CHAPTER XIII

THAT ONE COMES FROM THE BOTTOM TO A GREAT FORTUNE MORE BY FRAUD THAN BY FORCE

I believe it to be a most true thing that it rarely or never happens that men of little fortune come to high rank without force and without fraud, unless that rank to which others have come is not obtained either by gift or by heredity. Nor do I believe that force alone will ever be found to be enough; but it will be indeed found that fraud alone will be enough; as those will clearly see who read the life of Philip of Macedonia, that of Agathocles the Sicilian, and many such others, who from the lowest, or rather low, fortune have arrived either to a Kingdom or to very great Empires. Xenophon shows in his life of Cyrus this necessity to deceive, considering that the first expedition that he has Cyrus make against the King of Armenia is full of fraud, and that he makes him occupy his Kingdom by deceit and not by force. And he does not conclude anything else from such action except that to a Prince who wants to do great things, it is necessary to learn to deceive. In addition to this, he made Cyraxes, King of the Medes, his maternal uncle, to be deceived in so many ways, without which fraud he shows that Cyrus could not have achieved that greatness he attained. Nor do I believe anyone will ever be found of such fortune to have arrived at great Empire only by force and ingenuity, but indeed only by fraud, as did Giovanni Galeazzo in order to take away the State and Dominion of Lombardy from his uncle Messer Bernabo. And that which Princes are obliged to do at the beginning of their expansions, Republics are also obliged to do until they have become powerful so that force alone will be enough. And as Rome used every means, either by chance or by election, necessary to achieve greatness, she did not also hesitate to use this one [fraud]. Nor could she, in the beginning, use greater deceit than to take up the method discussed above by us to make associates for herself, because under this name she made them her slaves, as were the Latins, and other surrounding people. For first she availed herself of their arms to subdue the neighboring peoples and to take up the reputation of the State: after subduing them, she achieved such great expansion that she could beat everyone. And the Latins never became aware that they were wholly slaves until they saw two routs of the Samnites and [saw them] constrained to come to an accord. As this victory greatly increased the reputation of the Romans with the distant Princes, who heard the Roman name and not their arms, generating envy and suspicion in those who saw and felt those arms, among whom were the Latins. And so much was this envy and so powerful this fear, that not only the Latins, but the colonies they had in Latium, together with the Associates who had been defended a short time before, conspired against the Roman name. And the Latins began this war in the way mentioned above that the greater part of wars are begun, not by assaulting the Romans, but by defending the Sidicians against the Samnites, against whom the Samnites were making war with the permission of the Romans. And that it is true that the Latins began the war because they had recognized this deceit, is shown by T. Livius through the mouth of Annius Setinus, a Latin Praetor, who in their council said these words: If even now under the pretext of equal confederates, we can suffer servitude, etcetera.

It will be seen, therefore, that the Romans in their first expansions did not also lack using fraud; which has always been necessary for those to use who, from small beginnings, want to rise to sublime heights, which is less shameful when it is more concealed, as was this of the Romans.