CHAPTER LII

TO REPRIMAND THE INSOLENCE OF A POWERFUL ONE WHO SPRINGS UP IN A REPUBLIC, THERE IS NO MORE SECURE AND LESS TROUBLESOME WAY THAN TO FORESTALL HIM THOSE WAYS BY WHICH HE COMES TO POWER

It will be seen from the above written discourse, how much credit the Nobility had acquired with the Plebs because of the demonstrations made to their benefit, both by the stipends ordered, as well also as the method of imposing the tributes. If the Nobility had maintained themselves in this order they would have removed every cause for tumult in that City, and this would have taken away from the Tribunes that credit which they had with the Plebs, and consequently their authority. And, truly, there cannot exist in a Republic, and especially in those that are corrupt, a better method, less troublesome and more easily opposed to the ambitions of any Citizen, than to forestall him those ways by which he observes to be the paths to attain the rank he designates. Which method, if it had been employed against Cosimo De’Medici, would have been a much better procedure for his adversaries than to have driven him out of Florence: for if those Citizens who were competing against him had taken his style of favoring the People, they would have succeeded without tumult and without violence in drawing from his hands the arms which he availed himself of most.

Piero Soderini had made a reputation for himself in the City of Florence alone by favoring the General Public; this among the People gave him the reputation as a lover of liberty in the City. And certainly it would have been an easier and more honest thing for those Citizens who envied him for his greatness, [and] less dangerous and less harmful to the Republic, for them to have forestalled him in the ways by which he made himself great, than to want to oppose him in such a way that with his ruin, all the rest of the Republic should be ruined; for if they had taken away from his hands those arms which made him strong (which they could have done easily) they could have opposed him in all the councils and all the public deliberations boldly and without suspicion. And if anyone should reply that if those Citizens who hated Piero made an error in not forestalling him the ways with which he gained reputation for himself among the People, Piero also made an error in not forestalling him those ways by which his adversaries made him be feared: for which Piero merits to be excused, as much because it was difficult for him to have done so, as also because it was not honest for him: For the means with which he was attacked were to favor the Medici, with which favors they beat him and, in the end, ruined him. Piero, therefore, could not honestly take up this part in order that he could destroy that liberty by his good name, to which he had been put in charge to guard: Moreover, these favors not being able to be done suddenly and secretly, would have been most dangerous for Piero; for whenever he should be discovered to be a friend of the Medici, he would have become suspect and hated by the People: whence there arose more opportunities to his enemies to attack him than they had before.

In every proceeding, therefore, men ought to consider the defects and perils which it [presents], and not to undertake it if it should be more dangerous than useful, notwithstanding the result should conform to their decision: for to do otherwise in this case it would happen to them as it happened to Tullius [Cicero], who, wanting to take away the favors from Marcantonio, increased them for him: for Marcantonio having been judged an enemy of the Senate, and having gathered together that great army in good part from the soldiers who had been followers of Caesar’s party, Tullius, in order to deprive him of those soldiers advised the Senate to give authority to Octavian and send him with the army and the Consuls against him [Antony] and join the latter [Octavian], and thus Marcantonio remaining bereft of favor, would easily be destroyed. Which [thing] turned out to the contrary, for Marcantonio won over Octavian to himself, who, leaving Tullius and the Senate, joined him. Which [thing] brought about the complete destruction of the party of the Aristocracy [Patricians]. Which was easy to foresee, and that which Tullius advised should not have been believed, but should have kept account always that name which, with so much glory, had destroyed his enemies and acquired for him the Principality of Rome, and they ought never to have believed they could expect anything from his supporters favorable to liberty.