CHAPTER LI

A REPUBLIC OR A PRINCE OUGHT TO FEIGN TO DO THROUGH LIBERALITY, THAT WHICH NECESSITY CONSTRAINS THEM

Prudent men always make the best of things in their actions, although necessity should constrain them to do them in any case. This prudence was well employed by the Roman Senate when they decided that a public stipend be given to the fighting men, it having been the military custom of they maintaining their own selves. But the Senate seeing that war could not be made for any length of time in this manner, and, because of this, they could neither besiege towns nor lead armies to a distance, and judging it to be necessary to be able to do the one and the other, decided that the said stipends be given: but they did it in such a way that they made the best of that which necessity constrained them to do; and this present was so accepted by the Plebs, that Rome went upside down with joy; for it seemed to them to be a great benefit which they never hoped to have, and which they would never have sought by themselves. And although the Tribunes endeavored to cancel this decree, showing that it was something that aggravated and not lightened the burden (it being necessary to impose tributes to pay this stipend), none the less they could not do much to keep the Plebs from accepting it: which was further increased by the Senate by the method by which they assigned the tributes, for those that were imposed on the Nobles were more serious and larger, and the first [required] to be paid.