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CHAP. XXV.
To attempt a City full of intestine divisions, and to expect to carry it thereby, is uncertain and dangerous.
THe divisions in the Commonwealth of Rome were so great betwixt the People and the Nobility, that the Veientes and Hetrusci, taking the opportunity, conspired its destruction, and having raised an Army, and harrassed their whole Country, the Senate sent out G. Manlius, and M. Fabius against them; whose Army encamping near the Enemy, were so provoked by the insolence of their language, that the Romans laid aside their private animosities, and coming to a Battel overthrew them; by which we may ob∣serve how easily we erre in our Counsels, and how we lose things many times the same way by which we intended to gain them. The Veientes thought by assaulting the Romans whilst they were embroil'd in their intestine divisions, they should certainly overcome them; and their invading them at that time, united the Enemy, and ruined themselves; and not without reason, for the occasion of discord and faction in a Commonwealth is idleness, and peace; and there is nothing unites like apprehension, and War. So that had the Veientes been wise as they should have been, they should have forborn making War upon them at that time, and have tryed other artificial ways to have destroyed them. The surest way is to insinuate, and make your self a Mediator betwixt them, and to take upon your self the arbitration, rather than they should come to blows. When it is come to that, you are privately and gently to supply the weaker side; to foment and continue the War, till they consume one another; but be sure your supplies be not too great, lest both parties begin to suspect you, and believe your design is to ruine them both, and make your self Prince. If this way be well managed, it will certainly bring you to the end which you desired; for when both sides are weary, they will commit themselves to your arbitration. By these Arts, the City of Pistoia returned to its dependance upon Florence; for labouring under intestine divisions, the Florentines favouring first one side, and then the other (but so slily that no occasion of jealousie was given to either) brought them both in a short time to be weary of their distractions, and throw themselves unanimously into their arms. The Government of the City of Siena had never been changed by their own domestick dissentions, had not the Florentines supplied both parties under-hand, and fomented them that way, whereas had they appeared openly and above board, it would have been a means to have united them. I shall add one example more, Philip Visconti Duke of Milan made War many times upon the Florentines, hoping by the dissentions of the City to have con∣quered them the more easily, but he never succeeded. So that complaining one time of his misfortunes, he had this Expression, The follies of the Florentines have cost me two millions of Mony, to no purpose. In short, as the Veientes and Tuscans found themselves in an error (when they thought by help of the differences in Rome, to have mastered the Romans) and were ruined themselves for their pains. So it will fare with whoever takes that way to oppress or subvert any other Government.