CHAPTER XXVII

TO PRUDENT PRINCES AND REPUBLICS, IT OUGHT TO BE ENOUGH TO WIN, FOR OFTEN IT IS NOT ENOUGH IF THEY LOSE

The use of dishonorable words against an enemy arises most of the times from the insolence that victory, or the false hope of victory, gives you; which false hope makes men err not only in their words, but also in their deeds. For when this [false] hope enters the hearts of men, it makes them go beyond the mark, and often lose that opportunity of obtaining a certain good, hoping to obtain an uncertain better. And because this is a matter that merits consideration, this deception that exists in men and very often causing damage to their State, it appears to me it ought to be demonstrated in detail by ancient and modem examples, as it cannot be so clearly demonstrated by arguments. After Hannibal and defeated the Romans at Cannae, he sent his ambassadors to the Carthaginians to announce the victory and request their support. This was discussed in the Senate as to what should be done. Hanno, an old and prudent Carthaginian Citizen advised that they should use this victory wisely in making peace with the Romans, for, having won, they were able to do so with more favorable conditions than they would expect [to make them] after a defeat; for the intentions of the Carthaginians ought to be to show the Romans that it was enough for them in combatting them, to have obtained a victory for themselves and not to seek to lose it in the hope of a greater one. This proceeding was not taken, but later when the opportunity was lost, it was well recognized by the Carthaginian Senate to have been a wise one. After Alexander the Great had already conquered all the Orient, the Republic of Tyre (noble and powerful in those times for having their City situated on water like the Venetians), seeing the greatness of Alexander, sent ambassadors to tell him they wanted to be his good servants and to render him that obedience he wanted, but that they were not ready to accept him or his forces in their land. Whereupon Alexander, indignant that a City should close those doors that all the world had opened to him, rebuffed them, and, not accepting their conditions, went to besiege them. The town was situated in water and very well supplied with provisions and the other munitions necessary for defense, so that Alexander saw after four months [of siege] that taking the City would take away more time and glory from him that many other acquisitions had not taken away, decided to try for an accord and concede to them that which they themselves had asked. But those people of Tyre having become haughty, not only did not want to accept the accord, but killed whoever came to present it. At which Alexander being indignant, he exerted himself with so much strength to its extinction that he took and destroyed it, and killed or made slave its people. In the year 1502 a Spanish army came into the Florentine dominion to reinstate the Medici in Florence and to tax the City, they being called there by its Citizens who had given them hope that, as soon as they had entered the Florentine dominion, they would take up arms in their favor; and having entered the plain and not discovering anyone, and having a scarcity of provisions, they attempted an accord: which the people of Florence, having become haughty, did not accept; when there resulted the loss of Prato and the ruin of that State [Florence]. Princes who are attacked cannot make a greater error, therefore, especially when the assault is made by men who are far more powerful than they, than to refuse any accord, and especially when it is offered; for it would never be offered so harshly that it will not be in some way good for those who accept it, and they will in a way have obtained a part of the victory. For it should have been enough for the people of Tyre that Alexander had accepted those conditions which he at first refused, and it should have been a great enough victory for them that they had with arms in hand made so great a man condescend to their will. It should also have been enough for the Florentine people, and it would have been a great victory for them, if the Spanish army had yielded in something to their will, and not fulfill all things of theirs, for the intention of that army was to change the State in Florence, to take it away from its attachment to, France, and extract money from it. If of the three things, they [Spaniards] should have obtained the last two, and there should have remained to the [Florentine] people the first, that of saving their State, there would have remained within each one some honor and satisfaction and the people ought not to have cared for the other two things, as long as they existed free; nor ought they (even if they should have seen a greater and almost certain victory) to have wanted to put any part of it [their liberty] to the discretion of fortune, as this was their last resource, which no prudent man would ever risk except from necessity.

Hannibal departed from Italy where he had been for sixteen glorious years, recalled by the Carthaginians to succor his own country; he found Hasdrubal and Syphax broken, the Kingdom of Numida lost, Carthage restricted between the confines of its walls, and no other refuge remaining but he and his army: and knowing that this was the last resource of his country, he did not want to place it in jeopardy without first having tried every other remedy, and was not ashamed to ask for peace, judging that if his country had any remedy, it was in it [peace] and not in war; which afterwards having been refused, he did not hesitate to combat (and to be defeated), judging he might have [a chance to] win, or if he lost, to lose gloriously. And if Hannibal who had so much virtu and had his army intact, sought peace first rather than a battle, when he saw that losing it his country would be enslaved, what ought someone else with less virtu and less experience than he do? But men make this error of not knowing where to place the limits to their hopes, and by relying on these without otherwise measuring their resources, they are ruined.