CHAPTER XXXI

STRONG REPUBLICS AND EXCELLENT MEN RETAIN THE SAME COURAGE AND DIGNITY IN ANY FORTUNE

Among the other admirable things that our historian has Camillus say in order to show how an excellent man ought to be constituted, he puts these words in his mouth: My Dictatorship neither gave me courage, nor did my exile diminish it. By which words it is seen how great men are always the same in any fortune; and if it should change, exalting him now, oppressing him then, he does not change but always keeps his courage, and this is joined with his way of living so that everyone easily knows that fortune does not have power over him. Weak men conduct themselves otherwise; for becoming vain and inebriated by good fortune, they attribute all the good that they obtained to that virtu which they will never know: Whence it arises that they become unbearable and odious to all those who are around them. And when there is a sudden change of fortune, as soon as they come face to face with the cause, they come quickly into that other defect, and become vile and abject. From which it happens that Princes thus constituted, in adversity, think more of fleeing than of defending themselves, like those who, for having ill used that good fortune, are unprepared for any defense [against a reverse]. This virtu and this vice which I say are found in an individual, are also found in a Republic, and in example there are the Romans and the Venetians.

No ill fortune ever made the Romans become abject, nor did good fortune ever make them become insolent, as was manifestly seen after the defeat they experienced at Cannae, and after the victory they obtained against Antiochus: for this defeat, although it was most grave for having been the third one, never made them cowardly, but sent out new armies: they did not want to go against their institutions by ransoming their prisoners, nor did they send to Hannibal or Carthage to seek peace: but keeping out all these abject thoughts, they thought always of [continuing] the war, arming old men and slaves for want of men. When this thing became known to Hanno, the Carthaginian, (as was said above) he pointed out to that Senate how little account they [the Romans] took of the defeat at Cannae. And thus it is seen that times of difficulty did not dismay them or render them humble. On the other hand, prosperous times did not make them insolent; for when Antiochus, before they had come to the battle with them, and in which he had been defeated, sent ambassadors to Scipio seeking an accord, [and] Scipio gave him certain conditions for peace, which were that he should retire inside Syria, and leave the rest [of the country] to the control of the Romans: Which accord Antiochus refused, and coming to battle, and losing it, he again sent ambassadors to Scipio with the commission that they should accept all those conditions which were given them by the victor: to whom he [Scipio] did not propose other terms than those which he had offered before he he had won, adding these words: The Romans do not lose their courage when defeated, nor become insolent when they win.

The opposite of this was seen to be done by the Venetians, who, in good fortune (which they seemed to think they gained by that virtu which they did not have), had come to such insolence that they called the King of France a son of Saint Mark, they did not respect the Church, nor recognize any other [power] in Italy, and had presupposed in their minds the creation of an empire similar to the Roman one. Afterwards, when good fortune abandoned them, and they suffered a partial defeat at Vaila at the hands of the King of France, they not only lost all their State by rebellion, but, through cowardice and abjection of spirit, gave a good part [of their territory] to both the Pope and the King of Spain, and were so demoralized that they sent ambassadors and made themselves tributary to him, and wrote letters full of humility and submission to the Pope in order to move him to compassion. To which infelicity they came in four days, and after only a partial defeat; for their army, after having fought, in the retreat about half of it was attacked and beaten, so that only one of the Proveditori who saved himself, arrived in Verona with more than twenty five thousand soldiers, both horse and foot. So that if there had been any kind of virtu in Venice and in their institutions, they could easily have reorganized and shown a new face to their fortune, and would have been in time either to have won or lost more gloriously, or to have obtained a more honorable accord. But the baseness of their spirit, caused by the bad quality of their military organization, made them lose at a single blow their courage and their State. And thus it will always happen to whoever is governed as they were; for this becoming insolent in good fortune, and abject in bad, arises from your mode of procedure and from the education in which you are raised, which, when they are weak and vain makes you likewise, but when it has been otherwise, makes you also otherwise; it will make you know the world better, less joyful in good fortune, and less depressed in bad [fortune]. And that which is said of an individual, is said also of the many who live in a Republic, and who will perfect themselves according to the manner in which they live there.

And although at another time it has been said that the foundation of all States is a good military organization, and that where this does not exist there cannot be any good laws or any other good thing, it does not appear superfluous to me to repeat it; for the necessity of this is seen to appear at every point in the reading of this history; and it is seen that the military organization cannot be good unless it is disciplined, and that it cannot be done unless it is composed of your subjects. For a State is not always at war, or can be: therefore it must be able to train troops in times of peace, and this cannot be done with others except subjects on account of the expense. Camillus had gone out with the army (as we said above) against the Tuscans, and his soldiers, having seen the size of the enemy army, were all dismayed, as they deemed themselves inferior and unable to sustain their [enemy’s] attack. And this bad disposition of the troops coming to the ears of Camillus, he showed himself outside, and going about the camp, he spoke to this soldier and that one, and then without making any change in arrangements, he said: What every man has learned and is accustomed to do, let him do it. And whoever considers these circumstances well, and the words he said to reanimate them to go against the enemy, will realize that he could neither say nor do any of those things to the army, unless it had first been organized and trained both in peace and in war. For a Captain cannot trust those soldiers who have not learned to do anything or believe that they will do anything well. And if a new Hannibal were to command them, he yet would be ruined; for a Captain (while the engagement is going on) cannot be in every place, and unless he has first disciplined them to have the same spirit as himself, and trained them well in his method of proceeding, of necessity it must happen that he be ruined. If, therefore, a City would be armed and organized as Rome, and its citizens every day both privately and publicly are required to make a test of their virtu and the power of fortune, it will always happen that they will maintain the same courage and dignity as the Romans under similar conditions. But if they are disarmed and rely only on the vagaries of fortune, and not on their own virtu, they will change with changes of fortune, and will give of themselves the same example as the Venetians had given.