Machivael's [sic] discourses upon the first decade of T. Livius, translated out of the Italian. To which is added his Prince. With some marginal animadversions noting and taxing his errors. By E.D.

CHAP. XVII.

A disorderly people, getting their liberty, cannot keep themselves free without very great diffi∣culties.

I think it necessarily true, that either the Kings were to be expelled out of Rome, or else Rome it self would have grown feeble and of no worth; for considering how ex∣ceedingly the Kings were corrupted, if after that rate two or three successions had follow∣ed, and that corruption that was in them had distended it self throughout the members, so that they likewise had received of the cor∣ruption, it had been impossible ever to have re∣formed it. But losing the head when the body was sound, it might easily be reduced to a free and orderly government. And this should be presupposed for certain, that a de∣baucht City living under a Prince, though that Prince with all his stock be rooted out, yet can it not become free, but rather fall still into the hands of new Lords, who continually make an end one of another. And without the creati∣on of some new Prince, they shall never have an end, unless he by his goodness and valour main∣tain them free. But their liberty is of no longer conyinuance than his life, as was that o•• Syracusa for Dions and Timoelons lives: whose vertues in several times, while they liv'd kept that City free; so soon as they were dead, it fell into the former servitude, We find not a braver example then that of Rome, which upon the Tarquins banishments, could presently

lay hold off, and maintaine that liberty. But Caesar being slain, C. Caligula, Nero, and the whole race of the Caesars blotted out, it could not, not onely keep, no not so much as give a beginning to their liberty. Neither did so great variety of accidents in one and the same citie proceed from other, than that, when the Tarquins were expell'd, the people of Rome were not toucht with this corruption, and in these latter times they were throughly infected. For then to settle their mindes in a resolution against Kings, it was enough to take an oath of them, that never any King should raigne at Rome. But in the after ages, the au∣thority and severity of Brutus, with all the Ori∣entall Regions, were not of force to hold them in disposition to maintain that Liberty, which he like the first Brutus had restored them. Which sprung from that corruption, which Marius his faction spread among the people; whereof Caesar coming to be the Chiefe, could so blind that multitude, that they could not per∣ceive the yoke, which he himself put on their neck. And though this example of Rome be better than any other, yet will I alleadge to this purpose, some people known in our dayes. And therefore I say, that no meanes could ever bring Milan or Naples to their free∣dome, by reason of the infection of all their members. Which appeared after the death of Philip Visconti, when Milan desiring to recover her liberty, neither was able, nor knew how to keepe it. Yet that of Rome was a great hap∣piness, that their Kings grow naught suddenly, that they were banisht, and that before the in∣fection was gone down into the bowels of that Citie, which was the occasion that those

many tumults, which were raised in Rome (men doing it to a good end) did not hurt, but help the Commonwealth. And we may make this conclusion, that where the matter is cor∣rupted, lawes, though well made, profit little, unless they have such a maker, that with strong hand forces obedience to them, till the matter become good: which, whether it hath ever happened, I know not, or whether it be pos∣sible it can happen: for it is plain, as a little before I said, that a City declining by corrup∣tion of matter, if ever it chances to rise again, it is meerly by the vertue of one man, who is then living, and not by the vertue of the ge∣nerality, that keepes the good lawes in force: and suddenly when that man is dead, it re∣turnes to the old guise, as it came to pass at Thebes, which, by the vertue of Epaminondas while he liv'd, could subsist in forme of a Re∣publique and government, but he being gone, it fell into the former disorders. The reason is, because a man cannot live so long a time as is sufficient to disaccustome them to the ill, and accustome them throughly to the good. And if one man of a very long life, or two ver∣tuous Governors successively continued, do not dispose of them to good, when one of them failes, as I have said before, they are presently ruined, unless the other with many dangers, and much bloudshed recover them out of destruction. For that corruption and unfit∣ness for freedome, arises from an inequality, that is in the City: and if a man would reduce it to equality, he must use many ex∣traordinary wayes, which few know or will serve themselves of, as other where more par∣ticularly shall be said.