CHAPTER XXIX

THAT THE FAULTS OF THE PEOPLE ARISE FROM THE PRINCES.

Princes should not complain of any fault that is committed by the People who are under their authority, for such faults result either from their negligence or because they are stained by similar faults. And whoever discusses those people who in our time have been given to robberies and similar faults, will see that these arise entirely from those who govern them, who were of a similar nature. The Romagna, before those Lords who ruled her were crushed by Pope Alexander VI, was an example of all the most criminal life, as here a great many killings and robberies were seen to happen for any slight reason. Which resulted from the wickedness of the Princes, and not from the wicked nature of men, as was said. For those Princes being poor, but wanting to live as rich men, were forced to turn themselves to many robberies and employ various methods in doing them. And among the other dishonest means they employed, they made laws and prohibited some activities, then they were the first who give cause for their non-observance, and they never punished the non-observers except when they saw there were many others guilty of the same, and then they turned to punishing them, not from any zeal for the law which was enacted, but from the cupidity [for money] expected from commuting the penalty. Whence many evils arose; and, above all of them, that the people were impoverished without being corrected, and those who were impoverished endeavored to make good [their losses] from those less powerful. Whence all those evils sprung up that were mentioned above, of which the Prince was the cause. And that this is true, T. Livius shows when he narrates, how, when the Roman legates brought the gift of the booty of the Veienti to Apollo, they were seized by the corsairs of Lipari in Sicily, and carried to that land. And Timastheus, their Prince, learning what gift this was, where it was going, and who was sending it, conducted himself (although born in Lipari) as a Roman, and showed his people how impious it was to seize such a gift. So that by general consent, he allowed the Legates to go with all their things. And the words of the historians are these: Timasitheus implanted religion in the multitude, who always imitate their rulers. And Lorenzo De’Medici in confirmation of this opinion says:

And that which the Lord does, many then do,
Whose eyes are always turned on their Lord.