humility of the plebs. The wealth and power associated with a more noble ancestry can sometimes lead the magistrate to undertake actions harmful to the community and dangerous to the State: and on the other side the abject spirit of the plebs, not bolstered by wealth and the example of its ancestors, weakens the power of the magistracies and lowers the dignity of public offices. Most useful to the State are those mediocres who, between the patricians and the plebeians, behave in a manner acceptable to both (utriisque grati sint), and seem neither to fear nor to follow either with too much favor, but keep themselves equidistant from both, like the careful mariners sailing between Scylla and Charybdis, not to run upon the shoals of one while attempting to avoid the other. (De institutione reipublicae VI.1)

The Aristotelian center, the virtuous middle ground upon which the most fortunate cities are founded, can be identified only through a dual excision. At worst, the medii will be described only in negative terms: as a condition of absence (the

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absence of defects) that is itself a virtue. The risk of abstractness in the tripartite scheme thus does not stem solely from the difficulty in identifying the boundaries where the mediani end and the two extremes begin, but also from the fact that Aristotle says absolutely nothing about this group except for mentioning its propensity to avoid the two extremes. With such premises one might even question its very existence. And what if, in practice, the superiority of the mediocres was found to be a chimera? With the exception of Patrizi, none of the humanists before Machiavelli seem to have asked this question. Patrizi himself, moreover, does not carry his argument to its conclusion –​and, for this reason, rather than underscoring the distance between the two paradigms, his De institutione reipublicae tries to reconcile as much as possible the dynamic and descriptive approach of historiography (what forms do political struggles assume?) with the static and axiological approach of philosophy (which men are best suited to govern?). A few decades later, Machiavelli would have no such doubts and, bolstered by Livy, adopt the binary model, breaking in this way, too, with the Aristotelian tradition so dominant in the universities and among the humanists.36 For contemporary readers it may be hard to understand the polemical charge of this repositioning of political theory from philosophy to history, but this was certainly not the case for the first readers of the Discourses, who would have easily grasped the broader implications of the choice. With his tripartite model and his mediocres Aristotle had indicated a potential path to lead the city out of discord; rejecting them inevitably meant reaffirming that conflicts were unavoidable (for the juxtaposition of the mighty and the people is inscribed from the very beginning in the binary model). After discarding the mixed constitution as an instrument to pacify the city, Machiavelli then dismisses another of the few tools of government upon which fourteenth-​and fifteenth-​century authors had thought they could rely to prevent internal discord, thus foreclosing upon the dreams of pax and tranquillitas held by both Ancients and moderns.37 But, at the same time, opting for the binary paradigm had other

According to Patricia Osmond, Sallust is behind Machiavelli’s binary model (‘Sallust and Machiavelli,’ Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 23 (1993), pp. 407–​38), while in reality binarism is characteristic of all ancient and humanistic historiography. On the Florentine historians’ oscillation between binary and tripartite models:  F. Gilbert, Machiavelli and Guicciardini (Princeton University Press, 1965), pp. 23–​25. John Stephens saw an increasing tendency to use triplet partitioning at the beginning of the 1500s, but his sparse documentation does not show a clear trend (The Fall of the Florentine Republic, Clarendon, 1983, p. 44). 37 Machiavelli’s net preference for the binary model has escaped scholars, largely because of the equivocation generated by his Florentine Histories, where occasionally a tripartite division appears as a result of certain narrative needs without having anything to do with the Aristotelian tripartition (Florentine Histories II.4; II.34; II.40; II.42; IV.9). Moreover, in these pages the same terms refer to different social groups according to the context (that is, the conflicts at hand): the grandi can refer for example both to the magnati and the wealthiest popolani (the so-​called popolo grasso), belonging to the Major Guilds (Arti maggiori); while the members of 36

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Aristotle

Machiavelli

The very poor (inopes, pauperes, abiecti) The people (popolo) The plebeians

The middle class (mediocres, medii, mediani)

The very rich (opulenti, divites, nobiles)

The mighty (grandi) The patricians

Figure 4.1  Tripartite and binary representations of society: Aristotle vs. Machiavelli

consequences. Perhaps the most important effect of Machiavelli’s choice is that in his pages there is no longer any room for the distinction between a good people (the middle class) and a bad plebs (the lowest class), as there have been in the (very elitist) communal tradition since at least the end of the thirteenth century. Simply put, in the Discourses the popolo includes all the citizens that are not grandi, with no exception –​just like in Rome (see Figure 4.1). A Skeptical Populism Machiavelli’s rejection of the stabilizing role of the mediocres and of the traditional mixed constitution are part of the same mindset that privileges contrast as a cognitive tool. Nevertheless, even in the pages of the Discourses there re-​emerges the temptation to avoid neat dichotomies and to fall back on more generic positions (that are also surely more acceptable to readers), such as a paean to the mixed constitution without further qualification. Machiavelli could easily conclude that it is equally dangerous to trust either the people or the mighty; indeed, at times he seems on the verge of doing just that. But this is precisely why it is all the more important that Disc. I.5 refuses to take this step even when Machiavelli recognizes the difficulty of the choice: And if we look at the reasons, there is some to say on every side. [...] And truly, if one were to discuss both these things, one might be doubtful as to which should be chosen by him as guard of such a freedom, not knowing which humor of men is more dangerous in a republic: that which desires to retain the status already acquired or that which desires to acquire what it does not have. [...] Either one appetite or the other can easily cause great tumults.

The idea that on occasion common citizens could be just as responsible as the nobility for the loss of liberty will reappear later on, when (essentially equating their guilt) Machiavelli remarks how “the majority of tyrannies arise the Minor Guilds (Arti minori) can occupy an intermediary space (between the Major Guilds and the plebs) or be placed in the lowest position when the three components mentioned are magnati, popolo grasso, and popolo minuto.

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from the people’s excessive desire to be free and from the nobles’ excessive desire to rule. When they do not agree to make a law in favor of freedom, but one of the factions begins to favor someone, then tyranny quickly arises” (Disc. I.40). The choice is thus anything but simple. All the same Machiavelli avoids the Solomonic conclusion that the patricians and plebeians share equal responsibility, less for his explicitly pro-​popular sympathies than because he realizes that such an answer would merely evade the question. His reshaping of the “mixed government” and simultaneous rejection of the category of mediocres in the Discourses should in fact be considered two building blocks in his polemic against timid solutions that runs throughout Machiavelli’s oeuvre.38 Occupying the middle ground means avoiding the great queries of politics; common sense, pleasing everybody, precludes further thought. The need to always take a side is so central to Machiavelli that it permeates even his prose, with “his dilemmatic technique of invariably putting forward the two extreme and antithetical solutions, disregarding half-​measures and compromise solutions and employing a disjunctive style.”39 In this way the Discourses and The Prince intend to put an end to the search for the golden mean characteristic of fifteenth-​century humanism, to the extent that, if in medio stat virtus is “the Aristotelian formula,” in medio stat corruptio is undoubtedly “its Machiavellian counterpart.”40 It is no less important, however, that once clear choices are made, Machiavelli aligns himself directly on the side of the people and the Roman mixed constitution. It has been noted that the critique of the nobility’s ambitions is a widespread theme in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, particularly in Florence,

See i.e. Disc. I.26–​27, I.30, II.23, III.2, III.21, III.40. The middle way is also criticized in Livy II.27; IX.3. 39 F. Chabod, ‘Machiavelli’s Method and Style,’ in F. Chabod, Machiavelli and the Renaissance (Bowes, 1958), pp. 126–​48: 127–​28. See also J.-​J. Marchand, Niccolò Machiavelli: i primi scritti politici (Antenore, 1975), pp. 116–​17, 210–​11, 231–​33; P. Stacey ‘Definition, Division, and Difference in Machiavelli’s Political Philosophy,’ Journal of the History of Ideas, 75 (2014), pp. 189–​212. For a similar view among Machiavelli’s contemporaries:  F. Gilbert, ‘Florentine Political Assumptions in the Period of Savonarola and Soderini,’ Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 20 (1957), pp. 187–​214:  205; in the same essay, however, Gilbert also demonstrates that one of the most typical suggestions was to take a “middle way” (p. 201). 40 B. Guillemain, ‘Machiavel, lecteur d’Aristote,’ in VV.AA., Platon et Aristote à la Renaissance (Vrin, 1976), pp. 163–​73: 169. For Machiavelli’s refusal of balance: V. De Caprariis, ‘Il problema dell’equilibrio nel pensiero di Machiavelli,’ in V. De Caprariis, Scritti, 2  vols. (P&M, 1986), I, pp. 147–​57; R. Esposito ‘Il posto del re. Metafore spaziali e funzioni politiche nell’idea di “Stato misto” da Savonarola Guicciardini,’ in R. Esposito, Ordine e conflitto (Liguori, 1984), pp. 111–​78: 152. Rubinstein asserts that in the Discursus florentinarum rerum Machiavelli was converted from a binary to a tripartite schema (‘Dottrine,’ p. 246); in reality the category of mezzani (literally “middlemen”) to admit into a Council of Two Hundred here merely indicates a second circle of aristocracy to add to the sixty-​five already governing the republic. Also in this case, therefore, the model remains fundamentally binary. In the fifteenth century the only true critique of the middle way had come from Lorenzo Valla’s De vero falsoque bono. 38

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where a solid anti-​ magnati tradition nourished suspicion of the potentia paucorum. The difficulty in forcing the mighty to obey the law is a frequent lament in vernacular works, where the inability to curb the arrogance of the aristocratic families assumes the status of popular proverb (from Marchionne Stefani41 to Matteo Palmieri),42 while the humanists prefer to recall a classical anecdote on the Persian Artaxerxes’ skepticism about Solon’s attempts to give Athens a constitution more suited to freedom, considering that the mighty will always prevail in the end anyway.43 Machiavelli’s thinking comes out of this context, but it must be remembered that this too is an unprecedented question. As confirmation of the close link between these initial chapters, the response curiously comes even before the query is properly raised. If in The Prince Machiavelli had already argued that in general “the people desire to be neither ruled nor oppressed by the mighty, and the mighty desire both to rule and oppress the people,” so that “the aim of the people is more honest than that of the mighty, since the latter want to oppress and the former want not to be oppressed” (Prince 9), the same verdict in fact returns in the opening to the Discourses, where one reads that “the desires of free people are rarely dangerous to freedom because they arise from either being oppressed or fear of being oppressed” (Disc. I.4). Now, considering the importance that “aims” occupy in Machiavelli’s thought (as seen in Chapter 2), the controversy could be quietly put to rest here. But since the question of the “guard of liberty” prepares the comparison between Rome and Sparta-​Venice in Disc. I.6 (as we will see in Chapter 5), Machiavelli knows he cannot resolve the matter in such haste, and analytically retraces the steps that led him to take a position in favor of the people, with one of those unexpected shifts to the first person that so frequently mark the crucial passages of his work: It is necessary, therefore, to examine which of those republics made a better choice. And if we look at the reasons, there is some to say on every side; but if we consider their outcome (fine), one would take the side of the nobles since the freedom of Sparta and Venice had a longer life than that of Rome. And coming to reasons, taking first the side of the Romans, I say that one should delegate the guard of anything to those who have “It always goes badly for the less powerful: because the big fish and beasts always break the nets”; “As always, the big and mighty animals leap and break the nets”: Marchionne Stefani, ‘Cronaca fiorentina,’ in N. Rodolico (ed.), Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, XXX.1 (Lapi, 1903), pp. 257, 426. See also Matteo Villani, Cronica III.58; Franco Sacchetti, Trecentonovelle, ed. E. Faccioli (Einaudi, 1979), novella xl. 42 “And thus the proverb says: ‘laws are made for the weak’; and a yet older saying was, ‘Laws are men’s bonds, but the giants break them’”: Palmieri, Vita civile IV.188. 43 Pier Paolo Vergerio, ‘De monarchia,’ in Pier Paolo Vergerio, Epistolario, ed. L. Smith (Tipografia del Senato, 1934), pp. 447–​50:  448–​49; Poggio Bracciolini, ‘Utra artium medicinae an iuris civilis present,’ in E. Garin (ed.), La disputa delle arti nel Quattrocento (Poligrafico dello Stato, 1982), pp. 14–​28:  25; Patrizi, De institutione reipublicae I.3; Aurelio Brandolini, De comparatione reipublicae ac regni, ed. J. Hankins (Harvard University Press, 2009), II.50. The image of the giants is in Leonardo Bruni, Historiae, ed. J. Hankins, 3 vols. (Harvard University Press, 2001–​7), IV.30; Cavalcanti, Trattato politico-​morale, pp. 147, 158. 41

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less appetite to usurp it. And without doubt, if one considers the aim (fine) of the nobles and of the commoners, one will see in the former a great desire to dominate and in the latter merely the desire not to be dominated, and consequently a greater will to live free, being less able to hope to usurp it than do the mighty. Thus if the people are delegated the guard of freedom, it is reasonable that they will take better care of it, and, since they are less able to seize it, they do not allow others to seize it. (Disc. I.5)

The use of primarily negative categories is among the more noteworthy aspects of this passage. That the questions raised by Machiavelli are “which men are more dangerous in a republic,” and “which humor is more ambitious” (my emphasis) confirms that, even when the Discourses praise the plebs’ respect for republican institutions, he thinks in terms of the lesser evil. No one is completely innocent. And this means not only that the commitment of the “humors” to the “common good” is always a matter of degree (not a matter of kind), but also that those “humors” are to be judged on a scale measured in vices rather than virtues.44 This initial choice determines the course of Machiavelli’s thinking. Reasoning in negative terms, the guard is in fact assigned to those who are less able “to usurp it.” The people’s preference for preservation (as stated in Disc. I.58) and its relative weakness make it from this perspective an asset and, accordingly, the ideal repository for such a tremendous power (“less appetite” … “since they are less able to seize it” –​my emphasis). Machiavelli could not be further from any Rousseauian rhetoric concerning the uncorrupted virtues of the people. In the Discourses, the plebs’ conflictuality towards the senate is founded on its factional desire to not be oppressed, but this desire proves beneficial to all because, in defending their own interests, the common citizens protect the entire city from the ambitions of the mighty. It is no less important, however, that the guard be put into the hands of the “commoners,” because the multitude is powerful enough to obstruct the subversive projects of the nobility, but not so strong that it might otherwise endanger republican institutions. With this analysis Machiavelli thus outlines a doubly asymmetrical portrait, in which all the aspects considered (the will to do good and the ability to do evil) appear to be in favor of the people. Less dangerous, and driven by more “honest appetites,” the plebeians prove themselves to be decidedly more trustworthy than the patricians. And his careful analysis of the arguments presented by the supporters of the nobility further entrench Machiavelli in this camp. According to the pro-​aristocracy partisans in Disc. I.5 –​ in Chapter 6 we will learn just who they are –​there are essentially two reasons for following the example of Sparta and Venice instead of Rome: (1) By placing “the guard in the hands of the mighty,” it would be possible to avoid giving them cause for disappointment. In other words, since Mansfield misunderstands the meaning of these negative categories and in them finds a weakness (New Modes, p. 45). 44

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the Spartans and Venetians “satisfy their ambition more,” the nobles, “having that stick in their hands, have greater reason to be content.” And, as a result, they remain bound to the republican system. (2) By weakening the people, the Spartans and Venetians would have prevented it from making unreasonable requests; Roman history would in fact demonstrate that men of low extraction are incapable of restraining themselves once their demands are met (“Nor was this enough to them, since, led by the same fury, they later began to adore those men who appeared apt to beat the nobility; from which came the power of Marius and the ruin of Rome”). Machiavelli rebuts each argument point by point. He too begins from the admission that “either one appetite or the other can easily cause great tumults,” but he does not content himself with such a conciliatory response, adding that “nevertheless, they are caused most often by he who possesses.” The first idea subjected to criticism is that a stable, unquestioned hold on power is the best guarantee against any subversive plot. Machiavelli does not believe that the absence of strict necessity and the satisfaction of all primary needs can stop men’s desires. Aristotle had already demonstrated that the desire to maintain or acquire a privilege is just as strong as the urge to put an end to it, and that, in fact, rebellions are raised primarily by those who believe themselves to be harmed by an equality that fails to recognize their supposed superiority (Politics V.2).45 It is not true, then, that those who have not, and who thus seek to “acquire,” fall victim more easily to the siren song of their ambition; to the contrary, those who are driven by a “fear of losing” and those who hope to enjoy goods otherwise denied to them possess exactly the “same desires” (Disc. I.5). Machiavelli then turns to demolish the second argument. If the people and the mighty have the “same desires,” the latter, “since they possess much, can make an alteration with greater power and greater energy,” and are thus more dangerous. Nor can the errors of the nobility be blamed on the people, as apologists for the Spartans and Venetians were wont to do, listing among the tribunes’ evils their tendency to “provoke in the nobility a desperation that with time can have bad effects” (that is, to resort to “extra-​ordinary modes” as a response to the challenge of the people). For Machiavelli, if anything the opposite is true: it is the poor example set by the nobility that leads the people down the wrong path. The passage then concludes with a perfect inversion of the thesis put forward by pro-​aristocratic theorists, also assigning to the mighty full responsibility for the errors of the mass as well: “Still further, their incorrect and ambitious behavior kindles in the hearts of whoever does not possess the will to possess, either to get revenge by dispossessing them, or to For Aristotle, an equivocation over the concept of equality lies behind such an attitude (Politics III.5; III.7). 45

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get for themselves those riches and those offices they see badly used by others” (Disc. I.5).46 One would search in vain among the humanists for a similar defense of the people. However, many of the arguments employed by Machiavelli are not completely new. To cite but a few examples, Cicero maintained that the nobles corrupt the people with their dissolute lifestyle and are thus to blame for its errors (De legibus III.14), while Polybius retraced the transition from democracy to ochlocracy back to the sordid actions of the wealthy (Histories VI.9). And even an author like Patrizi (who, as we have seen, opted for the latter when faced with a clear choice between the plebeians and the aristocrats) had no problem attributing responsibility for popular insurrections to the abuses of the mighty: He who pursues wealth, is hostile to the people, fears the plebs, trusts the foreign soldier over the citizen (whose arms he will confiscate to ruin the multitude by any means), and he pillages one, banishes another, condemns some to death, others to exile, so that, consumed or obliterated by fear, the masses can weave no plots against the aristocracy. Sometimes the desperation caused by such abuses push the less submissive citizens from the people against the mighty, with the result that either they are crushed by the mighty, just as happened in Rome to Tiberius Gracchus on the orders of Scipio Nasica [Serapio],47 or they become tyrants, like Cypselus in Corinth [657 BCE], Pisistratus in Athens [561 BCE], and Dionysius in Syracuse [the Elder, 405 BCE], who imposed their rule thanks to popular favor (favore populi). (De institutione reipublicae VI.5)48

So, the humanists had readily conceded that the nobles are as dangerous to liberty as the people, and that a prudent politician should thus take into account the virtues and vices of both. What renders the Discourses so different, then, is the binary logic in which these judgments are inscribed once the choice between Rome and Sparta-​Venice is made clear. But this is not Machiavelli’s only break with tradition. As we have seen, classical and humanist authors presented plebs and nobilitas as two socio-​political entities endowed with permanent characteristics; the Discourses instead question the idea that there are a uniform people and a uniform nobility, fixed across time and space.49 In Machiavelli’s eyes, the psychology of each group can only be explained contextually, above all because the compliance of the one often depends upon the arrogance of the other (and vice versa), as seen in Chapter 2: Ancient writers had the maxim that men are wont to be distressed in evil and bored with good, and that from both of these two passions the same results arise. For whenever 46 The procedure is quite similar to the one Machiavelli uses to demonstrate that “the people’s misdeeds arise from their princes” (Disc. III.29). 47 Not to be confused with Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica (of the metus hostilis). 48 Patrizi also repeats Plato’s motto according to which the ruling class sins more with its example than with its actions (De institutione reipublicae III.5). 49 The traditional idea that the “ambition” of the “mighty” is always stronger than that of the people is attributed to Machiavelli by Martin Fleisher (‘Passion for Politics,’ in M. Fleisher (ed.), Machiavelli and the Nature of Political Thought, Atheneum, 1972, pp. 114–​47: 126), and Wayne Rebhorn (Foxes and Lions, Cornell University Press, 1988, p. 95).

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men cease fighting out of necessity, they fight out of ambition, which is so powerful in men’s hearts that it never leaves them, at whatever rank they rise to. The cause is that nature has created men such that they can desire everything but cannot attain everything; thus, since desire is always greater than the power to acquire, the result is discontent and dissatisfaction of what men have. From this arises the variability of their fortune; for since some men desire to have more, and some fear to lose what they have acquired, they come to enmities and war, from which arise the ruin of one province and the exaltation of another. I made this discourse because it was not enough for the Roman plebs to secure itself against the nobles by creating the tribunes, to which desire it was constrained by necessity; once they attained that, they immediately began fighting out of ambition and desiring to share public offices and properties, since these are what men most prize. (Disc. I.37)

Once again Machiavelli makes the most of historians’ lessons. Sallust, for example, had outlined a similar concept in the Bellum Iugurthinum (40), recalling that in Rome, at a certain moment, “just as had often happened in the case of the nobles, so the commons had been made insolent by success.” Analogously, Appian had written of how, after the legal reform introduced by the Gracchi admitted the Roman knights to judicial courts, the latter had immediately begun to commit injustices of their own against the senators, after having long been their victims (Civil Wars I.22). And something similar had also occurred in Florence if, as Bruni writes, immediately after the implementation of the Ordinances of Justice “the nobility was filled with such terror at this treatment that they now began to fear the people as much as the people had once feared them” (Historiae IV.34). But Machiavelli’s principal reference point, of course, remains Livy, as we can see in Disc. I.46, titled “Men rise from one ambition to another; first one tries not to be harmed, then he harms others.” Here, recounting the events after the fall of the decemvirs, the theme of the exchange of roles is discussed in a still more systematic fashion: Once the Roman people had regained its freedom and returned to its previous status, and much greater now since many new laws had been made to confirm its power, it seamed reasonable that Rome would calm down for a while. Nevertheless, by experience one may see the opposite, because new tumults and new discords arose there daily. And because Livy very wisely indicates the reason why this happened, it seems only fitting for me to recall his words, where he says that either the people or the nobility always became arrogant whenever the other humbled itself; when the plebs remained quiet within its bounds, the young nobles began to insult it, and the tribunes could provide few remedies, because they too were attacked. The nobility, on the other hand, even though it felt that its young men were too ferocious, nevertheless preferred that, if the bounds (modo) have to be overstepped, its own should overstep and not the plebs. Thus the desire to defend freedom made it so that the more each side prevailed the more it oppressed the other. The order of these accidents is that, while men try not to fear, they begin to make others fear; and they inflict on the others the same injuries they shun for themselves; as if it were necessary either to harm or be harmed. (Disc. I.46)50 50 Machiavelli refers to Livy III.65, but see also Livy II.9; II.21; III.53.

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“Either to harm or be harmed”:  there is no escape. Compared to Prince 9 and Disc. I.4–​5 the asymmetry between the desire of one group “not to be oppressed” and the desire of the other “to oppress,” by virtue of which Machiavelli had been able to proclaim the superiority of the people’s “aims,” has disappeared. Nevertheless, this does not mean by any stretch that Machiavelli had simply changed his mind after some thirty or forty chapters. The asymmetry in Prince 9 and Disc. I.4–​5 describes only a particular stage of political strife (one could even say the most common stage, in which the actions of the people are characterized by lesser strength and smaller “appetites”). Put simply, writing of the exceptional situation generated by the expulsion of the decemvirs, Machiavelli underscores how both “humors,” when put in a position to oppress the adversary, end up acting in the exact same way. As creatures of desire, patricians and plebeians are now joined by virtue of the common physiology of their passions. And since the same individuals who once fought to preserve their own freedom might in different circumstances seek to deprive others of theirs, a wise legislator must devise some instruments to check the people too, when necessary.51 This seems to be one of the most difficult points to accept for scholars interested in Machiavellian conflictualism, who, not surprisingly, prefer to emphasize the more traditional positions contained in Prince 9 and Disc. I.4–​5, where the roles are forever fixed in favor of the people. Unfortunately, these interpretations thus offer an overly reassuring and idealized image of the people (à la Rousseau) that corresponds only in part to that of the Discourses.52 As John Najemy has rightly written, the plebeians “were not always innocent victims,”53 and Machiavelli has no problem admitting it. It could hardly be otherwise. The Hippocratic metaphor adopted by Machiavelli suggests that all the “humors” can become equally dangerous if they expand beyond a certain point. The reversibility of the positions in Disc. I.46 is thus inscribed in the deeper logic of the medical terminology with 51 It is impossible to conclude with McCormick (Machiavellian Democracy, Cambridge University Press, 2011, p.  24), that in Machiavelli the people “exhibit an oppressive appetite only in response to the oppression inflicted upon them.” Elsewhere McCormick rightly adds some adverbs that soften his affirmation:  “primarily” (p.  5); “normally” (p.  89). Mark Jurdjevich has recently claimed that there is an evolution in the Florentine Histories because Machiavelli discovered that “the qualities he had previously exclusively identified with nobles were in fact universal aspects of human nature” and that “nobles and people alike shared an innate satisfaction in dominating others” (A Great and Wretched City, Harvard University Press, 2014, p. 118–​21); in reality the positions are never stable even in the Discourses, as is seen in Disc. I.37 and I.46. Also from this point of view, then, the Florentine Histories are in perfect continuity with Machiavelli’s previous works. 52 It is no coincidence that both McCormick’s and Breaugh’s populist readings do not take into consideration Disc. I.46. 53 J.M. Najemy, ‘Society, Class and State in the “Discourses on Livy”,’ in Companion, pp.  96–​ 111: 107. Claude Lefort’s phrasing is also impeccable: “Machiavelli not only critiques the thesis of the conservatives; he establishes his own on premises that are incompatible with the vulgar democratic ethics” (Machiavelli in the Making, Northwestern University Press, 2012, p. 231).

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which the Discourses interpret conflicts. Of course, this does not mean that it is impossible (nor is it useless) to carefully distinguish the characteristics of each “humor”; and, as we have seen, in Disc. I.5 Machiavelli does not hesitate to say where the most dangerous threats to liberty come from. This decisive anti-​aristocratic stance is probably the real underlying theme of Machiavelli’s life and work –​and the one that connects the Discourses to The Prince.54 So, when one recalls his lifelong conflicts with the Florentine mighty, it is actually quite striking how Machiavelli (perhaps in part for dialectical reasons)55 manages to treat with great equanimity the question of their respective guilt without falling into the trap of ingenuous praise for the common citizen’s love of liberty. Free from any populist illusion about the natural goodness of the people when not corrupted by the vices of the wealthy, the Discourses teaches instead that men’s attitudes evolve in tandem with shifts in power relations. Even the greater reliability of the plebeians, which makes them so well-​ suited to protecting republican institutions, must thus be considered only provisional, as it is the product of their material weakness. If the “aims” of the people are better than those of the aristocracy, this is only because the mighty’s abuses compel the humble to assume a defensive posture. As soon as the nobles are prevented from doing harm, however, the people will abandon its “honest aim” of “not being oppressed” for a more aggressive politics, in what often resembles a pure and simple reversal of positions. Never, at any rate, are the two “humors” allowed to come to a stable point of equilibrium.56 The connection –​and not juxtaposition –​between the theses of Disc. I.5 and I.46 is reaffirmed by other analogies between the two chapters. In Disc. I.5, Machiavelli rejected the idea that the wealthy, free from the imperative to meet their basic needs, were driven less by impulsive desires and thus less dangerous; in Disc. I.46 the same principle is applied to the plebs who, having obtained in the tribunes a formidable bulwark against the abuses of the patricians, multiplies rather than ceases its attacks. The (pessimistic) conclusion is thus that the virtuous are merely those who are forced to act virtuously. As Wilhelm Dilthey rightly wrote, “man for Machiavelli is not evil by nature. Several passages of his writing seem to suggest this. […] But he only intends to express the idea that man has an irresistible impulse to slide from cupidity to cruelty if nothing is there to stop him.”57 And it is here that the law must

J.M. Najemy, Between Friends (Princeton University Press, 1993), p. 91; J. Barthas, “L’argent n’est pas le nerf de la guerre” (École française de Rome, 2011), p. 107; McCormick, Machiavellian Democracy. 55 “He cuts the ground from under his feet” (Lefort, Making, p. 271). 56 “This thought is not a class thought […]; it is not subservient to the image of the goodness of the people or the wickedness of the mighty” (ibid., p. 272). 57 W. Dilthey, Weltanschauung und Analyse des Menschen seit Renaissance und Reformation (Teubner, 1991), p. 31. 54

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come into play, as a privileged instrument to check the desires of the nobility as well as the people. Significantly, Machiavelli’s preference for neat oppositions and binary alternatives is accompanied by a clear awareness of the side effects of each, and thus by a refusal of Manichean choices. Precisely because every equilibrium is precariously balanced, escaping one extreme quickly leads one right into the other. And this also means that, in the Machiavellian cosmos, the line that separates the persecutor from the persecuted is always very fine indeed. Machiavelli’s stance emerges with particular clarity in comparison with Savonarola. As seen in Chapter  2, despite his Aristotelian upbringing, the friar in his later sermons neatly distinguished between citizens who “soldiered under the Devil” (his adversaries) and those who militated “under God” (his supporters), criminalizing those who opposed his plans. In the Discourses, there is a similar tendency to think in terms of antithetical binaries, but Machiavelli maintains that men can at most choose the lesser evil. As a result, the conflicts that he describes never assume the contours of a clash between Good and Evil, setting him apart from both the Aristotelian cult of the golden mean and the overheated condemnations of Savonarola (with his war between absolutes).58 His disbelief in the possibility of choosing between ideal options also leads Machiavelli to prefer negative categories and to present positive qualities as a lack of defects. His praise can thus only be read in a comparative perspective: the people, compared to the nobles; the people, compared to the prince; the Roman people, compared to the Florentine people. Yet even with such limitations Rome does not fail to arouse his admiration. In Disc. I.58, in fact, Machiavelli decides to discuss one particularly severe verdict by Livy who, writing of Syracuse, had remarked that “this is the nature of the mass:  either it is a humble slave or a haughty master (aut servit humiliter aut superbe dominatur). As for freedom, which is the mean (quae media est), they know no moderation either in assuming or in keeping” (XXIV.25). In this way the Roman historian had assigned to the people of the Sicilian city the defects of both Aristotelian extremes (servility and domination). Taken out of context, Livy’s passage could sound like a harsh critique of the plebs and its irrationality, following a negative topos quite common among the humanists. Machiavelli, however, offers a completely different reading. As in the case of the Roman tumults, in which one must carefully distinguish between different historical phases, here too the error lies in undue generalization, for, as Machiavelli states, “what our historian says about the nature of the multitude he does not say of that which is regulated by laws, as was the Roman, but of the unbridled one, as was the Syracusan” (Disc. I.58). For a brilliant analysis of Savonarola’s binarism by a famous Russian structuralist, see J. Lotman, Culture and Explosion (De Gruyter, 2009), p. 169. 58

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The distinction thus lies in the law (or rather fear of the law). And, as Machiavelli notes, it is Livy himself who shows that the Roman people does not deserve to be labeled either as “humble” or as “arrogant”: As long as the republic endured uncorrupted, the people never served humbly, nor dominated arrogantly; rather, with its institutions (ordini) and magistrates, it held its rank honorably. And when it was necessary to rise up against a powerful man, they did so, as we have seen with Manlius, the decemvirs, and others who sought to oppress it; and when it was necessary to obey dictators and consuls for the public safety (salute pubblica) they did so. (Disc. I.58)

Accepting the distinction between “to rule” and “to oppress” (which recalls its more famous counterpart, between good “fear” and bad “hatred,” in Prince 19), Machiavelli never ceases to argue in his polemic against aristocratic tradition that the people’s engagement represents as much of a virtue as its obedience of the law and the magistrates.59 Once again, the crucial point is that there is no single, uniform people of whom one may speak in the abstract. There is the people that defends itself in order not to succumb to the overwhelming power of the nobility, and then there is the people that goes on the offensive and that, encouraged by success, contemplates the crushing of its adversaries, bending the laws of the State to its own particular interests. There is the profligate people of Syracuse, and then there is the people of Rome –​exemplary precisely because it participates in the life of the Republic and is ready, when necessary, to rise up in defense of liberty. And finally, there is the people of Florence: the just product of a city that has never been “well-​ordered” (Disc. I.8). Disciplined partly by the checks and incentives that the tribunes exert upon it according to the circumstance, the Roman people thus occupies the precious space between the two excesses of licentiousness and servility –​the one called freedom. And, while the binary conception of society so dear to Machiavelli excludes in principle the Aristotelian middle class, little by little in the Discourses the pugnacious Roman plebs ends up taking on all the positive traits of the mediocres: neither too “arrogant” nor too “humble.” This is the example the moderns should follow, Machiavelli suggests, rather than looking for a pacified (but nonexistent) political center. Just as it is upon bloodless conflict –​and not upon concord –​that the very health of the State depends.

59 Michel Foucault’s judgment on Machiavelli is incorrect:  “the people were essentially passive and naive and had to be the instrument of the prince or else they would be the instrument of the nobles” (Security, Territory, Population, Picador, 2007, pp. 351–​52).

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5 “Giving the Foreigners Citizenship” An Expansive Republicanism

“This is a matter of dispute [De cive saepe contenditur].” Aristotle, Politics III.1 “The city of Rome was formed from a meeting of nations.” Quintus Cicero

A Humanistic Theory of Citizenship? Since the 1990s, studies of citizenship rights have grown exponentially –​specific case studies and broader overviews stimulated by recent events in western countries, where a new influx of immigrants has made the subject a central focus of political debate. These works vary considerably in quality and breadth of research, but they do share certain common features. If one takes the two most ambitious syntheses by Peter Riesenberg and Pietro Costa,1 for example, he finds they possess a similar approach to the Italian communes. Their great interest in the medieval jurists is matched by an almost complete silence on the writings of the humanists, whom they ignore in order to get as soon as possible to Savonarola, Machiavelli, and Guicciardini.2 1 P. Riesenberg, Citizenship in the Western Tradition (University of North Carolina Press, 1992); P. Costa, Civitas, 4 vols. (Laterza, 1999–​2002). The same limits are seen in the special number on citizenship of Filosofia politica, 14 (2000); Q. Skinner and B. Stråth (eds.), States and Citizens (Cambridge University Press, 2003); D. Heater, A Brief History of Citizenship (New  York University Press, 2004); P. Magnette, Citizenship (ECPR, 2005); P.M. Kitromilides (ed.), Athenian Legacies: European Debate on Citizenship (Olschki, 2014). 2 The bibliography on legal definition of citizenship is very rich: W.M. Bowsky, ‘Cives Silvestres: Sylvan Citizenship and the Sienese Commune (1287–​1355),’ Bullettino senese di storia patria, 72 (1965), pp. 1–​13; W.M. Bowsky, ‘Medieval Citizenship:  The Individual and the State in the Commune of Siena (1287–​1355),’ Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, 4 (1967), pp. 193–​243; J. Kirshner ‘Civitas sibi faciat civitem: Bartolus of Sassoferrato’s doctrine on the

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In these works, the fifteenth century thus appears to be an epoch without any original thought about citizenship, characterized instead by a simple repetition of principles first elaborated by the previous century’s masters of the ius commune. Riesenberg and Costa, in fact, only associate Italian humanism with two innovative traits: an ideology of civic activism, and the confirmation of the city-​States’ autonomy from the universal powers of the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic Church. This condescension is certainly understandable with respect to some aspects of fifteenth-​century legal practice, such as the glosses of jurists or the codification of communal statutes, as they hardly address in a creative way questions already tackled by men of law (what makes a man a citizen; what are the entitlements of foreigners; what rights and duties accompany membership in the civic body; whether it is possible to be a citizen of more than one city at a time; how does banishment actually function; or, in contrast, how is one granted to the privileges of citizenship?). And yet, could humanism, with its revolution in language and literary genres (including political writings), really have failed to develop any original ideas on such crucial themes? The impression is that the portraits offered by Riesenberg and Costa reflect not just the still incomplete state of scholarship, but also and especially the primarily juridical interests of the two authors. Even if the humanists do not share the same categories as men of law,3 this making of a citizen,’ Speculum, 48 (1973), pp. 694–​713; J. Kirshner, ‘Ars imitatur naturam: A Consilium of Baldus on Naturalization in Florence,’ Viator, 5 (1974), pp. 289–​331; P. Riesenberg, ‘Citizenship at Law in Late Medieval Italy,’ ibid., pp. 333–​46; J. Kirshner, ‘Between Nature and Culture: An Opinion of Baldus of Perugia on Venetian Citizenship as Second Nature,’ Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 9 (1979), pp. 179–​208; J.P. Canning, ‘A Fourteenth-​Century Contribution to the Theory of Citizenship: Political Man and the Problem of Created Citizenship in the Thought of Baldus de Ubaldis,’ in B. Tierney and P. Linehan (eds.), Authority and Power (Cambridge University Press, 1980), pp. 197–​212; M. Ascheri ‘Lo straniero nella legislazione e nella letteratura giuridica del Tre-​Quattrocento,’ Rivista di storia del diritto italiano, 60 (1987), pp. 179–​94; D. Quaglioni, ‘Le radici teoriche della dottrina bartoliana della cittadinanza,’ in Civilis sapientia (Maggioli, 1989), pp. 127–​44; D. Quaglioni, ‘The Legal Definition of Citizenship in the Late Middle Age,’ in City-​States, pp.  155–​67; E. Cortese, ‘Cittadinanza,’ in E. Cortese, Scritti, eds. I. Birocchi and U. Petronio, 2  vols. (Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 1999), II, pp. 1217–​25; C.J. Nederman, ‘From Moral Virtue to Material Benefit:  Dominium and Citizenship in Late Medieval Europe,’ in D.D. Allman and M.D. Beaty (eds.), Cultivating Citizens (Lexington, 2002), pp. 43–​60; A.M. Pult Quaglia, ‘Citizenship in Medieval and Early Modern Italian Cities,’ in S.G. Ellis, G. Halfdanarson, and A.K. Isaacs (eds.), Citizenship in Historical Perspective (Plus Pisa, 2006), pp. 107–​ 14; J. Kirshner, ‘Dowry, Domicile, and Citizenship in Late Medieval Florence,’ in D.S. Peterson and D.E. Bornstein (eds.), Florence and Beyond (Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2008), pp. 257–​70; M. Ascheri, ‘Nella città medievale italiana: la cittadinanza o le cittadinanze?,’ Initium, 16 (2011), pp. 299–​312; G. Piccinni, ‘Differenze socio-​economiche, identità civiche e ‘gradi di cittadinanza’ a Siena nel Tre e Quattrocento,’ Mélanges de l’École française de Rome.​Moyen âge, 125 (2013); S. Menzinger, ‘Diritti di cittadinanza nelle quaestiones giuridiche duecentesche e inizio-​trecentesche (I),’ ibid.; M. Vallerani, ‘Diritti di cittadinanza nelle quaestiones giuridiche duecentesche (II),’ ibid. 3 On the humanists’ polemical attitude toward Medieval jurisprudence:  D. Maffei, Gli inizi dell’umanesimo giuridico (Giuffrè, 1956), pp. 33–​81; E. Garin, ‘Leggi, diritto e storia nelle discussioni dei secoli XV e XVI,’ in E. Garin, L’età nuova (Morano, 1969), pp. 237–​60.

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does not mean that they have nothing to say on the matter. Rather, it must be noted that the humanists, lacking any legal formalism, focused on questions of a more empirical nature, which are intimately linked with the evolution of the fifteenth-​century State: from the transformation of the bonds between the commune and its territory (through “a policy of preferring dominion to integration”),4 to the admission into government of previously excluded social groups.5 It is from these premises that one must begin. Is it better for a city to have a larger or smaller population? Does it make sense to concede “citizenship” broadly, to newcomers and enemies defeated in war, or is it better to reserve this privilege for the core of ancient inhabitants? What relationship is there between the expansion of the State and political instability? And what should be the policy of the ruling city (the dominante) with respect to the surrounding countryside? All these questions were in some way already present in fourteenth-​century discourse (one need only think of Dante’s nostalgia for the Florence of the “ancient circle” in Paradise XV.97), but they were now being dealt with in a completely new way –​through a systematic comparison with the Greek and Roman authors. Without this turning point it is impossible to understand the extraordinary importance of citizenship for Machiavelli. As seen in Chapter 4, the Discourses identify two different models of mixed constitution, depending on whether the “guard of liberty” belongs to the people (Rome) or the mighty (Sparta and Venice). This initial distinction, however, brings about a cascade of opposing characteristics, which are subsequently analyzed in Disc. I.6. First, thanks to popular conscription, Rome maintained a powerful army but could never avoid domestic turbulence, whereas Sparta and Venice, which did “not employ the plebs in war” (Disc. I.6), enjoyed domestic tranquility, but at the cost of diminished military capacity. Yet that is not all. No less relevant are their divergent attitudes toward new inhabitants and defeated peoples: for, despite the enormous difference between Lycurgus’ ban on trade and Venetian merchants’ success on the high seas, both Sparta and Venice experienced a demographic stasis as a result of their refusal to “give citizenship” to the newcomers (a practice that Venice shared with Sparta after the Serrata –​ the 1297 closing of the Great Council), while Rome’s size and population grew incessantly thanks to its openness.

E. Fasano Guarini, ‘Center and Periphery,’ in J. Kirshner (ed.), The Origins of the State (University of Chicago Press, 1996), pp. 74–​96: 94. See also A. Zorzi, ‘La formazione e il governo del dominio territoriale fiorentino,’ in A. Zorzi and W.J. Connell (eds.), Lo stato territoriale fiorentino (Pacini, 2001), pp. 189–​224. 5 John Najemy described the evolution of political participation in Florence after the tumult of the Ciompi in terms of a growth in the number of the families called to assume political offices accompanied, however, by a net decrease of the effective powers of the magistrates (Corporativism and Consensus in Florentine Electoral Politics, University of North Carolina Press, 1982, pp. 301–​17; J.M. Najemy, History of Florence, Blackwell, 2006, pp. 182–​83). See also A. Brown, ‘Changing Perceptions in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth centuries,’ in City-​States, pp. 93–​111. 4

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Although distinct, the two issues cannot be discussed separately. Military policy and citizenship policy are in fact always tightly linked in Machiavelli, in light of the general principle that “without a great number of men, and well armed, a republic can never grow” (Disc. I.6). Closed to the outside world, Sparta and Venice were also weaker militarily, even if this weakness assumed different forms in the two cities (an insufficiently large army and a dependence on mercenaries, respectively). The comparative analysis of Rome, Venice, and Sparta contains some of the Discourses’ most heavily debated ideas since the sixteenth century. It is no surprise, then, that there exists a voluminous body of scholarship on the need for armi proprie (one’s own armies), which has demonstrated Machiavelli’s debt to the humanists in his polemic against mercenaries.6 The other half of his thinking, however –​that is, on the relationship between military capacity and a welcoming posture toward newcomers –​has to this point remained completely neglected.7 Excavating the context, the unspoken assumptions, and the polemical targets of this second argument is equally essential to shed light on Machiavelli’s theory of conflict. But to do this, first it is necessary to take a step back. The Roman Model The idea that citizenship policy might offer a useful criterion by which to distinguish constitutions emerges very slowly among the humanists. Classical historians, certainly, had already underscored the Romans’ unusual generosity in welcoming foreigners and even assimilating conquered peoples,8 frequently associating this spirit with the founding of Rome itself. Romulus’ choice to P. Pieri, Guerra e politica negli scrittori italiani (Ricciardi, 1955), pp. 1–​71; C.C. Bayley, War and Society in Renaissance Florence (University of Toronto Press, 1961), pp. 240–​ 315; B. Wicht, L’idée de milice et le modèle suisse dans la pensée de Machiavel (L’âge d’homme, 1995); P.J. Jones, ‘The Machiavellian Militia. Innovation or Renovation?,’ in VV.AA., La Toscane et les toscans autour de la Renaissance (Université de Provence, 1999), pp. 11–​52. 7 See i.e. G. Sasso, ‘Machiavelli e Venezia,’ in Antichi III, pp. 3–​46; I. Cervelli, Machiavelli e la crisi dello stato veneziano (Guida, 1974). 8 A.N. Sherwin-​White, The Roman Citizenship (Clarendon, 1939); J. Gaudemet, ‘L’étranger dans le monde romain,’ Studii Clasice, 7 (1965), pp. 37–​47; P. Gauthier, ‘ “Generosité” romaine et “avarice” greque. Sur l’octroi du droit de cité,’ in VV.AA., Mélanges d’histoire ancienne offerts a W. Seston (de Boccard, 1974), pp. 207–​14; W. Seston, ‘La citoyenneté romaine,’ Scripta Varia. Mélanges de l’École française de Rome, 43 (1980), pp. 3–​18; P. Donati Giacomini and G. Poma (eds.), Cittadini e non cittadini nel mondo romano (Clueb, 1996); C.B. Champion, ‘Imperial Ideologies, Citizenship Myths, and Legal Disputes in Classical Athens and Republican Rome,’ in R.K. Balot, A Companion to Greek and Roman Political Thought (Wiley, 2009), pp. 85–​99; C. Moatti, The Birth of Critical Thinking in Republican Rome (Cambridge University Press, 2015), pp. 271–​319. As Arnaldo Momigliano eloquently wrote: “If there is any road to the essential values of Roman history, it is the study of Roman citizenship. The system of civil rights shows the distance between Rome and the oriental empires, the Hellenistic monarchies, and the Greek cityStates” (Review of Sherwin-​White, The Roman Citizenship, in Contributi II, pp. 389–​400: 389). 6

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host newcomers in the asylum seemed in fact to presage the future of his city, destined to reunite all known peoples under its rule.9 Still, this process of expansion could be interpreted in several different ways. One could, for example, see it as proof of the empire’s divine providence –​confirmation, that is, of the equity and clemency that had earned the Romans their mastery over the Mediterranean. Augustine had clearly expressed this notion in offering a sincere tribute, for once, to Rome for its asylum, which would influence later authors like Ptolemy of Lucca and Bartolomeo Platina.10 As the all-​conquering city par excellence, Romulus’ Rome was thus held up as the archetype of benevolent expansionism, in line with its own official propaganda and the famous Virgilian imperative “to show mercy to the conquered and to subdue the proud” (Aeneis VI.853). Florence would certainly have wanted to be viewed in the same way. From the end of the fourteenth century, in fact, the Tuscan commune had been engaged in several wars of conquest that were justified in the official writings of the Chancellery by the city’s presumed Roman origins.11 That the Romans had brought peace to the world (rather than subjugated it) was thus, in this context, an extremely useful argument, as in this passage by Matteo Palmieri: Our ancient fathers upheld a great justice, for they not only protected all those who sought their good will, but as fathers always defended them, and frequently received them into their own cities and honored them as citizens of the republic. Thus did the Romans accept many neighbors, like the Volscians, the Tusculans, and the Sabines, just as our city long, long ago accepted the Fiesolans:  the dwellers around the castle of Figline, being tightly besieged for many years, threw themselves into the arms of the Florentines [1125], and freely sought their good will, and they were received warmly by the Florentines as true citizens, and admitted to any honorable magistracy in the government of the republic.12

Romulus’ decision could also be attributed to less altruistic motives, however. Ancient historians had thought a great deal about the relationship between Rome’s peculiar citizenship policy and its military successes,13 but both the 9 Livy mentions the asylum at the moment of foundation (I.8), in the summary of the regal period (II.1) and after the destruction of Rome by the Gauls, when Furius Camillus convinced his fellow citizens not to abandon the original site (V.53); on Livy I.8 see S. Ratti, Écrire l’histoire à Rome (Les Belles Lettres, 2009), pp. 157–​170. See also Sallust, De coniuratione Catilinae 6; Florus, Epitome I.1; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities II.15; Plutarch, Romulus 9. 10 Augustine, De civitate Dei I.34; IV.5; V.17 (in the latter case the reference to the asylum follows praise of the concession of citizenship to all peoples of the empire); Ptolemy of Lucca, De regimine principum II.6; Bartolomeo Platina, De principe, ed. G.  Ferraù (Il Vespro, 1979), p. 135. 11 On humanist arguments in defense of Florentine expansionism and on the capacity for conquest as a measure of a State’s health: M. Hörnqvist, Machiavelli and Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 38–​75. 12 Matteo Palmieri, La vita civile, ed. G. Belloni (Sansoni, 1982), III.125–​26. 13 See Camillus’ speech in Livy VIII.13 (where the motives for suggesting that citizenship be given to the rebellious Latins belong to the sphere of the utile rather than the honestum), or Canuleius’

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scholastics and the humanists preferred to think in terms of the just rewards of virtue, and were not predisposed to accept this alternative interpretation. A  less idealistic perspective was needed, and it is not at all unusual that it emerged among the antiquarians. Yet again, a key text is Roma triumphans. Here Biondo follows in Augustine’s footsteps by presenting the concession of the status of civis romanus to all the empire’s inhabitants as the high point of pagan history (212 CE),14 but at the same time he distances himself from such a moralistic explanation by analyzing citizenship policy primarily as a governmental tool of unquestionable efficacy. Biondo begins with the practice of establishing colonies in conquered lands as a powerful vehicle for Romanization. In so doing, the Romans had not only implanted their customs and institutions into recently incorporated regions, but they had also responded to the needs of new citizens, who could not all move to Rome (without provoking overpopulation and inevitable poverty) and who were thus installed in the colonies. The process of assimilation had worked like the beating of a heart, the systole aggregating the defeated populations through the concession of Roman citizenship, and the diastole sending the recent citizens to regions not yet completely assimilated, in a virtuous circle.15 If these freshly baptized citizens had not been called upon to swell the ranks of future colonies, the Romans would not have been able to administer all the lands they conquered –​and the empire, Biondo concludes, would never have expanded across the entire Mediterranean. Roma triumphans retraces in detail the process by which the Latin, Italic, and ultimately non-​Italic peoples were accorded the same rights and duties as the Romans themselves. But the need to understand the deeper reasons underlying the phenomenon soon resurfaces, and Biondo insists on the connection between communicatio civitatis and military success, recalling Cicero (Pro Balbo XIII.31):16 Cicero, in his oration Pro Balbo, confirms this opinion […] and demonstrates with these words the most ancient foundations of this Roman custom: “What undoubtedly has done the most to establish our empire and to increase the renown of the Roman people, is that Romulus, that first founder of this city, taught us by the treaty which he made with the Sabines, that this State ought to be enlarged by the admission even of the enemies as citizens. Through his authority and example our forefathers never ceased to grant and to bestow citizenship.”17

Cicero’s position is peremptory, in part because he dismisses all other explanations in one blow:  from divine providence to good luck, from the accusation that the senators were keener to recognize the virtue of foreigners than that of the plebs (IV.3). 14 Flavio Biondo, ‘Roma triumphans,’ in Flavio Biondo, Opera (Froben, 1559), pp. 2, 106. 15 Ibid., pp. 64–​65. 16 Biondo, on the other hand, was not familiar with Aelius Aristides’ oration On Rome (where the same arguments reappear). 17 Biondo, ‘Roma triumphans,’ p. 65.

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justice of the magistrates to the exceptional fighting abilities of the Roman people. And if Biondo initially avoids any further comment on Cicero’s words, shortly thereafter he again cites Pro Balbo (XX.51) with explicit approval: We have said many things in the preceding pages, in the effort to show in what modes (quibus modis et artibus) the Roman people grew and with them the empire of the Romans; an effort successfully accomplished only by an extraordinary passage from Cicero, in the aforementioned oration Pro Balbo, where one reads these words: “They have both taken in as citizens brave men from every country, and have very often preferred merit without birth to nobility without energy.”18

Only then, after having reformulated the question in terms of the victory of merit over the privilege of birth, does Biondo move on to describe the mechanism that led the Romans to concede citizenship even to non-​Italic peoples. In doing this, he cites an entire discourse never previously mentioned by the humanists, but one that was destined to become an obligatory point of reference on the subject. It is a lengthy speech by Claudius recorded in the Annales (XI.24), in which Tacitus introduces the emperor while taking part in a debate over the proper approach toward the most illustrious families of Gaul (48 CE). The noble Gauls had long enjoyed the benefits of citizenship, but had recently also requested to be admitted to the senate. This was the emperor’s response: In my own ancestors, the eldest of whom, Clausus, a Sabine by extraction, was made simultaneously a citizen and the head of a patrician house, I  find encouragement to employ the same policy in my administration, by transferring hither all true excellence, let it be found where I twill. For I am not unaware that the Julii came to us from Alba, the Coruncanii from Camerium, the Porcii from Tusculum; that  –​not to scrutinize antiquity  –​members were drafted into the senate from Etruria, from Lucania, from the whole Italy; and that finally Italy itself was extended to the Alps, in order that not individuals merely but countries and nationalities should form one body under the name of Romans. The day of stable peace at home and victory abroad came when the districts beyond the river Po were admitted to citizenship, and, availing ourselves of the fact that our legions were settled throughout the globe, we added to them the stoutest of the provincials, and succored a weary empire. Is it regretted that the Balbi crossed over from Spain and families equally distinguished from the Narbonese Gaul? Their descendants remain; nor do they yield to ourselves in love for this native lands of theirs. What else proved fatal to Lacedaemon and Athens, in spite of their power in arms, but their policy of holding the conquered aloof as alien-​born? But the sagacity of our own founder Romulus was such that several times he fought and naturalized a people in the course of the same day! Strangers have been kings over us: the conferment of magistracies on the sons of freemen is not the novelty which it is commonly and mistakenly thought, but a frequent practice of the old commonwealth. ‘But we fought with the Senones.’ –​Then, presumably, the Volscians and Aequians never drew up a line of the battle against us. –​‘We were taken by the Gauls.’ –​But we also gave hostages to the Tuscans and underwent the yoke of the Samnites.  –​And yet, if you survey the whole of our wars, not one was finished within a shorter period than that 18 Ibid., p. 66.

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against the Gauls: thenceforward there has been a continuous and loyal peace. Now that customs, culture, and the ties of marriage have blended them with ourselves, let them bring among us their gold and their riches instead of retaining them beyond the pale! All, Conscript Fathers, that is now believed supremely old has been new; plebeian magistrates followed the patrician; Latin, the plebeian; magistrates from the other races of Italy, the Latin. Our innovation, too, will be parcel of the past, and what today we defend by precedents will rank among precedents.19

Biondo comments approvingly on Claudius’ words –​“we see that Tacitus expressed himself very wisely” –​and even goes so far as to make this passage the coronation of his analysis. This is the secret to Rome’s success. To put it simply, more citizens means more strength, and more strength means more conquests, while the rapid growth of the borders brings with it a need to co-​ opt those among one’s former enemies who have proven themselves worthy.20 The Romans, unlike the Greeks, understood this. And it was on this basis that they built their empire. The Aristotelian Model On this point, as on so many others, Roma triumphans marks a watershed in the modern understanding of the classical world. Biondo’s analysis takes up more than three pages of the sixteenth-​century folio edition: an enormous amount of space, greater in breadth and depth of judgment than that devoted to the establishment of the Empire in any work ever composed before it. It is in part for this reason that antiquarians would consider the matter closed from that moment on. As Bernardo Rucellai would proclaim definitively at the end of the fifteenth century, without feeling a need to return in any depth to Biondo’s argument, “having welcomed their enemies among the citizens, in a short time the Roman State grew and became larger every day.”21 Nevertheless, before measuring the impact of Biondo’s writing, one must acknowledge another major paradigm of citizenship in fifteenth-​century culture, this one drawing on Aristotle. If fourteenth-​century jurists extracted a few meaningful suggestions from Aristotle’s works to hack their way through a forest of contradictory decrees and tease some order out of a plurality of conflicting laws, the Politics also lent itself to other uses. In fact, Aristotle provided a great deal of empirical information about the legislation of the various poleis regarding foreigners, recent arrivals, and conquered peoples. And it was to these passages that the humanists quickly directed their attention. 19 Ibid., pp. 66–​67. Claudius’ speech influenced Curtius Rufus, Historiae Alexandri Magni X.3.13. 20 In Annales III.40 Tacitus defines the practice of giving citizenship to the most deserving barbarians as a “prize for virtue” (virtuti pretium). 21 Bernardo Rucellai, ‘De Urbe Roma,’ in L.A. Muratori (ed.), Rerum Italicarum Scriptores. Accessiones Florentinae, 3 vols. (Allegrini e Pisoni, 1770), II, cc. 1064–​65 (on the asylum c. 951).

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It is unnecessary to reiterate the importance that the concept of “citizen” possesses in Greek thought, where it reflected the full range of polarized categories defining the individual: citizen versus foreigner (the citizen of another polis); citizen versus metic (the resident foreigner); citizen versus woman (the daughter of a citizen); citizen versus ephebe (the young man not yet a citizen); citizen versus slave (the unfree man); citizen versus barbarian (the non-​Greek man, incapable of self-​government).22 The Politics is no exception, and even if Aristotle never discusses the matter systematically, he does not shy away from drawing some general conclusions.23 Thus, to cite only a handful of examples, while Clisthenes’ reforms in Athens (509 BCE) led him to discuss whether those who “were admitted to citizenship when a revolution had taken place” could be considered members of the community in the same way as the older ones (Politics III.1), Sparta’s closed-​door policy draws his attention for the scarcity of men (oliganthropia) that weakened the republic to the point that “the State did not succeed in enduring a single blow” (Politics II.6). Assembling these scattered remarks, it was not difficult for the humanists to discern a fairly coherent picture. Above all, Aristotle rejects Lycurgus’ decision to protect the privileges of the minority of Spartiates over the other communities of the Peloponnese, in clear defiance of Plato, who had suggested limiting contact with neighboring peoples as much as possible (Laws 850a–​d; 949e–​ 953a). The Politics’ basic argument is that the perfect State should be neither too large nor too small, able to preserve its independence without exceeding certain dimensions beyond which the system of self-​government would enter into crisis. The same line of thinking applies to citizenship: Most people imagine that the prosperous State must be a great State; but granted the truth of this, they fail to realize in what quality the greatness or smallness of a State consists:  they judge a great State by the numerical magnitude of the population, but really the more proper thing to look at is not the numbers but efficiency (non tantum ad numerum sed magis ad potentiam). […] For a great State is not the same thing as a State with a large population. But certainly experience also shows that it is difficult and perhaps impossible for a State with too large a population to have good legal government. […] None of the States reputed to be well governed is without some restriction in regard to numbers. (Politics VII.4)

As with any other organism, there is an ideal size for city-​States  –​and it must not be exceeded.24 Since the expansion of borders and the growth in the P. Brook Manville, The Origins of Citizenship in Ancient Athens (Princeton University Press, 1990); A.L. Boegehold and A.C. Scafuro (eds.), Athenian Identity and Civic Ideology (John Hopkins University Press, 1993); J. Block, Citizenship in Classical Athens (Cambridge University Press, 2017). L. Cecchet and A. Busetto (eds.), Aspects of Citizenship in the Graeco-​Roman World (Brill, 2017). 23 See E. Poddighe, Aristotele, Atene e le metamorfosi dell’idea democratica (Carocci, 2014) and T. Samaras, ‘Aristotle and the question of citizenship,’ in T. Lockwood and T. Samaras (eds.), Aristotle’s Politics: A Critical Guide (Cambridge University Press, 2015), pp. 123–​41. 24 The praise of small States returns in Augustine, De civitate Dei III.10; IV.15. 22

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number of inhabitants has nothing to do with its strength (in Latin translations, its potentia), when cities expand beyond a certain threshold they trigger an involution that ultimately proves lethal to the polis. The difference with Tacitus thus does not concern the way in which such expansion is managed, so much as the overall value of conquest. Living in an era of overpopulation, and prone to applying the concepts of the Politics to the vast medieval kingdoms, especially France, the scholastic theologians had been particularly interested in Aristotle’s thoughts on the dangers of an excessively high birthrate (believed to impoverish future generations); but, by and large, they had overlooked the subject of a State’s proper dimensions.25 The humanists of central and northern Italy were confronting rather different conditions. If, as we shall see, balance, equilibrium, and limitation are also the concepts most frequently cited by this new generation of Aristotle’s readers, in the context of the Italian city-​State these same terms assume divergent meanings. More specifically, whereas the Politics suggests an attitude of cautious liberality, the prestige of Rome and the absence of any proponents of a Spartan (and Platonic) solution transformed Aristotle into the fifteenth-​century champion of a closed-​door policy. Lauro Quirini’s De republica, composed in 1449–​50 (and thus before Roma triumphans), constitutes an optimal starting point from which to trace this process. Quirini tends toward a syncretic solution, in which Rome and Athens go hand in hand. It is all the more significant, then, that throughout his re-​ writing of the Politics, the Venetian takes care to distance himself from the Romans only in regard to their citizenship policy: “No big city can long be in peace. If it lacks an enemy abroad it finds one at home (Nulla civitas magna quiescere potest: si foris hostem non habet, domi invenit).” As a very clear example of this opinion we have Rome, which, after having tamed the world, could not tolerate peace, and turned its arms against itself. But let us neither make the city too small: the answer lies in the middle, which is commendable in every way. Such should be the site of the city.26

A member of the Venetian aristocracy like Quirini would find it easy to endorse Aristotle’s thesis, since the two cornerstones of his city’s official ideology were the protection of its oldest families’ privileges (sanctioned by the 25 P. Biller, The Measure of Multitude (Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 357–​82. Aristotelian considerations on the threat to public safety posed by a great influx of people are however already in Thomas Aquinas, De regimine principum II.3. 26 Lauro Quirini, ‘De republica,’ eds. C. Seno and G. Ravegnani, in V. Branca et al. (eds.), Lauro Quirini umanista (Olschki, 1977), pp. 123–​61: 148. The opening phrase is a decontextualized citation from Livy XXX.44, where it is pronounced by Asdrubal about Carthage. Moreover, immediately prior, Quirini had praised Lycurgus’ laws, which limited foreigners’ circulation. Though he realized that Venice had ignored both Aristotle’s suggestion of building the city far from the sea and Lycurgus’ to contain the traffic of foreigners, Quirini offers an invitation to follow the Aristotelian model with the argument that Venice is to be considered a lucky exception.

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Serrata) and the rejection of the expansion onto Terraferma, the hinterland territories of North-​Eastern Italy (even after the Doge Francesco Foscari had, in 1423, made an alliance with the Florentines to thwart the hegemonic designs of the Duke of Milan, and had let himself become involved in peninsular affairs, laying the groundwork for later conquests). Nevertheless, it would be an error to over-​emphasize the juxtaposition with Rome. If for Quirini there is no doubt that in medio stat virtus, following Aristotle does not imply questioning Rome’s exemplarity. This is clear from his De nobilitate, composed in the same period. In this treatise, Quirini returns to the question of citizenship, but he strives to downplay the differences between Rome and Venice. Reflecting on the Serrata, he even argues that the closing of the city was due to the fact that, “because of the equality of its inhabitants and the accessibility to its location, an enormous number of men came there from all directions.”27 The decision not to admit new citizens should not be interpreted as an “assault on freedom,” but rather as a “defense of liberty.” In support of his thesis, the author thus uses a comparison with Roman history, which allows him to represent the closing of the Great Council as something like the redistribution of government duties that took place in Rome when, as a strategy for addressing population growth, the right to vote on laws was shifted from the popular assembly to the senate.28 Compared with Rome, which had deprived its people of its traditional right, Venice had actually revealed itself to be more prudent, merely excluding the most recently admitted foreigners (advenae) from the administration, “so that they did not stain its citizens’ ancient nobility.”29 Thanks to the Serrata, Quirini’s Venice could thus aspire to present itself as Rome’s sole legitimate heir: “Venice successfully preserves the freedom of Rome without any sect, faction, or division (sine secta, sine factione, sine divisione aliqua). Indeed, no republic, empire, or city has maintained its harmony unanimously (concors unanimis) and, as I have said, without internal discord (sine domestica discordia), like renowned Venice.”30 But this did not mean that his homeland had taken a different path; it meant only that it remained even more faithful to Rome’s principles than Romulus’ city itself had done. Quirini’s uncertainty regarding the type of relationship that linked Venice to Rome (as demonstrated by the two strategies deployed in De republica and De nobilitate) would remain characteristic of the Venetian humanists. Was 27 Lauro Quirini, ‘De nobilitate,’ eds. K. Krautter, P.O. Kristeller, and H. Roob, in Branca (ed.), Quirini, pp. 74–​98: 88. At the end of the fifteenth century Venice’s middle-​ness and refusal to expand would be praised by Domenico Morosini in his De bene instituta republica, ed. C. Finzi (Giuffré, 1969). 28 Quirini is likely referring to the Lex Publilia Philonis de auctoritate patrum (339 BCE), which established that any project of law should be discussed by the senators before the popular assembly could vote on it. 29 Quirini, ‘De nobilitate,’ p. 88. 30 Ibid., pp. 88–​89.

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Venice Rome’s successor or its superior? It was both. For Quirini, in any case, the problem is resolved quite easily. But in the facility of his compromise one can also detect that the two works were composed before Roma triumphans: that is, before Rome’s openness was identified as the principal factor behind its success. Because of Biondo’s treatise, only ten years later a similar stance would have been unsustainable. The first signs of the change underway can be seen in De institutione reipublicae, composed beginning in the late 1450s but circulated in manuscript form only after 1474. As a good Aristotelian, Patrizi is in all likelihood the first author to take note of the irreconcilable differences between Roman policy and the teachings of the Politics (just as it is in his work that the juxtaposition between the binary and tripartite models of representation first emerges, as noted in Chapter 4). And the insistence with which De institutione reipublicae returns to the subject without offering a definitive solution can be read as proof of the author’s own uncertainty. Patrizi also raises the issue when discussing Venice, whose wariness of newcomers he recognizes as a source of its concord (as had Quirini): In the famous republic of the Venetians (which does not have room for foreigners and yet does not lack severity or justice) […] there is no sedition or hostility (nullae seditiones nullaeque inimicitiae). But of that republic we can say only this:  that nowhere else can I  recall having read or seen that the constitution of the city established by its earliest founders […] has not been modified. The Venetians, in fact, built a city and shared it among themselves and their magistrates as a prize for their labors; they then left this legacy to their heirs, with the warning not to admit to the magistracies any foreigner, colonist, or immigrant; and so it has been for almost one thousand years. As a result, the descendants of those who founded the city have always governed the republic, and for this reason they are called senators, patricians, and nobles, while the others are all plebeians. In spite of this, habit (from which it is difficult to wean oneself) is most valuable; but, if it is established from the beginning, the citizens will command more safely than the newly arrived. (De institutione reipublicae III.2)

This appreciation for Venetian policy presages the course that Patrizi’s analysis will take. Still, the question is not so simple, precisely because now Patrizi cannot avoid confronting Biondo. This can be seen clearly in the opening to book V, where he finally approaches the problem more systematically. Patrizi begins with the legal principle which states that only birth confers citizenship, but he swiftly cites the case of Cicero and the illustrious foreigners who became Roman citizens in the course of their lives (De institutione reipublicae V.1).31 It is in this context that Claudius’ discourse takes the stage: There will also be a second type of citizen, who, although a foreigner, has rendered a particular service to our city and, as a result of this, has merited a privilege. […] The Romans frequently made use of such generosity, following the example of Romulus, the In De institutione reipublicae VI.1 Patrizi will list all the Athenians born abroad and later naturalized. See also Palmieri, Vita civile III.159–​68. 31

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city founder, who so distinguished himself through his wisdom that “several times he fought and naturalized a people in the course of the same day.” According to Claudius (as Tacitus recalls), nothing was more “fatal to Lacedaemon and Athens, in spite of their power in arms, but their policy of holding the conquered aloof as alien-​born.” Indeed, the Romans wanted citizenship to be granted with greater lenience to those who most deserved it because it is inhumane to call foreigners those who have through their actions placed the fatherland in their debt. Our fellow citizens will thus be so either by birth or by privilege. (De institutione reipublicae V.1)

This reconciliation of the two positions is merely superficial, however. In reality, Patrizi shares the emperor’s perspective in only the most general terms. Who  –​and, especially, how many  –​are these meritorious foreigners that he refers to? His assent does not extend beyond the principle that in exceptional cases a foreigner might become a citizen through special privilege (a practice already accepted in medieval jurisprudence). And in this respect it is quite significant that Patrizi returns to the concepts of indulgentia (leniency) and benignitas (mercy), bringing the discourse back to the thoroughly ethical plane of the just compensation for virtue. Thus, it is not completely surprising that Patrizi would rather be less welcoming, when in the following book he asks “which foreigners must receive citizenship and which must be rejected” (De institutione reipublicae VI.4). The basic principle of hospitality is not questioned:  “foreigners and dwellers of the countryside must be welcomed amicably, if they have come into the city for honest ends.” And yet, the very fact that Patrizi feels the need to dedicate an entire chapter to the subject and to clarify that, even among the many who must be admitted inside city walls, “only to a few must citizenship be granted,” indicates that the issue is not settled, as the reference to Claudius seems to imply. In fact, such openness presents no small risk: Nevertheless (Tamen), since in every population the mass of foreigners is dangerous, few may receive citizenship, and these few are those who have deserved it from the State (in which case they must also be granted the opportunity to buy homes in the city and farms in the countryside). In fact, a plebs gathered from among a mixture of men of diverse origins rarely come to agreement amongst themselves, and thus it is with difficulty that there can be concord among men of different origin (concordia namque inter diversae nationis homines vix esse potest). Nor should it be believed that foreigners recently joined together should be bound by the same love and affection that bind the inhabitants of a place, who have received from their parents and ancestors a love for fatherland similar to that which they feel for their wives, and have nursed on love for their fellow citizens along with their mother’s milk. Of new citizens it may be said that which women commonly lament in love, that is that a lover who has loved another cannot be induced by any flattery to forget his former flame. Love of country has been so inspired in us by nature, that we cannot forget it completely, neither through the passage of time, nor distance, nor offenses or injuries suffered. Thus one must act with caution around foreigners (caute agendum est cum advenis). Aristotle argues that all peoples who welcomed foreigners among them in large numbers were afflicted by sedition and discord for a longer time, and tells of several ancient examples that clearly

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demonstrate how a great many cities that filled themselves with foreigners ended badly. (De institutione reipublicae VI.4)

There follows a long list of cities ruined by the indiscriminate openness to strangers: from Byzantium (where new citizens plotted against the old) to Rhegium (where one of the two factions called Himera to its aid and, in the end, was itself slaughtered by newcomers). The meaning of his digression is clear, but at this point Patrizi, already foreseeing a potential objection, finds himself forced to discuss Biondo: Nevertheless (Tamen), the Romans conceded citizenship to a great many individuals, especially those who came from peoples they had subjugated with their virtue and their arms. And while they had taken possession of the world and had won over all peoples, they saw their own home sacked, when Crixus and Spartacus, […] organizing a slave conspiracy, rebelled against Roman rule [73–​71 BCE]. […] One must thus not allow foreigners to possess a home and a farm if not by decision of the council: a solution that today we see observed in all the finest republics of Italy. (De institutione reipublicae VI.4)

This is the decisive moment. From the beginning, Patrizi’s reasoning seemed destined to come to this point: a showdown with Romulus (softened and conciliatory, but stated unequivocally for the first time in a fifteenth-​century work). And now Patrizi realizes that the entire issue can be encapsulated in terms of a contest between the authority of Rome versus Aristotle. On one side of the scales, military power and the threat of rebellions; on the other, harmony and the risk (barely mentioned in his summary of Claudius’ discourse) of suffering the same fate as the small Greek poleis. Rome conquered the world, and yet… That second tamen contains the final verdict of the De institutione: Patrizi, too, chooses to renounce the world empire (imperium totius orbis terrarum) in the name of concord, and sides (reluctantly) against Tacitus and Biondo. Concession of citizenship to foreigners must remain the exception, not the rule: a just reward for uncommon valor, in an effort to find a prudent middle way that confirms the Aristotelian inspiration behind a book that, not coincidentally, concludes with a citation of Solon’s famous motto ne quid nimis (nothing in excess). With Aristotle, yes, but not against Rome –​as one must not, after all, let oneself get carried away. The same dream of equilibrium reappears in the works of other fifteenth-​ century authors who addressed the question. Once it was acknowledged that “no big city can long be in peace” (as Quirini writes), the humanists were obliged to concur that it was better not to increase one’s dominions or population beyond a certain measure. Even the rapid spread of the myth of Venetian institutions’ perfection32 could be understood only in light of this Aristotelian subtext, as Venice’s exemplary image was shaped to fulfill the aspirations of F. Gaeta, ‘Alcune considerazioni sul mito di Venezia,’ Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance, 21 (1961), pp. 548–​75; F. Gilbert, ‘The Venetian Constitution in Florentine Political Thought,’ in 32

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men raised on the Politics. Stable and harmonious, and apparently unshaken by any threats, the so-​called Serenissima (“the most serene”) could promote itself as the ancient philosopher’s ideal city. It is significant nevertheless how in this case, too, the issue of citizenship appeared to acquire increasing relevance with the passing of the century. While the comparison of Venice and Rome was already common in many encomia to the Serenissima during the first half of the century (from Lorenzo de Monacis to George of Trebizond and Francesco Filelfo), the choice depicted was between a peaceful republic and an imperialistic one, or between 1,000 years of uninterrupted political freedom and the much more tormented history of Rome, founded by a king and brought down under the tyrannical yoke of its emperors. This shift can be clearly seen in the work of the humanist Marcantonio Sabellico (1436–​1506), particularly his Rerum Venetarum libri (1487), in which the Venetian closed-​door policy is evaluated in such a context for the first time. Already in the preface, Venice’s superiority shines through in a contrast between “the most humble and almost contemptible origins” of Romulus’ shepherds and the “illustrious men endowed with uncommon religiosity” who moved to the lagoon: The history of certain peoples who long ago seized power was magnificent and illustrious (who can ignore it?), especially that of the Romans, to whom we may be inferior with respect to the splendor and grandeur of their military exploits; as to the health of its laws, equality of rights, innocence and religious institutions, however, the history of Venice compared to that of Rome is not only not inferior, but even far superior (provided one finds an impartial judge). This is not surprising:  the origins of other peoples are (if we do not place our faith in poets’ fables) most humble and almost contemptible (humilia ac pene sordida). But, supposing even that they are truly honest, those same origins had never been untroubled, since they experienced servitude long before the sweetness of freedom. And who could question from whence emerged the habits of peoples who were accustomed to executing the unchecked desires of kings before laws, and experienced servile obedience before a free election? I do not marvel that empires which had similar beginnings should one day crumble, but rather that they were able to arise at all […]. That then, having grown, they should last so long, is not cause merely for wonder, but for amazement. To the contrary, they were illustrious men endowed with uncommon religiosity that founded Venice; but these men, concerned N. Rubinstein (ed.), Florentine Studies (Faber & Faber, 1968), pp. 463–​500; M.P. Gilmore, ‘Myth and Reality in Venetian Political Thought,’ in J.R. Hale (ed.) Renaissance Venice (Faber, 1973), pp. 431–​44; D. Robey and J. Law, ‘The Venetian Myth and the “De republica veneta” of Pier Paolo Vergerio,’ Rinascimento, 15 (1975), pp. 3–​59; F. Gaeta, ‘L’idea di Venezia,’ in G. Arnaldi and M. Pastore Stocchi (eds.), Storia della cultura veneta, 10 vols. (Neri Pozza, 1976–​86), III, pp. 565–​641; B. Marx, Venezia-​altera Roma? Ipotesi sull’umanesimo veneziano (Centro Tedesco di Studi Veneziani, 1978); E. Muir, Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice (Princeton University Press, 1981), pp. 13–​63; A. Fontana and J.-​L. Fournel, ‘Le “Meilleur gouvernement”,’ in A. Fontana and G. Saro (eds.), Venise 1297–​1797 (École Normale Supérieure, 1997), pp. 13–​35; R. Finlay, ‘The Immortal Republic: The Myth of Venice during the Italian Wars,’ The Sixteenth Century Journal, 30 (1999), pp. 931–​44.

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with perpetuating the freedom in which the city was born, having established the perfect equality of all before the law (iure omnibus aequato), then protected their city by means of holy institutions (sanctissimis institutis). From its founding, all subsequent generations loved it and preserved it without corruption, so that the empire of the Venetians (which today covers both land and sea) has grown more through these means (his artibus) than through force of arms. And for this reason it is right to hold that, if something human can never end, Venice will never die.

In the subsequent pages, coming to the founding of Venice, the polemic with Romulus becomes sharper (even if he is not explicitly mentioned): When then […], to found the new city, great calls to all corners drew men expert in navigation and the building of ships, they made sure that no one of servile origins was allowed, nor any assassin or desecrator. It was thus clear that the excellent founders did not want the city to be contaminated at birth by a contemptible rabble of foreigners (prava ulla convenarum colluvione contaminari). This was not only not done by the founders of certain famous cities, but what is more, having opened an asylum to this end, they welcomed any individual among the citizens, even the most wicked (flagitiosissimum quenque); in truth, these men only wanted to provide for the abundance (frequentia) of their city’s inhabitants; ours, the health of its customs and its nobility (nobilitas).33

By applying the same argument to the founding of Venice that Quirini had used to justify the Serrata in De nobilitate, Sabellico traces all the differences separating the two republics back to the initial contrast between “abundance” and “nobility.” In Venice, the closed-​door policy had nurtured the civic body (since government offices were reserved for only the best citizens); this careful selection ensured the excellence of its rulers; and the virtue of these rulers preserved the justice and harmony for which Venice was admired everywhere. In Rome, none of that took place because of Romulus. And the city suffered the errors of its founder for centuries, until the inevitable collapse amidst the bloodshed of its civil wars. Conquest or Concord? Within the framework of these humanistic debates, the contrast between Rome and Sparta/​Venice is freighted with meanings that would otherwise escape Marcantonio Sabellico, ‘Rerum Venetarum,’ in Marcantonio Sabellico, Opera, 4 vols. (Herwagen, 1560), II, p. 1088. Criticisms of the Romans’ mixed origins are already in Livy (II.45), when he writes of the insults cast upon them by the Etruscans and the Veientes. Moreover, Biondo had already juxtaposed Rome’s warrior vocation to the pacific aspirations of Venice in De gestis Venetorum, where he states that while the Romans had seen to their own defense by indiscriminately offering asylum, the Venetians, destined for a peaceful future, had chosen to rely on the impenetrability of the location rather than on arms (‘De gestis Venetorum,’ in Biondo, Opera, p. 273). Galateo also implies a relationship between Rome’s civil wars and its sordid origins in an eulogy of Venetian concord: ‘De laudibus Venetiarum. Ad Loysium Lauretanum,’ in Antonio Galateo, Epistulae, ed. A. Altamura (Centro di Studi Salentini, 1959), pp. 72–​76: 74. 33

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scholars. At the time he composed the Discourses, Machiavelli could chance upon a whole range of divergent ideas about citizenship: (1) The primary cause of Rome’s military success was its openness to newcomers and subjugated populations (Cicero, Tacitus, Biondo, Patrizi, Rucellai); (2) Sparta (or both Sparta and Athens, depending on the authors) was unable to impose lasting hegemony over Greece as a result of its paucity of citizens (Aristotle, Tacitus, Biondo, Patrizi); (3) city-​States have to be careful not to exceed certain dimensions, beyond which republican self-​government proves to be impossible (Aristotle); (4) excessive population growth and openness to foreigners are among the principal causes of domestic conflicts (Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Quirini, Patrizi, Sabellico); (5) Rome’s tumults were also the result of its overly open citizenship policy (Quirini, Patrizi, Sabellico, Galateo); (6) among the Italian communes, Venice’s restriction of access to newcomers offered an unparalleled example of political prudence; its extraordinary civic concord was a direct result of this initial decision (Quirini, Patrizi, Sabellico); and (7) Venice’s closed-​door policy and defense of the privileges of its oldest families were part and parcel of an aristocratic political project that aimed to preserve the nobility of its founders (Quirini, Sabellico). Disc. I.6 selects and recombines these elements in an extremely original way. In keeping with the overall project of his commentary on Livy, Machiavelli takes Rome’s side; yet he does not content himself with juxtaposing Biondo’s arguments against those of Venice’s admirers, instead incorporating both Tacitus’ connection between citizenship and military strength and Aristotle’s link between citizenship and discord (as only Patrizi had done previously). This allows Machiavelli to unravel the question that gives the chapter its title, “whether a State could have been established (ordinato) in Rome that would have taken away the enmities between the people and the senate.” Since conquest requires many armed citizens, and concord is possible only when the population does not exceed certain dimensions (or when the plebs does not serve in the army), his answer can only be negative:34 Considering thus all these things, one sees that it was necessary for the legislators of Rome to do one of two things if they wished Rome to stay quiet like the above-​ mentioned republics: either not employ the plebs in war, like the Venetians, or not admit foreigners, like the Spartans. They did both, which gave the plebs strength and increase and infinite opportunities for tumult. But if the Roman State had come to be quieter, this inconvenience would have followed: that it would also have been weaker because Machiavelli will formulate the opposite possibility in Art of War, p. 31: “If the Venetians had acted as wisely in this respect as in others, they might have erected a new universal monarchy.” 34

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it cut off the way (via) by which it could come to the greatness it achieved, so that, had they wished Rome to remove the causes of tumults, this would have also removed the causes of expansion. (Disc. I.6)

Refusing to reconcile Rome with Sparta/​Venice, Machiavelli openly breaks with the humanistic tradition.35 Fifteenth-​century political pedagogy had made great use of historical examples to illustrate the behavior of both individuals and States in a concrete manner. Students learned from their very first years in school that a good citizen was as pious as Aeneas, as willing to sacrifice his family for his community as Lucius Junius Brutus, as temperate as Scipio the African, and as eloquent as Cicero –​but also fierce like the Romans, devoted to the humanities like the Athenians, and austere like the Spartans, so that they would never lack for a source of inspiration in any situation. No one, however, asked if those virtues were truly all compatible with one another, whereas this is precisely the kind of reasoning that Machiavelli applies in The Prince to the qualities of a ruler, and in the Discourses to the characteristics of different constitutions, highlighting, in both cases, how every choice has a price, and how even the most desirable option inevitably comes with some inconveniences. Thus, while both Aristotelian thinkers (Quirini, Patrizi, Sabellico, Galateo) and antiquarians (Biondo, Rucellai) each pursued only one chain of cause and effect (citizenship-​discord, or citizenship-​strength, respectively), Machiavelli invites his readers to recognize that (external) expansion and (internal) concord are not independent, since a single decision (whether to be open or closed to foreigners and conquered peoples) will inevitably influence both. Moreover, if Patrizi had reluctantly let go of Quirini’s amalgamation of Rome and Aristotle, Machiavelli voluntarily stretches the alternative to its breaking point. In the case of Rome, like that of Sparta or Venice, one must always relinquish something. And so a new question takes up the second part of the chapter: which is preferable, domestic stability or external expansion? If forced to choose, a fifteenth-​century humanist would not think twice. Indeed, when faced with this choice Patrizi, though nominally seeking reconciliation, in the end clearly expresses his preference for concord. Machiavelli, however, is not so eager to consider the absence of conflict as an indisputable virtue. If quies (quietness) and pax (peace) had made Sparta weak and left Venice unarmed, even the presumed advantages of social peace must be weighed carefully. The crucial part of Machiavelli’s analysis thus begins exactly where any traditional humanist’s reasoning would reach its conclusion. In this respect, it is probably not a coincidence that Machiavelli writes that “to expand” is “the poison” (veleno) of these cities.36 He must have chosen this metaphor from among the many possible alternatives because the same expression (venenum urbis huius) appears several times in Livy specifically to describe 35 Just a few years earlier, Galateo had no difficulty celebrating at the same time Venetian concord and its empire (‘De laudibus,’ p. 74). 36 Polybius had argued that Sparta’s expansion was self-​destructive in Histories VI.50.

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discord between patricians and plebeians (II.44; II.52; III.67). Machiavelli is thus reminding Rome’s detractors that every constitution is vulnerable: that is, “that Nature and Fortune hold all accounts in the balance. You never receive anything good without some evil springing up on the other side” (as Callimaco says in the Mandrake).37 Of course the imperfection of both alternatives does not exempt the politician from making a choice, following a general principle also expressed elsewhere (Prince 21; Florentine Histories III.9).38 Because there are no options without side effects,39 the duty of the wise man is to establish what is truly essential: In all human things […] we see this: that one inconvenience can never be suppressed without another’s rising. Therefore, if you wish to make a people numerous and armed so as to be able to make a great empire, you make it of such a quality that you cannot then manage as you please; if you maintain it either small or unarmed so as to be able to manage it, then if you acquire dominion you cannot hold it, or the people becomes so cowardly that you fall prey of whoever assaults you. And so, in all our decisions, we should consider where are the fewer inconveniences and take that for the best choice (pigliare quello per miglior partito), because an entirely neat choice, entirely without doubt, is never found. (Disc. I.6)40

The juxtaposition between Rome and Sparta/​Venice in Disc. I.6 quickly resembles that outlined in Disc. I.5 between popular and aristocratic mixed constitutions. There, the prize at stake was the “guard of liberty”; here Machiavelli’s thinking revolves around citizenship. Only one chapter later (this same Disc. I.6), however, the question expands unpredictably, since now the adoption of the Spartan and Venetian model (tilted toward the mighty) also necessarily entails a renunciation of territorial expansion.41 But there is more. Early on Machiavelli had let it be understood that the choice between Rome and Sparta/​Venice could not be made in the abstract, but rather according to the objectives of each legislator. Any humanist would agree: one of the keystones of political Aristotelianism was in fact that there Niccolò Machiavelli, The Comedies of Machiavelli, eds. David Sices and James B. Atkinson (Hackett, 2007), p. 231. 38 The affirmation was almost proverbial, as demonstrated by Palmieri (Vita civile, Proem 2; III.173) and the advice, frequent in the pratiche, to take “el men male in luogo di bene” (F. Gilbert, Machiavelli and Guicciardini, Princeton University Press, 1965, p.  33; F. Gilbert, ‘Florentine Political Assumptions in the Period of Savonarola and Soderini,’ Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 20 (1957), pp. 187–​214: 201). The goal, in short, is ex malis eligere minima (Cicero, De officiis III.1.3). 39 Rucellai, ‘De Urbe Roma,’ c. 949; Paolo Cortesi, De cardinalatu (Nardi, 1510), p. 4. 40 Bruni had already established a nexus between the power once held by Florentine popolani and their role in the militia (‘Sulla costituzione fiorentina,’ in Leonardo Bruni, Opere, ed. P. Viti, Utet, 1996, pp. 776–​87: 785). 41 Livy (III.52) was very clear on this point: “Either you will have to do without the plebeians or you will have to accept their tribunes.” On the “contractual” character of Roman politics: C. Nicolet, The Word of the Citizen in Republican Rome (University of California Press, 1988), p. 390. 37

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are no absolutely perfect constitutions, for each city-​State requires a different form of organization depending on the temperament of its inhabitants (Politics III.11; IV.9).42 Even Machiavelli initially seems to accept a similarly relativistic approach, when he writes “you are reasoning either about a republic that seeks to make an empire, like Rome, or about one for which it suffices to maintain itself. In the first case it is necessary for it to do everything as Rome did; in the second it can imitate Venice and Sparta” (Disc. I.5). And the same stance resurfaces later on:  “One cannot give men discomfort without reward. […] A city that does not employ its plebs in any glorious matter can treat it as it wishes […]; but a city wishing to do what Rome did, must not make such a distinction” [that is, it must not exclude the people from the highest political offices] (Disc. I.60). Given the way his argument develops in Disc. I.6, however, the options are less equivalent than these passages might suggest. The absence of an “entirely neat choice, entirely without doubt” does not in fact mean that one cannot declare oneself in favor of a given model, and on this alternative Machiavelli has no doubts. Prioritizing civic concord, no State would be able to provide completely for its own defense; the Roman republic, in contrast, though rocked by internal disputes, was able to devise various correctives that allowed it to withstand domestic conflict. The militia implied the existence of tumults, but their dangers were neutralized thanks to the particular “modes” adopted by the plebs; once the citizens were disarmed, on the contrary, there was no fix for military weakness. The superiority of the Roman model is thus tied to the skill with which Romulus’ descendants were capable of limiting the risks inherent in their own organization, following Machiavelli’s conception of politics as the art of remedies.43 But the need to gamble is also a key point for Machiavelli. Faced with a choice between two imperfect, mutually exclusive options, the Discourses opt for that which promises the greatest benefits –​even if its dangers are proportionally greater as well. For Machiavelli, wise politicians must aim high, never giving up on a greater good out of fear of the evils that might ensue, all the more so when it is possible to counter these evils with an effective remedy or adequate precautions.44 For this reason, the choice between conquest and concord presented in Disc. I.6 is really no choice at all.45 The concept recurs frequently from Thomas Aquinas and Ptolemy of Lucca onward. See i.e. Patrizi, De institutione reipublicae I.4; VI. Preface; Girolamo Savonarola, ‘Treatise on the Constitution and Government of Florence,’ in R.N. Watkins (ed.), Humanism and Liberty (University of South Carolina Press, 1978), pp. 231–​60, I.2. Bartolus of Sassoferrato also ties the choice of constitution to the size of the State (‘De regimine civitatis,’ in D. Quaglioni, Politica e diritto nel Trecento italiano, Olschki, 1983, pp. 149–​70: 162–​67). 43 G. Ferroni, Machiavelli o dell’incertezza (Donzelli, 2004), p. 134. On the importance of remedia in Livy: D. Hammer, Roman Political Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 229–​70. 44 In general, Machiavelli’s attitude recalls a passage by Palmieri, who had presented the militia as a “danger” to which those who aspired to achieve “great and worthy deeds” needed to resign themselves (Vita civile IV.175). See also Art of War, pp. 40–​42. 45 G. Sasso, ‘Machiavelli e Polibio,’ in Antichi I, pp. 67–​118: 107. 42

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So, with Machiavelli, political prudence becomes, even more than the art of anticipating the consequences of one’s own actions and those of others, the art of mitigating the down sides that every decision necessarily entails: both foreseeing and correcting. And as, in addition to the truly emblematic case of tumults, the Discourses offer numerous examples of this attitude, here it will be sufficient to recall only the one that directly involves the Venetian model. At the outset of the Discourses, a long discussion begins by asking “if it would not be better to choose sterile places for the building of cities, so men, constrained to be industrious and less imbued with idleness, would live more united having less cause for discord, because of the poverty of the site” (Disc. I.1). The notion that a barren and inhospitable location –​as Venice was, at least initially –​could constitute a valuable incentive toward virtue fits well with the humanistic condemnation of material goods, Roman and Christian in origin.46 Machiavelli, however, does not think in these terms. For him fecundity, like every form of abundance, is a risk: but a risk that one must readily accept. In fact, “because man cannot secure themselves only through power, it is necessary to avoid this sterility in a country and to settle in very fertile places where, since the fertility of the site enables the city to expand, it can both defend itself from whoever attacks it and crush whoever opposes its greatness” (Disc. I.1). To avert indolence (which is the true enemy), citizens must then design laws suitable for “imposing such necessities as the site does not impose” –​that is, “a necessity to exercise on those who were to be soldiers, so that through such an institution (ordine) they became better soldiers there than in countries that were naturally rugged and sterile” (Disc. I.1). If the concept of geographical sterility inevitably recalls Venice,47 in the chapter’s conclusion the other alternative alludes to Rome, preparing the groundwork for the comparison of the two constitutions that will follow in Disc. I.6: Therefore I say that it is a wiser choice to settle in a fertile place, when the fertility is restrained within proper limits by laws […] So whoever examines the building of Rome […] will see […] how many necessities the laws made by Romulus, Numa and the others imposed, so that the fertility of the site, the proximity of the sea, the frequent victories, the greatness of the empire could not corrupt it for many centuries and preserved it full of as much virtue as has ever adorned any city or republic. (Disc. I.1)

Since Machiavelli had opened the Discourses by writing that the “virtue” of the “founder” “can be recognized in two modes (modi): the first is in the choice of the site, the second in the establishing (ordinazione) of laws” (Disc. I.1), it is clear that from the beginning Rome and Venice were inspired by opposing principles, the former aggressive in nature and the latter defensive Seneca, Epistulae V.51; Goro Dati, ‘Istoria di Firenze,’ in A. Lanza (ed.), Firenze contro Milano (De Rubeis, 1991), pp. 211–​98, IV.4. 47 Machiavelli would speak of Venice as a place originally “swampy and diseased” in Florentine Histories II.1. 46

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(in the broadest sense of the term, as a stance of preventive sacrifice to avoid anything detrimental to stability). In this insistence on the role of remedies, too, Machiavelli could not be further from Aristotle. For the latter, any corrective measure (or any intervention to compensate for lacunae in the original constitution) is subject to fortune and contingency, and as such must be rejected. This was so with the Carthaginian constitution, whose presumed excellence is largely diminished in the Politics precisely because of its inability to come up with a definitive solution for social conflicts and the Carthaginians’ tendency to rely on extra-​ordinary measures, like the dispatching of colonists (Politics II.8). According to Aristotle, then, even in the vita activa one must think in terms of substance (universals) and accidents (particulars). There can be an exact science only of constitutions, while all that depends on the precariousness of unique phenomena (the individuum ineffabile) remains outside the realm of rigorous analysis and must be addressed by the politician intuitively, on a case-​by-​case basis.48 Aristotle and his fifteenth-​century followers ask politics to provide a conclusive response to the problems of associative life; it is a matter of nipping dangers in the bud, or even before they appear, if possible. Here, too, perhaps partly as a result of Lucretius’ influence and the enormous weight assigned to chance in Epicurean philosophy, Machiavelli’s position is completely different.49 In Aristotelian terms, it could be described as that of one who, given the absence of perfect forms (of government), sees in the unpredictability of “accidents” a privileged space for politics, and identifies in correctives the primary mode for intervention. With The Prince and the Discourses, then, politics does not finish with the first light of the constitution but requires continual ingenuity and vigilance, as Machiavelli would later repeat with respect to the tribunes: “because in everything […] some evil lies hidden that makes new accidents emerge, it is necessary to provide against this with new institutions (ordini)” (Disc. III.11). Here, too, his break with humanism could hardly be clearer. Faced with the alternative between conquest and concord, the aristocratic mixed constitution reveals itself to be inferior primarily because a republic organized like Sparta or Venice admits fewer opportunities for amendments. A leader of such a city should in fact: (1) Prevent it from attempting even the smallest conquest; (2) “Settle it in a strong place and so fortified that nobody would believe he could crush it quickly”; and (3) make sure that “it would not be so great that its neighbors could feel threatened” (Disc. I.6). 48 See G. Pedullà, ‘Machiavelli the Tactician: Math, Graphs, and Knots in “The Art of War”,’ in F. Del Lucchese, F. Frosini, and V. Morfino (eds.), The Radical Machiavelli (Brill, 2015), pp. 81–​101. 49 Ada Palmer recently revealed the particularity of Machiavelli’s marginal notes on Lucretius, where atomistic theory is given special attention (Reading Lucretius in the Renaissance, Harvard University Press, 2014, pp. 81–​88).

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The history of Sparta and Venice demonstrates that it is difficult for republics not organized for conquest to renounce opportunities for expansion in the face of military success (since the absence of internal conflict does not remove the desire to have more).50 But even if a ruler manages to persuade his fellow citizens to not engage in a war (1), the legislator surely cannot anticipate the neighboring peoples’ reactions (3). Military conflicts are not always a matter of choice: more frequently, in fact, they are something that must be endured –​a coerced response or unforeseen calamity. In the final analysis, republics that intend to imitate Venice and Sparta would have to defuse those very impulses that for Machiavelli dominate the behavior of both men and States:  desire and fear. Lacking in ambition, indifferent to the outside world, such self-​sufficient and self-​contained communities would prosper outside of history: “I believe that if the thing could be held balanced (bilanciata) in this mode (modo), it would be (sarebbe) the true political life and the true quiet of a city” (Disc. I.6). But the use of the conditional tense indicates Machiavelli’s skepticism regarding this possibility.51 Sealed off from the outside world and devoid of internal disputes, Sparta and Venice embody for Machiavelli a philosophical ideal of abstract perfection, impervious to change: the political equivalent of the motionless motor around which the Ptolemaic cosmos revolves. Such a State resembles the incarnation of what is commonly called a utopia. In this case, however, the term might also be used in a less generic manner, for one of the principal characteristics of Thomas More’s Utopia (1516) is that of a (heavily armed yet) peaceful island, which maintains scant contact with the outside world after its king isolated it from the continent with an artificial canal –​a rather close approximation of Venice as it is depicted in the Discourses. Even if such a State were to exist, it would not survive for long: But since all human things are in motion and cannot stay steady, they must either rise or fall; and to many things that reason does not push you, necessity pushes you. So, when a republic were established (ordinata) so as to be capable of maintaining itself without expanding, and necessity led it to expand, this would take away its foundations and make it come to ruin very soon. (Disc. I.6)52

50 Machiavelli’s thesis could depend on Polybius, where the Spartans’ failure is attributed to their greed toward other populations (Histories VI.48:  a passage in turn influenced by Aristotle, Politics II.6). 51 Strauss and his disciples consider Disc. I.6 an “unsatisfactory case for the Roman Republic” (V.B. Sullivan, Machiavelli’s Three Romes, Northern Illinois University Press, 1996, p. 62). See L. Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli (University of Chicago Press, 1978), p. 96; H.C. Mansfield, Machiavelli’s New Modes and Orders (Cornell University Press, 1979), p. 53 (where the verb credere, “to believe,” is wrongly interpreted as the proof of an irrational faith in Rome, while Machiavelli uses it only to attenuate his own statement). 52 See also Disc.II.19. Parel noted that “in astrological natural philosophy, a long peace is not desirable” (The Machiavellian Cosmos, Princeton University Press, 1992, p. 37).

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In addition to reiterating the importance of the unexpected, Machiavelli indicates at least two other arguments in favor of Rome’s superiority. First, as he will demonstrate a few chapters later while discussing Numa’s policy (Disc. I.11), a city organized for expansion can also choose not to fight (thus keeping both paths open to it), while a State like Venice or Sparta can only pursue one policy without risk. In the same way that a republic is preferable to a principate because it can alternate magistrates of different temperaments over time (Disc. III.9), so Rome is superior thanks also to its greater flexibility in dealing with unforeseen situations. But even if such a republic were able to withdraw from the outside world, would a more prosperous future truly await it? Here, too, Machiavelli has doubts. In fact, as he writes, “if heaven were so benign that it did not have to make war, from that would arise the idleness to make it either effeminate or divided; these two things together, or each by itself, would be the cause of its ruin” (Disc. I.6). Aristotle had already shown how Sparta had been ruined by prolonged peace (Politics II.6), and Roman history after the destruction of Carthage and the end of metus hostilis confirmed the very real possibility of a similar fate (see Figure 5.1). The choice in favor of Rome thus appears a foregone conclusion. The first imperative must then be to have “a great number of men” (Disc. I.6). And, as a result, “those who plan for a city with a great empire should try with all industry to make it full of inhabitants, for without this abundance of men, they will never succeed in making a city great” (Disc. II.3). This is precisely what the Romans had done: The example of Sparta and Athens demonstrates that this mode (modo) of expanding and making an empire was necessary and good. Though they were two republics very armed and established (ordinate) with excellent laws, nonetheless they were not led to the greatness of the Roman empire, and Rome seemed more tumultuous and not so well-​ordered as they. No other reason for this can be adduced than that cited before:  because, through enlarging the city’s body in these two ways [that is, generously welcoming foreigners and destroying nearby settlements], Rome could already put in arms two hundred eighty thousand men, while Sparta and Athens never exceeded twenty thousand men each. This arose not from Rome’s site being more benign than theirs, but only from its different mode (modo) of proceeding. For, since Lycurgus, founder of the Spartan republic, considered that nothing could undo his laws more easily than the mixing (commistione) of new inhabitants, he did everything to avoid foreigners having dealings there. (Disc. II.3)

Once again, after Biondo and Patrizi, the question of citizenship provokes an inevitable short circuit with the Annales, as demonstrated here by the reference to Athens which, after having been dismissed (as lacking a mixed constitution) in Disc. I.2, now reappears in the footsteps of Tacitus.53 In this instance, as 53 Considering that in Disc.II.4 the description of the way in which the Romans established alliances corresponds exactly to the practice applauded in the ‘Roma triumphans’ (p.  65), it becomes even more likely that Machiavelli owes his knowledge of Claudius’ speech to Biondo.

169

Simple

Virtuous

Monarchy

Aristocracy

Mixed

Corrupted

Democracy

Tyranny

Oligarchy Ochlocracy

Popular (Rome)

Aristocratic (Sparta and Venice)

Conquer

Do not conquer

Conquer

PROSPER

PROSPER

RUIN

Do not conquer

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Simple constitutions are condemned to run through all the forms of government until a better-ordered State conquers them

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Figure 5.1  Types of constitutions according to Machiavelli

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Fight Become Become and lose effeminate divided

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well, Machiavelli’s departure from Aristotle54 and fifteenth-​century humanism thus takes place in the name of Rome’s conquests and tumults. Reviving Roman Expansionism Perhaps no one has described the relationship between conquest, citizenship, and conflict quite as well as Arnaldo Momigliano, in a 1942 essay: Greek […] political Homonoia is a sentiment of friendliness among citizens of one or more cities […] Homonoia tends to conserve a pre-​existing equilibrium. The Roman praxis of Concord emphasizes the extension of the privileges from one class to another. The concordia ordinum between patricians and plebeians means that the patricians will share the magistracies with the plebeians; the concordia ordinum between senators and knights implies that the knights will work with the senators in the same institution (law-​court). […] However, if we pass from the praxis to the description of that praxis, we must admit that the Roman notion of Concord is almost entirely under the influence of the static Homonoia. […] Polybius and Cicero’s De republica, by analyzing the Roman State in terms of Greek Homonoia, failed, in fact, to see that the strength of the Roman State did not rest only or chiefly on its mixed constitution, but on its capacity for extending privileges and opening its gates to new-​comers. […] Machiavelli came nearer to the solution in his Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio. […] Machiavelli saw that extension of rights in Rome and extension of rights to non-​Romans were elements of the same policy. He concluded, however, that the extension of citizenship, by increasing the social conflicts, added perfection to the balance of the Roman constitution: not concord, but discord, helped Rome.55

Even if Momigliano did not know of the influence of humanistic debates on Machiavelli, his general assessment remains perfectly valid. Nevertheless, it is necessary to clarify that in Disc. I.6 something more significant than a choice in favor of a particular variant of mixed constitution is taking place. By choosing Rome, Machiavelli declares that priorities have changed: the sword comes before the book. The source of this break from tradition is not solely theoretical. In Machiavelli, the trauma of the French and Spanish invasions is the subtext informing each and every page. “For as long as I can remember,” he writes in one of his letters to Francesco Guicciardini dated January 3, 1526, “one was either making war or thinking of it.” What stands between Machiavelli and the fifteenth-​century Aristotelians is Charles VIII’s crossing of the Alps (1494), and the revelation of a military weakness that threatened the very existence of the Italian city-​States, including Venice, which in the Discourses is haunted by its humiliating defeat at Agnadello (Machiavelli would never acknowledge Venice’s surprising capacity to pick itself up after the collapse of 1509). 54 For the anti-​ Aristotelian implications of Machiavelli’s expansionism:  E. Andrew, Imperial Republics (University of Toronto Press, 2011), pp. 19–​21. 55 A. Momigliano, ‘Camillus and Concord,’ in Contributi II, pp. 89–​104: 101–​3.

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The Prince, the Discourses, and the Art of War are the offspring of this new era: born of crisis and as a response to crisis. After 1494 the Great Game suddenly became European in scale, thrusting the small Italian city-​ States into alliances with the continental kingdoms and finally putting an end to the balance of power inaugurated by the Peace of Lodi (1454) –​perhaps the most perfect incarnation of the Aristotelian ideal of equilibrium. In this new context, there was no longer space for the Venetian historians’ bluster about their city’s (alleged) irenic destiny, nor for references to the proper size of a State to ensure social harmony. Simply put, the recent political earthquake required a new vision –​one that was less anchored to the mythologies of the past.56 “What is more useful and more desirable than concord and quiet?” Bracciolini had asked in his History of Florence, through the mouth of Niccolò da Uzzano.57 This was, needless to say, a rhetorical question. Machiavelli, however, provides a new response:  military strength, as a guarantee of freedom (both within and without). This is, in part, why the Discourses immediately address the issue of concord and tumults. And by Disc. I.6 Machiavelli’s position is clear: it is better to deal with the risk of violent disintegration through internal conflict than to forego the opportunity of expansion. Since absolute concord turns out to be weaker than well-​managed discord, tumults should henceforth be seen for what they really are:  “a necessary inconvenience to achieve Roman greatness” (Disc. I.6). In this context, the question of citizenship –​that is, the number of citizens –​ becomes decisive on at least two levels. The first is the most obvious: the new scale of conflict. Machiavelli observes the recent formation of large national agglomerations with curiosity. Not only has the history of Florence, in his eyes, never been exemplary, but the world of Italian communes as a whole, compared both to Rome and well-​ordered monarchies, has revealed its deficiencies: lack of determination, military weakness, bloodthirsty factional competition, perpetual insecurity for citizens, and so on. Florentine parochialism is now a thing of the past, and Machiavelli is trying to provide a response to the collapse of the old fifteenth-​century equilibrium capable of meeting the challenge presented by France and Spain. For all these reasons, the expansive republicanism of the Discourses shares very little with that of the prior century. By now, it is size and organization that are decisive, to the extent that, even in the Discourses, the Roman model of a “very big and very armed” city (Disc. II.4) is occasionally joined by positive examples from the European kingdoms –​especially France, both densely populated and well-​structured.58 C. Dionisotti, ‘Dalla repubblica al principato,’ in C. Dionisotti, Machiavellerie (Einaudi, 1980), pp. 101–​53: 122. 57 Poggio Bracciolini, Historia Florentini populi, ed. G.B. Recanato (Hertz, 1715), p. 263. 58 E. Fasano Guarini, ‘Machiavelli and the crisis of the Italian republics,’ in Machiavelli and Republicanism, pp.  17–​ 40; A.M. Ardito, Machiavelli and the Modern State (Cambridge University Press, 2015). 56

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The second point concerns transformations in military technology. In the 1460s, Europeans across the continent began hearing about the exploits of the Swiss infantry, who, armed with pikes five or six meters in length and arrayed in squares of several thousand men, had proved themselves capable both of arresting the charges of heavy cavalry, erecting a sort of “iron wall,” and of piercing enemy lines. Even more than the introduction of hand-​held firearms (still ineffective against plate armor), it was these Swiss pikemen who overturned the old balance of forces between cavalry and infantry in favor of the latter. But the return of the foot soldier also brought with it a rapid growth in the size of armies, which in the major battles of the Italian wars frequently involved more than 20,000 men on each side.59 Since operating in square formations demanded a high level of discipline for an infantry that had to move in lockstep in order to maintain their rank, but did not require the individual soldier to possess special weapons training, it became easier to transform simple peasants into lethal combatants (as Machiavelli himself sought to do in Florence with the civic militia after 1504).60 The proportional relationship between size and strength was thus further reinforced by these new military tactics, and it is for this reason that the neo-​Roman project of the Discourses must be considered an effect of the rise of the great European monarchies as well as of the military revolution unleashed in Switzerland. Machiavelli’s preference for a mixed constitution tilted toward the people (Disc. I.5) and open to foreigners (Disc. I.6) is accordingly also a response to an inescapable wartime necessity. However, it must be noted that this idea has encountered resistance from scholars since the republican Machiavelli of the Discourses returned to occupy center stage in the second half of the twentieth century. The civic humanist devoted to popular self-​government had few problems with his own city-​State’s expansionist aims, and indeed indicated conquest as the objective of every State at full strength; but in the intellectual climate following World War II (when ministries of war around the world began, slowly but surely, to change their names to ministries of defense), such a frank depiction of power relations seemed more suited to the Machiavelli of dark legend than the newly rediscovered champion of republican government. As a result, two different hypotheses emerged to counter the Discourses’ high praise for conquest (elsewhere frequently, and unsurprisingly, invoked by Strauss to resurrect Machiavelli as a proponent of every sort of wickedness).61 H. Delbrük, History of the Art of War, 4 vols. (University of Nebraska Press, 1990), III, pp. 545–​633; IV, pp. 3–​21; P. Pieri, Il Rinascimento e la crisi militare italiana (Einaudi, 1952), pp. 235–​49; B.S. Hall, Weapons and Warfare in Renaissance Europe (John Hopkins University Press, 1997), pp. 32–​38; C.J. Rogers, ‘Tactics and the face of battle,’ in F. Tallett and D.J.B. Trim (eds.), European Warfare (Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 203–​35. 60 A. Guidi, Un segretario militante (il Mulino, 2009), pp. 237–​54. 61 Strauss, Thoughts, p. 261. Note Strauss’ anti-​popular reformulation of Machiavelli’s thesis: “An intelligent policy of imperialism” compelled Rome “to permit a considerable degree not only of domestic turbulence but above all of corruption of matter.” See also Mansfield, New Modes, p. 53. 59

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For some, Machiavelli endorsed not so much Rome’s violent expansion as the egalitarian alliance among the various Etruscan cities described in Disc. II.4 (Hans Baron and others),62 or even a balance among free “martial” (but not “imperial”) republics (McCormick).63 For others, meanwhile, Machiavelli’s argument possessed an essentially rhetorical function –​either because the idea of conquest must be considered “another example-​limit which is well suited to convince the reader of the impossibility of conservation” (Lefort),64 or because the course of the chapter was determined by its intended recipients, the young Florentine aristocrats who gathered in the Orti Oricellari, to whom the Discourses proposed a tacit pact: support for the project of a Romanized republic (plebeian tribunes included) in exchange for a territorial expansion that Machiavelli would, in fact, have opposed (McCormick).65 In the case of the Etruscan thesis it is easy to show how, for Machiavelli (Disc. II.4), the Tuscan league, which was not without its obvious issues, could only be second best: “It is the next best one after that of the Romans”; “That which the Romans took is known therefore to be the true mode (modo).” But McCormick’s proposal that the Discourses suggested a balancing among small republics seems equally fragile, since this equilibrium, so similar to that of the Peace of Lodi, is never mentioned by Machiavelli, even briefly (if anything, it would be the ideal of Rousseau).66 The notion that the Discourses would offer only a sly ad hominem argument to persuade the intended audience is far more insidious, particularly the version provided by McCormick. Such a hypothesis begins from a valid methodological premise:  when we read The Prince and the Discourses we cannot fail to consider for whom these texts were written. On many points Machiavelli’s awareness that he had to appeal to a particular public clearly explains his occasional reticence and the way he argues some elements of his thesis. McCormick goes too far, however, when he implies that sometimes, to persuade his readers, Machiavelli states the contrary of what he actually thinks. By doing so, in a move that may recall Strauss’ H. Baron, ‘Machiavelli, the Republican Citizen and the Author of the “Prince”,’ in H. Baron, In Search of Florentine Civic Humanism, 2  vols. (Princeton University Press, 1988), II, pp. 101–​51: 148–​50; H. Baron, ‘The “Principe” and the Puzzle of the Date of Chapter 26,’ Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 21 (1991), pp. 83–​102:  102; M. Viroli, From Politics to Reason of State (Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 162–​64; W. Connell, ‘Machiavelli on Growth as an End,’ in A.T. Grafton and J.H.M. Salmon (eds.), Historians and Ideologues (University of Rochester Press, 2001), pp. 259–​77. According to Erica Benner, Machiavelli would endorse a form of freely accepted authority instead of bare dominion, but there is no trace of such a distinction in the Discourses (Machiavelli’s Ethics, Princeton University Press, 2009, p. 479). 63 J.P. McCormick, Machiavellian Democracy (Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 56–​59. 64 C. Lefort, Machiavelli in the Making (Northwestern University Press, 2012), p. 300. 65 McCormick, Machiavellian Democracy, pp. 36–​61. 66 Ibid., p.  97. See Jean-​Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, ed. V. Gourevitch (Cambridge University Press, 1997), II.9; Jean-​ Jacques Rousseau, Emile, eds. C. Kelly and A. Bloom (Dartmouth College Press, 2010), p. 659. 62

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hermeneutics (interpreting beyond and even against the literal meaning of the text, with the assumption that all political philosophers write under threat of persecution and thus never say what they truly mean), McCormick juxtaposes two different Machiavellis: one that speaks in favor of conquest, and one that rejects territorial expansion. And, although readers encounter only the former in the Discourses, he does not hesitate to conclude that the true Machiavelli is the latter, and that all the statements in favor of empire are mere tactical concessions. Considering the enormous importance that conquest has for Machiavelli,67 it is impossible to dismiss his multiple arguments on this point so easily. One thus has to acknowledge the influence of the imperialist Roman model on the republicanism of the Discourses. In particular, it is essential to recognize that, just as the social “humors” never stop trying to prevail over one another, and just as there is no permanent balance between the various magistracies, Machiavelli holds out no hope for the presumed equilibrium among potentially conflicting States. Even here the pendulum seems destined never to come to a rest.68 The centrality of war also has significant implications for Machiavelli’s thoughts concerning conflict. In recent years, several scholars have suggested that in the Discourses there is a contradiction between the acknowledgment of partisan interests implicit in Machiavelli’s theory on tumults and his frequent recourse to the concept of the “common good” (bene comune). As Del Lucchese has written: if what we mean by “common good” means the good of all social groups, necessarily in conflict in the city […], this good simply does not exist in the radically realistic thought of Machiavelli. If it is “common,” we might say, then it is not a true good. […] Machiavelli’s popolo is a profoundly partial entity that never aspires to the quintessence of the common good, viewed rather as true political “alchemy,” something the realist Machiavelli never believed in, even for a moment.69

The solution put forward in these cases is to dismiss the “common good” as a simple homage to the rhetorical conventions of the time. It seems difficult to 67 M. Hulliung, Citizen Machiavelli (Princeton University Press, 1984); D. Armitage, ‘Empire and Liberty. A  Republican Dilemma,’ in M. van Gelderen and Q. Skinner (eds.), Republicanism, 2  vols. (Cambridge University Press, 2002), II, pp. 29–​46; Hornqvist, Empire; N. Regent, ‘Machiavelli: Empire, Virtù and the Final Downfall,’ History of Political Thought, 32 (2011), pp. 751–​72. See also F. Gilbert, ‘Machiavelli: The Renaissance of the Art of War,’ in P. Paret, G.A. Craig, and F. Gilbert (eds.), Makers of Modern Strategy (Clarendon, 1986), pp. 11–​31; N. Wood, ‘Introduction’ to Niccolò Machiavelli, The Art of War (Da Capo, 2001), pp. ix–​lxxxiii. 68 Paul Rahe presented Machiavelli as “a disciple of Heraclitus” (‘Thomas Jefferson’s Machiavellian Political Science,’ in Legacy, pp. 208–​28: 210); this definition is acceptable only if one adds that Machiavelli’s insistence on institutions stems from his concern about instability and his effort to contrast it. 69 F. Del Lucchese, ‘Review of McCormick’s Machiavellian Democracy,’ Historical Materialism, 20 (2012), pp. 232–​46: 242–​44.

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accept such a notion, however, considering the enormous importance attributed in the Discourses to this concept (and its relatives comune utilità and beneficio comune, “common utility”) in delicate moments like those in Disc. I.9 (where it appears three times, to distinguish evil tyrants from daring radical reformers like Cleomenes), Disc. II.2 (twice more, among them the maxim “it is not the particular good, but the common good that makes cities great”), and Disc. III.11 (which speaks of the tribunes’ ability to place the “common good” before partisan interest, when necessary).70 In none of these cases can one conclude in fact that Machiavelli invokes the interests of the collective solely “to boost the rhetorical impact of his thinking which he knows is revolutionary,” while he simultaneously “empties it from inside and redefines it, even turning it against its original meaning.” And yet, despite this, the question posed by Del Lucchese remains indisputably relevant: “how is it possible […] to reconcile the rhetoric of the common good”71 with the full recognition of the legitimacy of the various “humors”?72 An initial response comes from the Hippocratic prism through which Machiavelli interprets conflict. If the well-​being of an organism is the final product of the natural struggle between phlegm, blood, and bile (a process that must not, and cannot, be avoided), partisanship and the “common good” (understood as the health of the entire political body) are not incompatible with one another. As a matter of fact, the contradiction only emerges when “common good” and concord are conflated, whereas Machiavelli refuses the idea that the latter is a necessary precondition for the former, but never challenges the principle that the superior interest of the whole community has to be the main goal of political activity (such a challenge would originate only much later in western culture). Still, there is also a second (complementary) answer. Even setting aside the medical metaphor, the apparent contradiction in fact vanishes when one reflects that for Machiavelli the first incarnation of the “common good” is the survival of the community, in a political universe in which every State is continually threatened by its neighbors and the loss of freedom can arrive as easily from within as from without. To the extent that the non-​violent conflicts between patricians and plebeians contributed to Rome’s strength in many forms (leading to the perfection of its constitution, containing the aristocrats through fear, eliminating calumnies through public trials, allowing the people 70 In The Prince the concept of the “common good” serves to distinguish the virtuous princes, forced by necessitas to carry out morally questionable acts (like Hiero and Cesare Borgia), from criminal princes (like Oliverotto and Agathocles). See G. Pedullà, ‘L’arte fiorentina dei nodi,’ Introduction to Niccolò Machiavelli, Il Principe (Donzelli, 2013), pp. v–​cvii: xlvii–​l. 71 Del Lucchese, ‘Review,’ p.  242. For a similar view see F. Raimondi, Constituting Freedom: Machiavelli and Florence (Oxford University Press, 2018). 72 Conversely, the scholars interested in Machiavellian “common good” avoid discussing Disc. I.4. See i.e. W. Hanasz, ‘The Common Good in Machiavelli,’ History of Political Thought, 31 (2010), pp. 57–​85.

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to “vent” their resentments in non-​violent “modes,” guaranteeing a sizeable army), it is impossible to deny the beneficial effects of the “humors” for the entire city. Which is precisely what is dearest to Machiavelli’s heart. This link between military power and the “common good” appears particularly evident in Florentine Histories III.1, where Machiavelli, after having reprised the theory of “modes” to distinguish the good Roman tumults from their bad Florentine counterparts, notes that while internecine enmities “in Rome always increased military virtue, those in Florence eliminated it altogether.”73 In this particular light, the Florentines’ tendency to make laws “not for the common utility but […] in favor of the winner” meant that even the popolo’s most glorious triumph, the Ordinances of Justice, along with its undeniably positive effects, paradoxically weakened the city. The laws of Giano della Bella actually declared that the mighty who did not submit to the rules of the community should be called magnati and subjected to special legislation that provided for harsher penalties and forbade them from holding any public office (“the nobles were deprived of their magistracies” is an almost technical description of the law). Whereas in Rome the patricians, by sharing the magistracies with the plebeians, had contributed to the education of the so-​called homines novi, the men who were the first in their family to be elected as consuls (with the result, Machiavelli notes, that, having widened the ruling class, Rome never lacked for leaders of proven ability), in Florence this process never happened. Because the Florentines further declared that the magnati should abandon their feudal customs (the source of their “virtue in arms and […] generosity of spirit”) as a condition of their readmission into public life, the Ordinances of Justice had paved the way for the use of mercenary soldiers, to the detriment of the entire city.74 Even among its earliest readers the model of expansive republicanism in Disc. I.6 received a rather perplexed response, but for reasons different from those that unsettle scholars today. Their issue was with Machiavelli’s rejection of common wisdom on the natural size of States that the humanists had absorbed from Aristotle. The period when the Discourses went to press, in 1531, was also the least propitious for his neo-​Roman project, since the topic of the day was the unstoppable rise in Europe of Charles V (Holy Roman emperor from 1519 to 1556). If the memory of the pre-​1494 balance of power encouraged a longing for days gone by (and a re-​evaluation of the sagacity of Lorenzo de’ Medici), in the light of the new circumstances it was even easier to appreciate Venice’s ability to hold firm. In Italy, there was no longer any space to imitate the bellicose Rome of the Discourses, and this could not help The “common good” is absent whenever Machiavelli speaks of Florence: Disc. I.49; ‘Discursus Florentinarum rerum,’ in Niccolò Machiavelli, The Chief Works, ed. A. Gilbert, 3 vols. (Duke University Press, 1989), I, pp. 101–​15: 103. 74 Reading the Italian translation of Bruni’s Historiae (II.38), Machiavelli may have been struck by affirmations like “at the time in the city there were many public officers expert in the arms” (the original Latin sounds a bit different). 73

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but influence the reception of Machiavelli’s arguments. Indeed, as Guicciardini observed at the end of the 1520s, “if the ultramontanes stay in Italy, as I believe they will, I  would urge you […] to keep what you have got (non so se vi consigliassi di pensare a fare augumento).”75 As a result of this remark, modern scholars have frequently reproached Guicciardini for his blinkered provincial perspective, when Machiavelli was already thinking on a European scale.76 This is true. And yet, it is difficult not to acknowledge how, in Spanish Italy, the idea of a Florence organized for conquest should seem desperately unrealistic. Guicciardini’s position would turn out to be fundamentally accurate for another few centuries: with the result that up until the fall of the Ancien Régime the contentedness of small States would remain one of the most persistent political myths across Europe.77 It is not strange, then, that the project of an expansive republicanism struggled to win supporters. But Machiavellian categories were destined for widespread notoriety all the same, beginning with his pages on the importance of size78 and the contrast between Rome and Sparta/​Venice, which would often be repeated until the end of the eighteenth century (albeit in reverse) to discuss the pros and cons of preservation and conquest. Thanks to the Discourses, even in Spanish-​controlled Italy debates on the subject would continue for centuries to revolve around the same authorities, lines of reasoning, and historical figures (above all Scipio Nasica and the emperor Claudius).79 The Aristotelians, all inclined to opt for the Venetian model, would long remain numerically superior, at least throughout the sixteenth century: Donato Francesco Guicciardini, Dialogue on the Government of Florence, ed. A Brown (Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 156. 76 G. Sasso, ‘Guicciardini e Machiavelli,’ in G. Sasso, Per Francesco Guicciardini (Istituto Storico per il Medio Evo, 1984), pp. 3–​130: 119; E. Cutinelli-​Rendina, Guicciardini (Salerno, 2009), p. 139. 77 See W. Kaegi, ‘Der Typus des Kleinstaates im Europäischen Denken,’ Neue Schweizer Rundschau, 6 (1938), pp. 257–​71; M. Bazzoli, Il piccolo Stato in età moderna (Jaca Book, 1990); E. Gabba and A. Schiavone (eds.), Polis e piccolo Stato (New Press, 1999); the special number on little States of Filosofia Politica, 15 (2001); L. Barletta, F. Cardini, and G. Galasso (eds.), Il piccolo Stato (AIEP 2003); B.A. Raviola, L’Europa dei piccoli Stati (Carocci, 2008). 78 Foucault distinguishes the pre-​modern thinkers of “sovereignty,” only interested in the control of territory, from the modern thinkers of “governmentality” (like Giovanni Botero and Guillaume de la Perrière), for whom “the first concern of police will be the number of men,” and wrongly casts Machiavelli in the first group (Security, Territory, Population, Picador, 2007, p. 323); the same inability to appreciate the Discourses’ novelty can be found in Y. Charbit, The Classical Foundations of Population Thought (Springer, 2010). On the contrary, the importance of size for Machiavelli is rightly underscored by S. Wolin, Politics and Vision (Princeton University Press, 2004), p. 205. 79 It would be erroneous to think that Machiavelli’s alternative between Rome and Sparta is already inscribed in classical sources. For example, in the polemic between Georg of Trebizond (Comparationes philosophorum Aristotelis et Platonis, De Leuco, 1523) and Basil Bessarion (In calumniatorem Platonis, ed. E. Del Soldato, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2014, IV.3), while the first reconciles Romulus and Aristotle in the name of openness, the second presents Plato’s closing as a middle way between Lycurgus and Romulus. 75

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Giannotti (in his Della repubblica de’ Viniziani), Gasparo Contarini (1483–​ 1542), Antonio Brucioli (1498–​1566), Paolo Paruta (1540–​98), Torquato Tasso (1544–​95), and Giovanni Botero (1544–​1617).80 This simple list is potentially deceiving, however, because to read the works of these authors, one finds that their positions appear somewhat subtler. The Venetian Paruta, for example, though depicting Roman openness as an error of the first magnitude (Discorsi politici I.1), has no problem accepting the idea that the weakness of the Greek city-​States derived from their smaller size and inability to form a stable alliance (I.14). In the same way, having to answer the question “which empires are more durable, the large, the small, or the middling,” Botero rejects the Roman model but also avoids the alternative presented in Disc. I.6, applauding the intermediate solution (Reason of State I.6), and devotes more than a little time in his Of the Causes of Greatness and Magnificence of Cities to instructing a prince how to increase the population (II.1) and dispatch colonists (III.2). This is the strongest evidence of Machiavelli’s ability to project his shadow even over the works of his declared adversaries. With few exceptions (among them Giannotti’s Della repubblica fiorentina III.1 and Scipione Ammirato’s appreciation for Claudius in Discorsi sopra Cornelio Tacito XI.6), Machiavelli’s expansive republicanism only found a more favorable reception much later. However, this shift in fortunes was due primarily to non-​Italian authors. The first to truly endorse the position in Disc. I.6 seem to have been the English republicans Algernon Sidney (1622–​ 83),81 and Walter Moyle (1672–​1721), though the latter, while picking up on Machiavelli’s ideas on the asylum, would focus primarily on colonies.82 It is 80 Donato Giannotti, ‘Della repubblica de’ Viniziani,’ in Donato Giannotti, Opere politiche, ed. F. Diaz, 2 vols. (Marzorati, 1974), I, p. 36; Gasparo Contarini, De magistratibus et republica Venetorum (Froben, 1544), pp. 30–​31; Antonio Brucioli, Dialogi, ed. A. Landi (Prismi, 1982), p. 150; Paolo Paruta, Discorsi politici, ed. G. Candeloro (Zanichelli, 1943); Torquato Tasso, ‘Discorso intorno alla sedizione nata nel regno di Francia l’anno 1585,’ in Torquato Tasso, Tre scritti politici, ed. L. Firpo, (Utet, 1980), pp. 151–​96: 160; Giovanni Botero, The Reason of State, ed. R. Bireley (Cambridge University Press, 2017); Giovanni Botero, Of the Causes of Greatness and Magnificence of Cities, ed. G. Symcox (University of Toronto Press, 2012). Lycurgus’ extremism is only praised by Filippo Cavriana, Discorsi sopra i primi cinque libri di Cornelio Tacito (Giunti, 1597), pp. 451–​52. 81 Algernon Sidney, Discourses concerning Government, ed. T. West (Liberty Fund, 1996), II.22. See J. Scott, Algernon Sidney and the English Republic (Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 32–​33. 82 Walter Moyle, ‘Essay upon the Constitution and Government of the Roman State,’ in Walter Moyle and Henry Neville, Two English Republican Tracts, ed. C. Robbins (Cambridge University Press, 1969), pp. 201–​57:  245. See C. Robbins, ‘The “excellent use” of Colonies. A Note on Walter Moyle’s Justification of Roman Colonies,’ William and Mary Quarterly, 23 (1966), pp. 620–​26. According to Blair Worden, Marchamont Nedham had already praised Machiavelli’s offensive republicanism (‘Marchamont Nedham and the Beginnings of English Republicanism,’ in D. Wooton (ed.), Republicanism, Liberty, and Commercial Society, Stanford University Press, 1994, pp. 45–​81: 71). In general, on a liberal/​republican “reason of State tradition” within British political thought (and its favorable judgment of conquest), see T. Poole, The Reason of State (Cambridge University Press, 2015).

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not difficult to understand why, in an England extending its power across the high seas around the world, the Florentine’s words should resonate so strongly. James Harrington, convinced he could keep his own Oceana free from conflict through a careful policy of land redistribution (coupling concord and conquest), would think long and hard on Machiavelli’s lesson, welcoming the ideas contained in Disc. II.4 on the need for expansion and the defects of Athens and Sparta, without however accepting the anti-​Venetian arguments of Disc. I.6.83 In the Florentine’s work, the nascent British Empire seems then to have found the intellectual tools to legitimize its own ambitions.84 Once the potential for the fulfillment of the Machiavellian dream of an expansive republic was foreclosed by the return of kings to English soil, eighteenth-​century European theory would somehow bifurcate, adopting the model of the large warlike principate, on one side, and the small peaceful republic (in line with the Aristotelian polis and the humanists’ Venice), on the other. The myth of Rome would not disappear completely, however, as demonstrated by Montesquieu (1689–​1755), who in his Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans (1734), employs Disc. I.6 and II.4 to offer an explanation for the victory over Carthage: Since the [Romans] never regarded the vanquished as anything but instruments for further triumphs, they made soldiers of all the peoples they had overcome, and the more trouble they had in overcoming them, the more they judged them suitable for incorporation into their republic.85

With Montesquieu, however, Machiavelli’s connection between citizenship and conquest also begins to take on darker overtones. As suggested by several passages on the economic inequality generated by conquests (Disc. I.37) and the unsafe relationships between soldiers and generals that developed during long military campaigns (Disc. III.21), expansion had created the conditions for the crisis of the Republic. The Considerations, however, primarily blamed another factor: the Romans’ indiscriminate concession of citizenship, which loosened the common bonds of belonging: After this, Rome was no longer a city whose people had but a single spirit, a single love of liberty, a single hatred of tyranny […]. Once the peoples of Italy became its citizens, each city brought to Rome its genius, its particular interests, and its dependence on some great protector. The distracted city no longer formed a complete whole.86

James Harrington, The Republic of Oceana, ed. J.G.A. Pocock (Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 155–​57. 84 D. Armitage, The Ideological Origins of the British Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2000). 85 Montesquieu, Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans, ed. D. Lowenthal (Cornell University Press, 1968), IV, p. 46. The same idea can be found in Mably, Des droits et des devoirs du citoyen (Bureau de la Publication, 1868), p. 61. 86 Montesquieu, Considerations ix, p. 92–​93. As seen, the argument was already in Patrizi. 83

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Throughout his work Montesquieu would continually oscillate between admiration for Sparta (as a model of preemptive restraint from conquest) and a begrudging acceptance that small States prosper and grow because of their virtues, only to quickly succumb to their own weight and fall inevitably into ruin. In the end, then, despite the dream of a city immune to cycles of growth and contraction, in The Spirit of the Laws there prevails a thoroughly Machiavellian acceptance of the need for conquest that transcends all obstacles and culminates in self-​destruction.87 Had not another text reopened the question concerning imperialist republics a few decades later, one could easily conclude this brief sketch of the reception of Machiavelli’s pages on Rome’s superiority with The Spirit of the Laws, so well does Montesquieu’s inquiry summarize all the arguments of a two-​century debate on citizenship and conquest. But, in the Lectures on Law by James Wilson (1742–​ 98), there is in fact a very pertinent reference to the Discourses, in a passage where the famous American jurist (and signer of the Declaration of Independence) comments on his own country’s naturalization measures, connecting Rome to Washington through Machiavelli in crystal clear fashion, and unexpectedly projecting the ideas in Disc. I.6 into a future that is also, in part, our own present: Machiavel, when he inquires concerning the causes, to which Rome was indebted for her splendor and greatness, assigns none of stronger or more extensive operation than this  –​she easily compounded and incorporated with strangers. This important subject has received a proportioned degree of attention in forming the constitution of the United States. “The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.”88

Armitage (‘Empire’) predates the anxiety for the alternative between conquest and endurance, given that the humanists and Machiavelli accepted the decay of empire as a natural phenomenon. See instead J.G.A. Pocock, Barbarism and Religion, 6 vols. (Cambridge University Press, 2001–​15), III, p. 419; Regent, ‘Downfall.’ 88 James Wilson, ‘Lectures on Law,’ in James Wilson, Works, 3 vols. (Lorenzo, 1804), I, p. 265. 87

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6 Dionysius’ Reappearance The Classical Roots of Modern Conflictualism

“Between Livy and Dionysius, from Rome’s foundation onward, are there not endless differences?” Francesco Patrizi of Cherso, Dialoghi della istoria “Dionysius of Halicarnassus was better informed on Roman institutions than Livy.” Giambattista Vico, The New Science

In the Footsteps of Polybius? Through Machiavelli’s analysis of Roman tumults, it has been possible to retrace the causes of the Republic’s success. The results of such an inquiry can be encapsulated in a few key points: (1) Like Sparta and Venice, Rome was a “mixed government.” However, unlike Sparta’s, its constitution was not the product of a single legislator’s wisdom, but the outcome of a conflictual process that only ended with the implementation of the tribunes after the first secessio. (2) Born of conflict, the tribunate represents the institutionalization of conflict in two very different senses.1 Above all, it helps prevent disputes between patricians and plebeians from taking a violent turn (which would weaken the Republic with respect to its neighbors), for, thanks 1 For Machiavelli’s tumults the concept of “institutionalization” was introduced by Neal Wood (‘The Value of Asocial Sociability:  Contributions of Machiavelli, Sidney and Montesquieu,’ Bucknell Review, 16, 1968, pp. 1–​ 22) and Claude Lefort (Machiavelli in the Making, Northwestern University Press, 2012, p.  173), but they used it only in the first of the two senses indicated here. Neither Wood nor Lefort, however, were particularly interested in the concrete solutions in defense of liberty put forth by the Discourses; Lefort even writes that, according to Machiavelli, “Roman institutions […] are not intrinsically good” (‘Machiavelli

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to the tribunes, such struggles are given a “form” through a series of legal mechanisms, of which both the right to veto new laws and the right to publicly accuse any citizen (including patricians and senators) have special importance. At the same time, the tribunes’ functions go far beyond the mere dialectic between the magistracies: their institutional, “ordinary” tasks actually include bringing together the plebs to challenge the patricians by non-​violent but clearly extra-​legal means (secessio, detractio militiae, bloodless riots). For this reason, the Machiavellian binary “ordinary”/​”extra-​ordinary” cannot simply be reduced to the binary legal/​extra-​legal. (3) Tumults remain necessary even when the city has reached its final constitutional form, for two reasons. On the one hand, they allow the people to “vent” its inevitable resentment against those who rule, channeling “humors” that might otherwise become dangerous; on the other, they exert constant pressure on the patricians and senators, thus forcing them to maintain a more sober lifestyle. From this perspective, then, the fear generated by public accusations and tumults has a moralizing effect comparable to that of religion or a powerful foreign foe. To perfect the system, however, Machiavelli also calls for another magistracy  –​this one controlled by the senate –​that in exceptional circumstances exerts a similar constraint on the people. This, of course, is the dictator, who is not bound by the right to appeal that the plebs might otherwise use to evade the consuls’ orders. (4) Tribunes and bloodless tumults cannot solve every problem. This was demonstrated by the Gracchi’s well-​intentioned but irresponsible efforts to correct the enormous economic disparities generated illegally during the conquest of Italy and the Punic wars. When the quarrel concerns private wealth, one must let go of the medical metaphor of “purgation” in favor of another medical metaphor: surgery. Faced with such a serious situation, the only effective model worth imitating is the violent one established by the Spartan Cleomenes. (5) Born of tumults and designed for tumults, the tribunes are also at the center of Roman political life because, with their power to accuse and to veto, they hold the “guard of liberty” of the republic. With this original concept, Machiavelli divides mixed constitutions into two large families: those led by the aristocracy and those by the people, depending on which magistracy is accorded the “guard.” If in Rome similar power can be entrusted in exceptional circumstances to the dictator (elected among the patricians alone), the constitution nevertheless remains tilted toward and the verità effettuale,’ in C. Lefort, Writing: The Political Test, Duke University Press, 2000, pp. 109–​41: 112). On the problems raised by their lack of interest for the institutional aspects of Machiavelli’s thought:  J. Barthas, ‘Machiavelli e l’istituzione del conflitto,’ Rivista Storica Italiana, 127 (2015), pp. 552–​66.

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the plebeians because the tribunes are permanent, while dictatorship is enacted uniquely in times of grave danger. (6) The “guard” is not the only element distinguishing aristocratic from popular mixed constitutions. The former also tend to practice a restrictive citizenship policy, first by allowing only a small number of inhabitants into government, and then by excluding newcomers and subjugated populations from participating in the political life. Since only a large army can guarantee an effective self-​defense (and the potential for expansion), this initial choice will determine a polity’s subsequent military strength (or weakness). Welcoming newcomers and arming the people will inevitably encourage social conflicts, but, so long as they take non-​violent forms, these conflicts will be just a minor “inconvenience.” Rome’s success can thus be explained primarily by pointing to its ability to integrate the greatest number of men into its own imperial designs, channeling tumults into the service of that “common good” which for Machiavelli is synonymous with military self-​sufficiency. It is superfluous to emphasize yet again the novelty of this reading, both in its method and its substance (a version of Roman history of unprecedented complexity). Still, for a complete picture, one must also understand just how Machiavelli came to such an original interpretation. In recent years, his positive view of tumults has been traced back to various predecessors, both classical and humanistic –​from Cicero to Plutarch, Philostratus to Sabellico –​but none of these are fully convincing.2 With respect to his inspiration for the theory of mixed constitution, on the other hand, there is a broad scholarly consensus.3 In book VI of his Histories, Polybius painted a detailed portrait of Roman institutions (through a comparison with Sparta and Carthage), providing readers with the first analysis of the mikté as an articulated system of checks According to Gennaro Sasso (‘Machiavelli e i detrattori, antichi e nuovi, di Roma,’ in Antichi I, pp. 401–​536: 444), Machiavelli’s thesis derives from Cicero. In fact, in De oratore (II.48.199) there is an impassioned defense of the plebeian insurrections by Marcus Antonius, who evokes the stratagems he used to clear the tribune Gaius Norbanus of the accusation of having provoked sedition; still, one only need read these pages in context to see that Marcus Antonius presented his own speech as an argomentum ad hominem to gain the listener’s favor. In any case, at least one fifteenth-​century author reads the passage from De oratore as a judgment on tumults: Pietro Barozzi, ‘De factionibus extinguendis’ (in F. Gaeta, Il vescovo Pietro Barozzi, Istituto per la collaborazione culturale, 1958, pp. 49–​157: 59). Rinaldo Rinaldi (‘Il Filostrato di Machiavelli,’ in R. Rinaldi, Scrivere contro, Unicopli, 2009, pp. 27–​51) refers to Plutarch, Agesilaus 5 and Philostratus, De vita Appoloni Tyanei IV.2; in reality the two texts contain only generic praise of the beneficial effects of competition among fellow citizens (similarly to Sallust, De coniuratione Catilinae 7). Rinaldi also notes a passage from Sabellico (‘Exempla,’ in Marcantonio Sabellico, Opera, 4 vols., Herwagen, 1560, IV, p. 126), in which, however, the humanist merely claims that divergences of opinion, not harmful in and of themselves, become dangerous during military conflicts (‘Sabellico “machiavelliano?”,’ in Rinaldi, Scrivere contro, pp. 63–​99: 71). 3 C.J. Nederman and M.E. Sullivan, ‘The Polybian Moment: The Transformation of Republican Thought from Ptolemy of Lucca to Machiavelli,’ European Legacy, 17 (2012), pp. 867–​81. 2

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and balances similar in many respects to that offered by the Discourses.4 And, just like him, Machiavelli begins Disc. I.2 by tracing the ways in which simple forms of government devolve into their corrupt variant (from monarchy to tyranny, aristocracy to oligarchy, democracy to ochlocracy); he then describes how, at the end of the cycle, all States return to monarchy (the anakýklosis); and ultimately he proclaims the superiority of “mixed government,” as the only constitution capable of halting this degenerative process.5 As Arnaldo Momigliano noted many years ago, Machiavelli was “the first to appreciate Polybius as a political thinker.”6 From that point forward, thanks in part to the Discourses, book VI of the Histories would retain a permanent place in European culture. Nevertheless, some features of Polybius’ rediscovery remain unclear. Machiavelli could not read Greek, and the Latin version of the Histories compiled by Niccolò Perrotti stopped after book V, while the first complete translation would not appear in print until 1549. The extant manuscripts shed no further light on the question: a Latin vulgarization of the book VI that has come down to us, attributed to a certain Franciscus Zephirus, seems to postdate the Discourses; even if it were older, however, it could not have been Machiavelli’s only source in any event, since it does not include the chapters on Rome’s military organization, widely cited in the Art of War.7 As far as we know, at the beginning of the sixteenth century Polybius’ analysis of the Roman constitution was accessible only to a very small community that read ancient Greek. Scholars have thus searched for the paths by which Machiavelli might have come upon his Histories, whether directly or indirectly. The most commonly followed trail leads to Paris, where in 1515 the Savoyard bishop Claude de Seyssel (1450–​1520) composed a Grand monarchie de France for King Francis I that was deeply indebted to Polybius. Since Seyssel himself did not know Greek but depended on the Greek humanist Giano Lascaris (1445–​1534), who had lived in Florence in the last decade of the fifteenth century before moving to Paris and provided a translation of Histories VI.3–​18 (today conserved in the Vatican Library), it has been speculated that Lascaris was responsible for the almost simultaneous reappearance of book VI of the Histories in France and Italy.8 However, the issue has become somewhat less 4 Gennaro Sasso highlights some relevant differences: ‘Machiavelli e la teoria dell’anacyclosis’, in Antichi I, pp. 3–​65; G. Sasso, ‘Machiavelli e Polibio’, ibid., pp. 67–​118; G. Sasso, Machiavelli (il Mulino, 1980), pp. 443–​47, 462–​64. See also H.C. Mansfield, Machiavelli’s New Modes and Orders (Cornell University Press, 1979), pp. 35–​38. 5 All these elements are absent from Plato’s and Aristotle’s writings on the mixed constitution. 6 A. Momigliano, ‘Polybius’ reappearance in Western Europe,’ in Contributi VI, pp. 103–​23: 114–​15. 7 Garin chose Zephirus:  ‘Machiavelli e Polibio,’ in E. Garin, Machiavelli tra politica e storia (Einaudi, 1993), pp. 3–​28. But see Luciano Canfora’s objections: ‘Il pensiero storiografico’, in G. Cavallo, P. Fedeli, and A. Giardina (eds.), Lo spazio letterario di Roma antica, 5 vols. (Salerno, 1989–​91), IV, pp. 47–​90: 62–​69. 8 J.H. Hexter, ‘Seyssel, Machiavelli and Polybius VI,’ Studies in the Renaissance, 3 (1956), pp. 136–​ 56; Canfora, ‘Pensiero,’ p. 69. For an updated investigation: J. Monfasani, ‘Machiavelli, Polybius, and Janus Lascaris: the Hexter Thesis Revisited,’ Italian Studies 71 (2016), pp. 39–​48.

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urgent since scholars began finding various references to book VI in the works of the humanists belonging to the generation preceding Machiavelli. But while how exactly Machiavelli came upon Polybius remains unclear, what is certain is that by the end of the fifteenth century his Histories were already reaching a broader public.9 Still, there are other avenues to be considered. There is in fact one classical author, largely overlooked by scholars, whose work contains a portrait of ancient Rome’s institutions that is very close to that of the Discourses: from its “Polybian” mixed constitution to its positive judgment of tumults, and from its defense of dictatorship to its approval of Roman citizenship policy. Furthermore, it is an author who was admired by thinkers like Jean Bodin, Samuel Pufendorf, Montesquieu, and John Adams, and who was widely read throughout Europe until the early nineteenth century, when the Romantics slowly but surely expelled him from the canon of reliable historians, and he fell into almost complete neglect.10 As a result, few scholars of political philosophy today browse the Roman Antiquities of the Greek historian and rhetorician Dionysius of Halicarnassus (60–​7 BCE):  a monumental narrative of some twenty books in length on the first centuries of the city from its foundation to 264 BCE, the year of the outbreak of the First Punic War and the Histories of Polybius.11 And yet, as we shall see, Dionysius greatly influenced Machiavelli’s most original ideas, indelibly marking the history of western political thought. A translation of the Antiquities had been commissioned by Pope Nicholas V (1397–​1455) as part of his vast program of Latinizing Greek historians (Herodotus, Thucydides, Polybius, Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, Appian, and so on), which has been hailed as “potentially the most revolutionary event in historiography since Fabius Pictor introduced Greek historiography into Rome at the end of the third century BCE.”12 The pope had entrusted this task to the Milanese Lampugnino Birago (c. 1400–​72), who worked on it for more than two decades, concluding his labors in January of 1469 or 1470.13 The 9 Carlo Dionisotti cited Rucellai (‘Dalla repubblica al principato,’ in C. Dionisotti, Machiavellerie, Einaudi, 1980, pp. 101–​53:  138–​40), whereas Rinaldi named Sabellico (‘Sabellico,’ pp.  84–​ 85), and James Hankins pointed to Cyriac of Ancona and Aurelio Brandolini (‘Europe’s First Democrat?,’ in A. Blair and A.S. Goeing (eds.), For the Sake of Learning, 2 vols., Brill, 2016, pp. 692–​710). To these one must add: Bernardo Rucellai, ‘De Urbe Roma,’ in L.A. Muratori (ed.), Rerum Italicarum Scriptores. Accessiones Florentinae, 3 vols. (Allegrini e Pisoni, 1770), II, cc. 783–​1131: 964; Pietro Crinito, De honesta disciplina, ed. C. Angeleri (Bocca, 1955), XII.4. 10 On Dionysius’ legacy:  G. Pedullà, ‘Giro d’Europa. Le mille vite di Dionigi di Alicarnasso (XV-​XIX secolo),’ introduction to Dionigi di Alicarnasso, Le antichità romane, eds. F. Donadi and G. Pedullà (Einaudi, 2010), pp. lix–​cl. 11 The first eleven books of Dionysius, the only ones entirely extant, reach 443 BCE  –​that is, Livy IV.8. 12 A. Momigliano, ‘Polybius between the English and the Turks,’ in Contributi VI, pp. 125–​41: 131. 13 M. Miglio, ‘La versione di Lampugnino Birago delle Antichità di Dionigi di Alicarnasso,’ Annali della scuola speciale per archivisti e bibliotecari dell’Università di Roma, 1968, pp. 73–​83.

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first printing, however, only saw the light of day in 1480, accompanied by a dedication to Pope Paul II (1417–​71), after Birago had already been dead for several years. And from that moment on, Dionysius’ text, finally accessible in the language of European elites, was reprinted no fewer than twenty times by the beginning of the 1700s (in Latin, Greek, and Italian). Dionysius was well known to Italian men of letters for his rhetorical writings since at least the 1430s, and one of his treatises sharply critical of Thucydides had drawn particular attention. Since several humanists would not have had to wait for Birago’s translation to read the Antiquities (including Leonardo Bruni, who drew upon it for various details on the Etruscans),14 it is only for convenience that 1480 should be considered a watershed. The printing press, in any event, instantaneously multiplied the number of potential readers –​to the extent that, whereas at the beginning of the 1470s (when Patrizi prepared to put the final touches on his De institutione reipublicae, which made great use of the Antiquities),15 the name Dionysius still possessed the wonder of the new, already by the beginning of the following century it no longer signified anything exceptional. In this period one finds traces of the Antiquities everywhere, for there is virtually no worthy humanist who did not cite him at least once (Angelo Poliziano, Pomponio Leto, Filippo Beroaldo, Giorgio Merula, Bernardo Rucellai, Pietro Crinito, Raffaele Maffei, Annio of Viterbo, Marco Fabio Calvo, and so on). This was, mainly, a Dionysius dissected by philologists and lexicographers for their commentaries (then a sign that the work was read primarily for its erudite elements); the preferences of Marcantonio Sabellico, who in his Enneades chooses the Antiquities as a source for Roman history instead of Livy,16 or of the humanist Mario Equicola (c. 1470–​1525), who in his Cronica di Mantua (1521) trusts Dionysius’ version over that of Virgil, indicate, however, that other uses were possible. In this respect, the most important assessment of the Antiquities’ value surely comes from Bartolomeo Scala (1430–​97), the famous humanist and friend of Machiavelli’s father, as well as Machiavelli’s predecessor as chancellor of the city. In opening his own history of Florence, in fact, Scala confesses to having “imitated as much as possible both Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Plutarch, who wrote so many things on the origins of Rome,”17 mentioning the Antiquities not only as a reliable source, but as an authoritative historical model. So, if Machiavelli turned to Dionysius, he was certainly not the first to do so –​although, as we shall see, no one else had ever so intensely and fruitfully engaged with his writing. 14 Leonardo Bruni, Epistulae, ed. L. Mehus (Paperino, 1741), X.25. 15 Francesco Patrizi, De institutione reipublicae (Zetner, 1608), I.4; IV.5 (with a lengthy passage in praise of Dionysius); VI.1; VIII.2; Francesco Patrizi, De regno (Zetner, 1608), VII.11. 16 H.J. Erasmus, The Origins of Rome in the Historiography from Petrarch to Perizonius (Van Gorcum, 1962), pp. 22–​27. 17 Bartolomeo Scala, De historia Florentinorum (Tinassi, 1677), p. 18. See A. Brown, Bartolomeo Scala (Princeton University Press, 1979), p. 302.

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Dionysius: “Mixed Government” and Roman Tumults In the Antiquities there is nothing like the systematic reconstruction of Roman institutions offered by Polybius. While indebted to his predecessor for many of his ideas (beginning with the theory of the mixed constitution),18 Dionysius never interrupts the linear progression of his history to offer a synoptic overview of republican institutions (and the fact that the speculative framework thus recedes into the background is likely the reason why he has been denied the status of political philosopher accorded to Polybius). Upon a closer examination, however, the Antiquities are just as insightful as Polybius’ Histories in this regard, and the decision not to separate theory from narrative should actually be considered one of Dionysius’ major strengths. Thus, whereas Polybius wrote only that the Romans “have not reached [the mixed constitution] by any process of reasoning, but by the discipline of many struggles and troubles, and always choosing the best by the light of the experience gained in disaster” (Histories VI.10), the Antiquities present this gradual evolution in all its steps.19 The second peculiarity of the Antiquities is that the author’s philosophical schemes are delivered in the voices of his narrative’s protagonists. At the outset of book II, for example, the principles that regulate the rise and fall of States are presented through the words of the legendary founder of Rome. In a long oration worthy of a Hellenistic philosopher, Romulus recounts how he learned from the elders that, while “many large colonies planted in fruitful regions” had fallen as a result of inadequate laws, others had been able to subjugate neighboring peoples despite being “few in numbers and settling in places that were by no means desirable” because of their constitution (Antiquities II.3): For neither in foreign wars, he said, are deep ditches and high ramparts sufficient to give the inhabitants an undisturbed assurance of their safety […]; nor, again, when civil commotions afflict the State, do private houses and dwellings afford anyone a safe retreat. […] If, therefore, there had been but one mode of life among all mankind which made cities prosperous, the choosing of it would not have been difficult for them; but, as it was, he understood there were many types of government […], and out of all of them he heard three especially commended […], and of these systems none was perfect, but each had some fatal defects inherent in it. (Antiquities II.3)

18 On the two historians’ methodologies: S. Gozzoli, ‘Polibio e Dionigi di Alicarnasso,’ Studi classici e orientali, 25 (1976), pp. 149–​76. On Dionysius’ adaptation of Polybius’ anakýklosis: G.W. Trompf, The Idea of Historical Recurrence in Western Thought (University of California Press, 1979), pp. 181–​82. 19 On social struggles in Polybius with respect to the Antiquities:  E. Gabba, Dionysius and the History of Archaic Rome (University of California Press, 1991), p.  208. The only systematic attempt to analyze Dionysius from the point of view of the institutions is of little use (L. Fascione, Il mondo nuovo. La costituzione romana nella Storia di Roma arcaica di Dionigi di Alicarnasso, 2 vols., Jovene, 1988–​93); some leads can be found in G.J.D. Aalders, Die Theorie der gemischten Verfassung im Altertum (Hakkert, 1968), pp. 117–​19; F. Millar, The Roman Republic in Political Thought (Brandeis University Press, 2002), pp. 39–​46.

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The Polybian origin of this line of thinking is beyond question, from the attention to the process of degeneration that menaces human communities to the importance of internal conflicts in that process.20 Yet, whereas for Polybius (Histories VI.3–​4) and Aristotle (Politics III.5) three of the simple forms of government are bad but the other three remain valid, for Dionysius even the good ones (the only three he mentions) cannot be considered good in absolute terms because of the disease inherent in each of them (quaedam pestes ingenitae). And this is particularly relevant for readers of Machiavelli, since the Discourses clearly follow Dionysius’ version: “I say thus that all the said modes (modi) are pestiferous (pestiferi) because of the brevity of life in the three good ones and because of the malignity in the three bad” (Disc. I.2). Romulus is not yet speaking of a mixed constitution, but that is where his thinking is headed. As soon as the people opt for monarchy and confer power upon him, the new sovereign shows that he has not forgotten the elders’ wisdom. The solution he has devised to correct the defects of kingship are illustrated in the following pages, where Dionysius explains how the Roman constitution had from the start involved both the people and the nobles in government: Having made these regulations, he distinguished the honors and powers which he wished each class to have. For the king he had reserved these prerogatives: in the first place, the supremacy in religious ceremonies and sacrifices […]; secondly, the guardianship of the laws and customs of the country (legum morisque patri custodem) and the general oversight of justice in all cases […]; he was also to judge in person the greatest crimes, leaving the lesser to the senators […]; he was to summon the senate and call together the popular assembly, to deliver his opinion first and carry out the decision of the majority. These prerogatives he granted to the king and, in addition, the absolute command in war. To the senate he assigned honor and authority as follows:  to deliberate and give their votes concerning everything the king should refer to them, the decision of the majority to prevail. This also Romulus took over from the constitution of the Lacedaemonians; for their kings, too, did not have arbitrary power to do everything they wished, but the gerousia exercised complete control of public affairs. To the populace he granted these three privileges: to choose magistrates, to ratify laws, and to decide concerning war whenever the king left the decision to them; yet even in these matters their authority was not unrestricted (neque tamen potestatem horum absolutam), since the concurrence of the senate was necessary to give effect to their decisions. (Antiquities II.14)

The meaning of the passage is clear: Romulus is experimenting with a combination of the three simple forms.21 Indeed, Montesquieu would later write of these pages that, from its origins, the Roman “constitution was monarchical, 20 F. Mora, Il pensiero storico-​religioso antico. Autori greci a Roma. I:  Dionigi di Alicarnasso (L’Erma di Bretschneider, 1995), pp. 189, 193–​94; A. Fraschetti, The Foundation of Rome (Edinburgh University Press, 2005), p. 65. 21 Millar also argues that in Dionysius Romulus’ constitution responds to Polybius’ “familiar criterion of balance” (Roman Republic, p. 41).

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aristocratic, and popular, and such was the harmony of power that there was neither jealousy nor dispute in the first reigns” (The Spirit of the Laws XI.12).22 The king proposes laws; the senate votes upon his proposals; the popular assembly ratifies the decisions of the senate and elects the magistrates; the king executes the mandates he receives –​this is the general procedure. But it is especially the reference to Sparta23 that leaves no doubts about Dionysius’ reasoning: following in Lycurgus’ footsteps, Romulus had introduced a primitive form of mikté, in which the king and senate hold most of the authority (as in Sparta), while the people retain only a partial consultative power. Dionysius confers upon Romulus’ constitution an unusual degree of significance compared to other Roman and Greek historians.24 Unlike Livy, who prefers not to linger on the legislation of the first sovereign, the Antiquities discuss it at length, and compare Romulus to archaic Greek lawgivers Solon, Pittacus, and Charondas. Moreover, this choice implies a very specific reading of early Roman history, for if, in contrast to Polybius, the Antiquities depict Roman institutions as constantly evolving, Dionysius always highlights the elements of continuity as well,25 reinforcing the reader’s impression that Rome was a sort of “mixed government” from the very beginning (see Figure 6.1).26 Here, too, the Discourses appears to have been inspired by Dionysius. Had Machiavelli followed Polybius, he could hardly have written that even in the absence of a Lycurgus, Rome was fortunate: for, if its initial institutions (ordini) were defective, nevertheless it did not deviate from the straight path that could bring them to perfection. For Romulus and all the other kings made many good laws liable to free life; but as their aim (fine) was to found a kingdom and not a republic, when Rome became free it lacked many things that 22 See P.M. Martin, ‘Denys d’Halicarnasse source de Montesquieu,’ in R. Chevalier (ed.), L’antiquité gréco-​romaine vue par le siècle des lumières (Centre de recherches André Piganiol, 1987), pp. 301–​36. 23 Dionysius had earlier said that the Roman senate was modeled upon the Spartan gerousia (Antiquities II.12) and had traced the institution of the celeres, Romulus’ personal armed guard, back to Sparta (Antiquities II.13). 24 The theoretical depth of book II of the Antiquities has encouraged some to imagine its derivation from a republican-​era political treatise: M. Polhenz, ‘Eine politische Tendenzschrift aus Caesars Zeit,’ Hermes, 59 (1924), pp. 157–​89; E. Gabba, ‘Studi su Dionigi di Alicarnasso. I. La costituzione di Romolo,’ Athaeneum, 38 (1960), pp. 175–​225; J.P.V. Dacre Balsdon, ‘Dionysos on Romulus: a Political Pamphlet,’ Journal of Roman Studies, 61 (1971), pp. 18–​27. 25 M. Ducos, ‘Denys d’Halicarnasse et le droit,’ Mélanges de l’Ecole française de Rome. Antiquité, 101 (1989), pp. 175–​86; N. Wiater, The Ideology of Classicism: Language, History, and Identity in Dionysius of Halicarnassus (de Gruyter, 2011), pp. 178–​80. 26 Looking to Dionysius also enables us to resolve an apparent contradiction in the Discourses, where, according to Mario Reale (‘Machiavelli, la politica e il problema del tempo. Un doppio cominciamento della storia romana?,’ La Cultura, 23, 1985, pp. 45–​123), the Roman constitution was presented as the fruit of social conflicts in Disc. I.3 and as an original invention of Romulus in Disc. I.9. Sasso hypothesized that Machiavelli might have used Dionysius for the profile of Romulus exclusively as it pertained to fratricide (‘Note alle fonti di Disc. I.9,’ in Antichi I, pp. 149–​64: 153–​54).

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190 The king proposes a bill

The king proposes to declare war

The king summons the people

The senate votes on the bill

The people vote on the king’s proposition

The people elect the magistrates

The people ratify the vote

The senate ratifies the vote

The senate ratifies the election

The king executes

The king executes

Figure 6.1  The Roman constitution in the monarchical period according to Dionysius Note: The diagram illustrates the functioning of Rome’s original constitution (753 BCE) as described in Antiquities II.14. Dionysius presents Romulus’ monarchy from the outset as a primitive form of “mixed government” in which all the various orders participate in the decision-​making process, even if the sovereign occupies a pre-​eminent position because he holds the power to propose and execute deliberations.

were necessary to establish (ordinare) in favor of freedom that those kings had not established (ordinate). (Disc. I.2)

After the expulsion of the kings it was thus enough to replace the sovereign with an annually elected magistracy (the two consuls) to inaugurate what, given the limited powers of the popular assembly, could be considered an aristocratic republic (“an aristocracy was now established,” as Antiquities V.1 reads). In the same way, a few years later, it would be enough to add the tribunes to the consuls and senators in order to make the Republic a fully formed mixed constitution (Antiquities VI.45–​90; VII. 1–​67). This is precisely the same process Machiavelli describes: Even though those kings lost their power […], nevertheless, those who expelled them, because they quickly appointed two consuls to replace the king, expelled the royal name but not the royal power; thus, since there were the consuls and a senate in that republic, it came to be a mixture (mista) of two of the three forms mentioned above, that is, the princely and the aristocratic. There remained merely to grant a place to the popular government; hence, when the Roman nobility became arrogant […], the people rose up against it, and the nobles were constrained to concede a share of power to the people in order not to lose it all; on the other hand, the senate and the consuls remained with so much authority that they could keep their rank in the republic. […] Fortune was so favorable to Rome that, although it passed from kingly and aristocratic governments to a popular one […], still, authority was never entirely taken away from the kingly magistracy to give authority to the aristocracy, nor was the aristocrats’ authority reduced to give it to the people, but, remaining mixed (mista), Rome established a perfect republic. (Disc. I.2)

The Discourses and the Antiquities also both minimize the transition from the monarchy to the republic, accorded great significance by Livy through its

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placement at the juncture between book I and book II. If one compares the passages dedicated by Dionysius to the advent of the consular system with those devoted to Romulus’ early measures and the fight over the tribunate, it is immediately evident that the watershed of 509 BCE is dealt with in an altogether summary manner. As Lucius Junius Brutus says, the Romans must first depose the tyrant, and only later “choose a better form of government” (Antiquities IV.73). In the end, however, this melior reipublicae forma is simply the traditional constitution (“if, indeed, there is any constitution better than the one which Romulus, Pompilius and all the succeeding kings instituted and handed down to us, by means of which our commonwealth has continued to be great and prosperous and to rule over many subjects”). Only two minor adjustments are necessary: (1) “To change the name” of the principal magistracy, “since most people look at the names of things and, influenced by them, either admit that some are hurtful or shrink from others that are useful” (a very Machiavellian consideration, if one thinks of his many pages on the illusionist dimension of politics); and (2) to replace the king with two consuls, following the lesson of the Spartans, since that way “the rulers will be less arrogant and vexatious when the power is divided between two and each has the same authority” (Antiquities IV.73). Indeed, Brutus concludes, “this principle, by which the same person both rules and is ruled in turn (imperare aliquem quandoque et eundem parere) and surrenders his authority before his mind has been corrupted, restrains arrogant dispositions and does not permit men’s natures to grow intoxicated with power. If we establish these regulations we should be able to enjoy all the benefits that flow from monarchy and at the same time to be rid of the evils that attend it” (Antiquities IV.74). Dionysius’ insistence on institutional continuity may sound unusual to readers accustomed for more than two centuries to think of monarchical and republican government as mutually exclusive, often associating the princely rule with despotism (an idea completely foreign to Renaissance political philosophy, where the juxtaposition between princely and tyrannical rule is fundamental).27 This sense of surprise can only grow when one comes to the third stage in Rome’s constitutional evolution: the struggle between patricians and plebeians inaugurated by the secession to the Sacred Mount, which Dionysius, unlike Livy (II.32–​ 35), reconstructs in great detail (Antiquities VI.45–​90; VII.1–​67).28 The final outcome of the struggle –​the trial of Marcius Coriolanus in 490 BCE –​is especially relevant for Dionysius, because it is only then that R.G. Witt, ‘The “De Tyranno” and Coluccio Salutati’s View of Politics and Roman History,’ Nuova Rivista Storica, 53 (1969), pp. 434–​74; G. Pedullà, ‘Scipione e i tiranni,’ in Atlante I, pp. 348–​55. 28 For a commentary:  E. Noé, ‘Ricerche su Dionigi di Alicarnasso. La prima stasis a Roma e l’episodio di Coriolano,’ in L. Troiani (ed.), Ricerche di storiografia greca di età romana (Giardini, 1979), pp. 21–​116. 27

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the impact of the tribunate upon the city and its institutions is laid bare. Coriolanus’ conviction, after having been tried for attempting to persuade senators to exploit the famine caused by the secessio the year before in order to revoke the concessions made to the plebs, is thus depicted as the greatest moment of discontinuity in the entire constitutional history of Rome. As he had earlier with Romulus, Dionysius employs orations to deliver his analysis. And so, after the senator Appius Claudius has spoken in the name of the most intransigent aristocrats, it is the turn of another senator, Publius Valerius Publicola, who comes from one of the patrician families traditionally in favor of agreement with the plebs. Through him Dionysius confides his most important reflections, returning to the subject of “mixed government” (even if the term only appears once): “If any of you, senators, are disturbed by the thought that you will be introducing a pernicious custom into the commonwealth if you grant the populace the power of giving their votes against the patricians, and entertain an opinion that the tribunician power, if considerably strengthened, will serve no good purpose, let them learn that their opinion is erroneous and their surmise is the opposite of what it should be. For if anything is going to be the means of preserving this commonwealth and insuring that it shall never be deprived of its liberty or power, but shall ever continue to be united and harmonious in all respects (concorsque semper et una utens sententia), the most effective instrument will be the populace if taken as partners in the administration of affairs; and what will benefit us above everything will be, not to have a simple and unmixed form of government administering the State, whether monarchy, oligarchy, or democracy, but a constitution combined out of all of these (quod unica non sit Reipublicae administrandae forma interpretans, neque per paucorum, neque per populi principatum; sed ex omnibus mixta constitutio, quod ante omnia nos iuvabit).29 For each of these forms by itself alone (per se ipsa existens) very easily ends in wantonness and lawlessness; but when all of them are duly combined (permixta omnia moderate), the element which is inclined at any time to make innovations and to overstep the customary bounds is held in check (coercetur) by the element which is self-​restrained and remains true to its own character. Thus monarchy, when it becomes cruel and insolent and begins to pursue tyrannical measures, is overthrown by a few good men. And an oligarchy composed of the best men, which is your present form of government, when it has become elated by reason of its wealth and its bands of partisans, and pays no regard to justice or to any other virtue, is overthrown by a prudent democracy (populo). And when a democracy that is moderate (populus autem continens) and governs in accordance with laws begins to be disorderly and lawless, it is taken in hand by the strongest man and set right by force. You, senators, have devised all the precautions possible to prevent the monarchical power from degenerating into tyranny, for you have invested two men instead of one with the supreme power of the commonwealth, and though you have entrusted this magistracy to them, not for an indefinite time, but only for a year, you nevertheless appoint, to keep watch over them (custodes), three hundred patricians, at once the best and the oldest, of whom this senate is composed. But you do not seem as yet to have appointed any to watch (custodiam) over you yourselves, to insure your remaining within proper bounds. 29 The reference to the monarchy is missing from Birago’s translation.

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Now as for you, I have no fear so far that you will permit your minds to be corrupted by the magnitude and number of your blessings, since you have only recently delivered the commonwealth from a long tyranny and because of the long and continuous wars have not yet had leisure to grow insolent and wanton. But with regard to your successors, when I consider how great changes the long course of time brings with it, I am afraid that the men of power in the senate may introduce some change and, unnoticed, transform the government into a tyrannical monarchy. If, then, you admit the populace also to a share in the government, no evil will arise for you here. But the man who aims at greater power than the rest of his fellow-​citizens and has formed a faction in the senate of all who are willing to share his disaffection and his crimes (for when we are deliberating concerning the commonwealth we ought to foresee every likely contingency), this great and august person, I  say, when called upon by the tribunes to appear before the popular assembly, before the lowly and humble people, will have to give an accounting of both his actions and his purpose, and if found guilty, suffer the punishment he deserves.” (Antiquities VII.55–​56)30

Through the voice of Valerius Publicola, Dionysius offers the readers a full constitutional history of Rome. The senator, just like Romulus, understands that all forms of government are subject to decay. And in this respect Valerius Publicola anticipates several of the ideas central to the Discourses, beginning with the perishability of all simple forms under the weight of “insolence” (arrogantia). From generation to generation, through the ineluctable law first enunciated by Polybius, the constitutional cycle runs its course until it reaches the stage of unbridled rule by the masses, after which it returns whence it began –​unless the process is interrupted by an ex omnibus mixta constitutio. We have seen how, according to Dionysius, Romulus too had aspired to a similar balance. Later history, in particular the tyrannical reign of Tarquin, taught however that the division of officia, honores, and potestates (offices and powers) was not enough to forestall the involution of the political system. Not even the replacement of the king with two annually elected consuls had proven sufficient, because the senate then became the final arbiter of government.31 Foreign wars and the memory of tyranny kept the patricians virtuous, but it is wise to install countermeasures on time, especially if the city were to undergo prolonged military inactivity (and inferre contumeliam and lascivire as the only possible outcomes of peace would resurface in Disc. I.6). A similar reform, continues Valerius Publicola, would be in keeping with a traditional constitution: “Do you, then, bearing these things in mind, and believing that this is the most perfect form of government, debar the populace from nothing, but, even as you have granted them the right of choosing the magistrates who are to preside each year over the 30 The only mention of the influence of this passage on modern political thought is in Gabba, Dionysius, p. 144. 31 Coriolanus, too, had already argued that Rome was an aristocracy (Antiquities VII.22) and will repeat the observation during his exile, lamenting the subversive effect of the creation of the tribunes (Antiquities VIII.5).

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commonwealth, as well as confirming or invalidating laws, of declaring war and making peace –​which are the greatest and the most important matters that come up for action in the commonwealth –​and have not invested the senate with authority over any one of these matters, in like manner give them also a share in the courts, and particularly in the trials of those who are accused of crimes against the State by raising a sedition or aiming at tyranny or discussing a betrayal of the State with the enemy or attempt us some other mischief of like nature. For the more formidable you make it for the overbearing and self-​seeking to transgress the laws and to alter your customs, by appointing many eyes to watch and many men to keep guard (plures oculos custodesque) over them, the better will be the condition of your commonwealth.” (Antiquities VII.56)

As long as the senators remain untouchable, Valerius Publicola reasons, Rome is destined to remain fundamentally an aristocracy. Giving the tribunes the power to call the patricians to account, on the other hand, represents the natural outcome of the process begun by Romulus, as suggested by his allusion to the people’s power to elect the magistrates, ratify the laws, and vote on war (the three prerogatives the first king assigned to the assembly). In contrast to Polybius (Histories VI.15–​ 18), for whom the system of balances revolves around the obstacles that each magistracy is able to erect for the others, Dionysius attributes a stabilizing function to the accusatory power alone, and reformulates in terms of threat an institutional dynamic that in the Histories was described instead through the concepts of resistance (antipráttein) and collaboration (sunérgein). As a consequence, in the Antiquities the popular element of the mixed constitution is no longer the assembly (as in Polybius) but rather the college of tribunes  –​just as it is in Machiavelli:  “Thus were created the tribunes of the plebs; after they were created, the condition of the republic became more stable since all three forms of government had a share in it” (Disc. I.2). As a result, the Rome of Dionysius (and, after him, of the Discourses) appears much more democratic than the Rome of Polybius, for whom the assemblies are given the sole task of ratifying the decisions of the senate and the consuls. Above all, Dionysius and Machiavelli share an insistence on the value of threats. The key verb in Valerius Publicola’s reasoning is in fact coercere –​ to indicate that any Roman who would try to subvert the constitution would immediately be “constrained” by the other magistracies to abandon such a project. Dionysius has no illusions: while the fear of punishment tempers men’s desires, the absence of “guards” positioned to watch over their fellow citizens inevitably leads to tyranny. And, as seen in Chapter 3, this is the exact same idea Machiavelli expresses in Disc. I.3 regarding the tribunate. Following in Dionysius’ footsteps, Machiavelli reasons that fear of Tarquin had been sufficient to constrain the nobles in the early years of the Republic, but that, in the absence of the metus hostilis, it was necessary to develop new coercive instruments. The Antiquities speak of custodes and the Discourses of guardia, but the role assigned to the tribunes is identical, to the degree that, reflecting on the trial of Coriolanus (which Livy had narrated without

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comment) in Disc. I.7–​8, Machiavelli merely repeats Dionysius’ assessment (enriching it only with his comparison of calumnies and accusations).32 Extraordinarily, at the end of Coriolanus’ trial, Dionysius himself takes the stage to comment on the revolutionary events of 494–​490 BCE: This was the first summoning of a patrician before the tribunal of the plebeians; and from this time it became customary for those who afterwards assumed the patronship of the people to summon to stand trial before the people any of the citizens they thought fit. From this beginning the people rose to great power, while the aristocracy lost much of its ancient dignity by admitting the plebeians into the senate and allowing them to stand as candidates for magistracies, by not opposing their presiding over sacrifices, and by sharing with all the citizens the other privileges that were most highly prized and had been the special prerogatives of the patricians, some of which concessions they made because of necessity and against their will (necessario et invitus), and others through foresight and wisdom (provide et sapienter) […]. However, this custom (consuetudo) of summoning the men of power at Rome to a trial where the populace were always in control, would afford rich material for comment to those who are disposed either to commend or to blame it. For many good and worthy men have already been treated in a manner unworthy of their merits and have been put to a shameful and miserable death at the instigation of the tribunes, while many men of arrogant and tyrannical dispositions, being compelled to give an accounting of their lives and conduct, have suffered the punishment they deserved. Whenever these verdicts were rendered with the best motives and the pride of the mighty was justly humbled (purgabantur), this institution appeared a great and admirable thing, and met with general praise, but when a virtuous and able statesman incurred hatred and was unjustly done away with, the rest of the world was shocked at the institution and the authors (consuetudinis eius inceptores) of it were condemned. The Romans have often deliberated whether they should repeal this institution or preserve it as they received it from their ancestors, but have never come to any final decision. If I am to express an opinion myself […], I believe that the institution (consuetudo), considered by itself, is advantageous, and absolutely necessary to the Roman commonwealth, but that it becomes better or worse according to the character of the tribunes. For when this power falls into the hands of just and prudent (moderati) men, who prefer the interest of the public to their own, the punishing as he deserves of one who has injured his country strikes terror (multum terroris) into the minds of all who are prepared to mankind similar offences, while the good man who enters public life with the best intentions neither incurs the disgrace of being brought to trial nor is accused of wrongdoing inconsistent with his habits. But when wicked, intemperate and avaricious men gain so great power, the contrary of all this happens. Hence, instead of reforming the institution (consuetudinem) as faulty, they ought to consider by what means good and worthy men may become protectors of the people, and positions of the greatest importance may not be conferred at random on the first who chance to turn up. 32 Philippe Akar has shown that Dionysius’ view on the tribunes is much more positive than Livy’s as well (Concordia. Un idéal de la classe dirigeante romaine à la fin de la République, Publications de la Sorbonne, 2013, pp. 173–​87, especially p. 179). See also T. Lanfranchi, Les tribuns de la plèbe et la formation de la République romaine (École française de Rome, 2015), pp. 603–​21; Lanfranchi even speaks of “a great originality of Dionysius’ positions” (ibid., p. 29).

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Such were the causes and such was the outcome of the first sedition that arose among the Romans after the expulsion of the kings. I have related these at length, to the end that no one may wonder how the patricians ever consented to entrust the populace with so great power, when there had been no slaying or banishing of the best citizens, as has happened in many other States. For everyone, upon hearing of extraordinary events, desires to know the cause that produced them and considers that alone as the test of their credibility. I reflected, accordingly, that my account of this affair would gain little or no credit if I contented myself with saying that the patricians resigned their power to the plebeians and that, though they might have continued to live under an aristocracy, they put the populace in control of the most important matters. (Antiquities VII.65–​66)

Such retrospective considerations on the first great conflict between patricians and plebeians after the expulsion of the kings also offers Dionysius a chance to rebuke those who “give an exact account of military actions and sometimes expend a great many words over a single battle” but only gloss over the clashes between the factions (an objection that recalls Machiavelli’s protest against Bruni and Bracciolini in the Preface to the Florentine Histories). For Dionysius, however, it is above all an occasion to express his own admiration for Rome:33 If there is anything about the Roman commonwealth that is worthy of great praise and deserving of imitation by all mankind, or, rather, anything that surpasses in its lustre all the many things which deserve our admiration, it is in my opinion this fact –​that neither the plebeians in contempt of the patricians took up arms against them, and after murdering many of the best men, seized all their fortunes, nor, on the other hand, the men in positions of dignity either by themselves alone or with the aid of foreign troops destroyed all the plebeians and after that lived in the city free from fear (sine metu), but conferring together about what was fair and just (de iure aequoque disputants), like brothers with brothers or children with their parents in a well-​governed family, they settled their controversies by persuasion and reason and never allowed themselves to commit any irreparable or wicked deeds against one another, such as the Corcyraeans committed at the time of their sedition [431 BCE], and also the Argives, the Milesians, and all Sicily, as well as many other States. (Antiquities VII.66)

Each of Dionysius’ points will later resurface in Machiavelli: (1) The surprising moderation of conflicts between patricians and plebeians; (2) the recognition of the positive effects of the tumults with the creation of the tribunes (thanks to which Rome became a mixed constitution); (3) the identification of the tribunes with accusations and fear (particularly necessary after the end of the metus hostilis aroused by Tarquin); The Antiquities have been described as “the most systematic attempt to reconcile Greeks and Romans” (B. Forte, Rome and the Romans as the Greeks saw them, American Academy of Rome, 1972, p.  195). See also A. Delcourt, Lecture des “Antiquités romaines” de Denys d’Halicarnasse (Académie Royale de Belgique, 2005). This idea is now challenged by Wiater, Ideology, pp. 198–​223. 33

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(4) the supremacy of the people over the aristocracy following the concession of “guard” to the tribunes –​that is, the tribunes’ right to place any citizen, including senators, on trial; and (5) the scant importance accorded to the tribunes’ occasional excesses compared to their benefits. At the same time, the assessment of conflicts in the Discourses is far more radical.34 As already seen in Chapter 2, Machiavelli went so far as to argue that, independent of the positive impact of the struggles between the orders on Rome’s constitutional history, “every city must have its own modes (modi) with which the people can vent its ambition, and especially those cities that wish to employ the people in important things” (Disc. I.4). This means that, even once the perfect form of government is reached, tumults will continue to upset the Republic. Dionysius too recognizes that the struggles between those who have and those who have not are inevitable, and he has Menenius Agrippa declare in Antiquities VI.54: “We are not the only people, nor the first, among whom poverty has raised sedition against wealth, and lowliness against eminence, but that in nearly all States, both great and small, the lower class is generally hostile to the upper.” Nevertheless, this awareness does not lead Dionysius to fully accept conflict as natural. In the Antiquities, dissension between patricians and plebeians, once it has fulfilled its duty to perfect the constitution, can and indeed must disappear. This is why, in Valerius Publicola’s oration, there is no fundamental contradiction between the recognition of conflict as the motor of constitutional innovation and the celebration of concord produced by mixed government. For Dionysius  –​ unlike Machiavelli –​social harmony retains a value that is beyond dispute (Antiquities VI.66; VI.79; VII.42). Acknowledging that conflicts are necessary because they allow citizens to “vent their ambition” implies a different logic, and more specifically an adoption of the Hippocratic metaphor (absent in Dionysius). For Machiavelli, it is no longer possible to distinguish between an initial period in which tumults can turn out to have positive results, and a subsequent phase in which the ideology of concord once again takes the upper hand. Put simply, fear and desire lead men and States to clash, and there is no concession that can fully erase the anthropological roots of human conflict. This is why, rather than work toward an unachievable ideal of harmony (as do the protagonists of the Antiquities), Machiavelli will focus his energies instead on the “modes” of the conflict.

34 The praise of bloodless tumults returns in Antiquities II.11; VII.18. The possible relevance of these passages for Machiavelli was noted by A.H. Krappe, ‘Quelques sources grecques de N.  Machiavel,’ Études italiennes, 6 (1924), pp. 80–​90; Sasso, ‘Detrattori,’ pp.  460–​61. For a comparison of Roman riots and Greek staseis: Noé, ‘Ricerche,’ pp. 48, 114–​16 (with a nod to Machiavelli); P. Botteri, ‘Stasis: le mot grec, la chose romaine,’ Metis, 4 (1989), pp. 87–​100.

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Dionysius: Dictatorship and Roman Tumults Dionysius is also important to understanding another key idea in the Discourses. In Chapter 3 we have already seen the extraordinary importance Machiavelli assigns to Roman dictatorship; what went unmentioned, however, was his polemical stance. And yet, the title itself of Disc. I.34 –​“that the dictatorial authority did good, and not harm, to the Roman republic; and that the authorities citizens take by themselves, not those given them by free elections, are pernicious to civil life” –​presupposes the existence of a debate that left no traces in fifteenth-​century writings. And curiosity over the unnamed target of Machiavelli’s polemic is further fuelled by the aggressiveness of his tone: The Romans who invented in that city the mode (modo) of creating the dictator have been condemned by some writer for a thing that was the cause, in time, of the tyranny of Rome. Citing the fact that the first tyrant in that city commanded it under the dictatorial title, he says that if there had not been this, Caesar would not have been able to put an honest face on his tyranny under any public title. This thing was not well examined by the one who holds this opinion and believed against all reason. For it was neither the name nor the rank of dictator that enslaved Rome, but the authority taken by citizens because of the length of [military] command; and if the dictatorial name had been lacking in Rome, they would have taken another; for it is forces that easily acquire names, not names forces. And it was seen that, while the dictator was appointed according to public institutions (ordini pubblici) and not by his own authority, he always did good to the city. For magistrates that are made and authorities that are given through extra-​ordinary ways (vie istraordinarie), not those that come through ordinary ways (vie ordinarie), hurt republics; so one sees that in Rome the result was that in so much course of time no dictator ever did anything but good to the republic. (Disc. I.34)

Who is this “writer” that Machiavelli is talking about? The answer can be found in Dionysius. Compared with the rather summary treatment of the subject in Livy, the Antiquities (V.73–​77) contain the most sustained reflection on dictatorship that has come down to us from the ancient world, and the only attempt to formulate a systematic assessment of this institution prior to the Discourses. According to Dionysius, the first dictator was named in 498 BCE to deal with the plebs’ threat to ignore military conscription, and thus with the goal of containing the potentially paralyzing effects of the “right to appeal to the people” (Antiquities V.70). As for the nature of the magistracy, the Antiquities leave little to doubt:  it was a sort of “elected tyranny” (tyrannis electa)  –​ an expression that emphasizes both the constitutionality of the dictator, on the one hand, and the exceptionality of his unchecked power, on the other. For Dionysius, the dictatorship is also an opportunity to retrace the Polybian constitutional cycle yet again, although here the insertion of the dictatorship into the traditional pattern forces the narrative to take an unexpected turn: The first men who had recourse to this institution had learned the advantage of it by experience. For in the beginning all the Greek cities were governed by kings, though not despotically, like the barbarian nations, but according to certain laws and

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time-​honoured customs, and he was the best king who was the most just, the most observant of the laws, and did not in any wise depart from the established customs (extra mores patrios). This appears from Homer, who calls kings dikaspóloi, and themispóloi. And kingships continued to be carried on for a long time subject to certain stated conditions, like that of the Lacedaemonians. But as some of the kings began to abuse their powers and made little use of the laws, but settled most matters according to their own judgment, people in general grew dissatisfied with the whole institution and abolished the kingly governments; and enacting laws and choosing magistrates, they used these as the safeguards of their cities (urbium custodiis). But when neither the laws they had made were sufficient to ensure justice nor the magistrates who had undertaken the oversight of them able to uphold the laws, […] not only in unwelcome calamities, but also in immoderate prosperity (in excedentibus quoque modum felicitatibus), and when their forms of government were becoming corrupted by these conditions and required speedy and arbitrary correction, they were compelled to restore the kingly and tyrannical powers, though they concealed them under more attractive titles. Thus, the Thessalians called these officials árchoi, and the Lacedaemonians harmostái, fearing to call them tyrants or kings, on the ground that it was not right for them to confirm those powers again which they had abolished with oaths and imprecations, under the approbation of the gods. (Antiquities V.74)

The idea that the expulsion of the king had created a void in the constitution, and that republics would be incapable of withstanding adversity without establishing remedies for such moments of crisis, would be echoed in Machiavelli’s writing on the “slow motion” of republics (Disc. I.34; I.38). Still, the most interesting reflections with respect to the Discourses emerge in the following lines, where Dionysius focuses on Rome. His account of the acts of Titus Lartius, the first citizen called upon to fill the role of dictator, leaves no doubts about the virtuousness of the institution. Unconstrained by the people’s right to appeal, Lartius frightens “the turbulent and the seditious” (Antiquities V.75), announces a census, enlists a powerful army, and by force of dissuasion alone convinces the Latins to settle for peace with Rome; ultimately, he steps down “without having put any of the Romans to death, banished any, or inflicted any other severity” (Antiquities V.77). Even more important, Dionysius notes, Titus Lartius’ example would set the standard and be imitated by all those who later took up the office. But the achievements of Lartius and his successors also raise another question. If in fact no one had ever abused the prerogatives of the dictatorship, how did it acquire the stain of infamy that already tarnished it by the time of Augustus? This enviable example set by Lartius was continued by all who afterwards received this same power till the third generation before ours. Indeed, we find no instance of any one of them in history who did not use it with moderation and civility (moderate civiliterque), though the commonwealth has often found it necessary to abolish the legal magistracies (magistratus legitimos dissolvere) and to put the whole administration under one man. If, now, in foreign wars alone those who held the dictatorship had shown themselves brave champions of the fatherland, quite uncorrupted by the

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greatness of their power, it would not be so remarkable; but as it was, all who obtained this great power, whether in times of civil dissensions, which were many and serious, or in order to overthrow those who were suspected of aiming at monarchy or tyranny, or to prevent numberless other calamities, acquitted themselves in a manner free from reproach, like the first man who received it; so that all men gained the same opinion, and the last hope of safety (insanabilis mali omnis unicum sit remedium spesque salutis ultima) when all others had been snatched away by some crisis, was the dictatorship. But in the time of our fathers, a full four hundred years after Titus Lartius, the institution became an object of reproach and hatred to all men under Lucius Cornelius Sulla, the first and only dictator who exercised his power with harshness and cruelty (amare crudeliterque) [81–​80 BCE]; so the Romans then perceived for the first time what they had along been ignorant of, that the dictatorship is a tyranny (tyrannidem esse dictaturam). For Sulla composed the senate of commonplace men, reduced the power of the tribunes to the minimum, depopulated whole cities, abolished some kingdoms and established others himself, and was guilty of many other arbitrary acts, which it would be a great task to enumerate. As for the citizens, besides those slain in battle, he put no fewer than forty thousand to death after they had surrendered to him, and some of these after he had first tortured them. Whether all these acts of his were necessary or advantageous to the commonwealth the present is not the time to inquire; all I have undertaken to show is that the name of dictator was rendered odious and terrible because of them. This is wont to be the case, not only with positions of power, but also with the other advantages which are eagerly contended for and admired in everyday life. For they all appear noble and profitable to those who hold them when they are used nobly (pulchre), but base and unprofitable when they find unprincipled champions. For this result nature is responsible, which to all good things has attached some congenital evils (adiiciens bonis omnibus pestes item insitas aliquas). But another occasion may be more suitable for discussing this subject. (Antiquities V.77)

This passage offers readers of Machiavelli several points for further reflection. First, the “some writer” mentioned in Disc. I.34 can finally be linked to the anonymous critics of dictatorship presented in the Antiquities. Furthermore, as will be the case in Disc. I.34, the fulcrum of the passage rests on the contrast between things and the names used to designate them (first Dionysius recounts how the Greeks chose the titles of árchoi and harmostái to avoid those of king and tyrant; then he juxtaposes the facile inquiry into the origins of the term with the study of the concrete functioning of the dictatorship;35 finally, he notes how the despotic use of this magistracy on the part of Sulla36 had also brought discredit upon the previous four centuries by virtue of their mere homonymy). But it is also worth highlighting that the conclusion regarding the congenital evils of good things presents remarkable parallels with many statements by Machiavelli. Dionysius discusses dictatorship again later –​this time right in the middle of a debate on the prerogatives of the tribunes. Immediately after having defended “For my part, I have not thought it worth while to inquire from whence the Romans took the name but from whence they took the example of the power comprehended under that name” (Antiquities V.74). 36 See also Eutropius, Breviarium I.12. 35

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their right to call the patricians to account (in the speech already quoted above), Valerius Publicola also suggests that an analogous instrument be prepared to check the people: And lest the people themselves, when vested with so great a power, should grow wanton and, seduced by the demagoguery of the worst men, make war upon the best citizens (for it is in the masses as a rule that tyranny springs up), some person of exceptional sagacity, created dictator by you, will guard (custodiet) against this evil and will not allow them to do anything lawless; for, being invested with absolute and irresponsible power (absoluti quidem iuris nec obnoxia utens potestate), he will cut off the diseased part of the commonwealth and will not permit that which is as yet uninfected to be contaminated (morbidam eximet civitatis partem et quae nondum corrupta fuerit non sinet in peius ruere); he will reform in the best manner possible the habits, usages and aims of the citizens, and appoint such magistrates as he thinks will govern the State with the greatest prudence (moderatissime); and having effected these things within the space of six months, he will again become a private citizen, receiving no other reward for these actions than the honor. (Antiquities VII.56)

In Valerius Publicola’s thinking, the dictator and tribunes complement one another (see Figure 6.2). As seen in Chapter 3, a similar logic surfaces in the Discourses in the name of the metus hostilis; Dionysius, however, places the accent on a detail that will remain at most implicit in Machiavelli’s text: that the dictator is a fundamentally patrician magistracy (in the republican era that concerns the Discourses, at least –​before the plebeians gained access to the consulate in 367 BCE thanks to the Leges Liciniae Sextiae). That Machiavelli does not insist on this point is probably a sign of his willingness to give the dictator a position super partes (though one cannot necessarily be sure). What is certain is that, while Dionysius points to the people as the primary focus of the dictator’s corrective power, the Discourses assigns the dictator the task of resolving problems of a different kind:  the aspiring tyrants Marcus Manlius Capitolinus (Disc. I.8) and Spurius Maelius (Disc. III.28); the censors (Disc. I.49); two “disunited” consuls (Disc. I.50); and even the “nobility” (Disc. I.5). Despite these differences, the Discourses’ debt to the Antiquities appears undeniable.37 As usual, however, Machiavelli re-​ elaborates Dionysius’ observations in terms of his own categories. In the case of the dictator, this is particularly evident in the juxtaposition between “ordinary” and “extra-​ ordinary ways” used in Disc. I.34 to distinguish emergency magistracies that heal from those that hurt the republic. So long as such expansive powers do no harm, it is necessary for them to be of limited duration, and for the dictator 37 For Machiavelli’s debt to the Antiquities on this specific point:  G. Pedullà, ‘Una “tirannide elettiva”,’ in F. Benigno and L. Scuccimarra (eds.), Governo straordinario e stato di eccezione (Viella, 2007), pp. 7–​51. In ‘Machiavelli and the Problem of Dictatorship,’ Ratio Juris, 28 (2015), pp. 226–​41, Marco Geuna argues instead that Machiavelli polemicizes with Dionysius. See also M. Geuna, ‘Extraordinary Accidents in the Life of Republics: Machiavelli and Dictatorial Authority,’ in D. Johnston, N. Urbinati, and C. Vergara (eds.), Machiavelli in Liberty and Conflict (University of Chicago Press, 2017), pp. 280–​306.

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202 Dictator

Consuls PATRICIANS

Senate Assembly

Tribunes PLEBEIANS

checks in Brutus’ constitution (509 ) checks in Valerius’ constitution (490 ) elects / appoints

Figure 6.2  The Roman constitution in the republican period according to Dionysius Note: The diagram illustrates the functioning of the Republic’s constitution after the reforms of Marcus Junius Brutus (509 BCE) and Publius Valerius Publicola (490 BCE). Note how the fundamental issue is no longer the vote and its ratification, as in Romulus’ constitution, but the power to check and to veto. In Antiquities IV.73–​74, Brutus’ mixed constitution still appears imperfect, for while the senators check the people through the consuls, the people has no instrument to stop hypothetical subversive maneuvers by the senate (as the consuls are elected among the patricians, just like the senators themselves). As a result, in such a constitutional system the patricians are essentially in control of the institutions: Rome is still an aristocracy. The reform of Valerius Publicola, analyzed in Antiquities VII.55–​56 and VII.65–​66, compensates for this deficiency by introducing the tribunes of the plebs, who through the right to veto and to accuse anybody before the popular assembly can check both the plebeians as well as the senate and consuls. The risk of disequilibrium inherent in the broad powers of the tribunes, who themselves are not subject to control by any magistracy, is tempered by the authority (reserved for the consuls, and thus the patricians) to nominate a temporary dictator to confront emergencies. Only the dictator, in this scheme, is left unchecked by any external constraint –​but his exceptional prerogatives are counterbalanced by the limited duration of his office, and his accountability once the mandate has ended.

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to be barred from altering the constitution in any way. Thus the Discourses frame dictatorship as the antithesis of another exceptional magistracy:  the decemvirate –​named in 451 BCE to compile Rome’s first written legislation –​ which soon devolved into a cabal of tyrants under the leadership of Appius Claudius Crassus (grandson of the consul of 493 BCE): If a free authority is given for a long time –​calling a long time one year or more –​it will always be dangerous and will have either good or bad effects according as those to whom it is given are bad or good. If one considers the authority that the decemvirs had, and that which the dictators used to have, one will see that that of the decemvirs was greater beyond comparison. For every time the dictator was created, the tribunes, consuls, and senate remained with their authority; nor was the dictator able to take it away from them. If he had been able to deprive one of them of the consulate, one of the senate, he could not annul the senatorial order and make new laws. Thus, the senate, the consuls, the tribunes, remaining in their authority, came to be like a guard (guardia) on him to make him not depart from the right way. But in the creation of the decemvirs it happened all the contrary. (Disc. I.35)

This reference to the “guard” that the senate, tribunes, and consuls continued to exert over the actions of the dictator (without relinquishing their own powers and functions) is a limitation on the office’s still-​broad powers that does not exist in Dionysius. Machiavelli in fact inherits from the Antiquities the notion of dictatorship as both a solution and a problem  –​solution, since it is only thanks to the dictator that republics manage to withstand the defects inherent in the government of the many; problem, since, without proper constraints, exceptional magistracies pose a threat to republican institutions themselves. Machiavelli recognizes this danger, but, according to the logic of the gamble described in Chapter  5, accepts the risk involved. And for centuries, in the wake of the Discourses, the greatest republican thinkers would do the same.38 Dionysius: Citizenship and Roman Tumults Every time the Discourses diverge from Polybius on an institutional issue (which happens repeatedly in the first chapters of book I), they concur instead 38 James Harrington, The Commonwealth of Oceana, ed. J.G.A. Pocock (Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 131–​32; Algernon Sidney, Discourses Concerning Government, ed. T. West (Liberty Fund, 1996), II.13; II.17; III.12; Montesquieu, The Spirits of the Laws, eds. A.M. Cohler, B.C. Miller, and H.S. Stone (Cambridge University Press, 1989), I.2.3; II.11.16; Jean-​ Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, ed. V. Gourevitch (Cambridge University Press, 1997), IV.6; Adam Ferguson, An Essay on the History of Civil Society, ed. F. Oz-​Salzberg (Cambridge University Press, 1995), VI.1, p. 228; John Adams, ‘Defence of the Constitutions and Government of the United States of America,’ in John Adams, Works, ed. C.F. Adams, 10  vols. (Little & Brown, 1850–​56), V, pp. 184–​88. According to the conventional distinction, Machiavelli and his followers defend a conception of “commissarial dictatorship” distinct from “constituent dictatorship,” where conversely, in the wake of Sulla, the dictator acts as a violent reformer of institutions. See C. Schmitt, Dictatorship (Polity, 2013) and W. Nippel, ‘Saving the Constitution: The European Discourse on Dictatorship,’ in J. Coleman and P.M. Kitromilides (eds.), In the Footsteps of Herodotus: Towards European Political Thought (Olschki, 2012), pp. 29–​49.

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TABLE 6.1  The mixed constitution: Polybius vs. Dionysius and Machiavelli POLIBIUS

DIONYSIUS and MACHIAVELLI

• Static representation of the Roman constitution, as it functioned at the time of the wars against Carthage (264–​146 BCE). • Three good forms of government (monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy) are juxtaposed to their degenerate versions (tyranny, oligarchy, and ochlocracy), even though the mixed constitution remains the best of all. • The popular element of the Roman constitution is the assembly (in Histories VI.17, the chapter dedicated to the prerogatives of the people, the tribunes are not mentioned even once).

• Dynamic representation of the Roman constitution and the process that led to the adoption of the “mixed government.” • All six simple forms of government (monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, and tyranny, oligarchy, ochlocracy) are bad. The only good (and lasting) form is the mixed constitution.

• Romulus’ monarchy did not in any way foreshadow the republican mixed constitution. • The balance of the mixed constitution depends on the ability of the various organs of government and different magistracies to work with (sunérgein) or against (antipráttein) one another, as in the case of the tribunes through their veto power.

• The perfecting of the Roman constitution coincides with the implementation of the tribunes and the first popular trials, not with the right of vote of the assembly (already proffered by Romulus). • The republican mixed constitution is just an improvement of Romulus’ tempered monarchy. • The balance of the mixed constitution derives above all from the power of threat, or coercitio, wielded by both the plebeians (through the accusations of the tribunes) and the patricians (through the dictator, appointed by the consuls).

with Dionysius. This alone should suffice to prove that the Antiquities, and not the Histories, had been Machiavelli’s main source for Rome’s constitutional history (see Table 6.1). As Dionysius does not use the famous Polybian image of the “circle” of constitutions, however, while the image does appear in Disc. I.2, one must conclude that Machiavelli had some knowledge (direct or indirect) of the Histories as well.39 In any case, because the influence of the Antiquities can be detected on the most disparate topics throughout the entire Discourses  –​which is not true of Polybius –​it is clear that the respective importance of the two authors for Machiavelli is incomparable, both in depth and breadth. Frequently this 39 In Disc. I.2 there are other details present only in Polybius, such as the reflections on the birth of the sentiment of justice or the detailed analysis of the process by which simple forms follow one another and then return to monarchy.

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influence concerns matters extraneous to Machiavelli’s theory of conflict, such as his reflections on the futility of fortresses and the rules to follow when choosing their location (Antiquities II.3); the importance of brief, decisive executions (Antiquities V.57); the omnipotence of necessity (Antiquities V.64; VI.54); the respective merits of generals and the army (Antiquities VI.64); or the relationship between war and wealth (Antiquities VII.19). On other occasions, however, Dionysius touches on questions explored in great depth in Chapters 2–​5, such as when he portrays fear as an effective educational tool (Antiquities II.28–​29);40 reflects on the aging of the laws (Antiquities IV.24); weighs the appetites of those who have and those who have not (Antiquities VIII.25); discusses the impact of the tribunate (Antiquities IX.44–​45; IX.47; X.28); describes the “exchange” of service in the militia for new legal rights (Antiquities X.29); or reveals how the patricians resorted to war in order to keep internal conflicts at bay, following the dynamics of the metus hostilis (Antiquities VI.23; VIII.83; IX.43; IX.32; X.33).41 Reading Dionysius, it seems at times that one might even be able to trace the development of certain key concepts in the Discourses step by step. As seen in Chapter 4, one of the questions Machiavelli addressed most urgently was “whether the guard of liberty is more securely placed in the people or in the mighty” (Disc. I.5). After having taken the “side of the Romans,” Machiavelli also elucidates the arguments of those who maintain that a mixed constitution should be tilted toward the mighty: (a) He who defends (Chi difende) the Spartan and Venetian institution (ordine) says that those who put the guard in the hands of the mighty do two good works: one is that they satisfy their ambition more, and, having more part in the republic through having that stick in their hand, [the mighty] have cause to be more content; (b) the other is that they take away some authority from the restless spirits of the plebs that is the cause of infinite dissensions and scandals in a republic and is apt to provoke in the nobility a desperation that with time can have bad effects. They give as an example of this the same Rome, where, because the tribunes of the plebs had this authority in their hands, it was not enough for them to have one plebeian consul, but they wished to have both. From this, they wished for the censorship, the praetor, and all the other ranks of command of the city. (Disc. I.5)

In Appius Claudius’ oration against the tribunes’ right to have a patrician put on trial before the people, one finds exactly the same arguments: (a) It would be the part of great folly for them, in their desire to gratify the worse part of the citizenry, to disregard the better element, and in confiscating the fortunes of others for the benefit of the most unjust of the citizens, to take them away from those who had justly acquired them. He asked them also to bear in mind that States are not overthrown by those who are poor and without power (nullam vim), when they are compelled to 40 For Dionysius’ tendency to devalue education with respect to fear: Ducos, ‘Denys,’ pp. 183–​85. 41 On the “dialectic” of interior and exterior conflicts in Dionysius compared to Livy, see T. Lanfranchi, Tribuns, pp. 621–​29.

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do justice, but by the rich and such as are capable of administering public affairs, when they are insulted by their inferiors and fail to keep justice. (Antiquities V.66) (b) The desires of the unintelligent are not satisfied when they obtain what they demand, but they immediately covet other and greater things, and so on without end (inque infinitum progredi); and this is the case particularly with the masses. For the lawless deeds which each one by himself is either ashamed or afraid to commit, being restrained (coercitus) by the more powerful, they are more ready to engage in when they have got together and gained strength for their own inclinations from those who are like minded. And since the desires of the unintelligent mob are insatiable and boundless, it is necessary, he said, to check (inhiberi) them at the very outset, while they are weak, instead of trying to destroy them after they have become great and powerful. For all men feel more violent anger when deprived of what has already been granted to them than when disappointed of what they merely hope for (Esse enim graviorem iram omnium cum frodantur concessis, quam si speratis minime potiantur). (Antiquities V.67)42

The similarities between the two passages are so specific that it is evident that the phrase “he who defends the Spartan and Venetian institution” conceals the identity of the plebs’ bitterest foe: the same Appius Claudius who in 494 BCE wanted to keep Rome a mixed constitution tilted in favor of the aristocracy. But, more generally, Machiavelli’s entire defense of the decision to entrust the “guard” to the people is also constructed upon a rebuttal of Appius’ argument.43 Something similar is true regarding another key element of Machiavelli’s theory of conflict. As seen in Chapter 2, in the Discourses the idea that cities periodically need to conduct a purge takes shape in opposition to the humanistic notion that they should expel all the residents without stable jobs in order to prevent a potential source of social turbulence. And it is this very tension between a “purgation” of the people and a “purgation” from the people that readers find in the Antiquities. Unsurprisingly, the first to argue that the patricians should simply rid themselves of the plebeians is the same Appius Claudius at the time of the first secession (in the oration cited above): “they ought […] to regard it as a great benefit to the commonwealth if they would voluntarily get the devil out of the city” (Antiquities V.68). From then on, every time that conflict between the orders intensifies, the idea that unity might be restored by exploiting the secessio to do away with the plebs repeatedly resurfaces. Dionysius even considers the question so central that he dedicates an entire discourse to disprove it, through the voice of the pro-​plebeian senator Menenius Agrippa: “How can these men be said to foresee in their minds any course that is profitable or possible, when they imagine that a State so powerful and mistress of so extensive a dominion, a State that is calendar becoming an object of hatred, and a cause of offence to her neighbors, As the story continues, opposing any possibility of reconciliation, Appius Claudius repeats the same argument on the inability of the people to curb their own desires (Antiquities VII.49). 43 Though she did not know Dionysius’ work, Victoria Kahn quite perceptively called attention to the influence of oratorical disputes on Disc. I.5–​6 (Machiavellian Rhetoric, Princeton University Press, 1994, pp. 50–​54). 42

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will easily be able either without the plebeians to hold and preserve the subject nations or else to bring some other people into the commonwealth, a better people in place of one most knavish, who will fight to preserve their supremacy for them and will live with them under the same government in profound quiet, behaving themselves with self-​restraint (moderatam) in both peace and war?” (Antiquities VI.49)

After having demonstrated the impossibility of doing without the plebs, Menenius Agrippa quickly dismisses the idea that the health of the city could be improved by simply amputating one of its limbs: “Everything that is composed of many parts is generally affected with a disorder in some one of them (compositis ex multis rebus quibusque innatum est ex aliqua parte aegrotare); […] neither the ailing part of a human body ought always to be lopped off, for that would be to render the appearance of the rest ugly and its term of life brief (nec humani corporis partem quaecunque aegrotet opus est semper abscindi; turpis enim fieret aspectus reliqui, ac diu non durans natura), nor the disordered part of a civil community to be driven out, since that would be the quickest way of destroying the whole in time through the loss of its separate parts.” (Antiquities VI.54)44

He concludes, finally, that it would be illogical to enter into open conflict with the plebs after having shown such generosity to other peoples (in a clear reference to the asylum): “Will you, who spare your enemies, make war upon your friends? Will you, who permit the conquered to go unpunished, punish those who aided you in acquiring your dominion? Will you, who offer your own city as a safe refuge for all who stand in need of it, bring yourselves to drive out of that city the natives with whom you have been reared and educated and with whom you have shared many experiences both evil and good in peace as well as in war? No, not if you desire to act with justice and in conformity with your traditions, and if without passion you judge what is to your interest.” (Antiquities VI.55)

It does not end there. Menenius Agrippa’s conciliatory stance prevails, and the patricians and plebeians make peace, but the struggle is reignited only three years later. During a terrible famine, Coriolanus, that other implacable enemy of the plebs, proposes to exploit his adversaries’ hunger to obtain a revocation of concessions and force “those who were never pleased with the aristocracy […] to leave the city” (Antiquities VII.24),45 thus following Appius Claudius’ suggestion. As we have seen, the proposal is blocked by the tribunes, who bring Coriolanus to justice, but from Machiavelli’s perspective what counts most is the nexus between a large population, military strength, and tumults –​and the obstinate determination of the aristocracy to sever this nexus.46 Thanks to his The removal of a sick part is an extreme solution and is described as one of the responsibilities of the dictator in the aforementioned oration by Valerius Publicola. 45 In Antiquities VII.5 Dionysius recounts how the aristocrats of Capua had sent an expeditionary force against the Thyrrenians composed of all the poorest citizens in order to be rid of them. 46 Mansfield rightly noted that the Discourses’ representation of Coriolanus as staunch enemy of the plebes is absent in Livy (New Modes, p. 54); the explanation for this difference is certainly to be found in Dionysius’ influence. 44

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familiarity with Dionysius, Machiavelli presents the ejection of the poorest citizens (which the humanists depicted as a banal provision of public order) as an explicitly oligarchic tactic: to borrow the categories employed in Disc. I.6, by expelling the plebs, both Appius Claudius and Coriolanus sought nothing less than to transform Rome into Sparta. Of Menenius Agrippa’s entire oration, the quick allusion to the asylum merits special attention because it implies that assimilating the foreigners and sharing the government with the plebs are part of the same political project. We have seen in Chapter 5 how Roman and Greek historians unanimously recognized Rome’s extraordinary stance toward newcomers and enemy peoples defeated in war. This theme is also omnipresent in the Antiquities,47 but, compared to other classical authors, Dionysius portrayed the asylum in “much more ‘political’ terms.”48 In the general Preface, he writes in fact that the Romans contrived to raise themselves from the smallest nation to the greatest and from the most obscure to the most illustrious, not only by their humane reception of those who sought a home among them, but also by sharing the rights of citizenship with all who had been conquered by them in war after a brave resistance, by permitting all the slaves, too, who were manumitted among them to become citizens, and by disdaining no condition of men from whom the commonwealth might reap an advantage, but above everything else by their form of government, which they fashioned out of their many experiences, always extracting something useful from every occasion (utile aliquid semper per omnem occasionem assumentes). (Antiquities I.9)

Along with the prohibition on infant exposure and the asylum, Dionysius reserves special praise for Rome’s openness to subjugated peoples and the use of colonies: There was yet a third policy (institutum) of Romulus, which the Greeks ought to have practiced above all others, it being, in my opinion, the best of all political measures (institutum), as it laid the most solid foundation for the liberty of the Romans and was no slight factor in raising them to their position of supremacy. It was this: not to slay all the men of military age or to enslave the rest of the population of the cities captured in war or to allow their land to go back to pasturage for sheep, but rather to send settlers thither to possess some part of the country by lot and to make the conquered cities Roman colonies, and even to grant citizenship to some of them. By these and other like measures (instituta) he made the colony great from a small beginning […]. Romulus having instituted these measures (institutorum), not alone the kings who ruled the city after him but also the annual magistrates after them pursued the same policy, with occasional additions, so successfully that the Roman people became inferior in numbers to none of the nations that were accounted the most populous. When I compare the customs (mores) of the Greeks with these, I can find no reason to extol either those of the Lacedaemonians or of the Thebans or of the Athenians, 47 G. Poma, ‘Dionigi d’Alicarnasso e la cittadinanza romana,’ Mélanges de l’Ecole française de Rome. Antiquité, 101 (1989), pp. 186–​205. 48 Fraschetti, Foundation, p. 67.

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who pride themselves most on their wisdom; all of whom, jealous of their noble birth and granting citizenship to none or to very few (I say nothing of the fact that some even expelled foreigners), not only received no advantage from this haughty attitude, but actually suffered the greatest harm because of it. Thus, the Spartans after their defeat at Leuctra [371 BCE], where they lost seventeen hundred men, were no longer able to restore their city to its former position after that calamity, but shamefully abandoned their supremacy. And the Thebans and Athenians through the single disaster at Chaeronea [338 BCE] were deprived by the Macedonians not only of the leadership of Greece but at the same time of the liberty they had inherited from their ancestors. But Rome, while engaged in great wars both in Spain and Italy and employed in recovering Sicily and Sardinia, which had revolted, at a time when the situation in Macedonia and Greece had become hostile to it and Carthage was again contending for the supremacy, and when all but a small portion of Italy was not only in open rebellion but was also drawing upon it the Hannibalic war, as it was called, –​though surrounded, I say, by so many dangers at one and the same time, Rome was so far from being overcome by these misfortunes that it derived from them a strength even greater than it had had before, being enabled to meet every danger, thanks to the number of its soldiers, and not, as some imagine, to the favor of Fortune (nec Fortunae, ut quidam putant, benignitate usa); since for all of Fortune’s assistance the city might have been utterly submerged by the single disaster at Cannae [216 BCE]. (Antiquities II.16–​17)49

Even without insisting on the polemic against those who attribute Rome’s success solely to Fortune (a theme discussed in Disc. II.1),50 the similarities with Machiavelli’s writing on the military weakness of closed republics are surprising: After [Sparta] had subjected almost all Greece, it showed its weak foundation with one very slight accident; for, when other cities rebelled, following the rebellion of Thebes, caused by Pelopidas [378 BCE], that republic [Sparta] was completely ruined. Similarly, having seized a great part of Italy –​and the greater part not with war but with money and cunning –​when it had to prove its strength, Venice lost everything in one day [in the battle of Agnadello, 1509]. (Disc. I.6)

Even more significant, however, is the follow-​ up to the same question in Disc. II.3: Crescit interea Roma Albae ruinis [“Meanwhile Rome grows from the ruin of Alba”]. Those who plan for a city with a great empire should try with all industry to make it full of inhabitants, for without this abundance of men, they will never succeed in making a city great. […] This [precept] was observed by Rome so much that in the time of the sixth king [Servius Tullius] eighty thousand men able to bear arms inhabited Rome. For the Romans wished to follow the usage of the good cultivator who, for a plant to thicken and be able to produce and mature its fruits, cuts off the first branches it puts forth, so that they can with time arise there greener and more fruitful, since the virtue remains in the stem of the plant. […] And since all our actions imitate nature, it is neither possible nor natural for a thin trunk to support a thick branch. So a small republic Patrizi had already valorized these chapters from Dionysius in De institutione reipublicae I.4. 50 On Livy and Plutarch as sources for Disc. II.1: Sasso, ‘Detrattori,’ pp. 406–​41. 49

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cannot seize cities or kingdoms that are sounder or thicker than it. If, however, it seizes one, what happens is as with a tree that has a branch thicker than the stem: it supports it with labor, and every small wind weakens it. Thus it was seen to happen to Sparta, which had seized all the cities of Greece. No sooner did Thebes rebel than all the other cities rebelled, and the trunk alone remained without branches. This could not happen to Rome since its stem was so thick it could easily support any branch whatever. Thus this mode (modo) of proceeding […] made Rome great and very powerful. Titus Livy demonstrates this in two words when he says: Crescit interea Roma Albae ruinis.

The fact that the chapter comes full circle, opening and closing with the same words from Livy, has led several scholars to see in it traces of an early draft of the Discourses, when “Machiavelli’s ‘notes’ ” had not yet been fused “into an organic whole.”51 The comparison with Dionysius suggests, however, that the phrase is repeated solely for its epigrammatic power, since its logic very closely follows that of the Antiquities. The passage from Livy refers to a specific event: the unification of Rome with its progenitor Alba Longa, decided by the duel between the Horatii and the Curiatii. Livy, naturally, describes the episode at length, for it is one of the most famous in his city’s history (as he himself acknowledges). In his pages, the story takes up some three whole chapters, from the proposal by the dictator of Alba Metius Fufetius to resolve the issue without war, through the victory of the Romans; but his focus is placed entirely on the vows spoken before the duel. Dionysius, in contrast, has the fight preceded by a long rhetorical battle between Tullus Hostilius and Metius Fufetius that is entirely absent from Livy. Among the arguments adopted by Metius Fufetius to demonstrate the superiority of Alba Longa, he cites its racial purity, noting that there in his own city are only men of Greek or Latin stock, whereas Romulus had assembled a multitude of individuals of such diverse extraction that the mere fact of their contact with one another is a source of constant disorder: Your city is still without order and discipline (vestra autem inhornata est adhunc et inordinata), due to its being newly founded and a conglomeration of many races (ex multis coalescens nationibus), and it will require long ages and manifold turns of fortune in order to be regulated and freed from those troubles and dissensions with which it is now agitated (perturbata ea, ut nunc vobis est, et seditiosa). (Antiquities III.10)

It seems, then, that Metius Fufetius should be included among the “many” whose accusations prompted Machiavelli to defend Rome in Disc. I.4. Nevertheless, the most relevant part of the rhetorical confrontation between the two kings comes immediately afterward, when Tullus Hostilius launches into an apologia for his own city: Since you also undertook to compare the ways of life of the two cities, Fufetius, asserting that the nobility of the Albans has always remained the same while ours has been “corrupted” by the various admixtures (permixtionibus) of foreigners, and demanded 51 G. Inglese, commentary to Niccolò Machiavelli, Discorsi (Bur, 1984), p. 394.

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that the base-​born should not rule over the well-​born nor newcomers over the native-​ born, know, then, that in making this claim, too, you are greatly mistaken. For we are so far from being ashamed of having made the privileges of our city free to all who desired them that we even take the greatest pride in this course; moreover, we are not the originators of this admirable practice, but took the example from the city of Athens, which enjoys the greatest reputation among the Greeks, due in no small measure, if indeed not chiefly, to this very policy. And this principle, which has been to us the source of many advantages, affords us no ground either for complaint or regret, as if we had committed some error. Our chief magistracies and membership in the senate are held and the other honors among us are enjoyed, not by men possessed of great fortunes, nor by those who can show a long line of ancestors all natives of the country, but by such as are worthy of these honors; for we look upon the nobility of men as consisting in nothing else than in virtue. The rest of the populace is the body of the commonwealth, contributing strength and power to the decisions of the best men. It is owing to this humane policy that our city, from a small and contemptible beginning, is become large and formidable to its neighbors, and it is this policy which you condemn, Fufetius, that has laid for the Romans the foundation of that supremacy which none of the other Latins disputes with us. For the power of States consists in the force of arms, and this in turn depends upon a multitude of citizens (nam in viribus quidem posita est militaribus urbium potentia, ex multis autem corporibus vires fiunt); whereas, for small States that are sparsely populated and for that reason weak it is not possible to rule others, nay, even to rule themselves. […] Your city, beginning with greater brilliance and enjoying greater resources than ours, has shrunk to lesser importance, while we, from small beginnings at first, have in a short time made Rome greater than all the neighboring cities by following the very policies (institutis) you condemned. And as for our factional strife –​since this also, Fufetius, met with your censure –​it tends, not to destroy and diminish the commonwealth, but to preserve and enhance it (seditiones autem nostrae, quandoquidem tu hoc quoque vituperas, non eversionem aut diminutionem rei nostrae publicae, sed ad salutem et augumentum fiunt). For there is emulation between our youths and our older men and between the newcomers and those who invited them in, to see which of us shall do more for the common welfare (Certamus enim iuniores cum senioribus, peregrini cum indigenis, utri nostrum rei publicae plus conferant). (Antiquities III.11)

Machiavelli and Dionysius could hardly be any closer, given that phrases like “without a great number of men, and well armed, a republic can never grow, or, if it grows, maintain itself” (Disc. I.6), and “those who plan for a city with great empire should try with all industry to make it full of inhabitants” (Disc. II.3) are almost a verbatim translation of the Antiquities. But the passage is significant above all for the link that Fufetius makes between the generous concession of citizenship and urban disorder, and, even more so, for Tullus Hostilius’ decision to defend this very link, arguing that the conflicts between patricians and plebeians actually contributed to Rome’s success. All the premises of the Discourses’ apologia for bloodless tumults are thus already present in Dionysius. The Antiquities discuss the need for a large army; establish a connection between Rome’s successes and its policy of assimilation; and, most importantly, display a clear awareness that a city ex multis

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coalescens nationibus can only be perturbata atque seditiosa. In a certain sense, then, just as Disc. I.5 is a response to Appius Claudius, Disc. I.4 and I.6 should be considered a reply to Metius Fufetius and an assessment of the benefits of tumultuous conquest (Rome) over unarmed concord (Alba, the Greek cities, Venice). The rhetorical clash between the two kings does not definitively resolve the issue of citizenship, however, as it resurfaces in the Antiquities whenever Roman identity is discussed. After its foundation by Romulus (753 BCE) and merger with its progenitor Alba Longa under Tullus Hostilius (673–​642 BCE), Rome passes through a sort of third legendary “beginning” during the reign of Servius Tullius (578–​535 BCE). In the context of a comprehensive institutional reform, the sovereign’s efforts to encourage further population growth are presented by Dionysius as one of the most important traits of his reign. The first kings, he writes, “by receiving foreigners and bestowing upon them equal rights of citizenship without rejecting any, whatever their birth or condition, had indeed rendered the city populous, but Servius Tullius permitted even manumitted slaves to enjoy these same rights” (Antiquities IV.22). No one else had ever gone so far. To help the reader fully appreciate the revolutionary nature of this measure, Dionysius returns yet again to the opposition of the most conservative traditionalists in the senate, to whom the king addresses an impassioned speech. Here, not surprisingly, Servius Tullius begins by reminding them that “to a State which aimed at supremacy and thought itself worthy of great things nothing was so essential as a large population, in order that it might be equal to carrying on all its wars with its own armed forces (suo ipsa utens milite) and might not exhaust itself as well as its wealth in hiring mercenary troops; and for this reason, he said, the former kings had granted citizenship to all foreigners” (Antiquities IV.23). But, he continues, now all of this is no longer enough for Rome’s ambition; with the new law of emancipation, however, “great numbers of youths would be reared from those who were manumitted and the State would never lack for armed forces of its own (viribus domesticis), but would always have sufficient troops, even if it should be forced to make war against all the world” (Antiquities IV. 23).52 The connection made by Servius Tullius between a large population and “armed forces of its own” (in explicit opposition to mercenaries) would not have escaped Machiavelli’s attention. As seen in Chapter  5, his remarks in Disc. I.6 and II.3 contain echoes of the heated debate over the asylum that coursed through fifteenth-​ century political philosophy. Obviously, on this point, the Antiquities have many elements in common with the Annales and Roma triumphans, but unlike Tacitus and Biondo, for whom Rome’s merit had 52 Dionysius repeatedly condemns the exiles precisely because, if strength depends on numbers, each citizen is precious (Antiquities V.13). The issue of citizenship also resurfaces after Servius Tullius’ reforms (i.e. Antiquities VI.19).

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resided in its rewarding of citizenship to those who proved themselves worthy, Dionysius privileges a simple quantitative logic. The important thing is to be more numerous (that is, more powerful) than one’s neighbors: everything else is secondary, concord included. In this sense it is highly significant that in both Dionysius and Machiavelli the consequences of any population growth for social harmony are expressed with absolute clarity, whereas both Tacitus and Biondo prefer never to mention the collateral issues of unrestricted concession of citizenship. Machiavelli, however, goes one step further than Dionysius, establishing a specific relationship between the popular or aristocratic orientation of a given “mixed government” and its citizenship policy, thus depicting the military strength of various States as a direct consequence of their constitution. In a somewhat teleological reconstruction, taking the contrast laid out in Disc. I.6 between Rome (popular, open, heavily armed, but “tumultuous”) and Sparta/​ Venice (aristocratic, closed, harmonious, but incapable of providing for its own defense) as the ideal destination, the Antiquities would then embody a sort of ideal missing link between Polybius (for whom domestic and foreign policy remain unconnected) and Machiavelli (for whom they are deeply intertwined). And one might even ask whether some of the most original elements in the Discourses were not hatched from the need to respond to the arguments of Appius Claudius and Coriolanus in a more comprehensive manner than had Dionysius. Dionysius and/​or Livy Given their omnipresence throughout the Discourses, it might seem surprising that the Antiquities’ decisive influence on Machiavelli passed unnoticed for so long.53 This delay was surely prompted by the poor reputation that has followed Dionysius since the end of the eighteenth century  –​a prejudice so strong that, even in recent years, it has not been unusual to hear discussions of the Antiquities that use the same disapproving tone with which the Romantic scholars (Barthold Georg Niebuhr, Friedrich Carl von Savigny) and their disciples (Edward Schwartz) had referred to them. In addition to the cues in Krappe’s and Sasso’s works cited above (note 32), the hypothesis that Machiavelli knew Dionysius was proposed by Marie Gaille-​Nikodimov, Conflit et liberté (Champion, 2004:  published at the same time as the article on which this chapter is based), where in the footnotes there are three brief references, limited to the nexus between citizenship and militia (p. 30: on Antiquities I.9; II.16; IV.22), Dionysius’ approval of the mixed constitution (p. 79: on Antiquities I.9; I.12–​14), and his opinion about Numa (p. 90: on Antiquities II.61; II.75). See also A. Moudarres, ‘The Enemy at Home. Fratricide and Civil Strife in Machiavelli’s Thought,’ Modern Language Notes, 129 (2014), pp. 22–​41. Despite the promising title, Philip Haas’ Livius, Dionysios, Augustus, Machiavelli (De Gruyter, 2015) does not say anything about Machiavelli’s debt toward Dionysius, as pp. 53–​234 only retell Livy’s and Dionysius’ narratives in parallel, while the last chapter (pp. 236–​82) introduces Machiavelli and discusses what ideas he took from Livy, but not from the Antiquities. 53

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Put succinctly, in the last two centuries three accusations have been commonly leveled against Dionysius: (1) As an historian, he was credulous and unreliable, ready to uncritically accept any legend from distant antiquity; (2) as a citizen, he was never involved in Greek politics, and in part for this reason was ready to espouse the cause of his own homeland’s conquerors (the Romans); and (3) as a writer, he was overly indebted to fifth-​century Attic authors, and lacked an original style. Even the passages so decisive for Machiavelli were not spared these kinds of attacks, if one of the foremost contemporary authorities on archaic Rome could describe them as “perfect copy-​book exercises, arguing the hypothetical pros and cons of a particular course of action with standard arguments and standard illusions to the great models, Lysias, Demosthenes, and Aeschines.”54 As a result of such a condemnation, Dionysius, unlike Polybius, remains largely absent from histories of political thought to this day.55 Various signs indicate that views of Dionysius among scholars of Rome are beginning to shift. But for those who work on early-​modern political philosophy, the only thing that matters is obviously that, independent of contemporary opinion, for roughly three and a half centuries educated European elites looked upon Dionysius as a first-​rate author and a model. Curiously enough, the very 54 R.M. Ogilvie, Early Rome and the Etruscans (Humanities, 1976), p.  23. Thanks mainly to Gabba’s monograph on Dionysius, recent judgments are less severe: T.J. Cornell, The Beginning of Rome (Routledge, 1995), p. 2; G. Forsythe, A Critical History of Early Rome (University of California Press, 2005), pp. 67–​68, 226. 55 Wilfried Nippel rapidly mentions Dionysius’ modern reception in Mischverfassungstheorie und Verfassungsrealität in Antike und früher Neuzeit (Klett, 1980), p.  165; a few references can be found in G.W. Trompf, ‘Untethering Memory:  On French Intellectuals Responding to the Classical Theory of Political Cycles from Montesquieu to the Revolution,’ French History and Civilization, 4 (2011), pp. 34–​44. A  first acknowledgment of the fact that, in the absence of other testimonies, the Antiquities “acquire a value they would not otherwise have,” came from Millar, who admits that Dionysius has “a lot to offer students of the Roman politeia,” even while denying him a “systematic political thought” (Roman Republic, p. 46); interestingly, the exact same argument in favor of Dionysius was already in Patrizi, De regno III.14. Andrew Lintott repeatedly employs Dionysius in The Constitution of the Roman Republic (Clarendon, 1999), but, analyzing the modern fortune of the Roman model, omits the debt to the Antiquities. Dionysius did not even profit from the renewed interest in Roman political thought: D. Hammer, Roman Political Thought and the Modern Theoretical Imagination (University of Oklahoma Press, 2008); D.J. Kapust, Republicanism, Rhetoric, and Roman Political Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2011); D. Hammer, Roman Political Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2014); J. Connolly, The Life of Roman Republicanism (Princeton University Press, 2015); B. Strauman, Crisis and Constitutionalism (Oxford University Press, 2016); U. Vincenti, La costituzione di Roma antica (Laterza, 2017). The only (very partial) exceptions are V. Arena, Libertas and the Practice of Politics in the Late Roman Republic (Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 87–​100, and A. Giovannini, Les institutions de la République romaine des origines à la mort d’Auguste (Schwabe, 2015).

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elements that sealed his fate in the nineteenth century are the ones that founded the Antiquities’ remarkable reputation in the classicist age (from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries) all over Europe: (1) The richness of Dionysius’ information, compared to the more “austere” Livy (including the great number of direct discourses);56 (2) his impartiality as an outside observer of Roman quarrels (without forgetting that his peculiar status as a Greek historian compelled Dionysius to explain many things that Latin historians, writing for an informed audience, tended to pass over);57 and (3) the elegance and clarity of a prose that aimed for Attic purity. Just like other historians ill-​ reputed by nineteenth-​and twentieth-​ century scholars, such as Justin or Valerius Maximus, Dionysius was held in very high esteem during the Renaissance and beyond: a fact that readers of the Discourses must never forget. This is why, whereas today the link between the Antiquities and the Discourses must be illustrated with ample quotes, for Machiavelli’s contemporaries it was self-​evident. While Guicciardini cites the Antiquities only briefly with regard to the Romans’ practice of establishing colonies,58 Giannotti provides compelling evidence: Above all else it is to be considered praiseworthy the custom of incorporating defeated enemies and in this way enlarging one’s own city. Its practice was, as Dionysius of Halicarnassus so prudently observed, what gave the Roman people its wondrous magnitude, for it would have been impossible for Rome to maintain its world empire had it not first become so great, that it was proportional to such an empire. Sparta, which did not have anyone introduce this custom, was unable to grow to such a size, and if its constitution (ordinamento) had had this habit, it would have been impossible for it not to acquire the same empire as Rome, for in other ways it was optimally established (ordinata) and could thus keep itself free of internal disorders and defend itself from external assaults.59

The idea of an all-​conquering Sparta (if only it had welcomed its defeated enemies) overlaps with the Antiquities, but not with the Discourses, and complies with Giannotti’s dream of reconciling the strength of Rome with the social peace of Venice (as seen in Chapter 4). Beyond this distinction, though, what really matters here is Giannotti’s reference to the Greek historian. The In some books of the Antiquities direct discourses occupy between 40 and 60 percent of the text (Mora, Pensiero, p.  345). See also S. Usher, ‘The Style of Dionysius of Halicarnassus in the “Antiquitates Romanae”,’ Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt, II.30.1 (1982), pp. 817–​38 (especially pp. 832–​37); Gabba, Dionysius, pp. 68–​77; H.A. Gärtner, ‘Des discours chez Denys d’Halicarnasse et Tite-​Live,’ in J. Dangel (ed.), Grammaire et réthorique (AECR, 1994), pp. 141–​49. 57 For Dionysius’ account Cornell rightly spoke of “hellenocentric structure” (Beginnings, p. 39). 58 Francesco Guicciardini, Cose fiorentine, ed. R. Ridolfi (Olschki, 1945), p. 4. 59 Donato Giannotti, Republica fiorentina, ed. G. Silvano (Droz, 1990), III.1. Dionysius recurs also in III.5. 56

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mere mention of Dionysius in a work that plotted revenge against the Medici from exile in Venice by applying the lessons of the Discourses to Florence, demonstrates how, only a few years after Machiavelli’s death, those who had known him well had no trouble tracing the intellectual genealogy of Disc. I.6 and II.3. The relationship between the Discourses and the Antiquities would be laid bare by at least two other sixteenth-​century authors. The first is one of the great political thinkers of that century: the French jurist Jean Bodin (1529–​96), who on more than one occasion, in his Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem (1566) and Les six livres de la République (1576), spoke admiringly of both Machiavelli and Dionysius –​singled out as the Ancient who illustrated the essence of sovereignty “better and more clearly than all the others”60  –​and explicitly connected their theories on mixed constitution (which Bodin rejected).61 The second writer is much less well-​known: the Jesuit Antonio Ciccarelli of Foligno (d. 1599), who, taking advantage of the tolerant pontificate of Sixtus V (1585–​ 90), published amended and corrected versions of several Italian literary classics that had been placed on the Index. His later works also include the Discorsi sopra Tito Livio (1598), where Machiavelli is frequently pillaged (but never cited) in an attempt to provide a sort of morally pure rewriting of his precepts. Such a pious exercise would be of scarce interest, had Ciccarelli not repeated (often word for word) the Machiavellian theses most heavily influenced by the Antiquities while directly attributing them to Dionysius himself: from defense of the tribunes and Romulus’ citizenship policy to the appreciation of the dictatorship and Roman tumults.62 Like Giannotti and Bodin before him, Ciccarelli’s treatise thus clearly proves that Renaissance readers were able to recognize the Discourses’ debt toward the Greek historian even in the absence of any explicit citation. And Livy, whose name stands out in the title of Machiavelli’s treatise? The Antiquities’ enormous influence obliges readers to acknowledge that, in contrast to how it has been viewed to this day, in commenting on Livy Machiavelli overlaps and interweaves, compares and double-​checks, refusing to limit himself to just the first ten books of the Roman historian. Rather, the Discourses resemble a sort of cross-​eyed commentary, where a particularly authoritative work serves as a text of reference, even as the commentator continues to cast his other eye upon the alternative version of the events that Lampugnino Birago’s Latin translation had recently brought back into circulation. The dedications to both book I of the Antiquities and to the entire work itself supply several points for reflection. In presenting the fruits of his labors, Birago had in fact written to Nicholas V that in Dionysius “the representation of that first century of Roman history is so vivid and elegant that, putting Jean Bodin, Les six livres de la République, 6 vols. (Fayard, 1986), I.10. 61 Ibid., II.1. See also Jean Bodin, Method for the Easy Comprehension of History, ed. B. Reynolds (Columbia University Press, 1945), pp. 178, 185. 62 Antonio Ciccarelli, Discorsi su Livio (Paolini, 1598), pp. 13, 17, 82, 91. 60

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aside almost all the other authors who preceded him, the faithful memory of those events can be found in him alone. And thanks to him it seems that the dead come back to life.”63 The author of the Antiquities thus appeared to have been something of a necromancer: capable of resuscitating a vanished world through the virtues of precision (perspicuitas) and style (elegantia). The inscription in the print edition (to Paul II) is even more useful for understanding which aspects of Dionysius piqued the interest of fifteenth-​ century readers. After having lauded the piety of the Romans (“even if they did not know the true faith”), Birago highlights the virtues of the work he had just translated: This history is all the more welcome, since our knowledge of even many famous battles fought before the first Punic War [264–​241 BCE] remains incomplete. Nevertheless, one must not expect of this author a simple historical narrative compiled in haste, for he does not promise us one: what we do find in his pages are a profound diligence, great rhetorical artistry, several splendidly composed orations, a very detailed explanation of the religious ceremonies of that time, and a great many facts and examples that are as useful and pleasurable for the politician as for the soldier or the man of the Church.

Some of these concepts were already expressed by Dionysius himself, but in Lampugnino’s description what stands out above all is the choice to frame the Antiquities in terms of variety (of publics) and abundance (of information). And it is obvious that for those who, like Machiavelli, nurtured a particular interest in the way Roman institutions worked, this new version must have seemed a clear improvement. Although united by their reverence for Rome, Dionysius and Livy could not have been further apart in terms of their aims. Indeed, while Livy demonstrates “a complete lack of interest in the constitutional problems”64 and attributes Rome’s success solely to its citizens’ customs (mores), the Antiquities interpret its history through the evolution of its institutions (leges) and a continual comparison with the poleis that serves not only to acclimate his Greek readers with a foreign civilization, but also and especially to elaborate some general laws of politics (as would Machiavelli). It is possible to measure the enormous distance separating the two authors merely by reading their respective openings. Livy makes no reference to the political or military organization of the city: The subjects to which I would ask each of my readers to devote his earnest attention are these: the life and morals (mores) of the community; the men and the qualities by which through domestic policy and foreign war dominion was won and extended. Then as the standard of morality gradually lowers, let him follow the decay of the national character (mores), observing how at first it slowly sinks, then slips downward more and more rapidly, and finally begins to plunge into headlong ruin, until he reaches these days, in which we can bear neither our diseases nor their remedies. Miglio, ‘Versione,’ pp. 80–​81. 64 Cornell, Beginning, p. 262. 63

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In Dionysius, instead, the inevitable paean to the virtues of the founders is immediately followed by the reference to Roman constitution: I give an account of all the forms of government (formas reipublicae omnes) Rome used, both during the monarchy and after its overthrow, and show what was the character of each (qui fuerit uniuscuiusque modus). I describe the best customs and the most remarkable laws (mores qui optimi legesque clarissimas); and, in short, I show the whole life of the ancient Romans (priscum victum civitatis). As to the form I give this work, it does not resemble that which the authors who make wars alone their subject have given to their histories, nor that which others who treat of the several forms of government by themselves have adopted, nor is it like the annalistic accounts […] (for these are monotonous and soon grow tedious to the reader), but it is a combination of every kind (ex omni specie formam quandam mixtam), forensic, speculative and narrative, to the intent that it may afford satisfaction both to those who occupy themselves with political debates and to those who are devoted to philosophical speculations (qui philosophicae speculationi student), as well as to any who may desire mere undisturbed entertainment in their reading of history. (Antiquities I.8)65

This is a dramatic difference. In a youthful essay on the Greeks’ tendency to explain the decline of cities in terms of a crisis of the institutions, compared to the Romans’ habit of viewing it instead as the hallmark of a corruption of mores, Arnaldo Momigliano concluded with a sudden leap forward: “modern political thought was born when Machiavelli analyzed Livy by the standards of Greek political thought.”66 His assessment remains valid today, though it might be refined and in part amended. As a matter of fact, a work with the particular characteristics that Momigliano attributes to the Discourses –​that is, a history that recounts the events of archaic Rome with a particular focus on its constitution, like Polybius’ recounting of the war against Carthage –​already existed well before Machiavelli, and was indeed well known to him. This work, of course, was the Antiquities. It is not so strange, then, that Machiavelli remained fascinated with Dionysius. But it is not so difficult either to understand how, despite his vast use of the Antiquities, Machiavelli preferred not to discard what since the fourteenth century had constituted early Roman history’s standard narrative. Livy’s position in the literary canon –​the trusted Livy “who does not err” (Inferno XXVIII.12) –​could not be easily called into question.67 On the contrary, precisely because of its undisputed status, his first ten books offered the ideal narrative in support of a wholly new type of commentary like the one the Discourses intended to put forward for the very first time. And yet, at the same time, Livy alone could not teach anyone to learn from the past, beyond counseling his readers to carefully imitate the Romans’ 65 On politicians as ideal readers: Antiquities V.56; V.75; XI.1; XI.4. 66 A. Momigliano, ‘The Crisis of Roman State and the Roman Historians,’ in Contributi IX, pp. 503–​19: 519. 67 A few years before Machiavelli, Sabellico praised Livy as the historian par excellence (Opera IV, pp. 473–​79).

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renowned virtues. This was the traditional attitude toward the Ancients, much praised by the humanists; but, from Machiavelli’s perspective, this was clearly not enough. Instead, as a model of philosophical historiography that drew its strength from a sustained comparative analysis of Roman and Greek institutions,68 the Antiquities (and, to a lesser degree, Polybius’ Histories) had much more to offer –​rather than any collection of facts or specific theory, an extraordinary lesson in method. And Machiavelli did not hesitate to follow it.

According to Augustin Renaudet, Machiavelli’s greatest legacy to modern philosophy would be precisely his comparative method (Machiavel, Gallimard, 1956). 68

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“The bud disappears in the bursting-​forth of the blossom, and one might say that the former is refuted by the latter; similarly, when the fruit appears, the blossom is shown up in its turn as a false manifestation of the plant, and the fruit now emerges as the truth of it instead. These forms are not just distinguished from one another they also supplant one another as mutually incompatible. Yet at the same time their fluid nature makes them moments of an organic unity in which they not only do conflict, but in which each is as necessary as the other; and this mutual necessity alone constitutes the life of the whole.” G.W.F. Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit “An absolutely centripetal and harmonious group, a pure ‘unification,’ not only is empirically unreal, it could show no real life process. The society of saints which Dante sees in the Rose of Paradise may be like such a group, but it is without any change and development; whereas the holy assembly of Church Fathers in Raphael’s Disputa shows if not actual conflict, at least a considerable differentiation of moods and directions of thought, whence flow all the vitality and the really organic structure of that group.” Georg Simmel, Sociology

Between Aristotle and Hobbes Machiavelli’s unprecedented appreciation of tumults, accompanied by the acknowledgment of their inevitability, would suffice on its own to assure the Discourses an important place in the history of political thought. The best way to demonstrate the audacity of this position is surely to compare it to the two other leading paradigms of conflict in early modern Europe until the French

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Revolution: the Aristotelian (or more generally classical) paradigm of natural sociability, and the Hobbesian paradigm of the social contract. For this purpose Nicole Loraux’s studies on the categories through which the Greeks understood civil war provide an excellent starting point. In broad strokes, the driving question behind The Divided City is this: given that no political community can avoid conflict, how is it possible that the Athenians (and the Ancients in general) constructed an image of civic life that had no room for quarrels among members of the same community, to the extent that they turned any division, even in its non-​violent forms, into the very antithesis of politics as such? According to Loraux, at the heart of this view there is a polarization that neatly divides the category of conflict in two, placing foreign war  –​a source of glory for its combatants –​on one side, and internecine strife, which leaves the stain of infamy, on the other.1 By projecting conflict, every conflict, outside the body politic (in the ennobling form of heroic contest), Athens learned to view itself as “one and at peace with itself,”2 and to deny the existence of the many internal tensions that inevitably ran through it. Aristotle himself would offer the most perfect conceptualization of this hope for unanimity by depicting enmity as the refusal of political bonds and acknowledging stásis (the polyvalent term that, in the ancient Greek, also means “civil war”) only as the metamorphosis of forms of government: that is, as meta-​stasis (a change in constitution) rather than dia-​stasis (division).3 Euphemism? Ideology? Repression? Surely. But Nicole Loraux does not limit herself to drawing out the inadequacies of this reassuring portrait with respect to the well-​known and perennially latent internal conflicts of the poleis. A  holy terror of the Two pervades the city’s self-​narration, she claims. And since ideology works primarily by subtraction, through silences and omissions rather than explicit assertions, it is from this point that any serious analysis of Greek politics must begin. Of the many potential examples, Loraux rightly focuses her attention on the paradox surrounding the fact that those same Athenians, whom we still like to consider the fathers of modern democracy, did not like to dwell on decision-​ making via popular assembly, when the polis reveals its internal divisions by a show of hands: as if even this momentary fracture of the civic unity threatens to tear open an irreparable wound.4 As a result, in Loraux’s terms, the Greek experienced something rather similar to an “ellipsis of the political in the midst of the political itself.”5 For the same dualism in Roman culture: P. Jal, La guerre civile à Rome (Presses Universitaires de France, 1963), pp. 21–​27. 2 N. Loraux, The Mourning Voice (Cornell University Press, 2002), p. 26. See D. Lanza and M. Vegetti, ‘L’ideologia della città,’ Quaderni di storia, 1 (1975), pp. 1–​37. 3 This is particularly evident in Aristotle’s Constitution of the Athenians (first published in 1891). 4 On unanimism in the Roman electoral system:  K.J. Hölkeskamp, Reconstructing the Roman Republic (Princeton University Press, 2008), p. 105. 5 N. Loraux, The Divided City (Zone Books, 2002), p. 50. 1

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Modern historians have focused heavily on the Athenians’ propensity for unanimity, attributing it alternately to the mechanisms of direct democracy or a (typically Hellenic) negative view of power (unlike the Romans, for whom the imperium was always a positive concept). Loraux, however, is more interested in how this tendency to erase the moment of division that inevitably marks every vote goes along with a rejection of the political nature of stásis, which is always described either as an illness that attacks the civic body from outside (not unlike tyranny), or as a primordial disorder that the city permanently vanquished once it constituted itself in a community of brothers. The negation of conflict, then, has to be considered the key to Greek politics, and to classical politics more generally. Of course, Loraux knows too well that not all blanks of memory are equal or equally significant. Citizens might forget deliberately, unintentionally, or even out of laziness. For this reason repression always oscillates between an (almost unconscious but interested) ideological censorship and the willful suppression of what the community has deliberately chosen to exclude from the official memory. In the case of Athens, this is what happened after the rule of the Thirty tyrants and the return of democracy (403 BCE), when the popular leader Thrasybulus promoted an amnesty for the former supporters of his adversaries (the first in western history), and passed a law that obliged his fellow citizens “not to recall […] the bad deeds,”6 hoping to heal the conflict that had lacerated the polis in previous years. Thus, if Greek politics was based on the denial of internecine conflict (to the extent that “politikos is the name of one who knows how to agree to oblivion,” as Loraux writes),7 no action possessed a political intensity comparable to a city’s solemn oath promising not to hold on to past enmities through a paradoxical formulation: “remember to forget.” In the end what matters is that, whether consciously or not, Greek political thinkers were unable to accept the conflictualism intrinsic to associative life, and indeed banished it permanently from the ideal city, creating a rite of exorcism that would subsequently be absorbed into the Roman theory of Cicero and Seneca –​and, through their works, into fourteenth-​and fifteenth-​century humanism. Still, Loraux’s argument even better demonstrates all its heuristic force as soon as one tries to enlarge upon it, looking beyond the geographical and chronological limits that she, as a historian of ancient Greece, always imposed upon herself.8 Indeed, one might ask: if classical politics is founded on the denial of conflict, what defines post-​classical politics if not a full recognition of the centrality of that conflict? The caesura produced on this subject by Machiavelli and Hobbes is in fact no less profound than the distinction Ibid., p. 157. 7 Ibid., p. 43. 8 Giorgio Agamben recently sought to elaborate a philosophy of civil war as “the unforgettable which must remain always possible” based on Loraux’s work (Stasis, Stanford University Press, 2015, p. 22). For proof of Loraux’s increasing influence, see also N. Grangé, De la guerre civile (Colin, 2009); N. Grangé, Oublier la stasis? (Vrin, 2015). 6

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between positive and negative freedom theorized by Benjamin Constant in his famous essay on The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with that of the Moderns (1819). It is probably no coincidence that both thinkers conventionally situated at the beginnings of political modernity, Machiavelli and Hobbes, were obsessed as much with the question of conflict as with the topic of memory.9 For Machiavelli, Christianity and the Middle Ages washed away the Romans’ practical wisdom regarding the administration of the State (although not their abstract theory derived from Greek philosophers, which Machiavelli always considered to be of little value). And this is the reason why, as repeatedly seen, the immensely ambitious project of the Discourses entirely relies on the belief that modern leaders should learn the eternal laws of politics from the ancient historian, Livy, who better than anyone else showed by which institutions and “modes” (including bloodless tumults) Romulus’ descendants built their empire. The nature of what modern rulers must remember is completely different for Hobbes, but the impulse to recover something that has been forgotten and the link between this lost knowledge and conflict seems absolutely the same. As is well known, the Leviathan (1651) refutes all the premises of Aristotle’s Politics. According to Hobbes, it is not true that man is inherently sociable; in the state of nature, human beings experienced a wretched condition of unending war; only the social contract (and submission to a sovereign) allows mankind to finally free itself from the fear that defines the original condition of perpetual struggle omnium erga omnes. That said, it is primarily the innate sociability of man that Hobbes rejects, making the threat of falling back into the state of nature (although purely hypothetical) an indispensable tool to finally build a stable government upon the recollection of the remote origins of humanity. The memory of conflict thus possesses an enormous significance for him as well. Depending upon the period and the interpreter, the Leviathan has alternately been read as a modern myth, a faithful reconstruction of man’s roots, an intellectual experiment, or a fictio iuris.10 What is certain, however, is that when Hobbes was writing he had before his eyes at least one concrete example of what he considered the fate of human existence without a steady 9 If one adopts Loraux’s perspective, he might also conclude that the return to classical political philosophy propagated by Hannah Arendt, Leo Strauss, Eric Voegelin, and Dolf Sternberger was above all an attempt to recapture the euphemizing attitude of the Ancients toward internal divisions; the views of Arendt, impassioned champion of every grassroots movement but suspicious of any fight for a more equal distribution of resources, are especially representative of this dream of participation without conflict. Jacques Rancière has laid out the depoliticizing element of these twentieth-​century retrievals of Greek political theory in Disagreement (University of Minnesota Press, 1999) and Hatred of Democracy (Verso, 2007). 10 On Hobbes’ state of nature, see I.D. Evrigenis, Images of Anarchy (Cambridge University Press, 2014).

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government –​the savage peoples of America, whose life in the state of nature could offer readers a fresh look into their own pasts: It may peradventure be thought there was never such a time nor condition of war as this; and I believe it was never generally so, over all the world: but there are many places where they live so now. For the savage people in many places of America, except the government of small families, the concord whereof dependeth on natural lust, have no government at all, and live at this day in that brutish manner, as I said before. Howsoever, it may be perceived what manner of life there would be, where there were no common power to fear, by the manner of life which men that have formerly lived under a peaceful government use to degenerate into a civil war. (Leviathan I.13)

In a sense, by discovering the new continent Columbus had stumbled upon a primordial condition beyond the reach of memory: almost as if the encounter with the indigenous peoples of the West Indies had brought to light a forgotten part of human history. From this perspective, transatlantic exploration represented as much a voyage in time as in space. The centrality of denial in Greek politics and the insistence on memory in modern political theory suggest that one can reread the Leviathan as a gigantic operation of anamnesis that allows the patient –​the entire community of citizens –​to relive the “ancestral trauma.” In the psychoanalytic lexicon so dear to Loraux, one might even speak of a genuine “return of the repressed” capable of making visible once more the conflict that for the Greeks and Romans was acceptable only in the exemplary form of foreign war. If the rejection of a natural political order built on the natural order of the cosmos is undoubtedly what made Hobbes’ thought so scandalous in contemporaries’ eyes, what really counts in his system, more than the contrast between the spontaneous association of the Ancients and the artificial machine-​State of the moderns, is the choice between a politics founded on suppression and a politics founded on the remembrance of the original condition of violence from which only a powerful sovereign can protect all citizens. In contrast to Aristotle, Hobbes tells us that bees and ants “live sociably one with another” much more easily than human beings, who need the presence of a coercive force to make up for this initial shortcoming (Leviathan II.17). Indeed, men are different from animals in several ways: (1) They are always in competition with one another for honors; (2) they possess private interests distinct from the common good; (3) gifted with reason, they judge the actions of others, and constantly think they can govern better than everyone else; (4) they possess the faculty of speech as a means of persuasion, and do not hesitate to use it to make what is bad seem good (and vice versa); (5) they are all the more inclined to object to the existing order when they are at peace; and (6) they are bound to each other solely by an artificial covenant.

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Precisely because men must always be persuaded of the need to submit to a government, Hobbes sees the memory of their terrifying original condition as a strong stimulus to obedience, and thus a powerful antidote to civil war. Recalling the evils of the state of nature is thus the best way to escape from them. Similarities between Machiavelli’s and Hobbes’ reflections on conflict do not go very far beyond their shared insistence on the need to recover lost knowledge. Although both base their thoughts on a refutation of Aristotelianism, one must be very careful not to conflate their positions. Within modernity, and specifically with respect to the question of internecine struggles, the Discourses and the Leviathan inaugurate two opposing traditions –​so much so that from many perspectives Aristotle and Hobbes might actually even seem to make common cause against Machiavelli. Naturally, the Politics and the Leviathan depart from two irreconcilable presuppositions. Whereas for Aristotle domestic conflict seems to be a disease of associative life, for Hobbes it leads to the negation of politics tout court. Indeed, when one reads in the opening pages of the Leviathan that “concord” is “health,” “sedition” is a “sickness,” and “civil war” represents the “death” of the State, the first observation to be made is that the final step –​the collapse of associative life –​has no equivalent in Aristotle, for in the Politics men cannot ever fully extricate themselves from the (natural) instinct to form communities, and at most it is single, empirical States that can perish, subjugated by other States.11 For Hobbes, in contrast, as the bond upon which sociality is founded is artificial, it may always be dissolved: nothing can keep men together unless they reject the conflict that permanently defines the state of nature. That said, Hobbes ultimately reveals himself to be more optimistic (and closer to Aristotle) than this gloomy portrait might initially suggest. In the Leviathan, once the social contract has been “signed” (and so long as the sovereign is capable of defending his subjects), there will be no more disputes; the pact silences all disagreements. To put it another way: for Hobbes conflict lays the groundwork for politics in the sense that conflict exists in the beginning, and that it is only from this condition of perpetual insecurity that any eventual agreements can emerge; but it is equally true that stable order only begins with the transcendence of that universal enmity. Leviathan defeats Behemoth and guarantees peace for all through a complete “juridicization” of politics that in Hobbes’ wake will constitute one of the unmistakable formulas of liberalism –​with its extraordinary acuity prompting reflection on the “rules of the game,” but also with an equally profound incomprehension of the role that extra-​institutional forms of participation and conflict play in associative life. 11 This is also true in the Ciceronian tradition: C.J. Nederman, ‘Nature, Sin and the Origins of Society:  The Ciceronian Tradition in Medieval Political Thought,’ Journal of the History of Ideas, 49 (1988), pp. 3–​26.

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Machiavelli’s position is completely different  –​but this is not surprising, since, as is well known, Hobbes’ work was conceived specifically as a response to the political classicism of Machiavelli’s commentary on Livy. The Discourses, too, take conflict as their point of departure, but this is because clashes between the different “humors” are part of the normal (non-​pathological) existence of free States. Crisis, if it is still appropriate to call it that, is constant; neighbors and citizens are not destined to form permanent alliances; the road to pacification is always reversible. For Machiavelli, then, it is useless to dream of a perfect concord that does not exist in the beginning nor will exist at the end of the process that creates the State. As Roberto Esposito has perceptively written, despite several shared premises –​such as the primacy of conflict (and, it must be added, the role of memory) –​the dissonance between the two fathers of political modernity emerges from an irreconcilable difference between a project of “reconversion” (Machiavelli) and a project of the “neutralization” of violence (Hobbes).12 Indeed, in the Leviathan, there is either politics or conflict. The transition, or rather the leap, from the state of nature to that of society positions the chasm along the temporal axis:  when there is conflict there is not yet a politics, when there is politics there is no more conflict. […] What distinguishes Machiavelli from Hobbes is not the stark choice between order and conflict: it is the acceptance, or not, of their co-​existence at the same time.13

The Discourses not only lack hope for perfect concord (whether natural or artificial), but also the possibility of a breakdown in social relations: almost as if the rejection of irenic ideals that is part and parcel of Machiavelli’s full acceptance of the normality of civic strife shelters him from the idea that conflict, even in its most violent forms, might lead men to regress to a savage condition (as Hobbes fears). In a certain sense, for Machiavelli mankind cannot return to a state of nature because mankind has never fully abandoned it; civilized men simply remain in touch with their feral dimension, which in The Prince is represented allegorically by the famous image of the centaur Chiron,14 but which reappears in different forms throughout Machiavelli’s oeuvre.15 So, whereas Hobbes views submission to an absolute sovereign as an opportunity to escape the looming darkness on the horizon once and for all, in the Discourses there is no permanent safe harbor from the storm that might break at any time over either republics or principalities. And, as we have seen, 12 R. Esposito, ‘Ordine e conflitto in Machiavelli e Hobbes,’ in R. Esposito, Ordine e conflitto (Liguori, 1984), pp. 179–​220: 192. 13 Ibid., p. 187. 14 R. Esposito, Living Thought (Stanford University Press, 2012), p. 24. 15 Thomas Berns has demonstrated that in Machiavelli the initial condition never disappears, whereas in Hobbes the rule of law is “the necessary overcoming of a primitive antagonism of passions” (Violence de la loi à la Renaissance, Kimé, 2000, p. 163). See also G. Pedullà, ‘Il divieto di Platone. Niccolò Machiavelli e il discorso dell’anonimo plebeo,’ in J.-​J. Marchand and J.-​C. Zancarini (eds.), Storiografia repubblicana fiorentina (Cesati, 2003), pp. 209–​66: 263.

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Machiavelli’s insistence on the need to understand the “modes” that make conflict both innocuous and productive derives precisely from his disbelief in the durability of concord. A Third Paradigm? (1531–​1789) Over the last half-​century, whenever scholars have addressed the pairing of Machiavelli and Hobbes, they have oscillated between two alternatives: either focus on the many elements they indisputably have in common, stressing their “modernity” (like in Strauss), or emphasis on the Discourses’ worship of Rome, linking Machiavelli to the Ancients (like in Pocock, Skinner, and, before them, Isaiah Berlin). As soon as one turns to the subject of conflict, however, it is clear that Machiavelli cannot be pinned down quite so easily to either the classical or the proto-​liberal pole. As Marco Geuna observed in a pioneering essay, the Discourses in essence put forth a sort of third paradigm that we must come to grips with in all its originality.16 If, on a conceptual level, Machiavelli stands up to comparison with Aristotle and Hobbes, one might erroneously believe that his pages on the struggles between patricians and plebeians shine all the brighter for their isolation, having received little attention in a field dominated first by the paradigm of spontaneous (natural) sociability and later increasingly by that of the (artificial) social contract. The reality is somewhat different. A closer look reveals that for roughly three centuries, but in particular from the English Civil War onward, Machiavelli provided a wide range of authors with tools that are indispensable for thinking about political order in a novel way, outside the dichotomy between Aristotle and Hobbes. This alternative political tradition was difficult to identify, however, particularly in Catholic Europe –​where, after the inclusion of Machiavelli on the first Index (1559), it was expressly prohibited to even mention his name, and one could only allude to his works by means of elaborate paraphrasing. As a result, some of the thinkers who are potentially the most indebted to the Discourses have paradoxically been praised by many twentieth-​century scholars for the extreme originality of their appreciation of conflict, as in the case of Montesquieu (lauded as the inventor of “a new conception of political life”)17 or Adam Ferguson (“the single most important precursor of the theory of class conflict”).18 Positive views of the clashes between patricians and plebeians spread throughout Italy during the first decades after the publication of the Discourses. One can find examples in the Dialogo della pratica della ragione by the jurist 16 M. Geuna, ‘Il linguaggio del repubblicanesimo di Adam Ferguson,’ in E. Pii. (ed.), I linguaggi politici delle rivoluzioni in Europa (Olschki, 1992), pp. 143–​59: 158. 17 S. Cotta, ‘L’idée du parti dans la philosophie politique de Montesquieu,’ in L. Desgraves (ed.), Actes du Congrès Montesquieu (Dalmas, 1956), pp. 257–​63: 260. 18 H. Strasser, The Normative Structure of Sociology (Routledge, 1976), pp. 56–​57.

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and man of letters Francesco Sansovino (1521–​86), written in 1541 in Venice (where Machiavellian ideas were used to support the model of a republic built upon a “virtuous” contraposition between its “humors”);19 in the aforementioned Discorsi sopra Tito Livio by Antonio Ciccarelli (1598); or in friar Tommaso Campanella’s (1568–​ 1639) defense of the Scuole Pie  –​the first public and free school in Europe (with a quick reference to the central thesis of Florentine Histories III.1 on the positive role played in Rome by the coopting of popular leaders into government: “since the plebs participated in the functions of the patricians; while the contrary occurred in Florence, where, as a result of such disputes, the patricians were reduced to the level of the plebs”).20 In all these cases Machiavelli’s theory is only cursorily mentioned, while more substantive engagements with his ideas would appear only later. In very broad terms, one might discern three distinct phases in the reception of the ideas expressed in Disc. I.4, a long process whose epicenter falls in seventeenth-​and eighteenth-​ century England. Two symbolic dates highlight the main moments of discontinuity: 1646: Year of the earliest appearance of Machiavelli’s theory of conflict in an anonymous English republican pamphlet, the Vox Plebis, attributable to the movement’s most radical fringe (“A most sure rule in State policy” is “that all the lawes that are made in favour of liberty, spring first from the disagreement of the people and their governors”);21 1734:  Year of the publication of Montesquieu’s Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans, which marked the re-​emergence of Machiavelli’s positive view of the conflicts between patricians and plebeians in continental political theory. However, as we will see, in early modern Europe the Discourses’ conflictualism never managed to establish a single unified philosophical tradition. Rather, Machiavelli’s theory coalesced into a “constellation” of four readings (or re-​ interpretations) that are in fact very different, and even in outright contrast to one another. For this reason it is worth analyzing each of them separately. The Baroque Interpretation “How shall we find the concord of this discord?,” asks William Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (V.1.60). Transforming conflict into a higher form of order is one of the recurrent obsessions of Baroque culture, and it is not strange that by the beginning of the seventeenth century Machiavelli’s theory of tumults had been rewritten in this light by one of the greatest political theorists of the age: Virgilio Malvezzi of Bologna (1595–​1653), destined Francesco Sansovino, ‘Dialogo della pratica della ragione,’ in L. Sartorello (ed.), Le due repubbliche (CET, 2010), pp. 103–​81: 160–​61. 20 Tommaso Campanella, Liber apologeticus contra impugnantes Institutum Scholarum Piarum, ed. M. Erto (Olschki, 2015), p. 289. The book was composed in 1631–​2; both Sansovino’s and Campanella’s texts long remained available only in manuscript form. 21 Vox Plebis (London, 1646), p. 3. See S.D. Glover, ‘The Putney Debates: Popular versus Élitist Republicanism,’ Past and Present, 48 (1999), pp. 47–​80. 19

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to become the official historian of the Spanish monarchy and the closest collaborator of the Count de Olivares at the court of Phillip IV of Spain. And so it is that, in the ninth chapter of his Discourses upon Cornelius Tacitus (1622), titled “Of concordant discord; and how it ought to be mannaged, for the good of cities,” one finds (cautious) praise for tumults, expressed in terms of the theory of humors: “There is nothing more profitable for the concord and good government of a city, then a discord between the parts:  a city being a body composed of many parts, as our body is of foure elements.”22 The job of the wise politician is thus to achieve a perfect balance between people, nobility, and the prince according to the circumstances, as ancient history demonstrated: In the Commonwealth of Rome, as long as the people were able to counterpease the power of the nobles; although it were in discord, yet it continued and kept it selfe free: but after the death of Tiberius and Caius Gracchus, when this contrary became unable to withstand the nobility, the commonwealth presently was endangered.23

If one follows Malvezzi’s complicated alchemy, “concordant discord” (concordante discordia) reveals itself to be nothing other than a rephrasing of the concordia discors lauded by Cicero in one of the most famous fragments of his De republica, which was highly esteemed by Baroque writers:24 a sort of superior harmony in perfect consonance with the laws that govern the entire universe. In fact, Malvezzi goes on to write: When I shew, that for cities to be well governed, it is necessary there should be discord: I meane not that kind of discord which is destructive, a discord in the whole; but that which is a discord in a part; and in the whole, a concord: in like manner, as the heavens turning with one motion from East to West; and with another from West to East, they are discordant in the parts; but in conservation of the whole concordant.25

In this way true conflict disappears. But this seems to be precisely the point of the reformulation of Machiavelli put forward by Malvezzi –​who, not coincidentally, had already clarified some pages earlier that “by reason of our imperfection, there is necessary a certain discord, which may be called a concord.”26 In subsequent years the Malvezzi’s reading would enjoy considerable good fortune across Europe, so that one can find it in the Idea de un principe político cristiano (1640) by Diego de Saavedra Fajardo (1584–​1648), where the Spanish thinker comments on the maxim concordia cedunt (as a limited exception to the Sallustian motto concordia parvae res crescunt); and, from the other end Virgilio Malvezzi, Discourses upon Cornelius Tacitus, transl. R.  Baker (Whitaker, 1642), ix, p. 61. 23 Ibid., ix, p. 64. 24 D. Peil, ‘Concordia discors. Anmerkungen zu einem politischen Harmoniemodell von der Antike bis in die Neuzeit,’ in K. Grubmüller, R.K. Schmidt-​Wiegand, and K. Speckenbach (eds.), Geistliche Denkformen in der Literatur des Mittelalters (Fink, 1984), pp. 401–​35. Cicero’s passage was known via Augustine, De civitate Dei II.21. See p. 120 in this book. 25 Malvezzi, Discourses, ix, pp. 65–​66. 26 Ibid., v, p. 30. 22

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of Catholic Europe, in the Palestra nobilium (1654) by Polish historian and philosopher Joachim Pastorius (1611–​ 81), where it is explicitly associated with both Machiavelli and Saavedra Fajardo.27 More than an aspiration to a superior harmony, the key to the logic of Malvezzi, Saavedra Fajardo, and Pastorius is the idea that the art of managing the natural sympathies and antipathies between the various orders is part of the requisite arcana imperii of the prince in order to ward off deeper divisions and maintain his own supremacy over each one of them (particularly the aristocracy). But this means that, in contrast to Machiavelli, Baroque authors’ conflictualism does not preserve any autonomous role for the people, which becomes a mere instrument in the hands of those wielding power. Stripped of the idea of harmonious balancing, the same attitude can also be found in the Apologie pour Machiavelle (I.2), written by Louis Machon (1603–​ 72) at the behest of Cardinal Richelieu and in open polemic against Gentillet.28 Here, too, Machiavelli’s theory is reduced, via Tacitus, to the maxim regnare si vis, divide (“If you wish to rule, divide”)  –​intended as an expedient to prevent magistrates and public officers from joining forces against the sovereign.29 The Baroque Machiavelli is thus, above all, a master of princely political self-​preservation. The Anti-​Tyrannical Interpretation The turning point in the reception of Disc. I.4 is tied to the English Civil War (1642–​9).30 If the Baroque interpretation conscripted Machiavelli’s 27 Diego de Saavedra Fajardo, Idea de un Príncipe Político Christiano representada en cien empresas (Enrico, 1640), pp. 603–​08; Joachim Pastorius, ‘Palestra nobilium,’ in Thomas Crenius (ed.), De philologia, studiis liberalis doctrinae, informatione et educatione litteraria (Severinus, 1696), pp. 314–​15. 28 J. Barthas, ‘Remarques sur l’Anti-​Gentillet de Machon,’ on-​line since September 25, 2014: http://​ dossiersgrihl.revues.org/​6187. 29 Machon’s Apologie pour Machiavelle has come down to us in two different manuscripts (from 1643 to 1668), but has been published only recently by Jean-​Pierre Cavaillé (Champion, 2016). To show that Machiavelli’s thesis is not seditious, Machon notes that a similar idea can already be found in the moderate (and anti-​Machiavellian) Catholic jurist Pierre Grégoire (c. 1540–​1597), author of a monumental De republica (1596), where it is written, among other things, that “it is not possible to find a State that does not nurture envy and strife; at times discord among citizens worked to benefit the State; in this way occasionally the Roman republic saved itself, through the battles of the tribunes with the patricians, and Sparta, through the battles of the ephors with the kings” (XXIII.9.3). Similarly, in his Dissertatio de ratione status (1651), Hermann Conring (1606–​ 81) also connects Grégoire to Machiavelli by quoting this same passage. An echo of Disc. I.4 can perhaps also be heard in Jean Bodin, even if the argument then moves in a different direction: “If the humors of the human body were not discordant, man would die quickly, because his life depends on the opposition of hot and cold, dry and wet […]. Thus in a State it is necessary for magistrates to be in discord in some sense […], because truth, the public good, and honest resolutions always lie between two extremes” (Les six livres de la République, 6 vols., Fayard, 1986, I.4). 30 There is a rich bibliography on the topic: Z.S. Fink, The Classical Republicanism (Northwestern University Press, 1945); F. Raab, The English Face of Machiavelli (Routledge, 1964); J.G.A.

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conflictualism in the service of a project of balance from above, it is to the English revolutionaries –​and one of Oliver Cromwell’s closest collaborators, the pamphleteer Marchamont Nedham (1620–​78), in particular –​that we owe the restitution of the republican (and pro-​popular) spirit of the Discourses. In a head-​ to-​ head confrontation between the sovereign and Parliament, and in a war fought no less with the pen than with the sword, the climate was particularly favorable for this rediscovery. The anti-​tyrannical interpretation is distinguished by two elements. Above all, in defending the fundamental goodness of the people’s intentions even in times of violent upheaval, it reads the Discourses through the lens of the medieval right to resistance, as in the case of John Milton (1608–​74), who, referring approvingly to Machiavelli’s thesis in his Commonplace book, reformulates it via the legal category of the iusta causa.31 Machiavelli’s primary contribution to Parliamentary propaganda after the execution of Charles I seems, however, to have been his defense of republics against the charge that popular government inevitably leads a country to anarchy (as Hobbes had argued in the Leviathan). Nedham’s The Excellencie of a Free State (1656), for example, dedicates several pages to refuting the thesis “that such a government brings great damage to the publike, by their frequent discontents, divisions, and tumults, that arise within it,” and does so not by denying the existence of conflicts but by glorifying their positive effects (and limited drawbacks) in what is, for the most part, a paraphrase of the Discourses.32 The restoration of the monarchy in 1660 did not mean the demise of republican political thought in England. Machiavelli’s ideas were frequently echoed in posthumous defenses of Parliament’s actions, and in the treatises with which several of the protagonists of the revolution continued to uphold the project of a commonwealth, beginning with Algernon Sidney. In 1683 Sidney was sentenced to death, accused of plotting against the new sovereign, and since the law required at least two witnesses to testify against him, the prosecutor submitted as a second one the unpublished manuscript of his republican Discourses Concerning Government (1698). As the title itself suggests, Sidney’s Discourses draws heavily upon Machiavelli’s commentary on Livy,

Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment (Princeton University Press, 1975); P.A. Rahe, Republics Ancient and Modern, 3  vols. (University of North Carolina Press, 1994); J. Scott, England’s Troubles (Cambridge University Press, 2000); L. Ward, The Politics of Liberty in England and Revolutionary America (Cambridge University Press, 2004); V.B. Sullivan, Machiavelli, Hobbes and the Formation of a Liberal Republicanism in England (Cambridge University Press, 2004); J. Scott, Commonwealth Principles (Cambridge University Press, 2004); P.A. Rahe, Against Throne and Altar (Cambridge University Press, 2008); B. Worden, Literature and Politics in Cromwellian England (Oxford University Press, 2008); A. Arienzo and A. Petrina (eds.), Machiavellian Encounters in Tudor and Stuart England (Ashgate, 2013). 31 John Milton, ‘Commonplace book,’ in John Milton, Works, 18  vols., ed. F.A. Patterson (Columbia University Press, 1931–​38), XVIII, pp. 128–​220: 216–​17. 32 Marchamont Nedham, The Excellencie of a Free State, ed. B. Worden (Liberty Fund, 2011), pp. 57–​61 (according to Worden, Nedham is also the author of the aforementioned Vox plebis).

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and, following his example, repeatedly defends the right of subjects to rebel against a corrupt authority, as in passages like the following: “If it be said that the word sedition implies that which is evil; I answer, that it ought not then to be applied to those who seek nothing but that which is just […]. He that has virtue and power to save a people, can never want a right of doing it.”33 Despite Sidney’s death sentence, the Machiavellian seeds of his pugnacious writings were destined to bear fruit, both in England and elsewhere. Thanks in part to Nedham and Sidney, the anti-​tyrannical interpretation of Disc. I.4 would in fact play a not-​insignificant role in both the American and French revolutions, in the latter case particularly through the Club des Cordeliers of Jean-​Paul Marat and Georges-​Jacques Danton.34 Already some years earlier, however, the future second President of the United States, John Adams (1735–​ 1826), had returned to the anti-​tyrannical Machiavelli of Sidney and Nedham to vindicate acts of rebellion against an unjust power in a public appeal of February 13, 1775: There is not another province on this continent, nor in his majesty’s dominions, where the people, under the same indignities, would not have gone to greater lengths. Consider the tumults in the three kingdoms, consider the tumults in ancient Rome, in the most virtuous of her periods, and compare them with ours. It is a saying of Machiavel, which no wise man ever contradicted, which has been literally verified in this province that “while the mass of the people is not corrupted, tumults do no hurt.” By which he means, that they leave no lasting ill effects behind.35

The influence of Machiavelli’s conflictualism on the Founding Fathers should not be overstated, however. To pinpoint Adams’ position one must also read his Defence of the Constitutions and Government of the United States of America (1787), where he discusses the thesis of Disc. I.4 through a close reading of the many pages of Nedham’s work in which Machiavelli’s ideas are paraphrased. Tellingly, in the wake of the victorious War of Independence Adams reveals himself to be far less convinced that one should not worry about popular tumults, accepting the Discourses’ reasoning only with great caution, 33 Algernon Sidney, Discourses Concerning Government, ed. T. West (Liberty Fund, 1996), II.24, p. 227 (see also II.11, p. 135; II.14, pp. 153–​56; III.40, p. 545). 34 R. Hammerslay, French Revolutionaries and English Republicans (Boydell, 2004). 35 John Adams, ‘Novanglus,’ in John Adams, Works, ed. C.F. Adams, 10 vols. (Little & Brown, 1850–​56), IV, p. 57. See also Thomas Jefferson’s letter to Edward Carrington, dated January 6, 1787 (from Paris), in which he defends popular insurrections while commenting on a recent uprising against the government in America (Papers, 25 vols., ed. J.P. Boyd, Princeton University Press, 1955, XI, pp. 48–​ 49). On Machiavelli’s conflictualism in revolutionary America:  G. Stourzh, Alexander Hamilton and the Idea of Republican Government (Stanford University Press, 1970), pp. 34–​36; R. Branson, ‘James Madison and the Scottish Enlightenment,’ Journal of the History of Ideas, 40 (1979), pp. 235–​50; S. Dunn, Sister Revolutions (Faber & Faber, 1999), pp. 56, 70, 99, 203; C. Bradley Thompson, ‘John Adams’s Machiavellian Moment,’ in Legacy, pp.  189–​207; P.A. Rahe, ‘Thomas Jefferson’s Machiavellian Political Science,’ ibid., pp. 208–​28; L. Mayville, John Adams and the Fear of American Oligarchy (Princeton University Press, 2016).

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and only after having reiterated the need for a mixed government to contain democratic excesses. Indeed, in addressing the crucial issue of whether anarchy or tyranny is less desirable, the Defence hedges somewhat, responding that anarchy may be worse, but possesses the advantage of not lasting as long.36 The Parliamentary Interpretation After the victory of the Orangist cause and definitive establishment of a constitutional monarchy in the Glorious Revolution (1688–​9), the thesis of Disc. I.4 continued to re-​emerge with great frequency in English political debates, but in different forms. Machiavelli’s words were no longer read as a legitimation of conflicts between rulers and ruled, but rather of those between different political groups. At a time when the legitimacy of a constitutional opposition was still uncertain and the dialectic between majority and minority had yet to achieve full recognition,37 the passages of the Discourses dealing with the inevitability (and positive effects) of such divisions seemed to open up new space for a regulated dissent that clearly distinguished between loyalty to the State and loyalty to the government in power. To demonstrate that conflict in the public arena was a symptom of health and not of illness, the metaphors most frequently used during this period were those of air and water, which both need to be constantly agitated in order to remain salutary. Such is the case in Lord Halifax’s Character of a Trimmer (1688) (“There are winds which are sometimes loud and unquiet, and yet with all the trouble they give us, we owe great part of our health unto them in that they clear the air, which else would be like a standing pool, and instead of refreshment would be a disease unto us”),38 as well as in the impassioned letters published by John Trenchard (1662–​1723) and Thomas Gordon (1692–​1750) under the pseudonym “Cato” in the London Journal and the British Journal (“These opposite views and interests will be causing a perpetual struggle: but by this struggle liberty is preserved, as water is kept sweet by motion.”)39 But occasionally authors would explicitly reference Machiavelli’s Rome, as in The 36 Unlike Filippo Del Lucchese (Conflict, Power and Multitude in Machiavelli and Spinoza, Continuum, 2009), I  do not think that Spinoza takes up Machiavelli’s argument; the two passages cited by Del Lucchese (Tractatus politicus V.4; IX.14) contain only a (very conventional) repetition of the rights of resistance to tyranny (in the first case) or of the value of debate for reaching the best decision (in the second). On Spinoza and Machiavelli, see also V. Morfino, Il tempo e l’occasione (LED, 2002). 37 J. Varela Suanzes-​Carpegna, Sistema de gobierno y partidos políticos de Locke a Park (CEPC, 2002). 38 George Saville, The Character of a Trimmer (London, 1688), p.  11. See Fink, Classical Republicanism, p. 297. 39 Thomas Gordon and John Trenchard, Cato’s Letters, ed. R. Hanoway, 2 vols. (Liberty Fund, 1995), II, p.  504 (originally published on March 17, 1721). See M. Geuna, ‘Republicanism and Commercial Society in the Scottish Enlightenment,’ in M. van Gelderen and Q. Skinner (eds.), Republicanism (Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 177–​96; V. Sullivan, ‘Muted and Manifest English Machiavellism,’ Legacy, pp. 58–​86.

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Conspirators, or the Case of Catilina, published in 1721 by the same Gordon under the pseudonym “Britannicus” (“And yet I shall not scruple to maintain, tho’ it may startle some men at first view, that all these virtue, order and good discipline proceeded from the tumults and the civil broils that arose in the city of Rome”).40 In either case, the overarching meaning is not very different.41 If the parliamentary interpretation borrows several elements from the Baroque reading, it is important to highlight a decisive difference: in Malvezzi, Saavedra Fajardo, and Pastorius the balance must be actively procured by an astute ruler, who is asked to manage the different “humors” (Machon too seems to suggest something similar regarding division); for early eighteenth-​ century English authors, in contrast, it is the various political groups that balance themselves through disputes that do not risk degenerating into violent conflict and, indeed, actually help them to make better decisions. This reading of Machiavelli must be understood within the context of contemporary philosophical debate over the possibility of using the “superior” passions (like ambition and greed) to combat “inferior” ones (like gluttony and lust), rather than entrust the regulatory power of reason, which, when put to the test, had all too often revealed itself incapable of restraining the appetites by relying on appeals to virtue alone.42 Perhaps not coincidentally, one of the first authors to elaborate on this idea roughly a century earlier, Francis Bacon (1561–​1626), had used political factions as a metaphor to explain the provocative thesis regarding the use of one vice to check another: “for as in the government of States, it is sometimes necessary to brindle one faction with another, so it is in the government within.”43 Thus reformulated, the thesis of the Discourses was ready to return to the continent as an argument against monarchic absolutism. Authors like Voltaire (1694–​1778) and Montesquieu were quick to spread their admiration for British institutions; as early as the epistolary fiction of the Persian Letters (1721), Montesquieu in particular embedded the idea that in the history of England “you see liberty emerging endlessly from the fires of discord and sedition” (Letter 136). A year-​long visit to the country in 1730 subsequently gave him the opportunity to enter into direct contact with local disciples of Machiavelli, and to read their writings –​two experiences destined to leave a lasting impression on his work.44 Conversely, although never explicitly mentioning Machiavelli Thomas Gordon, The Conspirators, or the Case of Catilina (London, 1721), pp. 84–​85. See also the anonymous ‘Fatal Consequences of Licentiousness in a Government’ (Scots Magazine, May 1739, pp. 202–​5), where Disc. I.4 is explicitly cited. 41 According to Frederick G.  Whelan, in recognizing the legitimacy of particular interests of different social groups but not of organized parties, Hume also depends on Disc. I.4 (Hume and Machiavelli, Lexington, 2004). 42 A.O. Hirschmann, The Passions and the Interests (Princeton University Press, 1977). 43 Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning, ed. M. Kiernan (Clarendon, 2000), p. 150. 44 R. Shackleton, ‘Montesquieu and Machiavelli,’ Comparative Literature Studies, 1 (1964), pp. 1–​13; U. Haskins Gonthier, Montesquieu and England (Routledge, 2016). 40

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by name, Montesquieu’s Considerations would reintroduce the arguments of Disc. I.4 into French and Italian philosophical debates.45 In Montesquieu, however, Machiavelli’s theory also picks up certain traces of the concordia discors of Cicero, Augustine, Malvezzi, Saavedra Fajardo, and Pastorius. As a result, it loses the explicitly pro-​popular strains of the Discourses: We hear in the authors only of the dissensions that ruined Rome, without seeing that these dissensions were necessary to it, that they had always been there and always had to be. It was the greatness of the republic that caused all the trouble and changed popular tumults into civil wars. There had to be dissensions in Rome, for warriors who were so proud, so audacious, so terrible abroad could not be very moderate at home. To ask for men in a free State who are bold in war and timid in peace is to wish the impossible. And, as a general rule, whenever we see everyone tranquil in a State that calls itself a republic, we can be sure that liberty does not exist there. What is called union in a body politic is a very equivocal thing. The true kind is a union of harmony, whereby all the parts, however opposed they may appear, cooperate for the general good of society –​as dissonances in music cooperate in producing overall concord. In a State where we seem to see nothing but commotion there can be union –​ that is, a harmony resulting in happiness, which alone is true peace. It is as with the parts of the universe, eternally linked together by the action of some and the reaction of others.46

In reformulating the same concepts in a more theoretical key in The Spirit of the Laws (1751), Montesquieu would go on to provide an even less combative interpretation, presenting division (stásis, diástasis) in Aristotelian fashion as a simple change in constitution (metástasis) –​proof of just how hard it still was to accept Machiavelli’s thesis: States are often more flourishing during the imperceptible shift from one constitution to another than they are under either constitution. At that time all the spring of the government are stretched; all the citizens have claims; one is attacked or flattered; and there is a noble rivalry between those who defend the declining constitution and those who put forward the one that prevails.47

45 Unlike Montesquieu, in 1758 Claude-​ Adrien Helvétius (1715–​ 71) would explicitly evoke Machiavelli, citing with approbation the passages of the Discourses on the “first conflicts between the plebs and the patricians, which settled a balance of power that continuously reborn conflicts maintained at length” (De l’Esprit, Fayard, 1988, p. 345). 46 Montesquieu, Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline, ed. D. Lowenthal (Cornell University Press, 1968), pp. 93–​94. On Montesquieu and Machiavelli: E. Levi-​Malvano, Montesquieu e Machiavelli (Champion, 1912); A. Bertière, ‘Montesquieu, lecteur de Machiavel,’ in Desgraves (ed.), Actes, pp.  141–​58; J.  Shklar, ‘Montesquieu and the New Republicanism,’ in Machiavelli and Republicanism, pp. 265–​80; P. Carrese, ‘The Machiavellian Spirit of Montesquieu’s Liberal Republic,’ in Legacy, pp. 121–​42. 47 Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, eds. A.M. Cohler, B.C. Miller, and H.S. Stone (Cambridge University Press, 1989), XI.13, p. 173. On Montesquieu’s conflictualism, see J.S. McClelland, The Crowd and the Mob (Routledge, 2010), pp. 64–​72.

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The Radical Interpretation It would be a mistake to view the first few decades of the eighteenth century only in terms of a softening in English readings of Disc. I.4, compared with the sharper-​edged civil war and revolutionary years. Instead, it seems more accurate to speak of a divarication:  for, if Halifax, Trenchard, and Gordon offer an indisputably less belligerent version of Machiavelli’s theory than the one forged in the fires of the conflict between Charles I and Parliament, a far more radical interpretation also took shape throughout the same period. Until then, English admirers of the Discourses had merely argued in favor of a people rebelling against a bad government (and the positive effects of such a rebellion), on the one hand, and the harmlessness of divisions between fellow citizens (if kept within certain limits), on the other. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, however, another argument began to materialize: the idea that the absence of dissension was a sure sign of enslavement, and that conflict was the only real alternative to despotism. As the Scottish philosopher Adam Ferguson (1723–​1816), a fierce opponent of Hobbes, would go on to write, “our very praise of unanimity, therefore, is to be considered a danger to liberty.”48 In this context, pace the teachings of Disc. I.4, one could even go so far as to argue that civil war was preferable to excessive social harmony, while attitudes toward the aristocracy itself also grew much more hostile, to the point of denying its very utility as a separate order. The radical paradigm can probably be traced back to the Essay upon the Constitution and Government of the Roman State by polymath Walter Moyle, published posthumously in 1726 and surely known to Montesquieu. Precisely because Moyle writes in the republican tradition of Nedham and Sidney, the differences between him and his predecessors emerge all the more clearly. Similar to their treatises in its defense of tumults (in Rome and elsewhere), with arguments all drawn from Machiavelli, Moyle’s Essay nevertheless goes further in associating perfect concord with tyranny for the first time: The tranquility of those monarchies, which happen to be free from seditions, is an argument that the subjects are so impoverished, debased or diminished, by the arbitrary violence and oppression of their masters, that they have neither the will, the courage, nor the ability to shake off their chains: which is the present condition of most of the monarchies in Europe. And who is there that would not prefer a factious liberty before such a settled tyranny?49

In subsequent years Moyle’s thesis would gain traction, beginning precisely with Ferguson and his Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767): Peace and unanimity are commonly considered as the principal foundations of public felicity; yet the rivalship of separate communities, and the agitations of a free people, Adam Ferguson, An Essay on the History of Civil Society, ed. F. Oz-​Salzberg (Cambridge University Press, 1995), V.5, p. 252. 49 Walter Moyle, ‘Essay upon the Constitution and Government of the Roman State’, in Walter Moyle and John Neville, Two English Republican Tracts, ed. C. Robbins (Cambridge University Press, 1969), pp. 201–​57: 247. 48

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are the principles of political life, and the school of men. How shall we reconcile these jarring and opposite tenets? It is, perhaps, not necessary to reconcile them. The pacific may do what they can to allay the animosities, and to reconcile the opinions, of men; and it will be happy if they can succeed in repressing their crimes, and in calming the worst of their passions. Nothing, in the mean time, but corruption or slavery can suppress the debates that subsist among men of integrity, who bear an equal part in the administration of State.50

The idea that it is impossible to evade the alternative between civil strife and despotism would find its warmest welcome on the continent, however. In the passage from Montesquieu cited above, one can already find hints of a similar notion (“wherever we see everyone tranquil in a State that calls itself a republic, we can be sure that liberty does not exist there”) –​but it is only in the second half of the century that one sees France become the new fulcrum for the elaboration of Machiavelli’s theory in increasingly anti-​aristocratic and anti-​monarchical terms.51 Although a strong attack against the nobility in the context of praise for tumults appears as early as the Observations sur les Romains by the French philosopher Mably (1709–​85), the key figure of this period is undoubtedly Jean-​Jacques Rousseau (1712–​78), who twice turns to Machiavelli’s thoughts on conflicts at critical moments in his Social Contract (1762). On the first occasion, Rousseau employs the distinction made in Florentine Histories VII.1 between good and bad divisions (with or without “sects”) in a footnote to better illustrate his own theory of the “general will” (thus in complete contrast to English authors of roughly the same period, who used the Discourses to legitimize the existence of political parties). When factions arise, small associations at the expense of the large association, the will of each one of these associations become general in relation to its members and particular in relation to the State; there can then no longer be said to be as many voters as there are men, but only as many as there are associations. The differences become less numerous and yield a less general result. Finally, when one of these associations is so large that it prevails over all the rest, the result you have is no longer a sum of small differences, but one single difference; then, there is no longer a general will, and the opinion that prevails is nothing but a private opinion. It is important, then, that in order to have the general will expressed well, there be no partial societies in the State, and every citizen states only his own opinion.52 Ferguson, Essay I.9, pp. 62–​63. On Ferguson and Machiavelli: E. Gabba, ‘Adam Ferguson e la storia di Roma,’ in E. Gabba, Cultura classica e storiografia moderna (il Mulino, 1995), pp. 73–​ 97: 80–​81; Geuna, ‘Commercial’; L. Hill, The Passionate Society (Springer, 2006), pp. 123–​38. 51 On Machiavelli in the French Enlightenment: N. Ben Saad, Machiavel en France des Lumières à la Révolution (L’Harmattan, 2007). 52 Jean-​Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, ed. V. Gourevitch (Cambridge University Press, 1997), II.3, p. 60. The passage is accompanied by a long citation in the notes from Florentine Histories VII.1. On Rousseau and Machiavelli:  L. McKenzie, ‘Rousseau’s Debate with Machiavelli in the Social Contract,’ Journal of the History of Ideas, 43 (1982), pp. 209–​28; M. Viroli, ‘Republic and Politics in Machiavelli and Rousseau,’ History of Political Thought, 10 (1989), pp. 405–​20; A. Jourdan, ‘Le Machiavel de Rousseau,’ Yearbook of European Studies, 50

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Still, the second passage is even more significant, because it provides an unprecedented defense of civil war as an anti-​despotic tool, in light of the principle that “a perilous freedom” must always be preferred to “a quiet servitude”:53 Riots, civil wars, greatly alarm chiefs, but they do not cause the miseries of the peoples, which may even experience some respite during the disputes about who will tyrannize them. Their real prosperities or calamities arise from their permanent state; it is when everything remains crushed under the yoke, that everything wastes away; when chiefs destroy them at their ease, and where they make a desolation, they call it peace. When the bickerings of the Great caused turmoil in the Kingdom of France, and the Cardinal Coadjutor attended Paris with a dagger in his pocket, it did not keep the French people from living happy and numerous in honest and free well-​ being. Formerly Greece flourished amidst the most cruel wars; blood flowed freely, yet the entire country was full of men. It seemed, says Machiavelli, that our republic grew all the most powerful for being in the midst of murders, proscriptions, civil wars; the virtue of its citizens, their moral, their independence did more to reinforce it, than all its dissensions had done to weaken it. A little agitation energizes souls, and what causes the species truly to prosper is not so much peace as freedom.54

With some conceptual acrobatics, Rousseau was thus able to position himself as both the most self-​conscious heir of the unanimistic dream of Athenian democracy (through the “general will”) and a far more extreme defender of conflict than Machiavelli himself. These two positions only partially contradict each other, however, for they refer to two different goals: the “harmony” among citizens concerns the type of relationship established once the people is no longer dispossessed of its rights; his apologia for civil war, meanwhile, serves instead to neutralize the depoliticizing effects of the theory of the contract (in polemic with Hobbes). Where there is no “general will,” Rousseau argues, even the most violent internal disputes are better than quiet servitude. One must resist the temptation to project the Social Contract too much onto 1789 (as both Rousseau’s admirers and detractors have often done), but a singular coincidence does stand out: the other two great works of the late eighteenth century to reintroduce Machiavelli’s conflictualism in its most combative form were both published in the year of the storming of the Bastille, despite the fact that they were written many years earlier. These are Of Tyranny, by the great Italian tragedian Vittorio Alfieri (1749–​1803), hastily composed in 1777, and Des droits et des devoirs du citoyen by the aforementioned Mably (written way back in 1758).

8 (1996), pp. 29–​62; J.P. McCormick, ‘Rousseau’s Rome and the Repudiation of Populist Republicanism,’ Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 10 (2007), pp. 3–​27; M. Geuna, ‘Rousseau interprete di Machiavelli,’ Storia del pensiero politico, 2 (2013), pp. 61–​88; F. Del Lucchese, ‘Freedom, Equality, and Conflict: Rousseau on Machiavelli,’ History of Political Thought, 35 (2014), pp. 29–​49. 53 Rousseau, Social Contract III.4, p. 92. 54 Ibid., III.9, p. 106.

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For Alfieri, one of the first elements to distinguish free life from servitude is that “in true republics […] internal dissentions become part of its life; and that, wisely preserved and used, they augment its liberty,” whereas “all diversity of interest in a tyranny, on the contrary, augments public unhappiness and universal servitude.”55 Indeed, history itself teaches that Rome “was never truly free and great except when the tribunes were created.”56 Healthy rivalries between the orders began to fester, however, once a class of nobles coalesced in defense of their own privileges: It has been wisely and perspicaciously observed, first by our great Machiavelli, and somewhat more methodically later by Montesquieu, that those very rivalries between the nobility and the people were for several centuries the sinew, the grandeur, and the life of Rome; but yet the sacred truth compelled these two great men to observe that those very conflicts were later to be the causes of its total destruction; and they should have investigated amply how and why. It is my belief that if two great men such as these had wanted and ventured to push their speculative explorations further, they would undoubtedly have cited the hereditary nobles as the primary cause of such a total ruin.57

In every political community there are in fact two different types of conflicts, based on “differences of opinions” and “differences of interests,” respectively. And since only the former are beneficial, for Alfieri, the social question must be resolved by eliminating the aristocracy.58 Des droits et des devoirs du citoyen, in contrast, is a collection of eight letters in which, through a series of fictive conversations, an Englishman teaches a Frenchman about the love of liberty that characterizes his island. Machiavelli is never named, but it is clearly his Discourses that Mably draws upon for his arguments in favor of conflict: Were not the endless disputes between the patricians and plebeians good for the Roman republic of long ago? If the people had preferred quiet to all else, it would have quickly become the slave of the nobility, and today we would not even remember the name of the Romans. Their divisions, on the contrary, brought their government to the peak of perfection; they encouraged emulation among their fellow citizens.59

After applauding the wars fought by the Dutch against Spanish domination (1568–​1648) and the English propensity to create institutions encouraging liberty,

Vittorio Alfieri, Of Tyranny, eds. J.A. Molinari and B. Corrigan (University of Toronto Press, 1961), I.7, p. 37. See M. Geuna, ‘Machiavelli e il ruolo dei conflitti nella vita politica,’ in A. Arienzo and D. Caruso (eds.), Conflitti (Dante & Descartes, 2005), pp. 19–​57. On Machiavelli in the Italian Enlightenment:  M. Rosa, Dispotismo e libertà nel Settecento:  Interpretazioni repubblicane di Machiavelli (Edizioni della Normale, 2005). 56 Alfieri, On Tyranny I.11, p. 57. 57 Ibid. 58 Ibid., pp. 58–​59. In this context England represents for Alfieri a positive model only because its nobility had for quite some time been deprived of its power. 59 Mably, Des droits et des devoirs du citoyen (Bureau de la Publication, 1868), p. 44. 55

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however, Mably goes further than Machiavelli, indulging in a particularly extreme reformulation of the right to resist against tyranny: Well then, he said, whispering in my ear, sometimes civil war is a very good thing. […] Hear me out, do not act surprised […]. Civil war is bad in the sense that it is contrary to the security and well-​being that men seek in creating societies; just as the amputation of an arm or a leg is bad for me, because it is contrary to the integrity of my body and causes me a sharp pain. But when I have gangrene in the arm or the leg, amputation is a good thing. In the same way, civil war is itself a good thing, where society, without the aid of such an operation, would be prone to death from gangrene, and, to drop the metaphor, would run the risk of dying from despotism. […] Regarding civil war as always unjust, exhorting citizens to never oppose violence with force is most contrary to good customs and the public good. Believe me, Monsieur, that the people among us who are charged with teaching us our duties are short-​sighted; they do not realize (or, to flatter the mighty, do not want to see) that condemning subjects to eternal, inalterable patience is equal to encouraging princes to tyranny and opening for them the way to achieve it. If a people does not believe it possesses the right to defend itself against foreigners who assault it, it will most certainly be subjugated. A nation that never seeks to resist domestic enemies will always necessarily be oppressed.60

As we have seen, Machiavelli never thought it was necessary to choose between civil war and subjugation to a prince. The lesson of the Discourses, however, allowed Rousseau and Mably to stand Hobbes on his head, while drawing on the same opposition that girds the Leviathan:  faced with such a clear alternative, for them even armed conflict could be seen as preferable. The time for words was drawing to a close, and, in the following years the Discourses and The Prince would become required reading for those engaged in the struggle to bring down the Ancien Régime. And it is above all in this sense that today one can agree with the definition of Machiavelli as the “spiritual father of the revolution”  –​a title given to him a half century ago by Hannah Arendt (with anything but flattering intentions).61 Ibid., pp. 47–​53. 61 H. Arendt, On Revolution (Viking, 1965), p. 37. Here Arendt cites a portion of Robespierre’s Report on the Principles of Public Morality (February 5, 1794), inverting its meaning. The full passage reads: “If we had been concerned here only with the interests of a faction or of a new aristocracy, we could have believed, like certain writers still more ignorant than they are depraved, that the plan of the French revolution was written out in full in the books of Tacitus and Machiavelli.” See L. Jaume, ‘Robespierre chez Machiavel?,’ Lo Sguardo, 3 (2013), pp. 209–​ 30. The relationship between cause and effect can moreover be easily reversed, demonstrating that the radical Enlightenment contributed greatly to a new image of Machiavelli as a theoretician of the Revolution: J.-​M. Goulemot, ‘Emploi du mot “revolution” dans les traductions françaises du XVIIIe siècle des “Discours” de Nicolas Machiavelli,’ Cahiers de lexicologie, 13 (1968), pp. 75–​83. The radical interpretation of the Discourses is clearly present also in figures like the Spanish Jacobin Juan Romero Alpuente, who, during the Spanish Revolution of 1821, said that “civil war is a gift from heaven” (because it makes it possible to get rid of all the reactionaries at once), or like François-​René Chateaubriand, in whose Mémoires d’outre tombe (III.33.4) it is written that “a people is often strengthened and regenerated by internal discords” (see D. Armitage, Civil Wars. A History in Ideas, Yale University Press, 2017, pp. 163–​64). 60

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Conflict Remembered (1789–​2000) The Founding Fathers’ attitude toward Machiavelli can still be considered part of the seventeenth-​and eighteenth-​century republican tradition. The real shift in the reception of his theory on tumults would only come later, in part thanks to the spread of philosophical reflections on the French Revolution’s epochal caesura.62 The events of 1789 bequeathed to early nineteenth-​century German philosophy two themes that were destined to have a direct impact on the fortunes of Disc. I.4: that of the origins of the modern State –​that is, the new political form that emerged from the ashes of a society based on estates and orders –​and that of conflict as the motor for historical change. In both cases, the greatest interpreter of the revolutionary experience was Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–​1831),63 especially in the notes taken by his students from his university lectures, where the impact of Prussian censorship is less evident than in his printed works.64 In both cases, Hegel’s reflections made a decisive contribution to the eclipse of Machiavelli’s theory on tumults. Hegel read The Prince in French translation, and was led to view its numerous references to the État of the Medici  –​which Machiavelli almost always uses in the meaning of “status” or “condition”  –​as allusions to the State to be established by toppling feudal structures. From this perspective, Hegel, in his lectures on the philosophy of history (posthumously published 1837) and other writings, portrayed Machiavelli as a precursor to the French Revolution –​the one who had demonstrated how, in order to liberate politics from the chains of the Ancien Régime, it was acceptable to use any means available: [The Prince] has often been thrown aside in disgust, as replete with the maxims of the most revolting tyranny; but nothing worse can be urged against it than that the writer, having the profound consciousness of the necessity for the formation of a State, has here exhibited the principles on which alone States could be founded in the circumstances of the times.65

After Hegel, for nearly a century and a half Machiavelli would be either appreciated or loathed primarily as the author of The Prince: the first theorist of the superiority of raison d’état over all other principles, rights, or traditions (religion, morality, customs, and so on). In this reading, the Discourses  –​ already tarred by the Romantics’ general revulsion for classical culture 62 The best essay on Machiavelli’s fortune after 1789 is J. Barthas, ‘Machiavelli in Political Thought from the Age of Revolutions to the Present,’ in Companion, pp. 256–​73. See also: L.M Bassani and C. Vivanti (eds.), Machiavelli nella storiografia e nel pensiero politico del XX secolo (Giuffrè 2006); P. Carta and X. Tabet (eds.), Machiavel au XIXe et XXe siècles (Cedam, 2007). 63 J. Ritter, Hegel and the French Revolution (MIT Press, 1984). 64 K.H. Ilting, ‘Einleitung’, in G.W.F. Hegel (ed.), Vorlesungen über Rechtsphilosophie, 4  vols. (Frommann-​ Holzboog, 1973–​ 4); D. Losurdo, Hegel and the Freedom of Moderns (Duke University Press, 2004). 65 G.W.F. Hegel, The Philosophy of History (Dover, 1956), p. 403.

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(including Roman institutions)  –​would quickly be relegated to the margins of Machiavelli’s oeuvre and, as a result, his thoughts on the struggles between patricians and plebeians expelled from philosophical debates as well. Through a curious paradox, then, the father of modern conflictualism was shunned by his heirs at precisely the moment when conflict was finally recognized as an essential element of political order.66 If neither Hegel’s dialectical historicism nor Anglo-​ Saxon liberalism acknowledge their debt to Machiavelli, this is surely due in part to the fact that, with the exception of Rousseau, his most influential eighteenth-​century disciples (Montesquieu and Ferguson) never explicitly mentioned his name in connection with tumults. But that is not the only reason for this omission. Despite his admiration for Machiavelli, Hegel, from the philosophical heights of his theory of History as unending conflict, must have viewed the thesis of Disc. I.4 as little more than an empirical notation (in his notebooks Marx himself would not go much further than to transcribe a few phrases from the Discourses on the beneficial aspects of tumults).67 Attention to Machiavellian conflictualism was no greater among nineteenth-​century liberals, who were more interested in the disputes between individuals (following the Hobbesian model) and the rules by which freedom might emerge from dissent and universal competition. Only the pages of the Florentine Histories devoted to the internecine fights in the Italian Communes seems to have received some attention, having been read passionately by both Alexis de Tocqueville and Marx.68 Two examples will suffice to demonstrate the extent and persistence of this eclipse. The single most important twentieth-​century work on conflict, the fourth part of Sociology (1908) by German philosopher Georg Simmel (1858–​1918), not only uses the same medical metaphor as the Discourses to Even the most erudite Machiavelli scholars of that time ignored Disc. I.4: O. Tommasini, La vita e gli scritti di Machiavelli nella loro relazione col machiavellismo, 3 vols. (Loesher, 1883–​1911); P. Villari, The Life and Time of Niccolò Machiavelli, 3 vols. (Fisher Unwin, 1892). There are some exceptions, anyway: Ph. Le Bas, Commentaire sur Tite-​Live (Dubochet, 1840), p. 847 (with a quick comparison Machiavelli-​Montesquieu); P. Deltuf, Essais sur les oeuvres et la doctrine de Machiavel (Reinwald, 1867), pp. 452–​54; G. Ellinger, Die antiken Quellen der Staatslhere Machiavelli’s (Laupp, 1888), pp. 28–​29; L. Dyer, Machiavelli and the Modern State (Athenaeum, 1904), p. 82. In the same years, among the few politicians and public intellectuals who endorsed Machiavelli’s conflictualism in support of their arguments, see E. Bulwer Lytton, Athens: Its Rise and Fall, ed. O. Murray (Routledge, 2004), p. 135 (originally published in 1837); F. Ranalli, Del riordinamento d’Italia (Barbera, 1859), p. 71; M. Minghetti, I partiti politici e la ingerenza loro nella giustizia e nella pubblica amministrazione (Zanichelli, 1881), pp. 189–​91 (the most remarkable exception, because Minghetti was prime minister twice and his book, originating from a famous political speech, had a wide circulation in twentieth-​century Italy and became a sort of classic of Italian liberalism). 67 E.A. Rees, Political Thought from Machiavelli to Stalin (Palgrave, 2004), pp. 33–​37. 68 Alexis de Tocqueville, ‘Notes sur Machiavel,’ in Alexis de Tocqueville, Oeuvres complètes (Gallimard, 1951–​), XVI, pp. 541–​50; Karl Marx’s letter to Friedrich Engels (September 25, 1857). See also: S. Weil, ‘A Proletarian Uprising in Florence,’ in S. Weil, Selected Essays (Oxford University Press, 1962), pp. 55–​72. 66

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defend the naturalness of contrasts (“this is roughly parallel to the fact that it is the most violent symptom of a disease which represents the effort of the organism to free itself of disturbances and damages caused by them”),69 and insists on the need to clarify the two-​fold meaning of words like “unity,” “discord,” and “opposition,” but also elaborates many arguments that, despite their Hegelian terminology, any reader of the Discourses would recognize as thoroughly Machiavellian. These include the idea that conflict can be a sort of escape valve (“Opposition gives us inner satisfaction, distraction, relief”),70 the unifying impact of war on a threatened community (“War with the outside is sometimes the last chance for a State ridden with inner antagonisms to overcome these antagonisms, or else to break up completely”),71 and the danger represented by the total disappearance of outside threats (“A group’s complete victory over its enemies is thus not always fortunate […]. Victory lowers the energy which guarantees the unity of the group; and the dissolving forces, which are always at work, gain hold”).72 And yet, the name Machiavelli is never mentioned even once by Simmel –​who, despite his notorious erudition, was evidently unaware of the Discourses’ analysis of the quarrels between patricians and plebeians.73 The other great twentieth-​century theorist of conflict, the German jurist Carl Schmitt (1888–​1985), also developed his The Concept of the Political (1927) in sharp dialogue with Hegel and without ever taking Machiavelli into consideration. For Schmitt, the political sphere is based on the ability to clearly distinguish “friend and enemy,” just as “in the realm of morality the final distinctions are between good and evil, in aesthetics beautiful and ugly, in economics profitable and unprofitable”;74 for this reason, dispute in his eyes is consubstantial with politics as such. Unlike the Hegelian dialectic, however, here the notion of a moment of synthesis falls away and, instead of a teleologically oriented history, the irrationality of sovereign decision-​making between what are essentially equally legitimate alternatives takes center stage. Indeed, in accordance with the most conventional interpretations, Schmitt’s 69 G. Simmel, Conflict (The Free Press, 1955), p. 13. 70 Ibid., p. 19. 71 Ibid., p. 93. 72 Ibid., 98. Simmel’s work is rightly valorized by D. Evrigenis, Fear of Enemies and Collective Action (Cambridge University Press, 2008). 73 However, a few years later, Lewis Coser, one of Simmel’s students who relocated to the United States, placed a phrase taken from Disc. I.4 at the opening of his masterpiece, Functions of Social Conflict (Free Press, 1956), a book written as a long, thoughtful commentary on his mentor’s writings on the same topic. See J. Barthas, ‘Machiavelli e l’istituzione del conflitto,’ Rivista Storica Italiana, 127 (2015), pp. 552–​66. Simmel and Coser would later influence R. Dahrendorf, Class and Class  Conflict in Industrial Society (Stanford University Press, 1959). Simmel’s silence is even more curious, as he was notoriously influenced by Polish sociologist and theorist of conflict Ludwig von Gumplowicz, who had discussed Disc. I.4–​6 in his Geschichte der Staatstheorien (Wagner, 1905), pp. 129–​30. 74 C. Schmitt, The Concept of the Political (University of Chicago Press, 2007), p. 26.

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Machiavelli always remained exclusively a theoretician of absolutism and the superior power of the State – not of social struggle.75 As a matter of fact, the nineteenth-​century parenthesis also shaped the way in which the Discourses would be discussed in the next century, when the Machiavellian appreciation of conflict slowly but surely re-​emerged. Since conflictualism had not been linked with the name Machiavelli for quite some time, it came as somewhat of a surprise for later generations to discover in him a precursor. But this means that, in the twentieth century, both Marxists and liberals viewed Machiavelli at most as an illustrious forebear, to whom one might occasionally turn to add a touch of nobility to this or that component of one’s own theory. In other words, rather than engage with the Discourses, as had been customary for nearly 300 years, the confrontation with Machiavelli’s conflictualism in the century of the Soviet Revolution and the global triumph of American capitalism was reduced to the search for an intellectual ancestor on the part of two political traditions that had imposed themselves without his (direct) contribution. The Marxist Interpretation It was a liberal, the Neapolitan philosopher Benedetto Croce (1866–​1952), who assigned Marx the expressive titles of “the most eminent successor of the Italian Niccolò Machiavelli,” and “the Machiavelli of the proletariat.”76 The majority of Marxists who reflected on the ideas of Disc. I.4 over the course of the twentieth century did not, however, go very far beyond declaring that Machiavelli was the first to reach the conclusion that “class struggle” was not the “solvent” but rather the “glue” of republics;77 or that, alternatively, while subordinating “social tension, the position of individual groups and the unfolding of the class struggle itself to superior interests and values (the State),” the Discourses had come close “to the modern conception of the struggle between classes.”78 With the same nonchalance, his appreciation of tumults also occasionally permitted Machiavelli to be linked to Georges Sorel (1847–​1922), the French theoretician of the general strike.79 The Discourses’ cogent reflections on the “modes” by which the struggle between the orders had surprisingly become an element of strength (and not weakness) in Rome, however, were met with absolute silence. C. Galli, ‘Schmitt and Machiavelli,’ in C. Galli, Janus’ Gaze (Duke University Press, 2015), pp. 58–​77. 76 B. Croce, Materialismo storico ed economia marxistica (Sandron, 1907), p. 134. 77 G. Procacci, ‘Machiavelli rivoluzionario,’ introduction to N. Machiavelli, Opere scelte, ed. G.F. Berardi (Editori Riuniti, 1969), pp. xiii–​xxxvi: xvii. 78 J. Macek, Machiavelli e il machiavellismo (La Nuova Italia, 1980), p. 115. See also A. Heller, Renaissance Man (Routledge, 1978), p.  315; L. Althusser, Machiavelli and Us (Verso 1999), p.  120. For the same idea in pre-​ revolutionary and Soviet authors like Sergej Ivanovic Arckhangel’skij, Mikhail Nikolaevich Pokrovskij, Yakov Vladimirovich Staroselskij, Karl Schmückle, Vladimir Nikolaevich Maksimovskij, and Lev Kamenev, see Rees, Stalin. 79 P. Mesnard, L’essor de la philosophie politique au XVIe siècle (Boivin, 1935), p. 61; N. Wood, ‘Some Reflections on Sorel and Machiavelli,’ Political Science Quarterly, 83 (1968), pp. 76–​91. 75

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A 1930 essay by Max Horkheimer (1895–​1973) offers a more sophisticated reading. In this text the (recently appointed) director of the Institut für Sozialforschung tried to reconstruct the laborious rise of the “bourgeois philosophy of history” in modern Europe. Taking Machiavelli as the starting point of a road that, via Hobbes, Thomas More, Giambattista Vico, and Hegel, would finally lead to Marx, Horkheimer criticized the Florentine for his belief in the existence of an immutable human nature. It is here, however, that the Discourses’ surprisingly positive assessment of tumults comes into play, for it is thanks to these pages on the conflict of orders and the theory of the “circle” of constitutions that, in Horkheimer’s view, Machiavelli was able to transcend the naturalism of his times, laying the groundwork for Hegel’s dialectical historicism.80 The thesis of Disc. I.4 was thus one of the few modern elements in an oeuvre still largely tied to the political theory of the Ancients. The partiality of these readings should not surprise, since even Marx’s, like Rousseau, was ambivalent (to say the least) toward conflict. As long as one puts the emphasis on the conception of history as class conflict and incessant dialectical movement, it is easy to subscribe from a Marxist perspective to Machiavelli’s argument that “in every republic there are two different humors” and that “every city must have its own modes with which the people can vent its ambition” (Disc. I.4). However, as soon as attention is turned to the social redemption that, according to Das Kapital, communism would inevitably bring about, Marx appears to be much closer to the artificial consensualism of Hobbes or Rousseau: with the sole difference that in Marx (as in Hegel) pacification is postponed to a future date, instead of occurring at the moment when political society is constituted through the contract, and that this pacification is not asked to establish the present state of things but to abolish it. In the end, for Marx social struggle is an indispensable yet transitory element of the historical process, as it is fated to disappear after the victory of the proletarians.81 The impossibility of escaping conflict, reiterated several times in the Discourses, thus seems incompatible with Marx’s yearning for a final synthesis, and this surely dissuaded twentieth-​century Marxists from looking beyond the superficial parallels of Machiavelli’s conflictualism with class struggles –​especially once the Soviet Union became the first self-​proclaimed socialist State, in which official propaganda declared that the revolution had already swept away all class divisions. The Liberal Interpretation Liberal thinkers’ occasional references to Machiavellian conflictualism (anticipated in eighteenth-​century England by the parliamentary interpretation) M. Horkheimer, ‘Machiavelli und die psychologische Geschichtsauffassung,’ in M. Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften, 19 vols. (Fisher, 1987), II, pp. 181–​204: 204. 81 This twofold attitude toward conflict recalls that of Rousseau, who could, on the one hand, praise civil war (as a necessary antidote against despotism) and, on the other, promote the unanimistic dream of the people’s “general will” (once the good republic was founded). 80

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were no less problematic. Indeed, in this case too the Discourses could only be invoked if one ignored considerable discrepancies. First, whereas liberals conceive of conflict as competition between individuals, Machiavelli thought in terms of clashes between social “humors”; furthermore, whereas liberal thinkers’ notions of conflict concern only its “juridicized” forms, Machiavelli, despite insisting on the need to institutionalize disputes, refuses to enclose politics (and dissent) within parliamentary assemblies or courts of law. And there is no need to highlight how, in both its individualism and its insistence on juxtaposing the ordered society (where conflict is rigorously circumscribed) to a lawless state of nature, liberalism falls instead closer in line with Hobbes’ philosophy. Machiavelli’s conflictualism makes its appearance in liberal theory in the 1920s thanks to the Italian anti-​Fascist intellectual Piero Gobetti (1901–​26), who was destined to die very young as a result of injuries suffered at the hands of Mussolini’s Blackshirts. In 1924, on the eve of the elections that would give Fascism a sweeping parliamentary majority (thanks to violence, widespread fraud, and a rigged electoral law), Mussolini made an elaborate display of publishing the introduction to his mysterious (because actually nonexistent) university thesis on Machiavelli (Gerarchia, April 1924). In those pages the secretary of the Florentine republic was predictably presented as a supporter of brute force and strong leadership –​a sort of forerunner of the totalitarian iron fist.82 As an extremely well-​read young man (and author of a university thesis on Vittorio Alfieri’s political works), Gobetti responded from Turin by hastily publishing in his own journal several passages from the Discourses that disproved Mussolini’s interpretation (including Disc. I.4), and by presenting Machiavelli in a brief note as a thinker endowed with “a faith in popular forces, an awareness that the people is the State’s true foundation” (La Rivoluzione Liberale, May 13, 1924).83 Gobetti’s response to Mussolini falls more under the heading of an intellectual skirmish, rather than political theory, but thanks also to the legend that soon arose around his heroic figure, it was to have a lasting influence on the Italian liberal and liberal-​socialist traditions, especially in his home region of Piedmont.84 In a climate particularly favorable for a conflictualistic interpretation of liberalism, under the intellectual leadership of Benedetto Croce (who always theorized a version of Hegelianism more inclined to antithesis than to synthesis), Gobetti’s short article undoubtedly contributed to recirculating Machiavelli’s ideas on tumults.85 It cannot be ruled out, for instance, that 82 L. Mitarotondo, Un “Preludio” a Machiavelli (Giappichelli, 2016). 83 The Machiavellian passages cited by Gobetti would then be picked up by the Communist newspaper L’Unità (June 6, 1924) in an article signed “Sarmaticus” (a pseudonym behind which, for Mitarotondo, Gramsci was perhaps hiding). 84 On Gobetti’s “agonistic liberalism”:  J. Martin, Piero Gobetti and the Politics of Liberal Revolution (Palgrave, 2008). 85 See i.e. F. Burzio, Ritratti (Ribet, 1929), p. 59.

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the frequent allusions of a leading historian like Arnaldo Momigliano (1908–​ 87) to the positive value of the conflicts between patricians and plebeians set forth in the Discourses were inspired by the same anti-​Fascist milieu where both he and Gobetti were raised in Turin, beginning with this exemplary declaration of 1936: That Machiavelli founded the modern historiography of Rome, just as he founded modern political historiography, is obvious. Indeed, particularly sharp observations on Roman history are more common in Machiavelli than in Bossuet and the Enlightenment writers, like for example the analysis of conflicts between the two “orders,” which Machiavelli saw as a cause not of the decline, but of the strength of the Roman State.86

In postwar Italy, too, the Piedmontese liberal-​socialist tradition would be primarily responsible for occasional references to Machiavelli’s conflictualism, as in this passage by Norberto Bobbio (1909–​2004) on Disc. I.4: The importance of this kind of statement –​that the “tumults” that so many lament are not the cause of States’ ruin, but the precondition for the creation of good laws in the defense of freedom –​cannot be emphasized enough: it clearly expresses a new vision of history, a vision that we might call truly “modern,” in which it is disorder and not order, conflict and not social peace imposed from above, disharmony and not harmony, “tumults” and not the tranquility derived from overwhelming domination, that are the price to pay for preserving liberty.87

As with the Marxists, however, Italian liberal thinkers limited themselves to situating Machiavelli at the origins of political modernity, without elaborating on the suggestions in Disc. I.4 (the sole exception being Momigliano –​who, as seen in the previous chapters, drew many valuable insights from his close reading of the Discourses, beginning with the nexus between conquest, citizenship, and conflict). The Anti-​Bureaucratic/​Anti-​Totalitarian Interpretation Only in the second half of the 1960s did a third way of reading Machiavelli’s thoughts on tumults begin to emerge. This new interpretation, by far the most productive, is linked to two libertarian Marxists deeply skeptical of the Soviet Union who, without knowing each other’s work, both turned to the Discourses not as the source of modern conflictualism (in either its Marxist or liberal variants), but out of a conviction that Machiavelli could provide some valuable antidotes, in particular to the ever-​growing power of bureaucracy in contemporary societies (a very widespread concern at that time). A. Momigliano, ‘La formazione della moderna storiografia sull’Impero romano,’ in Contributi I, pp. 107–​64: 118. 87 N. Bobbio, La teoria delle forme di governo nella storia del pensiero politico (Giappichelli, 1976), pp. 83–​84. See also N. Matteucci, ‘Machiavelli politologo,’ in N. Matteucci, Alla ricerca dell’ordine politico (il Mulino, 1984), pp. 69–​108: 80–​91; A. Pizzorno, Le radici della politica assoluta (Feltrinelli, 1993), pp. 188–​90. 86

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The first important text dedicated to the ideas contained in Disc. I.4 was written by the American philosopher Neal Wood (1922–​2003). In 1968, Wood published a decidedly pioneering essay, not only praising Machiavelli’s ideas about the salutary value of conflicts as the wellspring of a “new conception of society […] necessarily involving asocial as well as social elements”88 in open defiance of the old tradition of civic concord, but also placing the Discourses at the foundation of an alternative tradition that would inspire republican theorists of the first magnitude like Algernon Sidney and Montesquieu before arriving at Kant and Hegel –​the term that Wood uses to encapsulate this doctrine, “asocial sociability,” derives not coincidentally from Kant’s Idea for a Universal History with Cosmopolitan Intent (1784), while he cites Hegel for the idea that without conflict man would become “an unreflective automaton of habit and tradition, […] a clock wound up and left to run down.”89 For an engaged Marxist like Wood, the solidity of historical reconstruction is only a necessary prerequisite for an original speculation, and his essay does not hide its polemical targets. While recognizing that “modern liberalism, with all its defects, has at least labored valiantly to defend the principle of opposition and conflict, particularly in the realms of thought, speech, and association,”90 Wood endows the Discourses with explicitly anti-​liberal features. At the heart of his essay there is in fact a double juxtaposition between “conflict” and “harmonic competition” (that is “a situation of competition in which conformity and orthodoxy are stressed”), and between “conflict” and “factionalism” (namely “a universal pursuit of narrow self-​interest”),91 in which the positive value is always assigned to the former (the Machiavellian). It is only in the last lines of the essay, however, that the target, or rather the two targets, of his reflection are finally made explicit: “If contemporary bureaucratic capitalism and communism are not to dehumanize and destroy men, more attention will have to be given to the nature of conflict and to the ways and means by which our common life can be enriched by conflict.”92 Engaged like all libertarian Marxists in a difficult two-​front war against both capitalism and Soviet socialism (bound together by their shared oppressive features), Wood looks to the conflictualism of the Machiavelli-​ Sidney-​Montesquieu lineage to conjure up an alternative between the Western and Eastern blocs. Thus, instead of situating Machiavelli on a path that would lead to Das Kapital (as Marxists had thus far done), “The Value of Asocial Sociability” places an emphasis instead on what has been lost from that lineage in contemporary societies. In other words, Wood asks the Discourses to supply a corrective to the increasing tendency to delegate decisions to a caste N. Wood, ‘The Value of Asocial Sociability:  Contributions of Machiavelli, Sidney and Montesquieu,’ Bucknell Review, 16 (1968), pp. 1–​22: 20. 89 Ibid. 90 Ibid. 91 Ibid., p. 8. 92 Ibid., p. 22. 88

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of bureaucrats, eliminating or reducing to a bare minimum the political space for discussion and dissent.93 The appeal to Machiavelli in an anti-​totalitarian and anti-​bureaucratic key also characterizes the other great interpretation of Disc. I.4 offered at roughly the same time by the French political theorist Claude Lefort (1924–​2010). A  pupil of a doubting Marxist like Maurice Merleau-​Ponty and an open-​ minded liberal like Raymond Aron, Lefort published his own ponderous doctoral thesis on The Prince and the Discourses only in 1972, after three decades of political militancy in the anti-​Stalinist left (including the journal Socialisme ou barbarie) and the publication of a large number of essays, most of them collected in Éléments d’une critique de la bureaucratie (Droz, 1971). The fight against Soviet socialism was surely the great unifying thread linking the political and intellectual activities of Lefort, who sought stimulus for reflection from the most diverse authors and fields, Machiavelli among them.94 It is no accident that the positive evaluation of the struggles between the orders appears in his very first essay on the Florentine, where one reads that “the tumults that arose in Rome forced rulers to find artifices designed to associate the people to their decisions without ceasing to be its masters, and the people to obey them in order to earn its freedom, in such a way that evil was changed into good and private passion into civic virtue.” As a result of this “integration of conflicts,” even “class struggle was transformed into harmony.”95 However, it was only in his 1972 monograph that Lefort began to use the Discourses to unmask the totalitarian governments, in which the State absorbs (or aspires to absorb) all of society, in contrast to a democracy, understood as a system characterized by indeterminacy and incompleteness. The Machiavellian tumults that produce liberty thus become proof of the beneficial effects of a schism in the social body that can never be completely healed (in contrast to orthodox Marxism and the official self-​portrait of the Soviet Union). Indeed, it is no exaggeration to argue that Lefort’s gradual distancing from Marxism in favor of a democratic radicalism was at least in part the result of his careful meditation on Machiavelli’s writings.

93 Wood is clearly influenced by James Burnham, a former Trotskyist political thinker who, in The Modern Machiavellians, wrote that “freedom […] is the product of conflict and differences, not of unity and harmony” (Day, 1943, pp.  124–​25). See also J.  Burnham, The Managerial Revolution (Day, 1941) for his analysis of the process of bureaucratization. A few years after Wood, introducing an edition of the Discourses (Penguin, 1970), the British social-​democrat philosopher Bernard Crick would give much attention to the theory from Disc. I.4, taking up his polemic against the pretenses of sociology and science to substitute politics, in both capitalist and communist countries (In Defence of Politics, University of Chicago Press, 1962). 94 Barthas, ‘Revolutions,’ pp.  269–​ 70. See also B. Flynn, The Philosophy of Claude Lefort (Northwestern University Press, 2005), pp. 15, 49–​50. According to Barthas (‘Istituzione’), Lefort took the idea of the “institutionalization” of conflict from Coser. 95 C. Lefort, ‘Réflexions sociologiques sur Machiavel et Marx,’ Cahiers internationaux de sociologie, n. 28 (1960), pp. 113–​35: 129–​30.

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In Lefort, then, even more than in Wood, it is easy to see a reversal in judgment on the couple Machiavelli-​Marx. While the Marxist stance long remained that of Horkheimer, who saw Machiavelli as Marx “minus something” (that is, minus Hegel’s philosophy of history), Lefort appreciates precisely those presumed deficits. The fact that both The Prince and the Discourses lack the dialectic, with its final resting place in a synthesis that resolves all tensions and oppositions, now becomes a strong point of Machiavelli’s work, because his awareness of the insuperability of conflict makes him invulnerable to totalitarian seduction.96 Despite the evident similarities in their analyses, Wood, unlike Lefort, would remain a communist to the end, and even in his posthumous work –​a harsh indictment of the betrayal of democratic principles in the United States –​would continue to use Machiavelli and classical republicanism against the “tyranny” of capitalism.97 But this distinction should probably also be considered a result of the different political and cultural contexts in which the two thinkers found themselves living and working, particularly the absence in the Anglo-​Saxon countries of a Marxist-​inspired mass party with strong ties to Moscow (unlike France, where the Stalinist French Communist Party long made its voice heard in national intellectual debates). Machiavelli and Us And today? Does the analysis of the conflicts between patricians and plebeians contained in the Discourses still speak to us? If so, how? More than 200 years after 1789 and the Hegelian dialectic, an affirmative response cannot be taken for granted. Our situation is in fact very different from that of those seventeenth-​and eighteenth-​century authors who looked to Machiavelli for an alternative to both Aristotle’s natural consensualism and Hobbes’ artificial consensualism. Through the radical Enlightenment, the French Revolution, nineteenth-​century liberalism, and the doctrine of class struggle, conflict has long enjoyed complete legitimacy in political theory (in parallel with a progressive marginalization of the concept of the “common good”). As a result, those who today make generic references to the ideas in Disc. I.4 frequently end up attributing to Machiavelli concepts of utter banality, as in this passage by two internationally renowned sociologists: “A higher level of consensus is reached when disagreements are expressed more vigorously, just as with friends who calm down and become more deeply reconciled after having quarreled placed The interpretation of Roberto Esposito, who reads plebeian/​patrician dualism as social resistance to any form of “unification,” is in some ways close to Lefort’s (La politica e la storia. Machiavelli e Vico, Liguori, 1983, pp. 59–​61). In recent years, Esposito has repeatedly returned to Machiavelli’s “immanentization of conflict” (Living Thought, pp. 52–​57; Da fuori, Einaudi, 2016, pp. 16–​17). Lefort also left a strong imprint on Nicole Loraux’s work. 97 N. Wood, Tyranny in America (Verso, 2004). 96

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their friendship in jeopardy and risked losing it.”98 And so, at a time when both progressive and conservative thinkers frequently invoke a more “agonistic liberalism,”99 in the past few years the Discourses have sometimes been called upon to legitimize their claims in this direction.100 Machiavelli’s reflection on tumults is so profound and elaborate, however, that one can and should demand more. Of course this is no simple task: taken as a whole, Machiavelli’s theory of conflict appears hard to reconcile with any single contemporary philosophical school, and at times it seems even to transcend the traditional boundaries between left and right. Embracing the conflictualism of the Discourses as a whole requires readers in fact to accept several postulates: (1) The primacy of the “common good” (also understood as the survival of the political community in the face of external threats) and the legitimacy of “class” interests (but not organized “sects”); (2) the institutionalization of conflict, understood both as the regulation of violence through suitable “modes” (popular trials, for example) as well as the creation of a legally recognized figure given the task of instigating new disputes, inside and outside formal institutions (the tribunes);101 (3) the power of tumults to generate “good laws,” but also their inability to correct radical economic disparities (for which a new Cleomenes is needed); (4) the appreciation of fear as an indispensable check, both upon patricians (through tumults and public trials) and plebeians (through religion and the dictator); 98 S. Moscovici and W. Doise, Conflict and Consensus (Sage, 1994), pp. 58–​59. 99 J. Gray, Enlightenment’s Wake (Routledge, 1995); S. Hampshire, Justice is Conflict (Princeton University Press, 1999); C. Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox (Verso, 2000), pp. 102–​3. On the ways in which, by negating conflict, contemporary neo-​liberalism on one hand reduces politics to mere administration and on the other encourages competition to provide the best performance, taking the principles of traditional liberalism to their extreme, see P. Dardot and C. Laval, The New Way of the World (Verso, 2014). 100 In Machiavelli’s name, Serge Audier juxtaposed the presumed “true liberals,” appreciative of the benefits of conflict, and another liberal tradition concerned with reducing social tensions and culminating in the Cambridge School and Friedrich von Hayek’s neo-​liberalism (Conflit et liberté, Vrin, 2005, pp. 286–​90). From this perspective, Audier locates Lefort in a presumed “French Machiavellian Moment” alongside Merleau-​Ponty and Aron, who have recognized the importance of the Discourses’ positive evaluation of conflict. In reality, in his writing on Machiavelli, Aron merely notes in passing that the mixed constitution aims “not to suppress conflict but to maintain freedom containing rivalry within legal limits” (Machiavel et le tyrannies modernes, ed. R. Freymond, Fallois, 1993, pp. 72–​73), while Merleau-​Ponty dedicates an even briefer notation to the question: “he finds other than antagonism in struggle itself” (‘A Note on Machiavelli,’ in M. Merleau-​Ponty, Signs, Northwestern University Press, 1964, pp. 211–​23: 211). These isolated affirmations are in no way comparable to the space Lefort gives to Roman tumults in Machiavelli in the Making. 101 Machiavelli’s institutionalization differs from both the full parliamentarization and full juridicization so dear to the liberals/​neo-​republicans.

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(5) the positive effect on social cohesion of the “purgation” of the popular “humors” through non-​violent tumults (potentially also as an instrument of preservation for the pre-​existing order, as in the Baroque reading of Disc. I.4); and (6) the favorable assessment of a republic’s capacity for military conquest. With such presuppositions, it is no surprise that Machiavelli’s theory has entered into contemporary debate, for the most part, only in bits and pieces (the relationship between tumults and laws in Del Lucchese’s “constituent” reading, for instance, or the role of class-​specific institutions in McCormick’s “populist” interpretation). That does not mean, however, that one should resign oneself to choosing between generic appeals and selective uses. Machiavelli’s lesson is precious today precisely because it cannot be easily reduced to either one of the two dominant paradigms of modern conflictualism –​the Hegelian-​Marxist or the liberal-​republican. In fact, in both cases there is a tendency to exorcise the potentially more disquieting aspects of division at the very same time that dissent is glorified as a motor of historical change or guarantor of freedom and democracy. The consensual order of Marxism and the competitive order of liberalism are naturally quite distinct, as are the instruments by which they come to neutralize conflict, but they both draw their fundamental presuppositions from Hobbes: the need to overcome disputes (in a peaceful classless society, in which all dialectically opposed forces are destined to find reconciliation, or in a self-​governed market system), and the neat distinction between a before and an after (as well as an inside and an outside). To borrow from Roberto Esposito’s lexicon, in both cases an analogous mechanism of “immunization” is at work, which “inoculates” the conflict within the body politic only to more easily expel it immediately afterward.102 Just like a vaccine (see Figure 7.1). The Machiavellian paradigm differs from those offered by both Marxism and liberalism because it is the only one to fully explore the consequences of the remembrance of conflict that marks the beginning of political modernity. If the discrepancies with the Marxists’ consensual order do not need to be underscored, those with the competitive order merit further explanation. For liberal thinkers, conflict in a healthy society can only be accepted in the form of competition between political and economic actors, out of the conviction that –​so long as no one steps outside precise boundaries –​disputes are automatically good and ultimately contribute to a superior harmony, in which “private vices” become “publick benefits” (in the words of Bernard de Mandeville) since an “invisible hand” promotes “an end which was no part of his intention” (in the equally famous words of Adam Smith).103 R. Esposito, Immunitas (Polity, 2011). 103 Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations IV.2.9. As seen in Chapter 2, on this point there is no major difference between the liberals and the Cambridge School (beginning with Skinner, who uses both Mandeville’s terminology and Smith’s image of the “invisible hand” for Machiavelli). 102

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253 Political Order

Human beings tend spontaneously towards political order

Human beings do not tend spontaneously towards political order

NATURAL CONSENSUAL ORDER

(Aristotle)

Political order puts an end to conflicts

Political order does not put an end to conflicts

CONFLICTUAL ORDER

NS ER

Through the Through the full pact of “juridicization” submission of conflicts

ARTIFICIAL CONSENSUAL ORDER II

(Hegel, Marx)

M

OD

(Machiavelli)

In the future

post-1789

TH E

TH E

AN

CI

EN

TS

In the past

ARTIFICIAL CONSENSUAL ORDER I

ARTIFICIAL COMPETITIVE ORDER

(Hobbes)

(The liberals, the neo-republicans)

Figure 7.1  Types of political order Note: Hegel’s and Marx’s positions are somehow slippery, for  –​in absence of the synthetic moment –​they should both be cast with Machiavelli among the theorists of Conflictual Order; in this regard, Georg Simmel and Carl Schmitt can be described as “Hegelians without synthesis,” while Louis Althusser, Claude Lefort, Toni Negri, and Neal Wood belong to the “Marxists without synthesis.” On the other side of the spectrum, among the contemporary heirs of Aristotle’s Natural Consensual Order, one should place thinkers like Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss.

Under such circumstances, it is not all that hard to accept conflict. But the political fights praised in the Discourses (including those of Rome, which in the classical authors’ narratives repeatedly came very close to armed confrontation) are far more terrifying. Not only does Machiavelli not place his trust in a philosophy of history that unleashes conflicts, and even violence, within the framework of a much broader design (like the Marxists), but he also does not share liberals’ confidence in the ability of the system to regulate itself, once all potential disturbances have been removed and its complete invulnerability to outside influences is assured. Put simply, for Machiavelli no one can guarantee in advance that tumults strengthen the republic rather than lead it to ruin. As a matter of fact, The Prince’s lesson concerning quarrels between the people and the mighty is still valid: “from these two different appetites there arises

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in the cities one of these three effects:  principality, or liberty, or licentiousness” (9). Given the disastrous events that took place in his city, a Florentine like Machiavelli could not nourish many illusions in this regard, but he especially could not ignore that Rome’s success was an absolute exception both in ancient and modern history. And this means that, when a conflict arises, a happy ending can never be taken for granted. One of the principal limits of the “constituent” reading is its tendency to put in parentheses Machiavelli’s concerns over how to make conflicts compatible with political order –​that is, its refusal to even take into consideration the idea that internal disputes might also have a destructive effect, and to describe the constituent power of tumults leading to laws as simply the other face of constituted power. The result of this stance is that, while Machiavelli cares about both tumults and institutions, the “constituent” reading completely overlooks the concrete functions of the institutional tools borne of tumults –​a problem already evident in Lefort’s work.104 More generally one can say that, while “the liberal-​republican perspective lacks the extra-​institutional dimension” of the Discourses, “the Marxist constellation” misses “its institutional dimension.”105 Machiavelli’s advice, in contrast, is that one must learn to live with the threat of conflict, for in the Discourses and The Prince the process of disciplining the more violent and destructive dimension of politics is always provisional and incomplete. Institutions are useful precisely for this purpose; yet Machiavelli, although an esteemed master of constitutional engineering, does not for a moment believe that it is enough simply to draw the perimeter of the ring and set the rules of the match through the legislative process to permanently ward off all the perils connected to social divisions. We have repeatedly seen how the Discourses dedicate considerable effort to demonstrating the importance of the instruments by which the political combat can be regulated in non-​self-​destructive forms; and yet, it is equally apparent that Machiavelli refuses to distinguish neatly between a before and an after, as well as an inside and an outside. Indeed, all of Machiavelli’s thoughts on tumults rely on a fundamental porosity of the social and political that is irreconcilable with the Hobbesian tradition leading to modern liberalism. Although there have been many efforts to reorient Machiavelli’s categories in this direction (by Guicciardini, Bodin, and Montesquieu, for example), there is no complete “juridicization” of politics in the Discourses. This is evident from several factors: (1) The use of the term “mode” to simultaneously describe individual and collective behaviors (the recourse to violence or its rejection; calumnies), informal techniques of political struggle (detractio militiae and secessio), and formal institutions (like public trials); 104 Barthas, ‘Istituzione,’ p. 566. See Chapter 6, note 1. 105 M. Gaille-​Nikodimov, Conflit civil et liberté (Champion, 2004), p. 91.

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(2) the employment of the binary “ordinary”/​”extra-​ordinary” instead of the binary legal/​extralegal (in which “ordinary” can variously include barring shops, bloodless scuffles, detractio militiae and secessio, public trials, and even an emergency magistracy like dictatorship, whereas the word “extra-​ordinary” is used to describe political violence, calumnies, and private “sects”); (3) the insistence on the correlation between domestic and foreign policy, and the impossibility of assessing conflicts solely from an internal perspective –​that is, one disconnected from its warlike dimension (from the role of the metus hostilis to the need for an external threat in order for detractio militiae and secessio to be effective); and (4) the recognition that in Rome violence had not been prevented by a series of repressive measures from above, but thanks to the political imagination of the plebs, who, outside regular legislative venues, first experimented with detractio militiae and the secessio, then succeeded in having its own representatives recognized, and finally imposed upon the senate the right of the tribunes to put on trial anyone suspected of threatening the republic (patricians included). Conflict, of course, has a marked tendency to exceed any limits imposed upon it in the abstract. For liberals this means that any potential infractions must be monitored very closely; in Machiavelli, on the contrary, the notion of continual vigilance is accompanied by an awareness that, precisely because political disputes assume unexpected forms and are not easily confined within a system of rules, the effort to prevent tumults from taking a self-​destructive turn must exploit every tool available (both legislative and otherwise, inside and outside the constitutional system). As seen in Chapter  3, Machiavelli’s functional approach implies the idea that a wide range of phenomena (such as fear of the enemy, tumults and public trials, the king and the dictator, religion, and so on), can be exploited interchangeably by a wise politician to produce analogous results (in this case the moderation of disputes and tempering of customs). Even the facility with which the Discourses alternate between legal categories (patricians and plebeians) and social categories (rich and poor)  –​something criticized by Guicciardini  –​should thus be read in light of Machiavelli’s reluctance to rigorously distinguish between two polarities that can only be partitioned in the abstract. It seems difficult to imagine a thinker more disinclined than Machiavelli to view institutions and laws as separate fields. But it is precisely this empirical approach than can make the project of a conflictual order formulated in the Discourses particularly relevant for a critique of the sterile formalism that characterizes the liberal conception of politics dominant today. Yet, among the great twentieth-​century philosophers only Michel Foucault (1926–​84) seems to have taken up Machiavelli’s challenge to not think of institutions in opposition

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to conflict but rather as its product and sounding board. Foucault turns to the metaphor of civil war: Civil war is […] philosophically, politically, historically a rather poorly developed notion. […] Either one speaks of the war of all against all as what exists before the social pact, and then is no longer civil war, is natural war; and once there is a contract, civil war can only be the monstrous continuation of the war of all against all in a social structure that should normally be governed by the pact. Or, on the contrary, civil war is conceived of as being nothing other than […] the retroactive effect of an external war on the city itself […]. In either cases, civil war is the accident, the abnormality. […] Rather, […] civil war is the permanent state on the basis of which a number of these tactics of struggle […] can and should be understood. Civil war is the matrix of all struggles of power.106

In fact, Foucault continues, civil war can in no way be seen as something external to power or as interrupted by power, but as a matrix within which elements of power come to function, are reactivated, break up. […] Civil war is […] what haunts power, not in the sense of a fear, but insomuch as civil war occupies, traverses, animates and invests power through and through. […] One should be able to study the daily exercise of power as a civil war. […] Politics is the continuation of civil war.107

Anyone reading these words today (spoken in 1973 but published in French only in 2013) cannot help but be struck by their profound affinities with certain aspects of Machiavelli’s reflections on tumults, beginning with their shared sensitivity for the “tactics of struggle” and “the daily exercise of power” (just as, despite their evident differences, it is worth noting how the concepts of “mode” and “device” share a common reference to a heterogeneous ensemble of instruments that include, but also transcend, institutions). Foucault never elaborated on these promising insights, probably at least in part because he remained unaware of the pages devoted to this subject in the Discourses –​ while a real dialogue with the Florentine would have provided several suggestions for further developing his own thoughts (instead, Foucault’s Machiavelli remained that of the “dark legend”). Even if Foucault missed his encounter with the Discourses, On Punitive Society remains invaluable because it shows how Machiavelli’s conflictualism, marginalized over the last 200  years, can help us wholly rethink the principles of democratic cohabitation  –​a rethinking that is all the more necessary today in light of the crisis of twentieth-​century mechanisms of popular participation and representation. Machiavelli teaches that, like evils, remedies too are many, and can be found everywhere. But this also means that republics are destined for ruin as soon as their citizens cease devising new “modes” and institutions in the defense 106 M. Foucault, On Punitive Society (Palgrave, 2015), p.  13. For a criticism of Hobbes:  ibid., pp. 24–​28. 107 Ibid., pp. 31–​32.

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of freedom. It is surely not a coincidence, then, that the Discourses take leave of their readers on this bittersweet note, symbolically entrusting the task of warding off the danger to those who will come after. The final chapter of the Discourses, titled “To keep a republic free, it needs new provisions every day” (Disc. III.49), is not among those that have received the most scholarly attention. On a first reading it might seem a disappointing farewell written in a decidedly minor key: as if Machiavelli had not managed to find a conclusion as powerful as that of The Prince. For the most part, in fact, the chapter is little but a catalog of the stratagems with which the Romans confronted various unexpected threats like the conspiracy of the Bacchanalia (186 BCE), the mind-​blowing defeat by the Carthaginians at Cannae (216 BCE), and the disorder caused by the constant influx of foreigners in the city. According to Machiavelli, in these cases the “remedies” were successful because the Romans never hesitated to adopt the necessary severity toward the guilty “as they deserved” (condemning to death the matrons who had plotted to poison their own husbands, and to decimation the troops stained with grave misdeeds). Even more important, however, was the fact that the Romans responded with great creativity to incidents “both strange and unexpected,” as when they banished the soldiers who had survived Hannibal’s rout to Sicily (forbidding them to return to Rome before the war’s end, and obligating them to eat all their meals standing up), or when they gathered all the foreigners who had recently become citizens into four new tribes “so that […] they could not corrupt all of Rome” (as decided by the censor Quintus Fabius Maximus in 303 BCE). However, if the reader takes time to draw out the general significance of the many specific examples, he will realize that what initially appears to be a chapter of negligible importance in reality distills the very essence of the political classicism of the Discourses. Because neither domestic nor foreign relations will ever reach a point of sustained equilibrium, politics requires a constant reckoning with the unforeseen. Faced with new threats, the old recipes may no longer suffice, but it is from them that one must begin: training oneself to preempt the emergencies that lie in wait through comparison with the Ancients in a never-​ending kind of role-​playing. In fact, Machiavelli writes, all politicians must read histories, and in them consider the actions of excellent men; see how they governed themselves in war, and examine the causes of their victories and losses, so as to be able to avoid the latter and imitate the former; and above all, so as some excellent men did in the past, who chose some man from before their time who had been praised and glorified to imitate, and they always kept a book with his deeds and actions close by themselves. (Prince 14)

For Machiavelli, this dialogue with the past possesses an indispensable propaedeutic function. As the great military theorists of Rome (Vegetius, Frontinus) taught him, however, the decisive factor is the ability to go beyond

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what one learned from the words of the Ancients. In the terms of Renaissance rhetoric and literary theory, at a certain point imitation (imitatio) must be supplanted by emulation (aemulatio) –​when the pupil, having absorbed the lessons of his studies, finally manages to surpass the master. And the same is true for politicians. This is the conclusive lesson of Machiavelli’s classicism:  without the constant exercise of political imagination, “free life” cannot resist the unexpected strains that each republic will inevitably face. Looking back is not enough: and Rome owes much of its lasting success precisely to the inexhaustible ability of its own citizens to imagine novel “modes” and institutions for every new challenge. But that this ability primarily manifested itself in the heat of political struggle, and frequently thanks to the audacious experiments of those who had the most interest at stake in disputing the traditional oligarchic power of the senate –​that is, the plebs –​is another teaching of the Discourses that should perhaps be kept in mind.108

108 It is for this reason that I feel particularly close to the spirit with which McCormick advanced his proposal for the revision of the United States constitution, underlying the gap between formal and substantial democracy to imagine, in Machiavelli’s footsteps, new institutions “in favor of liberty.” See also, in the context of South African revolution, L. Hamilton, Freedom is Power (Cambridge University Press, 2014).

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Index of Machavelli’s Works

Art of War, 171, 184 Book 1, p. 18, 40n34 Book 1, p. 31, 161n34 Book 1, pp. 40–​42, 164n44 Discourse on Our Language, 35n22 Discourses on Livy Preface, 37 I.1, 34, 110n77, 165–​66 I.2, 35, 42, 43, 73n133, 83, 112, 115n92, 119, 121, 122, 168, 184, 188, 190, 194, 204, 204n39 I.3, 83, 102, 107, 110, 110n77, 119, 189n26, 194 I.4, 1, 2, 5, 36, 38, 39, 48, 52, 54n75, 56, 58, 60, 61, 62, 65, 65n103, 72n128, 73, 75, 83, 99, 117, 136, 141, 175n72, 197, 210, 212, 228, 230, 230n29, 232–​33, 234n40, 234n41, 235, 236, 241, 242, 242n66, 243n73, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249, 249n93, 250, 252 I.4–​6, 243n73 I.4–​8, 83 I.5, 50n59, 73, 75, 83, 117, 118, 125, 126, 131, 134, 137, 138, 139, 141, 142, 163, 164, 172, 201, 205, 206n43, 212 I.6, 40n34, 54n75, 62, 106, 122, 124, 136, 147, 148, 161, 162, 163, 164–​65, 166, 167n51, 170–​71, 172, 176, 178–​79, 180, 193, 206n43, 208, 209, 211–​13, 216 I.7, 50n59, 57, 57n83, 58, 59–​61, 62, 73, 75, 83, 195 I.8, 57n83, 61, 62, 73, 75, 83, 144, 195, 201 I.9, 78, 79, 83, 111, 115, 175, 189n26

I.10, 83, 111 I.11, 111, 168 I.12, 92n26 I.14, 72n131 I.16, 96n41 I.17, 53, 54, 65, 73, 75 I.18, 62n95, 80, 83, 94, 95, 100, 100n52, 101, 111, 115 I.19, 96n41 I.24, 57n85, 106n71 I.26, 135n38 I.27, 135n38 I.28, 106 I.28–​30, 57n85 I.29, 57n85, 107 I.30, 135n38 I.33, 80n152, 114 I.33–​35, 112 I.34, 115n91, 198, 199, 200, 201 I.35, 203 I.37, 5, 40n34, 50n59, 73, 75, 76, 77, 80, 83, 96, 105, 116, 140, 141n51, 179 I.38, 114, 199 I.40, 135 I.44, 63 I.45, 95 I.46, 102, 140–​42, 141n51, 141n52 I.49, 176n73, 201 I.50, 201 I.55, 96n41 I.58, 57n85, 82, 83, 96, 96n41, 137, 143, 144 I.60, 164 II.1, 36, 209, 209n50

259

260

260 Discourses on Livy (cont.) II.2, 175 II.3, 168, 209, 211, 212, 216 II.4, 168n53, 171, 173, 179 II.5, 51n64 II.9, 77 II.12, 96n44 II.19, 102, 105, 167n52 II.23, 135n38 II.25, 102, 103 III.1, 57n85, 80, 96n41, 110n77, 115–​16 III.2, 135n38 III.6, 77 III.8, 53n73, 95n35 III.9, 168 III.11, 166, 175 III.16, 94 III.21, 135n38, 179 III.27, 37 III.28, 62n95, 201 III.29, 139n46 III.40, 135n38 III.46, 131n35 III.49, 257 VII.37, 78 Florentine Histories, 5, 35n22, 73, 95n37, 104, 133n37, 141n51, 242 Preface, 35n22, 38n29, 59, 196 I.15, 105 II.1, 165n47 II.2, 95n36 II.4, 133n37

Index of Machavelli’s Works II.12, 50n58, 108 II.34, 133n37 II.40, 133n37 II.42, 133n37 III.1, 49, 57n82, 59, 75n137, 176, 228 III.9, 163 III.13, 47n49 IV.9, 133n37 IV.11, 105 V.1, 106 VII.1, 62n95, 237, 237n52 Mandrake Act IV, scene 1, 163 On ingratitude, 57n85 The Ass V, 102n57 The Prince, 33, 34, 34n21, 61n91, 73, 83, 83n161, 98, 102n56, 135, 136, 142, 162, 166, 171, 173, 175n70, 226, 240, 241, 249, 250, 253, 254, 257 5, 54n76 6, 37n26 9, 136, 141 14, 257 17, 102 18, 37 19, 95n38, 144 21, 73, 163 23, 96 25, 50

261

General Index

Note: Given their frequency in the text, the terms “Machiavelli” and “tumult” have not been fully indexed. Aalders, Gerhard Jean Daniel, 120n7, 187n19 Acciaiuoli, Donato, 73n133 Acciaiuoli, Niccolò, 92 Acciaiuoli, Zanobi, 36 accountability, 60, 60n89, 202f6.2, see also trials, popular; tribunate of the plebs; Ordinances of Justice (Ordinamenti di giustizia) accusations, see trials, popular Adams, Charles Francis, 2n1, 203n38, 232n35 Adams, John, 2n1, 7, 185, 232, see also Founding Fathers Defence of the Constitutions and Government of the United States of America, 2n1, 203n38, 232 Novanglus, 232n35 Adorno, Francesco, 106n72 Adorno, Theodor Wiesegrund, 68 Aeneas, 34, 162 Aeschines, 214 Africa, 94 Agamben, Giorgio, 222n8 Agis, king of Sparta, 78, 79, 79n147 Agnadello, battle of, 170, 209 agrarian laws, 39, 40, 74, 75, 76, 76n139, 77, 79, 105, 140, 179 aim (fine), 1, 20, 38, 43, 53, 54, 74, 75, 75n137, 75n138, 76, 79, 80, 102, 112, 128, 130, 136, 137, 141, 142, 163, 172, 175, 189, 192, 193, 198, 201, 217, 238, 251n100 Akar, Philippe, 12n3, 195n32

Alba Longa, 210, 212 Albertano of Brescia, 15 Trattati morali, 15n20 Alberti, Leon Battista De Iciarchia, 69n113 De re aedificatoria, 52n69 Momus, 130, 130n34 Albizzi, Maso, 109 Alexandria of Egypt, 34 Alfieri, Vittorio, 7, 246 Of Tyranny, 238, 239, 239n55, 239n56, 239n58 Alighieri, Dante, 69n114, 220 Inferno, 6, 24, 218 Paradise, 25n48, 147 Allman, Dwight D., 146n2 Alps, mountains, 151, 170 Alpuente, Romero, 240n61 Altamura, Antonio, 47n49, 106n72, 160n33 Althusser, Louis, 4, 5, 244n78, 253f7.1 ambition, 5, 20, 48, 52, 66, 73, 75, 76, 78, 83, 84, 88, 107, 109, 113, 115, 116, 118, 126, 135, 137, 138, 139n49, 140, 167, 179, 197, 205, 212, 234, 245, see also desire America, 224, 232n35 Amit, Moshe, 12n3 Ammirato, Scipione Discorsi sopra Cornelio Tacito, 178 amnesty, 70, 222 anakýklosis (circle of constitutions), 184, 187n18, 204, 245 anarchy, 96, 231, 233

261

26

262 Ancients, 6, 7, 8, 22, 24, 27, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 34n21, 35, 36, 37, 38, 41, 42, 48, 57, 59, 61, 63, 66, 68, 73, 76n139, 78, 82, 84, 92, 96, 97, 98, 100, 118, 122, 133, 133n36, 139, 147, 148, 149, 183, 185, 208, 216, 219, 221, 222, 223n9, 224, 227, 245, 253, 257, 258, see also Athenians; Cartaginians; Etruscans; Greeks; Spartans; Romans; Thebans Andrew, Edward, 170n54 Angeleri, Carlo, 15n17, 185n9 Anglo, Sydney, 125n21 Annio of Viterbo, 186 anti-​Fascism, 246, 247 anti-​Machiavellism, 2, 50, 230n29 Antiochus III the Great, king of Selucid Empire, 94 antiquarians, 29, 30, 31, 46, 48, 86, 112, 113, 150, 152, 162, see also Biondo, Flavio; Fiocchi, Andrea; Leto, Pomponio; Maffei, Raffaele; Rucellai, Bernardo Antonio da Rocca Contrada Libro de pace e de armonia cristiana, 20n31, 52n69 Antonio de’ Ferrariis, 47, 118n2, 161, 162 De laudibus Venetiarum, 160n33, 162n35 De nobilitate, 47n49, 106n72 appeal, right of (provocatio ad populum), 113, 113n83, 182, 198, 199, see also tribunate of the plebs appetite, see desire Appian of Alexandria, 41, 42, 76n139, 185 Civil Wars, 41, 41n38, 42, 77n144, 105n68, 140 Apuleius Saturninus, Lucius, 45 Aquinas, Thomas, 12, 129, 161, 164n42 De regimine principum, 12, 95, 154n25 In libros Politicorum, 121 Summa Theologiae, 121n8 Aragon, family, 18 Archaumbault, Paul, 50n60 Arckhangel’skij, Sergej Ivanovic, 244n78 Ardito, Alissa M., 112n81, 171n58 Arena, Valentina, 214n55 Arendt, Hannah, 5n11, 223n9, 240, 240n61, 253f7.1 Areopagites, 119 Aretino, Pietro, 11, 12, 26 Ragionamento della Nanna e della Antonia, 11, 11n1 Arezzo, 104 Arienzo, Alessandro, 77n142, 231n30, 239n55

General Index Arikha, Noga, 49n55 Ariosto, Ludovico Cinque canti, 114n89 Aristides, Aelius On Rome, 150n16 aristocracy, 35, 43, 111, 112, 114, 121, 128, 184, 189, 190, 193n31, 194, 196, 202f6.2, 204t6.1, 206 aristocrats, 6, 36, 37, 43, 45, 45n46, 46, 47, 52, 54n78, 55, 57n82, 62n92, 63, 63n99, 68n112, 73, 75, 75n137, 76, 77, 88, 89, 107, 109, 112, 119, 123, 126, 131, 132, 134, 135, 135n40, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141n51, 142, 143, 144, 144n59, 151, 155, 156, 160, 161, 173, 175, 176, 188, 190, 192, 194, 195, 201, 205, 207, 207n45, 210, 211, 229, 230, 236, 237, 239, 239n58, 240n61, see also mighty (grandi); patricians Aristotelianism, 19, 24, 114n85, 131, 156, 163, 170, 177, 225 Aristotle, 4n9, 6, 7, 11, 16, 18, 19, 24, 24n48, 25, 25n48, 25n49, 29, 31, 33, 34, 54, 57, 66, 68, 76, 89, 95, 97, 98, 99, 105n69, 120, 121n8, 124n18, 124n19, 127, 128n25, 129, 129n29, 130, 130n32, 131, 132, 133, 133n37, 135, 143, 144, 154, 154n25, 154n26, 155, 157, 158, 161, 162, 166, 170, 170n54, 171, 176, 177n79, 179, 184n5, 221, 224, 225, 227, 235, 250, 253f7.1 Constitution of the Athenians, 221n3 Nicomachean Ethic, 98 Politics, 16, 19, 24, 29, 57, 95n39, 97, 106n72, 120, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 138, 138n45, 145, 152–​54, 156, 159, 164, 166, 167n50, 168, 188, 223, 225 Armitage, David, 4n10, 174n67, 179n84, 180n87, 240n61 army, 37, 40, 87, 94, 161, 164, 176, 199, 205 army, mercenary, 10, 102n56, 148, 176, 212 army, popular, 6, 52, 86, 105, 111, 147, 148, 161, 163n40, 164n44, 172, 183, 209, 211, 212, 213n53 Arnaldi, Girolamo, 159n32 Arnobius of Sicca, 35 Aron, Raymond, 249, 251n100 Arruns of Chiusi, 60 Artaxerxes, 136 Ascheri, Mario, 146n2 Ascoli, Albert, 27n1 Asia, 86, 87, 93, 94, 148n8

263

General Index assembly, 41, 44, 44n42, 57, 58, 58n86, 63, 155, 155n28, 188, 189, 190, 193, 194, 202f6.2, 204t6.1, 221, 246 asylum, 149, 149n10, 149n9, 160, 178, 207, 208, 212 Athenians, 20, 24, 156n31, 162, 208, 209, 221, 222 Athens, 18n28, 19, 21, 25, 34, 44n42, 57n84, 67, 121, 129, 136, 139, 151, 153, 154, 157, 161, 168, 179, 211, 221, 222, 238 Atkinson, James B., 72n127, 163n37 Audier, Serge, 251n100 Augustine of Hippo, 10, 16, 35, 42, 87, 90, 92, 93, 94, 108t3.1, 120, 149, 150, 235 Confessiones, 10 De civitate Dei, 16, 27, 40, 57n85, 68n111, 90, 90n24, 91, 92, 93, 107, 120, 149n10, 153n24, 229n24 Augustus, Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, Roman emperor, 42, 91, 199 avarice, see greed (avaritia) Azoulay, Vincent, 25n50 Babeuf, François-​Noël, 117 Baccelli, Luca, 63n97 Bacon, Francis, 34, 234 De augumentis scientiarum, 234n43 Baker, Ernest, 128n25 Baker, Nicholas Scott, 112n80 Baker, Richard, 229n22 balance, 6, 35, 44n42, 49, 81, 119, 120–​21, 122, 123–​24, 124n19, 126, 128, 129, 131, 142, 143, 154, 158, 163, 167, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 176, 184, 188n21, 193, 194, 204t6.1, 229, 230, 231, 234, 235n45, 257 Baldassarri, Stefano U., 13n6 Baldwin, Spurgeon, 14n9, 67n108, 97n45 Balot, Ryan K., 120n7, 148n8 Bandel, Fritz, 113n82 Bandello, Matteo Novelle, 14n14 banishment, see exile Barberi Squarotti, Giorgio, 37n27 Barbo, Pietro, 186, 217 Barbuto, Gennaro Maria, 65n105, 77n142 Barletta, Laura, 177n77 Baron, Hans, 173, 173n62 Barozzi, Pietro De factionibus extinguendis, 25n49, 183n2 Barrette, Paul, 14n9, 67n108, 97n45 Barthas, Jérémie, 2n1, 78, 78n146, 109n74, 111n78, 112n79, 142n54, 182n1,

263 230n28, 241n62, 243n73, 249n94, 254n104 Barthes, Roland, 22n39 Bartolus of Sassoferrato, 129 De regimine civitatis, 164n42 Bassani, Luigi Marco, 241n62 Battaglia, Felice, 13n6, 62n94, 97n45 Bausi, Francesco, 57n85 Bayley, Charles Calvert, 148n6 Bazzoli, Maurizio, 177n77 Beaty, Michael D., 146n2 Becchi, Riccardo, 71 Bellen, Heinz, 89n20 Belloni, Gino, 12n4, 51n64, 84n1, 130n33, 149n12 Ben Saad, Nizar, 237n51 Benelli, Francesco, 52n69 Benigno, Francesco, 112n81, 201n37 Benjamin, Walter, 18, 18n25 Benner, Erica, 63n97, 80n149, 98n47, 173n62 Benvenuto of Imola Romuleo, 41n37 Berardi, Gian Franco, 244n77 Berlin, Isaiah, 227 Bernard, Thomas J., 4n9 Bernardo, Aldo S., 85n3 Berns, Thomas, 110n77, 226n15 Beroaldo, Filippo, 186 De optimo statu et principe, 82 Berriot-​Salvatore, Evelyn, 76n140 Bertelli, Lucio, 12n3 Bertelli, Sandro, 70n121, 111n78 Berti, Giuliana, 14n14, 85n1 Bertière, André, 235n46 Bessarion, Basil, Cardinal In calumniatorem Platonis, 177 Billanovich, Giuseppe, 28n3 Biller, Peter, 154n25 Biondo, Flavio, 30, 31, 47n50, 74, 86, 87, 87n12, 88, 150n16, 156, 158, 161, 162, 168 De gestis Venetorum, 160n33 Roma instaurata, 113n84 Roma triumphans, 15n17, 30n10, 30n9, 41n37, 47n47, 57n85, 74n135, 86, 86n10, 92, 92n26, 110n76, 112n82, 150–​52, 150n14, 150n17, 154, 156, 168n53, 212 Birago, Lampugnino, 185, 186, 192n29, 216, 217 Bireley, Robert, 178n80 Birocchi, Italo, 146n2 Black, Robert, 111n78 Blair, Ann, 185n9

264

264 Bloch, Amy, 50n61 Block, Josine, 153n22 Bloom, Allan, 173n66 Blumenberg, Hans, 17, 17n23 Blythe, James M., 128n26 Bobbio, Norberto, 247, 247n87 Boccaccio, Giovanni, 13 The Elegy of Lady Fiammetta, 13n7 Bock, Gisela, 3n5 Bodin, Jean, 32, 33, 33n19, 185, 216, 254 Method for the Easy Comprehension of History, 216n61 The Six Books of the Republic, 216n60, 230n29 Boegehold, Alan L., 153n22 Bolzoni, Lina, 20n30 Bonadeo, Alfredo, 3n5 Bonamente, Giorgio, 89n20, 90n23 Borgia, Cesare, 111, 175n70 Borlenghi, Aldo, 14n12 Bornstein, Daniel E., 14n11, 146n2 Boscoli, Pietro Paolo, 77 Bossuet, Jacques-​Bénigne, 247 Botero, Giovanni, 32, 177n78, 178 Of the Causes of Greatness and Magnificence of Cities, 178, 178n80 The Reason of State, 84, 178 Botteri, Paula, 197n34 Bowsky, William Marwin, 145n2 Boyd, Julian P., 232n35 Braccesi, Alessandro, 41n38 Bracciolini, Poggio, 11, 12, 14, 35, 35n22, 36, 39, 76n139, 86, 98, 99, 104, 196 De avaritia, 85n4 De infelicitate principum, 11n2, 86n6 De miseria humanae conditionis, 14n13, 39n31, 57n85 De praestantia Scipionis et Caesaris, 85n6 Facetiae, 14n13 Historia Florentini populi, 49n56, 68n113, 104n61, 171, 171n57 Oratio in laudem reipublicae Venetorum, 47n48, 57n84 Utra artium medicinae an iuris civilis prestent, 99n48, 136n43 Bradley Thompson, C., 232n35 Branca, Vittore, 23n42, 29n6, 86n6, 121n9, 154n26, 155n27 Brandolini, Aurelio Lippo, 36, 185n9 De comparatione rei publicae et regni, 10, 85n4, 114n85, 136n43 Branson, Roy, 232n35 Breaugh, Martin, 6n14, 141n52 Breed, Brian, 41n36

General Index Brett, Annabel, 64n101 Briguglia, Gianluca, 50n60 Brock, Roger, 50n60 Brown, Alison, 14n14, 50n60, 70n121, 116n93, 121n9, 147n5, 177n75, 186n17 Brown, Virginia, 130n34 Brucioli, Antonio, 178 Dialogi, 178n80 Brucker, Gene, 14n8 Brudney, Kent M., 3n5 Bruni, Francesco, 12n3, 71n124, 72n128 Bruni, Leonardo, 14, 24n48, 35n22, 53n72, 68, 85, 87, 87n12, 88, 88n18, 104, 129, 186, 196 Constitution of Florence, 130n32, 163n40 Epistulae, 114n87, 186n14 Historiae florentini populi, 14n13, 53n72, 62n93, 68n111, 73n133, 85n5, 104n60, 104n65, 109, 126, 136n43, 140, 176n74 Laudatio Florentinae Urbis, 85n5, 118, 119n4 Vita Ciceronis, 76n139 Brutus, Decimus Junius, 45 Brutus, Lucius Junius, 39, 90, 131, 162, 191 Brutus, Marcus Junius, 202f6.2 Bueno de Mesquita, Daniel M., 13n5 Bulwer Lytton, Edward Athens: Its Rise and Fall, 242n66 Burnham, James, 249n93 Burzio, Filippo, 246n85 Busetto, Ann, 153n22 Butterfield, Herbert, 34 Butters, Humphrey C., 70n122, 111n79 Byzantium, 158 Cadoni, Giorgio, 3n5, 78n146 Caesar, Gaius Julius, 13, 20, 42, 73, 86, 87, 107, 113, 114, 198 Caire, Emmanuelle, 129n27 calumny, 61, 62, 62n93, 62t2.2, 175, 195, 254, 255 Calvo, Marco Fabio, 186 Cambridge School, 63, 64, 123, 124, 251n100, 252n103, see also Pocock, John G.A.; Skinner, Quentin; Viroli, Maurizio Camillus, Marcus Furius, 57n85 Cammarosano, Paolo, 13n5 Campanella, Tommaso, 7, 228 Liber apologeticus contra impugnantes Institutum Scholarum Piarum, 228n20 Campos Boralevi, Lea, 32n17 Candeloro, Giorgio, 178n80 Canestrini, 82n159

265

General Index Canestrini, Giuseppe, 82n159 Canfora, Davide, 11n2, 13n6, 85n6, 86n6 Canfora, Luciano, 38n28, 184n7, 184n8 Canning, Joseph P., 146n2 Canuleius, Gaius, 149n13 Capitolinus Barbatus, Titus Quinctius, 44 Cappelli, Guido, 21n33, 50n60 Capponi, Agostino, 77 Capua, 40 Carbo, Gnaeus, 22 Cardini, Franco, 177n77 Carrese, Paul, 235n46 Carrington, Edward, 232n35 Carsana, Chiara, 120n7 Carta, Paolo, 119n6, 241n62 Carthage, 39, 57, 85, 86, 89, 90, 91, 91n25, 93, 94, 100, 103, 104, 105n66, 116, 154n26, 168, 179, 183, 204t6.1, 209, 218 Carthaginians, 93, 166, 257 Caruso, Dario, 77n142, 239n55 Cassirer, Ernst, 34n21 Cassius, Dio, 45n45 Castiglione, Baldassar The Book of the Courtier, 14n14, 23n42, 106n70 Catalano, Pierangelo, 55n79 Cato, Marcus Porcius, 91, 93 Causa-​Steindler, Mariangela, 13n7 Cavaillé, Jean-​Pierre, 230n29 Cavalcanti, Giovanni, 104, 118 Istorie fiorentine, 24n46, 25n48, 49n56, 54n77, 57n84, 75n138, 104n64, 118n3 Nuova Opera, 104n63 Trattato politico-​morale, 10, 118n3, 136n43 Cavallar, Osvaldo, 119n6 Cavallo, Guglielmo, 38n28, 184n7 Cavriana, Filippo Discorsi sopra i primi cinque libri di Cornelio Tacito, 178n80 Cecchet, Lucia, 153n22 censorship, Roman, 115, 119, 119n5, 201, 205, 222 Ceron, Annalisa, 16n22 Cerretani, Bartolomeo Storia fiorentina, 14n14 Cervelli, Innocenzo, 148n7 Chabod, Federico, 34n21, 135n39 Champion, Craige B., 148n8 Charbit, Yves, 177n78 Charles I of Anjou, king of Sicily, 67 Charles I, king of England, 231, 236 Charles V, Holy Roman emperor, 176

265 Charles VIII, king of France, 35, 60, 170 Charondas, 189 Chateaubriand, François-​René Mémoires d’outre tombe, 240n61 check, 1, 23, 33, 35, 41, 46, 50, 51, 52, 63, 76, 77, 83, 90, 96, 97, 99, 100, 101, 102, 107, 110, 111, 115, 121, 124, 136, 141, 143, 144, 183, 192, 201, 202f6.2, 206, 206n42, 216, 234, 251 Chevalier, Roger, 189n22 Chiappelli, Fredi, 65n104 Chiron, 37, 226 Ciccarelli, Antonio, 7, 216 Discorsi sopra Tito Livio, 117, 216n62, 228 Ciccuto, Marcello, 14n13 Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 7, 11, 16, 36, 45, 46, 47n47, 54, 64, 66, 67n108, 68, 78n145, 90, 95, 99, 100, 156, 161, 162, 183, 222, 229n24, 235 Brutus, 23n43 De finibus bonorum et malorum, 23n43 De lege agraria, 74n134, 118n2 De legibus, 45, 46, 139 De officiis, 16, 29, 67, 79n147, 82n155, 90, 97n45, 130, 163n38 De oratore, 183n2 De republica, 16, 29, 120, 229 Philippicae, 82n156 Pro Balbo, 150, 151 Tusculanae disputationes, 30n10, 100 Cicero, Quintus Tullius, 45, 46, 47, 47n47, 145 Cincinnatus, Lucius Quinctius, 44 citizenship, right of, 3, 145–​80, 145n2, 183, 211–​13, 212n52, 216, 247 Athenian closed-​door policy, 151, 157, 161, 168, 179, 208 Roman open-​door policy, 7, 147, 149, 150–​52, 155, 156, 158, 160, 161, 168, 177, 179, 183, 185, 208, 212, 213, see also asylum Spartan closed-​door policy, 147, 151, 153, 154, 157, 161, 168, 177, 179, 208, 213 Theban closed-​door policy, 208 Venetian closed-​door policy, 147, 155, 156, 159, 160, 161, 168, 177, 179, 213 city-​State, see commune; polis civic concord, 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12, 12n3, 14n8, 15, 16, 19, 20, 23, 36, 44, 47, 48, 49, 49n56, 50, 50n61, 52, 54, 58, 61, 65, 66, 67, 71, 72, 74, 91, 104n65, 120, 122, 124, 128, 129, 144, 156, 158, 160n33, 161, 162, 162n35, 164, 166, 170, 171, 175, 179, 197, 212, 213, 215, 224, 225, 226, 227, 229, 235, 236, 247, 248

26

266 civic harmony, see civic concord civil strife, 11, 12, 12n4, 14, 16, 23, 26, 35n22, 41, 45, 51, 67, 89, 95n37, 125, 211, 221, 226, 237, see also civil war civil war, 2, 4n10, 11, 13, 20, 39, 40, 41, 42, 56n80, 62, 67, 68, 68n111, 73, 85, 91, 95, 104, 160, 160n33, 221, 222n8, 224, 225, 227, 230, 235, 236, 238, 240, 240n61, 245n81, 256, see also civil strife class, 3, 5, 5n13, 53, 64n102, 66, 95, 100, 127, 132, 134, 139n48, 142n56, 170, 176, 188, 197, 227, 239, 244, 245, 249, 250, 251, 252 classicism, 31, 31n15, 33, 33n20, 34, 34n21, 62, 215 classicism, political, 7, 31, 226, 257, 258 Classics, see Ancients Claudius Crassus, Appius, 44, 50, 51n62, 192, 203, 205 Claudius Nero, Tiberius, Roman emperor, 151, 152, 152n19, 156, 157, 158, 168n53, 177, 178 Claudius Pulcher, Publius, 72n131 Claudius Sabinus Regillensis, Appius, 51, 206, 206n42, 207, 208, 212, 213 Clausus, 151 Cleomenes, King of Sparta, 6, 78, 78n146, 79, 79n147, 80, 82, 82n159, 83, 115, 175, 182, 251 Clisthenes, 153 Cohler, Anne M., 203n38, 235n47 Coleman, Janet, 203n38 Collins, Randall, 4n9 colonies, 34, 150, 178, 187, 208, 215 Columbus, Christopher, 224 common good (bene comune), 5, 15, 16, 21, 45, 63, 66, 67, 68, 68n112, 69, 125n23, 137, 144, 154n25, 174–​76, 175n70, 175n72, 176n73, 183, 224, 250, 251 commoners, see people (popolo) commonwealth, 2, 63n99, 123, 151, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 199, 200, 201, 206, 207, 208, 211, 229, 231 commune, 12, 12n3, 26, 30, 56, 66, 67, 68, 84, 108, 112, 129, 145, 146, 147, 154, 161, 170, 171, 172, 242 communism, 245, 248, 249n93, see also Leninism; Marxism Compagni, Dino, 14 Chronicle of Florence, 14n11 Condren, Coral, 111n79

General Index conflictualism, 2, 3, 4, 4n9, 6, 7, 8, 25, 53, 72n129, 81, 83, 141, 181, 222, 228, 230, 231, 232, 232n35, 235n47, 238, 242, 242n66, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 251, 252, 256, see also Conflictual Order Conforti, Leopoldo, 113n82 Connell, William J., 116n93, 147n4, 173n62 Connolly, Joy, 214n55 conquest, see expansion, military Conring, Hermann Dissertatio de ratione status, 230n29 consensualism, 4n9, 7, 69, 245, 250, see also natural consensual order Constable, Giles, 129n29 Constant, Benjamin, 2n1, 223 constriction, see necessity consulate, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 90, 94, 105, 111, 113, 114n88, 115, 115n92, 119, 144, 176, 182, 190, 191, 193, 194, 201, 202f6.2, 203, 204t6.1 Contarini, Gasparo, 178 De magistratibus et republica Venetorum, 57n84, 67n108, 178n80 contract, social, 48n54, 221, 223, 225, 227, 238, 245, 256 Conversini, Giovanni, 36 Dragmalogia de eligibili vitae genere, 47n48 Corella, Miguel, 111 Corinth, 139 Coriolanus, Gnaeus Marcius, 22, 41, 57n85, 58, 59, 191, 193n31, 194, 207, 207n46, 208, 213 Cornelius Cinna, Lucius, 20, 22 Cornelius Nepos Cimon, 106n72 Cornell, Timothy J., 55n79, 214n54, 215n57, 217n64 Corrigan, Beatrice, 239n55 corruption, 17, 23, 53, 54, 69, 78, 80n149, 82, 85, 87, 88, 93, 100, 101, 104, 107, 109, 111, 115, 135, 139, 142, 160, 218, 232, 237, 257 Cortese, Ennio, 146n2 Cortesi, Paolo De cardinalatu, 163n39 Coser, Lewis, 4n9, 243n73, 249n94 Costa, Pietro, 145, 145n1, 146 Cotta, Sergio, 227n17 Counter-​Reformation, 51 Craig, Gordon A., 174n67 Crassus, Marcus Licinius, 88

267

General Index Crenius, Thomas De philologia, studiis liberalis doctrinae, informatione et educatione litteraria, 230n27 Crick, Bernard, 249n93 Crinito, Pietro, 186 De honesta disciplina, 15n17, 20n31, 185n9 Crixus, 158 Croce, Benedetto, 244, 244n76, 246 Cromwell, Oliver, 231 Curiatius, Gaius, 45 Cursor, Lucius Papirius, 72n131 Curtius Rufus, Quintus Historiae Alexandri Magni, 152n19 Curtius, Gaius, 44 customs, see mores Cutinelli-​Rendina, Emanuele, 96n42, 177n76 Cypselus, tyrant of Corinth, 139 Cyriac of Ancona, 185n9 D’Andrea, Antonio, 2n3, 39n32 Da Porto, Luigi, 11 Giulietta, 11 da Toffol, Giuseppe, 119n4 Dahrendorf, Ralf, 4n9, 243n73 Damon, Cynthia, 41n36 Dangel, Jacqueline, 215n56 danger, see threat Danton, Jacques, 232 Dardot, Pierre, 251n99 Dati, Goro Istoria di Firenze, 165n46 Daube, David, 55n79 Daverio Rocchi, Giovanna, 12n3 Davidshon, Robert, 38n30 De Caprariis, Vittorio, 135n40 de Guzmán y Pimente, Gaspar, Count de Olivares, 229 De Keyser, Jeroen, 57n85 de la Perrière, Guillaume, 177n78 De Monacis, Lorenzo, 159 de St. Croix, Geoffrey E. Maurice, 55n79 De Vincentiis, Amedeo, 69n114 De’ Monacis, Lorenzo, 121 Chronicon, 121n9 deduction, 34, 34n21 Del Lucchese, Filippo, 3n4, 4, 5, 5n11, 5n12, 42n40, 63n96, 166n48, 174, 174n69, 175, 175n71, 233, 238, 252, see also constituent interpretation Del Soldato, Eva, 177n79 Delbrük, Hans, 172n59 Delcourt, Anouk, 196n33

267 Della Bella, Giano, 108, 176 Della Casa, Giovanni De officiis inter potentiores et tenuiores amicos, 21 Galateo, 21 della Rovere, Giuliano, Cardinal, 60 Deltuf, Paul, 242n66 demagoguery, 44, 110, 201 democracy, 6, 35, 57, 60n89, 67, 113, 114, 115, 120, 121, 122, 128, 129, 129n27, 139, 141n53, 184, 189, 190, 192, 194, 204t6.1, 221, 222, 231, 233, 238, 249, 250, 252, 258n108 Demosthenes, 214 Desgraves, Louis, 227n17, 235n46 desire, 23, 24, 25, 73, 74, 75n137, 75n138, 76, 77, 81, 92, 96, 97, 98, 100, 101, 102, 103, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 140, 141, 141n51, 142, 143, 159, 167, 194, 197, 205, 206, 206n42, 234, 253 despotism, see tyranny detractio militiae, 55, 57, 61, 62t2.2, 63, 64, 83, 182, 254, 255 Di Pino, Guido, 24n46, 49n56, 118n3 Diaz, Furio, 178n80 dictatorship, 7, 40, 112–​14, 112n81, 113n83, 113n84, 114n86, 114n88, 114n89, 115, 115n90, 115n91, 116, 119, 144, 182, 183, 185, 198–​203, 203n38, 204t6.1, 207n44, 216, 255 Dilthey, Wilhelm, 142, 142n57 Diodorus Siculus, 185 Dionisotti, Carlo, 27, 27n1, 31n12, 87n13, 111n78, 171n56, 185n9 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 7, 181–​218 Roman Antiquities, 118n2, 149n9, 185–​218 Dionysius the Elder, tyrant of Syracuse, 139 discourse-​form, 29, 31, 32 doge, 111 Doise, Willem, 251n98 Domandi, Francesco, 70n119 Domanski, Juliusz, 22n38 Dominici, Giovanni Governo di cura familiare, 10 Don Micheletto, see Corella, Miguel Donadi, Francesco, 185n10 dread, see fear (metus) Ducos, Michèle, 189n25, 205n40 Dunn, Susan, 232n35 Dupré-​Theseider, Eugenio, 38n30 Dyer, Louis, 242n66 dyscrasia, see imbalance

268

268 Eaker, Helen Lanneau, 47n48 Eder, Walter, 55n79 education (educazione, institutio), 6, 20, 21, 23, 24, 24n46, 37, 97, 98, 98n46, 99, 101, 102, 162, 176, 205, 205n40 effect (fine), 20, 36, 38, 42, 58, 59, 75, 75n137, 80n149, 136, 138, 197, 203 Elias, Norbert, 21, 21n34 Elitism, 64n100, 98, 134 Ellinger, Georg, 242n66 Ellis, Steven G., 146n2 emergency, 55, 202f6.2 emergency magistracy, 112, 114, 201, 203, 255, see also dictatorship emulation (aemulatio), 29, 211, 239, 258 Engels, Friedrich, 242n68 Engerbeaud, Mathieu, 116n94 Enlightenment, 6, 13, 68, 237n51, 239n55, 240n61, 247, 250 ephors, 78, 79, 119, 122, 123, 230n29 Epicurus, 4 Equicola, Mario Cronica di Mantua, 186 equilibrium, see balance Erasmus of Rotterdam De institutione principis christiani, 82n155 Erasmus, Hendrik Johannes, 186n16 Erto, Maurizio, 228n20 Esposito, Roberto, 3n5, 5n12, 77n142, 135n40, 226, 226n12, 226n14, 250n96, 252, 252n102 Etruscans, 14, 60, 103, 160n33, 186 eucrasia, see balance Eula, Ernesto, 55n79 Europe, 18, 31, 171, 172, 176, 177, 185, 215, 220, 227, 228, 229, 230, 236, 245 Eutropius, Flavius Breviarium historiae Romanae, 200n36 Evrigenis, Ioannis D., 89, 89n20, 103n59, 107n73, 110n77, 115n91, 223n10, 243n72 exile, 20, 39, 41, 46, 62t2.2, 67, 79, 106, 139, 146, 196, 199, 212n52, 257, see also trials, popular; tribunate of the plebs expansion, military, 3, 6, 77, 85, 94, 102, 104, 149, 149n11, 152, 154, 155, 161, 162, 162n36, 163, 164, 166, 168, 170, 170n54, 171, 172, 173, 174, 177, 178n82, 179, 180, 180n87, 183, 212, 247, 252 expansive republicanism, 159, 171, 174, 176, 177, 178, 178n82, 179, 180

General Index Fabbrini, Fabrizio, 55n79 Fabius Maximus, Quintus, 257 Faccioli, Emilio, 136n41 Fachard, Denis, 14n8 faction, see party (parte, setta, intelligenza) Fasano Guarini, Elena, 147n4, 171n58 Fascione, Lorenzo, 187n19 Fascism, 246 fear (metus), 3, 11, 12, 25n48, 59, 60n88, 84, 89, 90, 91, 93, 94, 95, 95n39, 96, 96n42, 97, 97n46, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 104, 104n65, 110, 111, 112, 115, 115n90, 115n91, 116, 136, 138, 139, 140, 144, 164, 167, 194, 195, 196, 197, 205, 205n40, 223, 224, 251 of the dictator, 114, 115, 194, 251, 255, see also metus civilis of the enemy, see metus hostilis fear-​inhibition, 95–​96, 96n41, 106, 115 fear-​stimulus, 95, 96, 96n41, 225 of God, 109, 110n77, 111, 116, 251, 255 of the king, 110–​11, 255, see also metus civilis of popular trials, 58, 63, 99, 106–​7, 108, 116, 182, 194, 196, 251, 255, see also metus civilis of popular tumults, 11, 12, 63, 108, 116, 175, 182, 255, see also metus civilis Fedeli, Paolo, 38n28, 184n7 Felice, Domenico, 120n7 Ferguson, Adam, 7, 32, 203n38, 227, 236, 242 An Essay on the History of Civil Society, 236, 236n48, 237n50 Ferraù, Giacomo, 22n36, 149n10 Ferroni, Giulio, 164n43 Ficino, Marsilio, 18 Fiesolani, 14, 149 Filelfo, Francesco, 159 Commentationes Florentinae de exilio, 57n85 Satyrae, 76n139 Fink, Zera Silver, 230n30, 233n38 Finlay, Robert, 159n32 Finley, Moses, 64, 64n102 Finzi, Claudio, 155n27 Fiocchi, Andrea, 113 De magistratibus sacerdotisque Romanorum, 46n47, 112n82 Firpo, Filippo, 178n80 Flaminius, Gaius, 45 Flasch, Kurt, 17n24

269

General Index Fleisher, Martin, 139n49 Fletcher, Stella R., 70n121 Florence, 14, 34, 35, 37, 56, 56n80, 59, 60, 62, 62n93, 66, 67, 68, 69, 69n114, 71, 72, 73, 75n137, 82, 83, 85, 95n36, 99, 104, 105, 107, 112, 118, 135, 140, 144, 147, 147n5, 149, 171, 172, 176, 176n73, 177, 184, 186, 216, 228, 246 Florentines, 14, 31, 60, 69n114, 94, 104, 109, 149, 155, 176 Florus, Lucius Annaeus, 30, 42 Epitome, 40, 45, 91, 149n9 Flower, Harriet I., 39n33 Flynn, Bernard, 249n94 Foligno, 18 Fontana, Alessandro, 101n55, 159n32 Fontes-​Baratto, Anna, 70n121 Forsythe, Gary, 214n54 Forte, Bettie, 196n33 fortune, 25, 36, 43, 48, 50, 88, 89, 92, 93, 94, 106, 112, 127, 128, 140, 150, 163, 166, 190, 209, 210 Foscari, Francesco, Venetian Doge, 155 Foucault, Michel, 7, 144n59, 177n78, 255, 256, 256n106 Founding Fathers, 6, 32, 232, 241, see also Adams, John; Jefferson, Thomas Fournel, Jean-​Louis, 42n39, 70n121, 72n129, 101n55, 159n32 Frame, Donald M., 32n18 France, 2, 7, 96n41, 171, 184, 237, 250 Francis I, king of France, 184 Fraschetti, Augusto, 188n20, 208n48 freedom, 5, 13, 28, 36, 40n34, 43, 44, 46, 47, 58, 68, 75, 76, 83, 84, 87, 89, 91, 94, 96, 105, 108, 110, 112, 116, 117, 118, 119, 131, 134, 135, 136, 137, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 155, 159, 171, 175, 179, 181n1, 190, 192, 208, 209, 223, 228, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239, 242, 247, 249, 249n93, 251n100, 252, 254, 257, 258, 258n108 French, Roger Kenneth, 81n154 Freud, Sigmund, 12 Freymond, Rémy, 251n100 friendship, political, 16, 16n22, 23, 25, 66, 70n123, 71, 72, 72n129, 132, 207, 251, see also civic concord Frontinus, Sextus Julius, 257 Frosini, Fabio, 166n48 Fubini, Riccardo, 14n13, 39n31

269 Fuchs, Harald, 89n20 Furius Camillus, Marcus, 45, 149n13, 149n9 Gabba, Emilio, 177n77, 187n19, 189n24, 193n30, 214n54, 215n56, 237n50 Gaeta, 18 Gaeta, Franco, 25n49, 158n32, 183n2 Gaille-​Nikodimov, Marie, 77n142, 81n153, 120n7, 213n53, 254n105 Galasso, Giuseppe, 177n77 Galateo, Antonio, see Antonio de’ Ferrariis Galen of Pergamum, 124n19 Galilei, Galileo, 34 Galli, Carlo, 244n75 Gamberini, Andrea, 13n5, 66n107, 129n30 Garfagnini, Gian Carlo, 71n124 Garin, Eugenio, 19n29, 71n124, 90n22, 99n48, 136n43, 146n3, 184n7 Gärtner, Hans Armin, 215n56 Gatti, Luca, 14n10 Gaudemet, Jean, 148n8 Gaul, 151 Gauls, 60, 110n77, 116, 149n9, 151, 152 Gauthier, Paul, 148n8 Gelli, Agenore, 29n4 Gelzer, Matthias, 89n20 Genet, Jean-​Philippe, 66n107, 129n30 Genoa, 14 Gentili, Alberico, 32, 33 De legationibus, 32, 33 Gentillet, Innocent, 2, 3, 50, 54, 230 Contre-​Machiavel, 2, 2n3, 39n32, 51n62 Genucius Augurinus, Marcus, 44 George of Trebizond, 36, 159 Comparationes philosophorum Aristotelis et Platonis, 177n79 Geremek, Bronislaw, 51n65 Geuna, Marco, 64n101, 77n142, 112n81, 201n37, 227, 227n16, 233n39, 237n50, 238n52, 239n55 Ghibellines (Ghibellini), 11, 12, 56, 68, 107, 108, 132 Ghiglieri, Paolo, 71n125 Giacomini, Antonio, 94 Giacomo della Marca Sermones dominicales, 85n1 Gianfigliazzi, Riccardo, 62n93 Giannotti, Donato, 1, 32, 125, 126, 215, 216 Della repubblica de’ Viniziani, 178, 178n80 Della repubblica fiorentina, 124, 125n20, 125n22, 126, 178, 215n59 Giardina, Andrea, 38n28, 184n7

270

270 Gilbert, Allan H., 72n127, 109n74, 176n73 Gilbert, Felix, 14n8, 34n21, 87n13, 133n36, 135n39, 158n32, 163n38, 174n67 Giles of Rome, 12 De regimine principum, 12, 95, 105n67, 129 Gilmore, Myron P., 125n21, 159n32 Giordano da Pisa Prediche, 85n1 Giorgini, Giovanni, 18n28, 57n84, 106n72 Giovannini, Adalberto, 214n55 Girolami, Remigio dei De bono communi, 51n63, 67n108, 97n45 De bono pacis, 67n108 Giustiniani, Vito R., 15n17 glory, 22, 33n20, 47, 89, 90, 92, 106, 221 Glover, Samuel Dennis, 228n21 goal, see aim (fine) Gobetti, Piero, 246, 246n83, 246n84 Godman, Peter, 28n2 Goeing, Anja-​Silvia, 185n9 golden mean (aurea mediocritas), 130, 135, 143 Golden, Gregory K., 113n82 Gordon, Thomas, 7, 233, 236 Cato’s Letters, 233n39 The Conspirators, or the Case of Catilina, 234, 234n40 Goulemot, Jean-​Marie, 240n61 Gourevitch, Victor, 173n66, 203n38, 237n52 Gozzoli, Sandra, 187n18 Gracchi, brothers, 6, 39, 40, 40n34, 41, 42, 46, 54n78, 73, 74, 74n134, 75, 76, 76n139, 77, 77n141, 78, 78n146, 79, 79n147, 80, 82n159, 83, 140, 182, 229, see also Gracchus, Gaius; Gracchus, Tiberius Gracchus Babeuf, see Babeuf, François-​Noël Gracchus, Gaius, 40, 45, 76, 78, 79, 83, see also Gracchi, brothers Gracchus, Tiberius, 39, 41, 45, 46, 76, 78, 79, 105n68, 139, see also Gracchi, brothers Grafton, Anthony T., 173n62 Gramsci, Antonio, 246n83 Grangé, Ninon, 222n8 Gray, Benjamin, 25n50 Gray, Hanna H., 22n41 Gray, John, 251n99 Grayson, Cecil, 69n113 Great Council (Consiglio Maggiore), 69, 70, 99, 147, 155 Greco, Aulo, 76n139, 93n29

General Index Greece, 57, 79, 85, 94, 161, 209, 210, 212, 222, 238 greed (avaritia), 13, 24, 24n48, 74, 85, 86, 87, 97, 195, 234 Greeks, 25, 30, 31, 37, 76n139, 88, 152, 196n33, 200, 208, 211, 218, 221, 224 Green, Jeffrey, 6n14 Grégoire, Pierre De republica, 230n29 Grendler, Marcella T., 118n3 Grosso, Giuseppe, 55n79 Grubmüller, Klaus, 229n24 Gruen, Erich S., 64n102 guard of liberty (guardia della libertà), 81, 117–​19, 118n2, 121–​22, 125, 136, 137, 147, 163, 182, 188, 192, 194, 197, 199, 201, 203, 205 Guarini, Guarino, 86, 87 De praestantia Scipionis et Caesaris, 13n6, 86n7 Guatteri, Giuseppe, 41n37 Guelphs (Guelfi), 11, 12, 56, 132 Guicciardini, Francesco, 1, 2, 32, 64, 79n148, 82, 82n159, 84, 109, 111, 118, 119, 119n6, 121, 122, 124, 126, 145, 170, 177, 215, 254, 255 Considerations on the Discourses, 51n62, 118, 119, 121, 123, 126 Cose fiorentine, 215n58 Dialogue on the Government of Florence, 14n14, 121n9, 177n75 History of Florence, 70n119 How the popular government should be reformed (Discorso di Logrogno), 82, 82n158, 118, 118n1 Guidi, Andrea, 112n79, 172n60 Guillemain, Bernard, 63n96, 72n129, 135n40 Haas, Philip, 213n53 Habits, see mores Hadot, Pierre, 22, 22n38 Hahm, David E., 120n7 Hale, John R., 13n5, 159n32 Halfdanarson, Guodmundur, 146n2 Hall, Bert S., 172n59 Hammer, Dean, 164n43, 214n55 Hammerslay, Rachel, 232n34 Hamowy, Ronald, 233n39 Hampshire, Stuart, 251n99 Hanasz, Waldemar, 175n72 Hankins, James, 14n13, 18n26, 21n33, 25n51, 53n72, 85n4, 85n5, 98n46, 136n43, 185n9 Hannibal Barca, 257

271

General Index Hansen, Mogens Herman, 129n28 Harrington, James, 32, 63n99, 123, 179 The Commonwealth of Oceana, 32n17, 63n99, 123n12, 179n83, 203n38 Hasdrubal Barca, 105n66, 154n26 Haskins Gonthier, Ursula, 234n44 Heater, Derek, 145n1 Heers, Jacques, 68n110 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 5, 241, 242, 243, 245, 248, 250, 253f7.1 The Phenomenology of Spirit, 220 The Philosophy of History, 241n65 The Philosophy of Right, 241n64 Heller, Ágnes, 244n78 Helvétius, Claude-​Adrien, 7 De l’Esprit, 235n45 Heraclitus, 174n68 Hercules, 79, 90, 90n22 Herlihy, David, 68n110 Herodotus, 60n89, 185 Hexter, John H., 184n8 Hiero II, tyrant of Syracuse, 175n70 Highfield, John Roger Loxdale, 13n5 Hill, Lisa, 237n50 Hinard, François, 113n82 Hippocrates, 48, 49, 80, 80n152, 81, 97, 141, 175, 197 Aphorisms, 81 Hirschmann, Albert O., 234n42 Hobbes, Thomas, 34n21, 48n54, 63n99, 222, 223n10, 226, 226n15, 227, 236, 238, 245, 246, 250, 252, 256n106 Leviathan, 48n54, 223–​25, 226, 231, 240 Hölkeskamp, Karl J., 221n4 Homer, 199 Horatius Barbatus, Marcus, 102 Horkheimer, Max, 68, 245, 245n80, 250 Hörnqvist, Mikael, 111n79, 149n11 Howes, Dustin Ells, 55n79 Hulliung, Mark, 174n67 humanism, 1, 2, 6, 8, 15n15, 16n22, 18, 21, 22, 24, 25, 36, 48, 54, 68, 74n136, 88, 92, 99, 133n36, 135, 146, 162, 165, 166, 170, 183, 206, 222 humanists, 12, 13, 18, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 26n52, 28, 29, 31, 33n20, 35, 37, 47, 51, 57, 63, 68, 68n113, 74, 76n139, 78, 79n147, 82, 84, 85, 89, 90, 90n22, 92, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 104, 104n65, 106, 106n72, 113, 121, 126, 131, 132, 133, 136, 139, 143, 145, 146n3, 147, 148, 149n11, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155,

271 158, 162, 163, 176, 179, 180n87, 185, 186, 208, 219 Hume, David, 101, 234n41 humors, 2, 48, 49, 50, 54n74, 81, 137, 141, 142, 174, 175, 226, 228, 229, 234, 245, 246 venting of the, 1, 48, 50n59, 52, 58, 59, 63, 83, 108, 182, 197, 245, 252, see also purgation Hyde, John Kenneth, 12n3 idleness, see indolence (ozio, otium) Ilting, Karl-​Heinz, 241n64 imbalance, 25n48, 38, 49, 121, 123, 125, 126, 163, 172, 182, 205, 206 imitation, 11, 29, 31, 31n15, 33, 34, 34n21, 37, 196, 209, 218, 257, 258 indolence (ozio, otium), 87, 89n21, 93, 98, 102, 105, 106, 109, 165, 168 induction, 34, 34n21 Inglese, Giorgio, 123n11, 210n51 ingratitude, 57, 57n84, 57n85, 106, 107 institution (ordine), 5, 5n13, 30, 31, 35, 42, 43, 45, 46, 47, 57, 58, 58n86, 59, 60, 63n96, 65, 73n133, 79, 83, 87, 95, 95n35, 99, 101, 103, 107, 109, 112, 113, 114, 115, 115n90, 116, 117, 118, 120, 121, 123, 124, 129, 137, 142, 144, 150, 158, 159, 165, 166, 170, 174n68, 181, 183, 185, 187, 189, 189n23, 192, 195, 198, 199, 200, 202f6.2, 203, 203n38, 205, 206, 217, 218, 219, 223, 239, 242, 251, 252, 254, 255, 256, 258, 258n108 institutionalization, 181, 181n1, 246, 249n94, 251, 251n101 Isaacs, Ann Katherine, 146n2 Israëls, Machtelt, 47n49, 109n74 Italy, 2, 7, 12, 12n3, 15n16, 35, 39, 56, 66, 67, 68n113, 145, 151, 154, 155, 171, 176, 177, 184, 209, 242 Iullus, Gaius Iulius, 103 Jacks, Philips, 30n8 Jal, Paul, 12n3, 85n2, 221n1 James, Carolyn, 50n61 Jaume, Lucien, 240n61 Javitch, Daniel, 14n14, 106n70 Jefferson, Thomas, 174n68, 232n35, see also Founding Fathers John of Cusa De concordantia Catholica, 51n63 John of Salisbury Policraticus, 51n63

27

272 Johnston, David C., 36n23, 112n81, 201n37 Jones, Philip J., 148n6 Jouanna, Jacques, 80n152 Jourdan, Annie, 237n52 Jugurtha, king of Numidia, 15 Julius II, Pope, see della Rovere, Giuliano, Cardinal Jupiter, 20 Jurdjevich, Mark, 141n51 juridicization, 225, 251n101, 254 jurisprudence, 146n3, 157 jurists, 28, 32, 67n110, 91, 129, 145, 146, 152, 180, 216, 227, 230n29, 243 Justinianus, Byzantine emperor Corpus iuris civilis, 27, 113n82 Kaegi, Werner, 177n77 Kahn, Victoria, 3n5, 27n1, 72n130 Kalimzis, Kostas, 25n48 Kallen, Gerhard, 97n45 Kalyvas, Andreas, 113n82 Kalyvas, Stathis N., 4n10 Kamenev, Lev, 244n78 Kant, Immanuel, 248 Idea for a Universal History with Cosmopolitan Intent, 248 Kapust, Daniel J., 89n20, 103n59, 214n55 Kaye, Joel, 124n19 Keats, John Hyperion, 1 Kelly, Cristopher, 173n66 Kempshall, Matthew, 38n28 Kent, Dale V., 16n22 Kahn, Victoria, 206n43 Kiernan, Michael, 234n43 king, Roman, 39, 43, 53, 90, 110, 112, 115n92, 188, 189, 190, 191, 193, 194, 196, 208, 212 king, Spartan, 78, 111, 123, 188 king, Venetian, see doge Kirshner, Julius, 146n2, 147n4 Kitromilides, Paschalis M., 145n1, 203n38 Knight, Sarah, 130n34 Krappe, Alexander H., 197n34, 213n53 Krautter, Konrad, 155n27 Kraye, Jill, 21n33, 21n35, 118n1 Kristeller, Paul O., 155n27 Lacedaemon, see Sparta Lacedaemonians, see Spartans Lactantius, Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Divinae Institutiones, 91n25 land redistribution, see agrarian laws

General Index Landi, Aldo, 178n80 Landino, Cristoforo, 35 Comento alla Comedia, 14n14 Lane, Frederic C., 129n31 Lanfranchi, Thibaud, 44n43, 195n32, 205n41 Lanteschner, Patrick, 67n109 Lanza, Antonio, 165n46 Lanza, Diego, 221n2 Larivaille, Paul, 111n78 Lartius, Titus, 199, 200 Lascaris, Giano, 184 Latini, Brunetto, 14 The Book of the Treasure, 14n9, 15n17, 67n108, 97n45 Laudani, Raffaele, 55n79 Laval, Christian, 251n99 law (lex), 3, 5, 6, 13, 29, 36, 37, 41, 42n40, 43, 44, 53, 54, 55n79, 58, 59, 60, 61, 63, 64n100, 69, 75, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 83, 95, 96, 98, 99, 100, 100n52, 101, 107, 108, 110, 115, 116, 118, 119, 126, 132, 135, 136, 136n42, 140, 142, 143, 144, 145n2, 152, 154n26, 155, 156, 159, 160, 165, 168, 176, 182, 187, 188, 189, 192, 193, 194, 198, 199, 203, 205, 212, 217, 218, 222, 226n15, 228, 229, 231, 246, 247, 251, 251n100, 252, 254, 255 Leges Liciniae Sextiae, 201 Lex Hortensia de plebiscitis, 44n42 Lex Publilia Philonis de auctoritate patrum, 155n28 Lex Valeria de provocatione, 113n83 Lex Voconia de luxu, 100 Law, John Easton, 121n9, 159n32 Lazzarini, Isabella, 129n30 Lazzaro of Padua, 118 Le Bas, Philippe, 242n66 Lefort, Claude, 3n5, 4, 50n59, 77n143, 101, 101n55, 141n53, 142n55, 173, 173n64, 181n1, 249–​50, 249n94, 249n95, 250n96, 251n100, 253f7.1, 254, see also anti-​bureaucratic/​anti-​totalitarian interpretation Leninism, 5 Leo X, Pope, see Medici, Giovanni de’, Cardinal Leopardi, Giacomo, 8 Leto, Pomponio, 112, 186 De Romanorum magistratibus, 46, 46n47, 112n82 Levi-​Malvano, Ettore, 235n46

273

General Index liberalism, 3, 8, 225, 242, 242n66, 244, 246, 246n84, 247, 248, 250, 251, 251n99, 252, 252n103, 254, 255 liberal-​socialism, 246, 247 liberty (libertas), see freedom licentiousness (licentia, licenza), 35, 88, 96, 99, 107, 121, 144, 254 Linehan, Peter, 146n2 Lines, David A., 19n29 Lintott, Andrew W., 25n48, 101n54, 214n55 Lioi, Renato, 85n1 Livy, Titus, 7, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 32n18, 33, 34, 37, 38, 40, 40n35, 42, 44, 44n44, 45, 48n52, 50, 51n62, 52n71, 55, 56, 57n85, 58, 59, 59n87, 60, 62, 63, 73n132, 74, 77n144, 80n150, 82n155, 83, 86, 86n9, 101, 102, 103, 103n59, 104, 105, 105n66, 107, 108t3.1, 109, 109n75, 110, 111, 113, 113n82, 115, 118, 133, 140, 140n50, 143, 144, 149n13, 149n9, 154n26, 160n33, 161, 162, 163n41, 185n11, 186, 189, 190, 191, 194, 195n32, 198, 205n41, 207n46, 209n50, 210, 213n53, 215, 216–​19, 218n67, 223, 226, 231 Lobrano, Giovanni, 55n79 Lockwood, Thornton, 153n23 Lodi, Peace of, 171, 173 Lonie, Iain M., 81n154 Loraux, Nicole, 12n3, 22n40, 24, 24n47, 25, 25n50, 68, 68n113, 221–​23, 221n2, 221n5, 222n8, 223n9, 224, 250n96 Losurdo, Domenico, 241n64 Lotman, Jurj, 143n58 Lowenthal, David, 179n85, 235n46 Lowrie, Michèle, 78n146 Luce, T.J., 40n35 Lucius Fenestella, see Fiocchi, Andrea Lucretius Carus, Titus, 4, 96, 96n42, 166, 166n49 De rerum natura, 96n40 Lüdemann, Susanne, 78n146 luxury, see opulence (luxuria) Luzzati, Michele, 85n1 Lycurgus, 43, 78, 82, 82n157, 83, 118, 121n9, 123, 147, 153, 154n26, 168, 177n79, 178n80, 189 Lysander, Spartan king, 20 Lysias, 214 Mably, Gabriel Bonnot de, 7, 32, 240 Des droits et des devoirs du citoyen, 179n85, 238, 239, 239n59 Observations sur les Romains, 237

273 McClelland, John S., 2n1, 64n101, 235n47 McCormick, John P., 5, 5n13, 6, 44n42, 57n83, 60n89, 62n92, 64, 64n101, 78, 78n146, 80, 80n151, 109n74, 115n90, 141n51, 141n52, 142n54, 173, 173n63, 173n65, 174, 238n52, 252, see also Populist interpretation McDonald, Alexander Hamilton, 73n132 McKenzie, Lionel, 237n52 Macedonia, 209 Macek, Josef, 244n78 Machiavelli’s theory of conflict, interpretations of anti-​bureaucratic/​anti-​totalitarian interpretation, 4, 247–​50, see also Lefort, Claude; Wood, Neal anti-​tyrannical interpretation, 230–​33 baroque interpretation, 53, 228–​30 constituent interpretation, 4–​5, 42n40, 83, 252, 254, see also Del Lucchese, Filippo liberal interpretation, 245–​47 Marxist interpretation, 244–​45 parliamentary interpretation, 63–​64, 233–​35 populist interpretation, 4, 5–​6, 6n14, 141n52, 252, see also McCormick, John P. radical interpretation, 236–​40 Machon, Louis, 7 Apologie pour Machiavelle, 230, 230n29 Macrobius, Ambrosius Theodosius Saturnalia, 86 Maestri, Delmo, 14n14 Maffei, Raffaele, 146n3, 186 Commentarii Urbani, 113n82 De institutione christiana, 67n108 Maffei, Scipione, 20n32 magnati, 12, 108, 129, 132, 133n37, 136, 176 Magnette, Paul, 145n1 Maire-​Viguer, Jean-​Claude, 68n110 Maksimovskij, Vladimir Nikolaevich, 244n78 Malvezzi, Virgilio, 7, 32, 228, 230, 234, 235 Discourses upon Cornelius Tacitus, 228–​29, 229n22, 229n25 Mandeville, Bernard de, 252 Manlius Capitolinus, Marcus, 95n35, 201 manners, see mores Manni, Domenico Maria, 85n1 Mansfield, Harvey C., 34n21, 57, 61n90, 72n129, 115n92, 123n10, 137n44, 167n51, 172n61, 184n4, 207n46 Mantovani, Alessandra, 62n94

274

274 Manville, Philip Brook, 153n22 Marat, Jean-​Paul, 232 Marcellinus, Marcus Geganius, 103 Marcellus, Marcus Claudius, 86, 88 Marchand, Jean-​Jacques, 36n25, 101n55, 111n78, 135n39, 226n15 Marcus Antonius, 42, 183n2 Marietti, Marina, 109n74 Marius, Gaius, 20, 22, 41, 73, 87, 95n35, 138 Marsilius of Padua Defensor pacis, 15n17, 51n63, 97n45 Martelli, Mario, 34n21 Martellotti, Guido, 92n27 Martin, James, 246n84 Martin, Paul M., 189n22 Martindale, Don, 4n9 Martines, Lauro, 12n3, 56n80 Marx, Barbara, 159n32 Marx, Karl, 4, 5, 8, 9, 242, 242n68, 244, 245, 250, 253f7.1 Das Kapital, 245, 248 Marxism, 3, 5, 8, 50, 63, 244, 245, 247, 248, 249, 250, 252, 253, 253f7.1, 254, see also communism; Leninism mass, see people (popolo) matter (materia), 49, 51, 53, 54, 73, 95, 95n35, 100, 106, 172n61 Matteucci, Nicola, 58n86, 103n58, 115n90, 247n87 Matucci, Andrea, 70n120 Mayville, Luke, 232n35 means (mezzo), 1, 54, 54n78, 60, 79, 79n147, 80, 83, 101, 127, 160, 182, 192, 241, see also mode, way Medici, Cosimo de’, 109, 116 Medici, family, 35, 37, 60, 69, 70, 77, 105, 112, 112n80, 116n93, 124, 216, 241 Medici, Giovanni de’, Cardinal, 77 Medici, Lorenzo de’, 116, 176 medicine, 37, 48, 74, 76n140, 80, 80n152, 81, 82, 97, 124n19, 141, 175, 182, 207n44, see also purgation; surgery Mehus, Lieven, 114n87, 186n14 Meinecke, Friedrich, 33n20 Meloni, Giovanni, 113n82 menace, see threat Menenius Agrippa, Marcus, 50, 50n61, 51, 197, 206, 207, 208 Ménisser, Thierry, 3n5 Menzinger, Sara, 146n2 Merleau-​Ponty, Maurice, 249, 251n100 Merula, Giorgio, 186 Meserve, Margaret, 15n17

General Index Mesnard, Pierre, 244n79 Messalla Corvinus, Marcus Valerius, 40 Metellus, Quintus Caecilius, 86 Metius Fufetius, Alban king, 210, 211, 212 metus civilis, 111, 115, 115n91, 116, see also fear (metus) metus hostilis, 89, 90, 92, 93, 94–​95, 94n34, 95n37, 102, 103, 103n59, 104, 105, 107n73, 108t3.1, 109, 110, 110n77, 115, 116, 139n47, 182, 201, 205, 255 Carthage and, 89, 93, 100, 104, 168 Tarquins and, 107, 194, 196 Micipsa, 15 Micipsa’s motto, 15, 15n17, 16, 16f1.1, 17, 17f1.2, 21, 22, 36, 229 middle class (mediocres, medii, mediani), 105n69, 120, 127–​28, 129, 130, 131, 134, 135, 144 mighty (grandi), 5, 36, 37, 49, 50n58, 52, 60, 69, 74, 76, 78, 81, 83, 84, 98, 99, 99n49, 109, 111, 112, 116, 117, 118, 121, 122, 125n23, 126, 131, 132, 133, 133n37, 134, 136, 137–​39, 139n49, 142, 142n56, 147, 163, 195, 205, 240, 253, see also aristocrats; patricians Miglio, Massimo, 185n13, 217n63 Mignone, Lisa M., 55n79 Milan, 104 Milani, Giuliano, 67n109 Miles, Gary B., 103n59 militia, see army, popular Millar, Fergus, 44n42, 187n19, 188n21 Miller, Basia Carolyn, 203n38, 235n47 Milton, John, 7 Commonplace book, 231, 231n31 Mineo, E. Igor, 66n107, 129n30 Minghetti, Marco, 242n66 mirror for princes, 24, 92 misfortune, see fortune Miskimin, Harry A., 68n110 Mita Ferraro, Alessandra, 89n21 Mitarotondo, Laura, 246n82, 246n83 Mitchell, Richard E., 55n79 mixed constitution (governo misto, mikté), 7, 35, 42–​43, 43n40, 44, 47, 48, 48n51, 48n54, 111–​12, 119–​24, 120n7, 124n18, 125, 128, 128n26, 133, 134, 135, 163, 168, 170, 172, 181, 183, 184, 184n5, 185, 187, 188–​89, 192–​93, 194, 197, 202f6.2, 204t6.1, 213, 213n53, 216, 251n100 aristocratic mixed constitution, 123, 182, 205–​6, 213, see also mixed constitution; Sparta; Venice

275

General Index popular mixed constitution, 125, 126, 182, 190, 213, see also mixed constitution; Rome Rome, 35, 43, 147–​48, 168, 182–​83, 189, 196, see also popular mixed constitution Sparta, 35, 122–​23, 147–​48, 167, see also aristocratic mixed constitution United States, 233 Venice, 147–​48, 166–​67, see also aristocratic mixed constitution Moatti, Claudia, 148n8 mode (modo), 51, 52, 54, 54n76, 57, 57n82, 58, 62, 69, 73, 75, 75n138, 80, 95, 107, 109, 116, 125, 151, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 173, 176, 188, 197, 198, 210, 223, 227, 244, 251, 254, 256, see also way, means extra-​ordinary mode (modo extra-​ordinario), 38, 58, 59, 61–​62, 61n90, 62n95, 72, 75, 76, 80, 83, 182, 198, 201, 255 ordinary mode (modo ordinario), 58, 59, 61–​62, 61n90, 62n95, 72, 76, 79, 80, 109, 182, 198, 201, 255 modernity, political, 4, 25, 31, 32, 33, 34n21, 53, 97n46, 101, 124, 193n30, 218, 221, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 242, 244, 247, 248, 252, 254 moderns, 21, 33, 37, 41, 59, 84, 133, 144, 214, 223, 224 Molho, Anthony, 111n78, 130n32 Molinari, Julius, 239n55 Mollat, Michel, 52n67 Momigliano, Arnaldo, 12n3, 29n8, 30n11, 31n13, 148n8, 170, 170n55, 184, 184n6, 185n12, 218, 218n66, 247, 247n86 Monfasani, John, 184n8 Montaigne, Michel de, 32n18 Montesquieu, Charles-​Louis de Secondat, 7, 32, 101, 185, 227, 234, 235n45, 236, 237, 239, 242, 248, 254 Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans, 179, 179n85, 179n86, 228, 235, 235n46 Persian Letters, 234 The Spirit of the Laws, 124, 180, 188, 203n38, 235, 235n47 Monti, Antoine, 104n63 Mora, Fabio, 188n20, 215n56 morality, see mores Moralium dogma philosophorum, 15 More, Thomas, 245 Utopia, 167

275 mores, 21, 23, 29, 32, 54, 75, 81, 84–​88, 89, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 95n35, 98, 100, 101, 104, 107, 116, 150, 152, 156, 159, 160, 188, 192, 194, 195, 199, 201, 208, 215, 217, 218, 240, 241, 243, 255 mos maiorum, 85, 86, 94, 100 Morfino, Vittorio, 166n48, 233n36 Morosini, Domenico De bene instituta republica, 155n27 Mortstein-​Marx, Robert, 64n102 Moscovici, Serge, 251n98 Moscow, 250 Moses, 71 Moss, Ann, 15n19 Moudarres, Andrea, 112n81, 213n53 Mouffe, Chantal, 69n115, 251n99 Moulakis, Athanasios, 12n3 Moyle, Walter, 7, 32, 178, 178n82 Essay upon the Constitution and Government of the Roman State, 236, 236n49 Muir, Edward, 159n32 multitude, see people (popolo) Muratori, Ludovico Antonio, 30n9, 87n14, 152n21, 185n9 Murray, Oswyn, 242n66 Musculus, Wolfang, 43n41 Mussolini, Benito, 246 Musti, Domenico, 129, 129n28 Najemy, John M., 15n15, 26n52, 29n5, 50n60, 68n112, 109n74, 111n79, 141, 141n53, 142n54, 147n5 Nardi, Jacopo, 29 Istoria della città di Firenze, 29n4 necessity (necessitas, necessità), 73, 75, 79, 82, 96, 96n44, 98, 107, 110n77, 138, 140, 165, 167, 172, 195, 205, 220, see also fear (metus); law (lex); metus civilis; metus hostilis; oath; poverty; site; threat Nederman, Cary J., 50n60, 146n2, 183n3, 225n11 Nedham, Marchamont, 7, 178n82, 231, 232, 236 The Excellencie of a Free State, 231, 231n32 Negri, Toni, 4, 5n11, 42n40, 77n143, 253f7.1 Nelson, Eric, 76n139, 78, 78n146, 82n158 Neville, Henry, 178n82, 236n49 Niccolini, Enrico, 14n14 Nicholas V, Pope, see Parentuccelli, Tommaso Nicolet, Claude, 77n141, 163n41 Niebuhr, Barthold Georg, 213 Nippel, Wilfried, 120n7, 203n38, 214n55

276

276 nobility, nobles, see aristocrats Noé, Eralda, 191n28, 197n34 Norbanus, Gaius, 183n2 Numa Pompilius, Roman king, 109, 165, 168, 191, 213n53 Nussbaum, Martha, 24n44 Nutton, Vivian, 81n154 O’Keeffe, Dennis, 2n1 oath, 70, 96, 105, 199, 222 objective, see aim (fine) ochlocracy, 139, 184, 204t6.1, see also licentiousness (licentia) Ogilvie, Robert Maxwell, 214n54 oligarchy, 35, 119, 120, 128, 129, 129n27, 130, 184, 192, 204t6.1, 208, 258 Olschki, Leo, 34n21 opulence (luxuria), 85, 86, 86n9, 87, 88, 97, 100 Ordinances of Justice (Ordinamenti di giustizia), 108, 109, 140, 176 Orient, see Asia Orosius, Paulus, 35 Historiae, 91n25 Ortelius, Abraham Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 15n17 Orti Oricellari, 29, 37, 87, 173 Osmond, Patricia, 133n36 ostracism, 106, 106n72 Otto di Guardia, 60, 118 Oz-​Salzberg, Fania, 203n38, 236n48 pact, social, see contract, social Palmer, Ada, 166n49 Palmieri, Matteo, 52, 56, 97, 136, 149 De captivitate Pisarum, 89n21 Vita civile, 12n4, 21, 24n45, 51n64, 52n68, 54n77, 56n81, 62n94, 67n108, 68n111, 82n155, 84n1, 96n44, 97, 97n45, 100n51, 130n33, 136n42, 149n12, 156n31, 163n38, 164n44 Pampaloni, Guido, 14n8, 16n21 Panella, Emilio, 51n63, 97n45 Panofsky, Erwin, 90n22 Panou, Nikos, 61n91 Parel, Anthony J., 48, 48n53, 49n57, 81, 124n18, 167n52 Parenti, Piero Storia fiorentina, 70, 70n120, 70n123 Parentuccelli, Tommaso, 185, 216 Paret, Peter, 174n67 Paris, 184, 232n35, 238 Park, Katharine, 81n154 parliament, 231, 246

General Index parliamentarization, 49n54, 251n101, see also juridicization Parson, Jotham, 119n5 Parsons, Talcott, 4n9 Parte Guelfa, 67, 119 party (parte, setta, intelligenza), 1, 2, 11, 12, 12n3, 15, 18, 20, 26, 40, 56, 59, 62, 62n95, 62t2.2, 63, 66–​69, 68n112, 68n113, 70, 70n123, 72n129, 72n130, 75, 84, 89, 91, 109, 128, 129, 135, 137, 155, 158, 171, 174, 175, 193, 196, 211, 234, 234n41, 237, 240n61, 248, 251, 255 Paruta, Paolo, 178 Discorsi politici, 178, 178n80 Pascal, Catherine, 76n140 Pasquini, Emilio, 119n6 passions, 12, 23, 23n43, 26, 54n78, 90, 91, 96, 97, 97n45, 100, 139, 141, 226n15, 234, 237, 249, see also fear (metus); desire Pastore-​Stocchi, Manlio, 159 Pastorius, Joachim, 7, 230, 234, 235 Palestra nobilium, 230, 230n27 Paterculus, Velleius, 42 Historiae, 40 patricians, 2, 3, 36, 39, 40, 44, 47, 48n51, 50, 54, 55, 56, 63, 77, 77n144, 81, 90, 103, 105, 110, 113, 115, 119, 122, 132, 135, 137, 139, 141, 142, 156, 163, 170, 175, 176, 181, 182, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 201, 202f6.2, 204t6.1, 205, 206, 207, 211, 227, 228, 230n29, 235n45, 239, 242, 243, 247, 250, 251, 255, see also aristocrats; mighty (grandi) Patrizi of Cherso, Francesco Dialoghi della istoria, 181 Patrizi, Francesco, 15, 18, 18n28, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 29, 52, 74, 76n139, 82, 97, 121, 132, 133, 161, 162, 168, 179n86 De institutione reipublicae, 15n18, 18, 20, 21, 23, 25, 29, 29n7, 30n10, 47, 49n56, 52, 57n84, 57n85, 62n94, 67n108, 74, 78n145, 82, 84n1, 85n4, 94n33, 97n45, 104n65, 106n72, 114n86, 121n9, 130–​31, 132, 133, 136n43, 139, 139n48, 156–​58, 156n31, 164n42, 186, 186n15, 209n49 De regno, 13n6, 15n18, 18, 62n94, 86n8, 100n51, 114n85, 186n15, 214n55 Patterson, Frank Allen, 231n31 Paul II, Pope, see Barbo, Pietro Pavan, Diego, 18n28, 57n84, 106n72 peace, external, 12, 55, 70, 89, 93, 103, 104, 106, 109, 149, 151, 152, 162, 167n52, 168, 207, 224, 236, 238

27

General Index peace, internal, see civic concord peacemaking, 12, see also amnesty pedagogy, see education (educazione, institutio) Pedullà, Gabriele, 18n27, 18n28, 31n15, 36n23, 36n24, 47n49, 50n61, 57n84, 61n91, 83n161, 86n6, 102n56, 106n72, 112n81, 166n48, 175n70, 185n10, 191n27, 201n37, 226n15 Peil, Dietmar, 229n24 Pelopidas, 209 Peloponnesus, 79 people (popolo), 6, 13, 19, 30, 33, 36, 38, 40, 43, 44, 46, 48, 49, 49n56, 50n58, 52, 53, 55, 56, 57, 57n82, 58, 59, 63, 63n99, 66, 67, 69, 72, 75, 75n137, 76, 77, 78, 80, 81, 82, 83, 89, 90, 94, 98, 99, 99n49, 102, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 112, 113, 117, 118, 121, 122, 125, 125n23, 126, 131, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137–​39, 139n46, 139n49, 140, 141, 141n51, 142, 142n56, 143, 144, 144n59, 147, 154n25, 155, 161, 163, 164, 172, 175, 176, 179, 182, 183, 188, 190, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 199, 201, 202f6.2, 203, 204t6.1, 205, 206, 206n42, 207, 211, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 236, 238, 239, 240, 245, 245n81, 246, 249, 253, see also plebs Perrault, Guillaume, 15 Summa virtutum et vitiorum, 15 Perrotti, Niccolò, 184 Pesman Cooper, Roslyn, 70n122, 111n79 Peters, Edward, 68n110 Peterson, David Spencer, 146n2 Petrarch, Francesco, 35, 85, 92, 93 De remediis utriusque fortunae, 22n40, 57n85, 76n139, 78n145, 79n147, 93 De viris illustribus, 57n85, 92n27 Familiares, 15n17, 47n49, 57n85, 76n139, 85n3, 92n27, 93 Rerum memorandarum libri, 52n70, 76n139, 92n27, 93n28 Seniles, 76n139 Petrina, Alessandra, 231n30 Petronio, Ugo, 146n2 Petronius Arbiter, Gaius Satyricon, 20n31 Phaleas of Chalcedon, 97 Phillip IV, king of Spain, 229 Philo the Jew, 33 Philostratus, Flavius, 183 De vita Appoloni Tyanei, 183n2 Phocylides, 127

277 Piccinni, Gabriella, 146n2 Piccolomini, Enea Silvio, 18, 36 Commentarii, 15 De ortu et auctoritate Imperii Romani, 97n45, 114n85 Pictor, Fabius, 185 Piedmont, 246 Pieri, Piero, 148n6, 172n59 Piga, Claudio, 85n4 Piganiol, André, 55n79 Pii, Eluggero, 227n16 Pisa, 94, 104 Pisistratus, tyrant of Athens, 139 Pissavino, Paolo, 51n65 Pittacus, 189 Pius II, Pope, see Piccolomini, Enea Silvio Pizzorno, Alessandro, 247n87 Plaisance, Michel, 70n121 Platina, Bartolomeo, 21, 22, 76n139, 97, 149 De optimo cive, 13n6, 62n94, 67n108, 69n113, 97, 97n45, 100n52, 106n72 De principe, 22n36, 76n139, 149n10 Plato, 7, 23, 24n44, 33, 66, 78n145, 79, 120, 139n48, 153, 177n79, 184n5 Laws, 51n66 Republic, 19, 24n47, 105 pleasure (voluptas, piacere), 38, 87, 97, 98, 100 plebeians, see plebs plebs, 1, 2, 4, 11, 35, 36, 40, 41, 43, 44, 44n42, 46, 47, 48n51, 52, 54, 55, 56, 63, 64, 64n102, 65, 73, 75, 76, 77, 81, 102, 103, 105, 106, 107, 115, 117, 119, 122, 130, 131, 132, 134, 134n37, 135, 137, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 147, 150n13, 156, 157, 161, 163, 163n41, 164, 170, 175, 176, 181, 182, 183, 191, 192, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 201, 202f6.2, 204t6.1, 205, 206, 207, 208, 211, 227, 228, 235n45, 239, 242, 243, 247, 250, 251, 255, 258, see also people (popolo) Pliny the Elder, 86 Naturalis historia, 86n9 Plutarch, 32n18, 36, 42, 76n139, 78, 79, 80, 82, 183, 186, 209n50 Agesilaus, 183n2 Comparison of Agis and Cleomenes and the Gracchi, 79n148, 82n157 How to Profit by One’s Enemy, 91 Lycurgus, 82n157 Marcus Cato, 91 Romulus, 149n9 Sayings of Kings and Commanders, 19 Tiberius Gracchus, 40

278

278 Po, river, 60, 151 Pocock, John G.A., 3, 4n7, 5, 25n51, 32n17, 48n54, 78n146, 82n158, 123, 123n12, 123n13, 125n24, 179n83, 180n87, 203n38, 227, 231n30, see also Cambridge School Poddighe, Elisabetta, 153n23 Pokrovskij, Mikhail Nikolaevich, 244n78 Poland, 7 Polhenz, Max, 189n24 polis, 128, 129, 152, 154, 158, 161, 164, 178, 179, 217, 221, 222 political order, 2, 8, 49, 64, 227, 242, 254 artificial competitive order, 252 artificial consensual order, 7, 224–​25, 250, 252 conflictual order, 226–​27, 253f7.1, 255 natural consensual order, 7, 224, 250, 252, 253f7.1 Poliziano, Angelo, 186 Miscellanea, 28 Polizzotto, Lorenzo, 70n122, 71n126 Polverini, Leandro, 55n79 Polybius, 43, 44, 44n42, 48n51, 96n42, 106, 114, 120, 185, 187, 187n18, 187n19, 188n21, 189, 193, 194, 203, 204, 204n39, 213, 214, 218 Histories, 43, 44, 106, 114n88, 120, 122, 139, 162n36, 167n50, 183–​85, 187, 188, 194, 219 Poma, Gabriella, 148n8, 208n47 Pompeius Magnus, Gnaeus, 20, 42, 73, 86, 88, 114 Pontano, Giovanni, 18, 96n42 De liberalitate, 79n147 De magnanimitate, 76n139 De sermone, 62n94 Poole, Thomas, 178n82 poor (inopes, pauperes, abiecti), 51, 52, 107, 119, 122, 127, 128, 129, 132, 205, 208, 255, see also poverty popolani, 12, 66, 70n123, 132, 133n37, 163n40 populace, see people (popolo) Porta, Giuseppe, 57n85 Portoghesi, Paolo, 52n69 poverty, 85, 107, 110n77, 129, 150, 165, 197, see also poor (inopes, pauperes, abiecti) pratiche, 14n8, 15, 163n38 princely rule, 12, 13, 16, 30, 34, 35, 36, 37, 43, 46, 53, 82, 83, 88, 90, 91, 95, 96, 96n41, 102, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 115n90, 116, 120, 121, 123, 128, 139n46, 143, 144n59, 154, 159, 161n34,

General Index 168, 171, 172, 175n70, 179, 184, 188, 189, 190, 190f6.1, 191, 192, 192n29, 193, 198, 199, 200, 204n39, 204t6.1, 218, 229, 230, 232, 234, 236, 240 Procacci, Giuliano, 125n21, 244n77 Procaccioli, Paolo, 14n14 Prodi, Paolo, 71n124, 96n43, 119n6 proscription, list of, 42, 62t2.2, 87, 91, 238 prudence (prudenza), 7, 29, 30, 54, 73, 74, 76, 76n140, 77, 116, 161, 165, 201 Prudentius, Aurelius Clemens Psychomachia, 23 Ptolemy of Lucca, 149, 164n42 De regimine principum, 97n45, 149n10 Pufendorf, Samuel, 185 Pult Quaglia, Anna Maria, 146n2 purgation, 51, 51n64, 52, 53, 53n72, 58, 61, 63, 80n149, 83, 92, 97, 107, 182, 195, 206, 252, see also humors, venting of the Pythagoras, 23 Quaglioni, Diego, 119n6, 146n2, 164n42 Quint, David, 114n89 Quirini, Lauro, 23, 29, 97, 121, 129, 156, 158, 160, 161, 162 De nobilitate, 155–​56, 155n27, 155n29 De republica, 21, 23, 23n42, 29, 29n6, 86n6, 121n9, 130n32, 154–​55, 154n26 Quondam, Amedeo, 21n33, 21n35, 31n15 Raab, Felix, 230n30 Raffarin, Anne, 113n84 Rahe, Paul A., 34n21, 98n46, 174n68, 231n30, 232n35 Raimondi, Ezio, 36n25 Raimondi, Fabio, 5n12, 175n71 Ramelli, Ilaria, 89n20 Ranalli, Ferdinando, 242n66 Rancière, Jacques, 223n9 Raskolnikov, Mouza, 77n141 Ratti, Stéphane, 149n9 Ravegnani, Giorgio, 23n42, 29n6, 86n6, 121n9, 154n26 Raviola, Blythe Alice, 177n77 Reale, Mario, 189n26 Rebhorn, Wayne, 139n49 Recanato, Giovanni Battista, 104n61, 171n57 Rees, Edward Arfon, 242n67, 244n78 Regent, Nikola, 82n158, 82n159, 174n67, 180n87 religion, 3, 10, 29, 71–​72, 80, 90, 96, 96n42, 110, 111, 112, 182, 188, 241, see also fear (metus) of God

279

General Index Renaudet, Augustin, 77n142, 219n68 republican rule, 3, 10, 13, 14, 15n16, 18, 20, 30, 36, 37, 38, 39, 41, 43, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62n95, 64n100, 64n100, 65, 72, 77, 80, 84, 85, 88, 95, 96, 97, 99, 102, 104, 105, 106, 106n71, 106n72, 107, 109, 110, 111, 112, 112n80, 114, 114n89, 115, 115n90, 116, 119, 121, 122, 124, 125, 126, 127, 134, 136, 137, 138, 142, 148, 153, 155, 158, 159, 161, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 172, 173, 174, 179, 180, 183, 187, 189, 190, 191, 198, 199, 201, 203, 205, 209, 211, 226, 228, 231, 235, 237, 238, 239, 241, 244, 245, 245n81, 250, 252, 253, 256, 257, 258 revolution, 5, 45, 49, 77n141, 153, 172, 195 American, 232, 232n35 English, 231, 233 French, 8, 221, 232, 238, 240n61, 241, 250 Soviet, 244 Spanish, 240n61 Reynolds, Beatrice, 33n19, 216n61 Rhegium, 158 Ricciardelli, Fabrizio, 67n109 rich (opulenti, divites), 49n56, 119, 122, 127, 128, 132, 139, 142, 206, 255, see also mighty (grandi); patricians Richelieu, Armand-​Jean Du Plessis de, Cardinal, 230 Rico, Francisco, 22n37 Ridley, Ronald T., 74n136 Ridolfi, Roberto, 215n58 Riesenberg, Peter, 145, 145n1, 146, 146n2 Rinaldi, Rinaldo, 183n2, 185n9 Rinuccini, Alemanno Dialogus de libertate, 106n72 Lettere e orazioni, 15n17 Ripa, Cesare, 20 Iconologia, 20n32 rise and fall of States, 31, 84, 85, 88, 90, 172, 177, 187 Ritter, Joachim, 241n63 Robbins, Caroline, 178n82, 236n49 Robespierre, Maximiliene de Report on the Principles of Public Morality, 240n61 Robey, David, 121n9, 159n32 Robin, Corin, 98n46 Rodolico, Niccolò, 136n41 Rogers, Cliff J., 172n59 Romano, Vincenzo, 71n125 Romans, 2, 7, 14, 20, 21, 25, 31, 34, 37, 43, 48n54, 50, 57n85, 60, 63, 74, 75n137,

279 79, 85, 86, 87, 88, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 100, 103, 104, 105, 105n66, 108t3.1, 110, 112, 113, 115, 119, 136, 140, 143, 144, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 154, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160n33, 162, 168, 168n53, 170, 173, 179, 187, 191, 195, 196, 196n33, 198, 199, 200, 200n35, 205, 208, 209, 210, 211, 214, 215, 217, 218, 222, 223, 224, 239, 257 Romanticism, 33, 33n20, 34, 185, 213, 241 Rome, 1, 4n8, 6, 7, 11, 19, 22, 23, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, 40n34, 42, 43, 43n40, 44, 44n42, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 53, 54, 54n75, 55, 56, 57, 57n82, 58, 58n86, 59, 63n99, 65, 67, 73, 74, 75, 75n137, 76, 77, 79, 80, 83, 84, 85, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 94n34, 95, 95n35, 100, 103, 104, 105, 107, 109, 110, 112, 113, 114, 114n89, 115, 115n92, 116, 116n94, 119, 122, 123, 125, 134, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 143, 144, 145, 147, 148, 149, 149n9, 150, 152, 154, 155, 156, 158, 159, 160, 160n33, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 167n51, 168, 170, 171, 172n61, 173, 175, 176, 177, 177n79, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 189, 190, 190f6.1, 191, 192, 193, 193n31, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 201, 202f6.2, 203, 204, 205, 206, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 217, 218, 227, 228, 229, 230n29, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 239, 244, 247, 249, 253, 254, 255, 257, 258 anti-​Roman tradition, 41, 93 Romulus, 34, 42, 43, 110, 148, 149, 150, 151, 155, 156, 158, 159, 160, 164, 165, 177n79, 187, 188, 188n21, 189, 189n23, 189n26, 190f6.1, 191, 192, 193, 194, 202f6.2, 204t6.1, 208, 210, 212, 216, 223 Roob, Helmut, 155n27 Rosa, Mario, 239n55 Rosenblum, Nancy L., 72n129 Rosenstein, Nathan, 64n102 Rosenthal, Raymond, 11n1 Rossi, Andreola, 41n36 Rossi, Giancarlo, 85n4 Roudaut, François, 76n140 Rousseau, Jean-​Jacques, 5, 7, 8, 32, 141, 173, 238, 240, 242, 245, 245n81 Emile, 173n66 The Social Contract, 5n13, 65, 173n66, 203n38, 237, 237n52, 238, 238n53 Rubinstein, Nicolai, 14n8, 19n29, 70n122, 129n29, 135n40, 159n32

280

280 Rucellai, Bernardo, 86, 87, 87n13, 88, 88n18, 152, 161, 162, 185n9, 186 De Urbe Roma, 30n9, 49n56, 87, 87n14, 152n21, 163n39, 185n9 ruin, 22, 40n34, 54, 59, 62, 66, 76, 77, 96, 106, 109, 116, 138, 140, 167, 168, 180, 209, 217, 235, 239, 247, 253, 256, see also rise and fall of States Russell, Camilla, 50n61 Saavedra Fajardo, Diego de, 7, 230, 234, 235 Idea de un Príncipe Político Christiano representada en cien empresas, 229, 230n27 Sabellico, Marcantonio, 161, 162, 183, 185n9, 218n67 Enneades, 186 Exempla, 52n69, 69n113, 94n32, 183n2 Rerum Venetarum libri, 159–​60, 160n33 Sacchetti, Franco, 14, 14n12 Trecentonovelle, 14n12, 136n41 safety, public, see common good (bene comune) Saint-​Bonnet, François, 113n82 Sallustius Crispus, Gaius, 15, 15n20, 16, 17, 20n31, 22, 29, 33, 54n78, 85, 86, 89, 89n19, 90, 93, 104, 105, 106, 108t3.1, 126, 133n36 Bellum Iugurthinum, 15, 47, 54n78, 89, 93, 94, 100, 103, 140 De coniuratione Catilinae, 62n95, 85, 88, 149n9, 183n2 Epistulae ad Caesarem, 85 Historiae, 90, 118n2 Salmon, John H.M., 173n62 Salutati, Coluccio, 129, 130n32 De Tyranno, 13n6 Samaras, Thanassis, 153n23 Sansovino, Francesco, 7, 228n20 Dialogo della pratica della ragione, 228, 228n19 Sardinia, 209 Saro, Georges, 159n32 Sartorello, Luca, 228n19 Sasso, Gennaro, 3n5, 36n23, 41n38, 48n51, 62n93, 77n142, 94n34, 111n79, 114n89, 123n11, 148n7, 164n45, 177n76, 183n2, 184n4, 197n34, 209n50, 213n53 Saturninus, Lucius Apuleius, 45n46 Saville, George, Earl of Halifax, 7, 233, 236 The Character of a Trimmer, 233, 233n38 Savonarola, Girolamo, 26n52, 35, 59, 70, 70n123, 71, 72, 72n128, 72n129, 129, 143, 143n58, 145 Compendium totius philosophiae, 130n32

General Index Prediche sopra Amos e Zaccaria, 71n125 Prediche sopra Ruth e Michea, 71n125 Treatise on the Constitution and Government of Florence, 15n17, 164n42 Scafuro, Adele C., 153n22 Scala, Bartolomeo, 186 De historia Florentinorum, 186n17 Scali, Giorgio, 53n72 Schadee, Hester, 61n91 Schiavone, Aldo, 177n77 Schmidt-​Wiegand, Ruth S., 229n24 Schmitt, Carl, 67n109, 203n38, 243, 243n74, 253f7.1 Schmitt, Charles B., 21n35 Schmückle, Karl, 244n78 scholasticism, 12, 24, 27, 28, 72, 95, 150, 154 Schwartz, Edward, 213 Scipio Africanus Maior, Publius Cornelius, 57, 57n85, 86, 90, 93, 93n29, 162 Scipio Nasica, Publius Cornelius, 91, 92, 93, 93n29, 102, 139, 139n47, 177 Scott, Jonathan, 178n81, 231n30 Scuccimarra, Luca, 112n81, 201n37 Scultety, Steven C., 25n48 secessio, 55, 55n79, 57, 61, 62t2.2, 63, 64, 83, 107, 181, 182, 192, 206, 254, 255 sect, see party (parte, setta, intelligenza) self-​government, see Republican rule Sempronius Tuditatus, Gaius, 105n68 senate, Roman, 1, 35, 36, 38, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 44n42, 46, 55, 58, 61, 63, 63n99, 65, 75, 76, 80, 89, 91, 102, 107, 113, 125, 137, 151, 155, 161, 182, 188, 189, 189n23, 190, 192, 193, 194, 195, 200, 202f6.2, 203, 211, 212, 255, 258 senate, Spartan, 118, 123, 188, 189n23 Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, 7, 15, 31, 81, 222 De clementia, 96 De ira, 81 Epistulae, 15n20, 22, 23n43, 165n46 Senellart, Michel, 3n5 Seno, Carlo, 23n42, 29n6, 86n6, 121n9, 154n26 Servius Tullius, Roman king, 209, 212, 212n52 Seston, William, 148n8 Settia, Aldo A., 56n80 Seyssel, Claude de Grand monarchie de France, 184 Sfez, Gérald, 124n18 Sforza, Ludovico, Duke of Milan, 60 Shackleton, Robert, 234n44 Shakespeare, William, 11 A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 228

281

General Index Shaw, Christine, 70n121 Sheerts, Alexander, 114n89 Sherwin-​White, Adrian Nicholas, 148n8 Shklar, Judith N., 235n46 Sices, David C., 72n127, 163n37 Sicily, 196, 209, 257 Sidney, Algernon, 7, 32, 178, 178n81, 203n38, 231, 232, 236, 248 Discourses Concerning Government, 231, 232n33 Siena, 14, 18, 130 Signoria, 71 Silvano, Giovanni, 70n121, 125n20, 215n59 Simmel, Georg, 243, 243n72, 253f7.1 Sociology, 220, 242, 243n69 Simonetta, Marcello, 15n17 Sinclair, Thomas A., 128n25 Siraisi, Nancy G., 49n55, 81n154 site, 110n77, 149n9, 154, 155, 160n33, 165–​66, 168, 187, 205 Sixtus V, Pope, 216 Skinner, Quentin, 3, 4n8, 5, 15n17, 19, 19n29, 21n35, 25n51, 44n42, 49n54, 63, 63n98, 63n99, 64, 69, 69n116, 69n117, 69n118, 98n46, 101, 101n53, 123, 123n14, 145n1, 174n67, 227, 233n39, 252n103, see also Cambridge School Sluga, Hans, 34n21 Smalley, Beryl, 13n5 Smith, Adam, 69n117, 252 The Wealth of Nations, 252n103 Smith, Leonardo, 13n5, 136n43 Soderini, Piero, 37, 60, 60n88, 83, 83n161, 111 Solon, 136, 158, 189 Sordi, Marta, 89n20 Sorel, George, 244 soul, 12, 22, 23, 24, 32, 48, 87, 88, 92, 96, 97, 100, 238 Spain, 7, 151, 171, 209 Sparta, 35, 43, 73n133, 78, 79, 82, 83, 120, 122, 123, 136, 137, 139, 147, 148, 151, 153, 160, 161, 162, 162n36, 163, 164, 166, 167, 168, 177, 177n79, 179, 180, 181, 183, 189, 189n23, 205, 206, 208, 209, 210, 213, 215, 230n29 Spartacus, 158 Spartans, 20, 78, 138, 161, 162, 188, 191, 199, 208, 209 Speckenbach, Klaus, 229n24 Speroni, Sperone Dialogo della Discordia, 20n32, 27

281 Spinoza, Baruch, 4, 5 Tractatus politicus, 233n36 Spurius Maelius, 201 Stacey, Peter, 83n160, 135n39 Stäel, Germaine de, 56n80 Corinne, 56n80 standard-​bearer (gonfaloniere), 109n74 standard-​bearer of justice (gonfaloniere di giustizia), 37, 71, 111 Starn, Randolph, 125n21 Staroselskij, Yakov Vladimirovich, 244n78 stásis, 24, 43n40, 147, 221, 222, 235, see also tumults, civil war State, 2, 7, 10, 13, 16, 19, 21, 23, 25, 30, 31, 35, 37, 39, 45, 46, 49, 50, 52, 54, 58, 78, 79, 81, 84, 85, 87, 88, 89, 91, 95, 96, 101, 102, 103, 105, 106, 115, 116, 120, 121, 124, 127, 128, 130, 132, 144, 147, 150, 152, 153, 154, 157, 161, 162, 164, 167, 168, 170, 171, 172, 174, 175, 176, 177, 180, 184, 187, 192, 194, 196, 197, 205, 206, 211, 212, 213, 223, 225, 226, 233, 234, 235, 237, 241, 243, 244, 245, 246, 247, 249, see also commonwealth Stefani, Marchionne di Coppo, 136 Cronaca fiorentina, 136n41 Stephens, John, 133n36 Sternberger, Dolf, 223n9 Stewart, Pamela D., 2n3, 39n32 stoicism, 90 Stone, Harold Samuel, 203n38, 235n47 Stourzh, Gerald, 232n35 Strabo, 185 Strasser, Normann, 227n18 Stråth, Bo, 145n1 Strauman, Benjamin, 214n55 Strauss, Leo, 3, 3n6, 5, 31, 31n14, 34n21, 61n90, 96n44, 97, 97n46, 99n49, 99n50, 167n51, 172, 172n61, 173, 223n9, 227, 253f7.1 Strozzi, family, 93 Stuart Mill, John, 9 Suetonius, Gaius, 30 Sulla, Lucius Cornelius, 20, 41, 73, 85, 87, 88, 95n35, 113, 200 Sullivan, Mary Elizabeth, 183n3 Sullivan, Vickie B., 167n51, 231n30, 233n39 Sulpicius Rufus, Publius, 45, 45n46 surgery, 81, 81n154, 82, 83, 182, See also medicine suspicion, see fear (metus) Swiss, 102, 172

28

282 Switzerland, 172 Symcox, Geoffrey, 178n80 Syracuse, 86, 139, 143, 144 Tabet, Xavier, 101n55, 241n62 Tacitus, Publius Cornelius, 30, 85, 88n18, 152, 154, 157, 158, 161, 230 Annales, 151, 152n20, 168, 212 Historiae, 85n5 Tallett, Frank, 172n59 Tanzini, Lorenzo, 109n74 Taranto, Domenico, 120n7 Tarquin Superbus, Lucius, Roman king, 39, 193, 194, 196 Tarquins, 36, 39, 48, 107, 108, 110, 125 Tarski, Alfred, 34n21 Tasso, Torquato, 178 Discorso intorno alla sedizione nata nel regno di Francia l’anno 1585, 178n80 Tateo, Francesco, 76n139 Tedeschi, John A., 111n78, 130n32 terror, see fear (metus) the few, see mighty (grandi) the many, see people (popolo) Thebans, 208, 209 Thebes, 209, 210 Themistocles, 21 Thrasybulus, 222 threat external, 19, 55, 55n79, 56, 89n21, 93, 95, 97n46, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 116, 118n3, 154n25, 166, 175, 243, 251, 255, see also metus hostilis internal, 1, 44, 51, 53, 55, 56, 58, 69, 83, 92, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 101, 104, 107, 110n77, 113, 142, 158, 164, 174, 194, 203, 204t6.1, 254, 257, see also metus civilis Thucydides, 129, 185, 186 Tierney, Brian, 146n2 Timpanaro, Sebastiano, 8, 8n15 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 242 Notes sur Machiavel, 242n68 Tommasini, Oreste, 242n66 Tongiorgi, Ezio, 85n1 Torquatus, Titus Manlius, 61 totalitarianism, 5, 246, 249, 250 Tran, Trung, 76n140 Trenchard, John, 7, 233, 236 Cato’s Letters, 233n39 Trexler, Richard C., 38n30 trials, popular, 5, 47, 57, 57n84, 58–​59, 58n86, 60, 61, 62n92, 62t2.2, 63, 64, 64n101, 67, 79, 99, 106, 107, 108, 110,

General Index 115, 116, 140, 170, 175, 182, 194, 195–​ 96, 197, 201, 204t6.1, 205, 246, 251, 254, 255 tribunate of the plebs, 5, 5n13, 6, 36, 39, 41, 42, 43, 43n40, 44, 47, 47n50, 48, 50, 55, 57, 57n85, 58, 61, 62, 63, 64n101, 74, 78, 99, 103, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 110n77, 112, 113, 114n88, 115, 115n90, 115n91, 117, 118, 119, 123, 125n24, 131, 138, 140, 142, 144, 163n41, 166, 173, 175, 181, 182, 183, 190, 191, 192, 193, 193n31, 194, 195, 195n32, 196, 197, 200, 201, 202f6.2, 203, 204t6.1, 205, 207, 216, 230n29, 239, 251, 255 Trim, David J. B., 172n59 Troiani, Lucio, 191n28 Trompf, Garry W., 187n18, 214n55 Tullus Hostilius, Roman king, 210, 211, 212 Tully, James, 64n101 tumults, see also civil strife; civil war, stásis aims of, 74–​83, 182, 252 bloodless, 1, 54, 55, 61, 62t2.2, 80, 83, 99n50, 110, 116, 117, 144, 175, 182, 183, 197n34, 211, 223, 252 bloody, 38, 54, 61, 62, 62t2.2, 66, 67, 73, 75, 91, 234 causes of, 24, 25, 38n29, 41, 62, 68n112, 74, 75, 95, 102, 117, 126, 138, 139, 161, 162, 205 naturalness of, 2, 7, 26, 48n52, 49n56, 50, 53, 54, 58, 69, 197, 220, 226, 230n29, 243 positive effects on the institutions of, 1, 6, 7, 36, 42, 47, 48, 53, 54, 75, 83, 99, 117, 175, 176, 196, 220, 227, 244, 247, 251 positive effects on the patricians’ behavior of, 1, 60–​61, 83, 182 positive effects on the plebs’ behavior of, 1, 52–​53, 83, 182, 197, 252 Turin, 246, 247 Tuscans, 14, 151 Tuscany, 13, 104 tyranny, 2, 35, 47, 61n91, 79n147, 80n149, 84, 87, 95, 95n35, 96, 105, 107, 114, 118, 125, 127, 128, 134, 159, 175, 179, 184, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 198, 199, 200, 201, 204t6.1, 222, 233, 233n36, 236, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 245n81 Udovitch, Abraham L., 68n110 Ullmann, Walter, 67n110 United Kingdom, 7, 179 United States, 6, 7, 64n101, 232, 243n73, 250, 258n108

283

General Index Urbinati, Nadia, 36n23, 112n81, 201n37 Usher, Stephen, 215n56 Uzzano, family, 105 Uzzano, Niccolò da, 171 Vaglienti, Piero Apologia, 85n1 Storia dei suoi tempi, 84n1 Valerius Maximus, 29, 33, 36, 42, 215 De dictis factisque memorabilibus, 40 Valerius Potitus, Lucius, 52n71, 102 Valerius Publicola, Publius, 192, 193, 194, 197, 201, 202f6.2, 207n44 Valla, Lorenzo De vero falsoque bono, 135n40 Vallerani, Massimo, 146n2 Valori, Francesco, 35, 59, 71 van Gelderen, Martin, 174n67, 233n39 Varanini, Gian Maria, 13n5 Varela Suanzes-​Carpegna, Joaquin, 233n37 Vatter, Miguel, 5n11, 64n101, 77n142 Vecellinus, Spurius Cassius, 95n35 Vegetius Renatus, Flavius, 36, 257 Vegetti, Mario, 221n2 Velleius Patercolus, Marcus Historiae romanae, 91 Venetians, 92, 138, 156, 160, 160n33, 161, 161n34 Venice, 11, 34, 36, 57n84, 123, 129, 136, 137, 139, 147, 148, 154n26, 155, 155n27, 156, 158, 159, 160, 160n33, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 165n47, 166, 167, 168, 170, 176, 177, 179, 181, 205, 206, 209, 212, 213, 215, 216, 228 Vergara, Camila, 36n23, 112n81, 201n37 Vergerio, Pier Paolo, 121 De monarchia, 13n5, 136n43 De republica veneta, 121n9 Vergilius Maro, Publius, 186 Aeneis, 149 Vermuth, Christian, 17f1.2 Vespasian, Titus Flavius, Roman emperor, 87n12 Vespasiano da Bisticci, 93 Le vite, 76n139, 93n29 veto, right of (intercessio), 5, 44, 62, 63, 182, 202f6.2, see also tribunate of the plebs Vettori, Francesco, 97 Sommario della istoria d’Italia, 14n14 vice (vitium, vizio), 23, 24, 25, 29, 71, 81, 86, 89, 90, 91, 93, 96, 100, 108t3.1, 137, 139, 142, 234 Vico, Giambattista, 245 The New Science, 181

283 Villani, Giovanni, 14, 66, 95n37 Nuova cronica, 14, 38n30, 57, 66, 66n106, 69n114 Villani, Matteo Cronica, 136n41 Villari, Pasquale, 242n66 Vincenti, Umberto, 214n55 Viroli, Maurizio, 4n8, 64n100, 123, 123n17, 173n62, 237n52, see also Cambridge School virtue (virtus, virtù), 4, 5, 23, 23n43, 25, 29, 36, 37n26, 39, 48, 68n112, 76, 78, 78n145, 81, 82, 87, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 97n46, 98, 99, 100, 101, 104, 104n65, 106, 115, 130, 131, 132, 133, 137, 139, 141, 144, 150, 150n13, 152n20, 157, 158, 160, 162, 165, 176, 180, 192, 200, 209, 211, 217, 218, 219, 232, 234, 238, 249 Visconti, Gian Galeazzo, Duke, 104 Visigoths, 87 Viti, Paolo, 76n139, 85n5, 130n32, 163n40 Vivanti, Corrado, 39n33, 241n62 Voegelin, Eric, 223n9 Voltaire (Aroue, François-​Marie), 234 von Fritz, Kurt, 55n79, 120n7 von Gumplowicz, Ludwig, 243n73 von Hayek, Friedrich, 251n100 von Savigny, Friedrich Carl, 213 Vox Plebis, 228 Walbank, Frank W., 43n41 Waldman, Louis A., 47n49, 109n74 Waley, David, 15n16 Walsh, Peter G., 109n75 war, 3, 6, 7, 13, 14, 21, 27, 29, 37, 39, 40, 40n34, 41, 43, 44, 48n52, 55, 56, 68n111, 86, 91, 92, 94, 102, 103, 104, 105, 105n66, 106, 109, 114, 132, 140, 147, 149, 151, 161, 162, 167, 168, 170, 171, 172, 174, 179, 182, 185, 187, 188, 193, 194, 199, 204t6.1, 205, 207, 208, 209, 210, 212, 217, 218, 221, 223, 224, 231, 238, 239, 243, 256, 257 Ward, Lee, 231n30 Washington, 180 Watkins, Renee Neu, 15n17, 164n42 way (via), 59, 75n138, 107, 116, 162 wealth, 19, 20, 77, 82, 85, 88, 94, 97, 100, 127, 129, 130, 132, 139, 182, 192, 197, 205, 212 redistribution of wealth, 1, 40, 74, 77, 80, 179, see also agrarian laws Wear, Andrew, 81n154 Weed, Ronald, 25n48

284

General Index

284 Weil, Simone, 242n68 Weinstein, Donald, 70n122, 71n124 Weiss, Roberto, 29n8 West, Thomas G., 178n81, 232n33 Whelan, Frederick G., 234n41 White, Sherwin, 148n8 Wiater, Nicolas, 189n25, 196n33 Wicht, Bernard, 148n6 Wilson, James, 180 Lectures on Law, 180n88 Wiseman, Timothy Peter, 41n36 Witt, Ronald G., 15n15, 15n17, 130n32, 191n27 Wolin, Sheldon S., 98n46, 177n78 Wood, Neal, 2n2, 3n5, 4, 89, 89n20, 103n59, 174n67, 181n1, 244n79, 248–​50, 248n88, 249n93, 250n97, 253f7.1, see also anti-​ bureaucratic/​anti-​totalitarian interpretation

Wooton, David, 178n82 Worden, Blair, 178n82, 231n30, 231n32 Xenophon, 7, 78n145 Xerxes, Persian emperor, 21 Yack, Bernard, 25n48 Yacobson, Alexander, 64n102 Zancarini, Jean-​Claude, 42n39, 71n125, 72n129, 101n55, 226n15 Zanzi, Luigi, 81n153 Zara, Antonio, 55n79 Zardin, Danilo, 51n65 Zeffi, Francesco, 184, 184n7 Zephirus, Franciscus, see Zeffi, Francesco Zorzi, Andrea, 13n5, 66n107, 147n4 Zwierlein, Cornel, 32n16