The Prince - Nicolo Machiavelli

The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli, is a book from where the term ' Machiavellian' is derived, this generally means someone who is cunning and ruthless politically. The Prince itself is only a meager 112 pages long but it does contain enough in its 26 chapters to create a vivid account of how to hold and maintain power in 16th Century Italy. The version I bought was not the one you may see emblazoned above this opinion, but it was a ' Penguin Books, ...
...very accessible price. Among the other titles are works by Marcus Aurelius, George Orwell and Edward Gibbon among others. Coming at the price neat price of £3.99 ( with the bookshop I bought them from having a 2 for £5 offer which is even better, cunning people! I'm sure they do it on purpose everytime I walk past, to sap my will and make me buy them all ... Bah! ) ... It makes these pockets versions very handy.

The Prince is a very ... more

The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli, is a book from where the term ' Machiavellian' is derived, this generally means someone who is cunning and ruthless politically. The Prince itself is only a meager 112 pages long but it does contain enough in its 26 chapters to create a vivid account of how to hold and maintain power in 16th Century Italy. The version I bought was not the one you may see emblazoned above this opinion, but it was a ' Penguin Books, Great ideas ' version of this classic doctrine. Penguin released 20 of these small and very handy books which come at a very accessible price. Among the other titles are works by Marcus Aurelius, George Orwell and Edward Gibbon among others. Coming at the price neat price of £3.99 ( with the bookshop I bought them from having a 2 for £5 offer which is even better, cunning people! I'm sure they do it on purpose everytime I walk past, to sap my will and make me buy them all ... Bah! ) ... It makes these pockets versions very handy.

The Prince is a very clever book, obviously you might think. And Machiavelli is a devious man, on the release of his book, many people thought he was the devil in disguise come to spread malcontent and ill feeling where ever he and his work went, and in some ways its no surprise as Machiavelli tells the reader in no uncertain terms that he must more often that not Kill to maintain power, he cites examples otherwise of course, telling us of Princes ( he uses this to describe any aspiring pretender to power ) who have come by positions of power through hereditary means, or through that of violence and a bloody coup. We see in the Prince what you must achieve to keep what you have gained, the various chapter headings sum up what you should watch out for and how to avoid various situations.

Machiavelli does at one point obviously pick on the King of France as an example of good and bad kingship, Machiavelli wrote that when King Charles VII ( forgive me if this is incorrect, but this is dredged up by memory ) when subduing the provinces of Brittany and Normandy used his own troops to maintain order, yet the kings son when creating a force of Men to occupy the region dissolved the institutions governing native troops, and made an error in his selection ( Machiavelli sums up the soldier types as a, Mercenaries b, Home trained Militia c, Auxiliaries) King Louis XI started to hire Swiss mercenaries, to hold his newly conquered provinces and to enforce the law, now this didn't work, and France lost great a great opportunity to increase its standing, something which would have been attainable if a purely home grown force had been used. The example of Carthage can be used as well, as it was a state almost overrun by its need to rely on mercenaries, after the crushing defeats by the Romans.

A good example of using mercenaries yet not consolidation is Hannibal, who on his long trek from Carthage and southern Spain up through France and into northern Italy to beat up the Romans thanks to some Elephants and Celtic tribes for hire. He knew how to win a battle that is unquestioned, but what he couldn't do was hold onto what he'd claimed, the first of the Punic wars was lost due to being too far away from home and becoming isolated, while Hannibal was marching on the grand prize of Rome, legions of soldiers had been set down by boat in southern France too block off his retreat. But anyway the point is Hannibal was a character from history who didn't hold on to what he'd gained, while Machiavelli teaches you how to ruthlessly and efficiently hold on to what you have seized by many method, with the most important in Machiavelli's view being war and its uses.

' A Prince, therefore must have no other object or thought, nor aquire skill in anything, except war, its orginistaion, its discipline. ' Machiavelli tells us at the beginning of one of the chapters how a military mindset must dominate the force of the prince, now this is all fair and good for an up and rising prince of the time, but there are many pointers Machiavelli lays down that you must follow, one of the more disturbing in my mind was the basic primal acts that he promotes a new prince to act upon, namely killing everyone who would oppose, and then soliciting a rule of unremitting harshness coupled with good statesmanship. All this being in a paragraph, he then mentions some example, and moves onto the next topic, a slightly unnerving topic, but he still writes with flair enough to make you forget that he is talking about mass murder.

Machiavelli writes well enough and he clearly state in a letter at the front of the book that he intends this to be a short concise volume, detailing with any hint of snobbery or arrogance his thoughts on how to maintain power in the very dangerous world he was living in, scarily I think it was based in his own experiences, but that is perhaps from working behind the scenes as an emissary to an Italian ruling house I believe. It is full of witty little snippets of Latin which prove quite interesting as you can always get something from them, the one I've used below isn't in Latin but provides a good example of how Machaivelli thinks. The person to whom the Prince was given was a certain Lorenzo de Medici, and you should know how that little story turned out, not sure whether it was a direct consequence of the book, but the de Medici family ended up ruling a great part of Italy, and becoming very rich, as well as one of the family memebers becoming pope ( is that right or did i just dream that! ).

On the front of my copy book is this quote ' One must be a fox in order to recognise traps, and a lion to frighten of wolves. ' The simple brilliance of this is a mark of how clever Machiavelli was. So in order to succeed you must have the attributes of the fox, being cunning, dexterous and nimble, and in the lions case you must also have the physical presence to scare of wolves and to maintain and assert yourself over the weak. only when you can combine the best of both the fox and the lion will you be able to rule without fear, for a person with not enough of one or the other will be overcome. I love this bit of wisdom, and it makes perfect sense to my mind.

Some excellent example can be used from some Roman emperors when looking at the rules of Nero, Domitian and Caligula ( the last one was an absolute crackpot ) we see how there time as emperor was marred by bad decisions and harsh ruling of the people, with Caligula taking the biscuit. Eventually all were rose up against with two being murdered and all being supplanted by angry mobs with burning brands and pitchforks, yet comparing that to the rules of Hadrian and say Augustus other farsighted emperors who almost following Machiavelli to the letter, behaved with considerable acumen, Hadrian himself visited every province in the Roman empire, something which Machiavelli states as being a very beneficial way of calming the people and letting them know that there ruler does not fear visiting the province, or indeed spending time there.

Another good point was made by Machiavelli, that its not enough to simply station a garrison in a province, you have to build and improve what you have set down, craft buildings to your glory, or create new centers of learning and culture where the woes of the people can be distracted from the fact they have just been conquered.

This is very comparable to what's happening in Iraq, if any country is invaded and occupied by a foreign country you are always going to have dissension ( the obvious car bombs being perpetrated by those who want foreign aid removed ) and what is now happening is the gradual building up of the police, the hospitals, and a new constitution that is being drafted ( lets hope no one erects a statue of bush ) all the things needed to created a new and better country, its just common sense, though I don't support the innocents killed, I do think that what is being achieved in getting Iraq to its feet is worthy of some praise.

Overall then Machiavelli in his book looks at many sources in explaining his pearls of advice, with him using Alexander among other to back up his theories, yet its not just in the past that his ideas are realised, but in the way that human nature follows certain trends, and its often brutal urge to stamp out other life forms which are more weaker than they are. There is a lot more to the Prince than meets the eye, its a clever, concise book and if your planning to conquer a country any time soon then be sure to read this before you do.

© Gildor Inglorion  

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