CHAPTER XXVI

A NEW PRINCE IN A CITY OR PROVINCE TAKEN BY HIM OUGHT TO ORGANIZE EVERYTHING ANEW

Whoever becomes Prince either of a City or a State, and more so if his foundations are weak, and does not want to establish a civil system either in the form of a Kingdom or a Republic, [will find] the best remedy he has to hold that Principality is (he being a new Prince) to do everything anew in that State; such as in the City to make new Governors with new titles, with new authority, with new men, [and] make the poor rich, as David did when he became King, who piled good upon the needy, and dismissed the wealthy empty-handed. In addition to this he should build new Cities, destroy old ones, transfer the inhabitants from one place to another, and in sum, not to leave anything unchanged in that Province, [and] so that there should be no rank, nor order, nor status, nor riches, that he who obtains it does not recognize it as coming from him; he should take as his model Philip of Macedonia, father of Alexander, who, by these methods, from a petty King became Prince of Greece. And those who write of him tell how be transferred men from Province to Province, as the Mandrians [Shepherds] move their sheep. These methods are most cruel and hostile to every system of living, not only Christian, but human, and should be avoided by every man; and he should want rather to live as a private individual than as a King at the [expense of the] ruin of men. None the less, he who does not want to take up the first path of good, must, if he wants to maintain himself, follow the latter path of evil. But men take up certain middle paths which are most harmful, for they do not know how to be entirely good or entirely bad, as the following chapter will show by example.