Re-reading under our would-be prince president, Tacitus got him exactly right: "It's easier to revenge an injury than to repay a benefit, because gratitude weighs like a burden, while vengeance results in profit."(p.198, n1)

Machiavelli says Sparta lasted 800 years, whereas the republic of Athens, barely a century. But the Athenians fought fiercely for their liberty, because even a good prince does not improve the common good. Even if a good prince arises ("un tiranno virtuoso"), who grows his dominion, nothing results for the public, but for himself alone (280).

On the other hand, it is marvelous to consider how Rome grew as a republic, the reason being simple: "perché non il bene particulare ma il bene comune è quello che fa grandi le città," because it was not solitary ownership but profit in common that makes cities great (280).

Other exact parallels with our US tyrant, on how corruption can be maintained, Discorsi Book I, Ch XVIII. "Because it's not people with more ethics (virtu) but those with more power who ask appointment to public office, magistrates, while the ethical and powerless do not ask, for fear"(180).

As for Il Principe, see the most famous chapter, Ch XVII, On pity and fear, "an sit melius amari quam timeri," whether it is better for a leader to be loved or feared. He answers, best to be both, but if you can only be one, "è molto piú sicuro essere temuto che amato," better feared than loved, because man are ungrateful, complaining, simulators, fleeing from danger, desiring money, and while you do them good, they are yours, but if you fall off a bit, they revolt. But lay off their property, for "l'uomini sdimenticano piú presto la morte del padre che la perdita del patrimonio," men forget more quickly the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony (70).

By the way, no academic freedom back then, as Machiavelli was imprisioned 7 Dec 1512 a couple months after Medici partisans occupied the Palazzo and ended the Republic of Florence. Like Athens, the Florentine Republic lasted less than a century. Machiavelli was suspected of participating in the Boscoli conspiracy, and imprisoned in February and March 1513-- and tortured. Released with the election of Cardinal de Medici as Pope. (No academic freedom outside of the Catholics, either, in the 1570's, when Giordano Bruno was jailed by the Calvinists in Geneva for publishing a critique of a professor's talk. Religious equal-opportunity.)

*Bought this in Italian, Feltrinelli, after a Tony Molho lecture while in his NEH post-doc seminar at Brown U, 13x79. ( )

I just read The Prince, and not the Discourses, and I've read it before, but this is a truly complicated, compelling work that I love and would highly recommend to anyone. ( )

I just read The Prince, and not the Discourses, and I've read it before, but this is a truly complicated, compelling work that I love and would highly recommend to anyone. ( )

I just read The Prince, and not the Discourses, and I've read it before, but this is a truly complicated, compelling work that I love and would highly recommend to anyone. ( )

I just read The Prince, and not the Discourses, and I've read it before, but this is a truly complicated, compelling work that I love and would highly recommend to anyone. ( )