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THE WAYS OF MACHIAVELLI AND THE WAYS OF POLITICS* Martin Fleisher

I Ancients and Moderns1 The contemporary canon of what constitutes ancient political thought was fixed in the course of the nineteenth century by the then newly reigning discipline of the philosophy of history. It made little difference whether this discipline was positivistically or dialectically inclined. Whatever the methodological commitment there was general agreement that the sources of ancient wisdom on the nature and ends of social and political life were to be found in the political and ethical writings of Plato and Aristotle and, to a lesser extent, Cicero. Here Cicero was read, in part, as a repository of a Stoic political wisdom that had not survived in the original texts. According to this tradition, genuine, if not final, political wisdom is to be found in the reflections of these ancient thinkers not a totally unexpected conclusion to come from philosophers. For these nineteenth-century practitioners of Geistesgeschichte the essence of ancient experience is distilled in its inner life, its art, literature, religion, and above all in its philosophical speculation, but not, for instance, in its political experience as recorded in its history. There is another, older tradition which searches out and discovers political wisdom not in the speculative thought of the ancients but in their political experience. Reflecting on this experience the political thinker uncovers the principles of political life, principles of which those undergoing the experience either were not fully aware or did not articulate. Viewed from the perspective of this tradition the ancients frequently acted better than they knew or better than they philosophized. The moderns, by studying this history, can know better than these ancients and thus hopefully
*

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All references to Machiavellis works in Italian will be to the Feltrinelli edition (Milan, 19605) of the Opere, hereafter cited simply as Opere. English quotes are from Machiavelli: The Chief Works and Others, trans. Allan Gilbert (Duke University, 1965), Vol. 1 (hereafter Gilbert). This is the third in a series of papers that I have written exploring the nature of the political in Machiavelli. The first, Trust and Deceit in Machiavellis Comedies, appeared in the Journal of the History of Ideas, XXVII, no. 3 (JulySeptember 1966), pp. 36580. The second, A Passion for Politics: The Vital Core of the World of Machiavelli, was published in Machiavelli and the Nature of Political Thought, ed. M. Fleisher (New York, 1972).

HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT. Vol. XVI. No. 3. Autumn 1995

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insure that they will consistently act more wisely. What was, in part or in whole, fortune with the ancients may now become virtue and prudence with the moderns. Critical to the understanding of this tradition is the recognition that one of its leading modern innovators, Machiavelli, was consciously motivated by the most direct and urgent political purposes in contrast to many nineteenthcentury philosophers of history and historians of philosophy. Interest in the past was inspired by the desire to uncover a course of political action which would effectively solve pressing present problems. What is more, since Machiavelli had already made the discovery for himself, his aim was to persuade others of its feasibility: the end of his enterprise was supremely political, to establish the correct political order. The discovery involved a certain way of reading histories or arriving at the true knowledge of them. It is in this reflection on the past that we see, in a crude but distinct way, the emergence of the idea of the irony of history the idea that the actors are not always conscious of the full significance of their actions. This notion of consciousness arises in a fairly direct and unsophisticated fashion when contemporary political concerns are combined with the study of the political past. There is no question in Machiavellis mind that the political activity of the ancients sometimes exhibited political wisdom of the highest order, but he is equally certain that it is a wisdom whose principles the ancient political philosophers never fully grasped. For Machiavelli the exemplars of this prudence are always political actors, never philosophical spectators. Their activities as recorded in histories are the real source of knowledge. Machiavelli is certain that he has succeeded in laying bare what was hidden to the ancient thinkers. Thus, by situating ancient wisdom in sometimes fortuitous political acts, laws and institutions, and then by claiming to have discovered the principles and structures of political life in these practices and institutions rather than in ancient political philosophy, Machiavelli helped develop the ideas of historical reason and the irony of history. He was conscious of treading a new path and was quite explicit about it being the way to true knowledge, and especially the way to the reasons or necessity of political history. But of the intimately related ideas of the reason and irony of political history, the former is consciously pursued by Machiavelli while the latter, as befits such an idea, remains mostly implicit as its subterranean influence continues and finally surfaces in the eighteeth century. And so, by an ironic twist, this older tradition of which Machiavelli is a leading practitioner contributed to a mode of historical consciousness, emerging full blown in the nineteenth century, which reversed this order of reality. It located culture in mind rather than in socio-political life and chose to locate the realization of the superior, because more fully conscious, wisdom of the moderns in the life of ideas and spirit the philosophy of history as the history of philosophy the life, that is, of philosophers, rather than in a new political existence for all. Now, as we briefly observed earlier, instead of the social and

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political experience of the Greeks and Romans, the subject for inquiry becomes the ideas of Plato, Aristotle and Cicero; and the object is no longer to improve the actual condition of political and social life but, increasingly, to cultivate and uplift the mind and morals of the individual. In the making of the canon of the history of political thought in the nineteenth century in the pursuit of these edifying ends, justice was done neither to the ideas nor intentions of these theorists now wrenched out of the conditions and urgencies of their lives, reduced as they were to a system of doctrine isolated from their total situation and actual intentions. In contrast to these nineteenth-century philosophers, Machiavelli was highly conscious of his own political intent. What must be known is the correct political course at the present juncture. It is in the experience of states and in the acts of statesmen and citizens, as Machiavelli insists, that this knowledge (vera cognizione) is embodied. With this observation Machiavelli not only informs us where knowledge lies and also where it is not to be sought for example it cannot be found in the nature of the Gods, or of the cosmos, or of the soul but what it is knowledge of, namely the best way to order political life. Even here Machiavelli remains true to his political vocation: the criterion of the best way of life is itself political and not imported from without via, for instance, a Hellenic eudaemonistic ethic, or the apathetic or hedonistic ethics of Hellenistic times. Just as there is no inner or transcendent retreat from political life, so the goal of that life is to be found within itself and not in some moral or metaphysical principle external to politics. II Ancient Examples and Modern Cognition There is no doubt in Machiavellis mind, then, that he is engaged in a new task which sets him apart from past and contemporary political thinkers. In the very opening sentence of the Discourses Machiavelli speaks of discovering ways and methods that are new [modi ed ordini nuovi].2 He informs us that this involves entering upon a path not yet trodden by anyone.3 In another frequently cited passage, this one from The Prince, Machiavelli again calls attention to his departure from the methods of others. Now it remains to examine the wise princes methods and conduct in dealing with subjects or with allies. And because I know that many have written about this, I fear that, when I too write about it, I shall be thought conceited, since in discussing this material I depart very far from the methods of the others.4 It should be noted that while
2 3 4

Gilbert, p. 190; Opere, Vol. 1, p. 123, Discourses, I. Preface. Ibid.: entrare per una via, la quale, non essendo suta ancora da alcuna trita.

Gilbert, p. 57, The Prince, XV: Resta ora a vedere quali debbono essere e modi e govarni di uno principe con sudditi o con li amici. E, perch io so che molti di questo hanno

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the reference here is to the conduct of the prince, both here and in the citation from the Discourses Machiavelli calls attention to the novelty of his enterprise. In none of these cases is it immediately clear what exactly is the new way or method. Of course, there have been many suggestions as to its meaning, including the identification of the new way with the introduction of an inductive method in the study of politics. Indeed, one enthusiast sees Machiavelli as the very father of the inductive method itself. Others associate the new way with the idea of a political art, or with the Polybian notion of history possessing an independent structure.5 But perhaps it is just as well to turn to these passages to try to see what Machiavelli himself thought he was about when he talked of nuovi ordini. In those portions of his writings where he speaks of modi et ordini nuovi Machiavelli makes a point of linking his remarks about a new way with his fundamental complaint about modern princes and republics: they do not have recourse to examples in antiquity to guide their actions. In setting up states, in maintaining governments, in ruling kingdoms, in organizing armies and managing war, in executing laws among subjects, in expanding an empire, not a single prince or republic now resorts to the examples of the ancients.6 In this Machiavelli asserts they differ from modern artists, jurists and doctors who do not merely passively admire ancient art, jurisprudence and medicine, but actively imitate them. If we take seriously Machiavellis references to contemporary practice in other fields we have already made a start towards arriving at what he understands to constitute the nature of his new departure or way. Machiavelli informs us that, in one sense, he is not treading a new path different from his contemporaries. Modern sculptors, judges, doctors all learn and practice their pursuits by imitating the ancients. What is new about Machiavellis new way is not the imitation of the ancients but its application to statesmen and to the arena of politics. But as the examples of the doctors and the jurists clearly show, what is new in general about modern practice for Machiavelli, is the reduction to order or codification of ancient acts and decisions. In the differences that come up between citizens in civil affairs, or in the illnesses that men suffer from, they ever have recourse to the judgments
scritto, dubito, scrivendone ancora io, non essere tenuto prosuntuoso, partendomi, massime nel disputare questa materia, dalli ordini delli altri (Opere, Vol. 1, pp. 645).
5

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Here, for example, is the editor of Vol. 1 of Opere on The Prince: il trattato di una scienza nuova che non si appaga pi delle classificazioni e dei termini tradizionali, ma tende a creare una propria nuova classificazione e terminologia adequata alla nuovit della materia che viene trattando (p. xlii). Also: Il criterio metodologico fondamentale rimane perci il medesimo sia nel Principe sia nei Discorsi . . . il teorico della verit effettuale. (p. lvii.) Gilbert, p. 191, Discourses, I. Preface.

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or to the remedies that have been pronounced or prescribed by the ancients; for the civil laws are nothing else than opinions given by the ancient jurists, which, brought into order, teach our present jurists to judge. And medicine is nothing other than the experiments made by ancient physicians, on which present physicians base their judgments.7 Therefore it seems safe to conclude that one meaning which Machiavelli attaches to discovering modi et ordini nuovi is to reduce to rules the political experience or decisions made by ancient statesmen and polities. 8 If Machiavelli is thinking of a scienza nuova9 it is new for him only in the sense that he is applying a method already traditional in art, medicine and jurisprudence to politics where it has not been utilized up to now. This method is nothing more than the ancient one familiar to every student of rhetoric and pedagogy the derivation of rules which constitute an art, and by virtue of which it can be taught, from the acts of its greatest practitioners, states as well as individuals. Such a method is patently not new, in our sense of the term; and with regard to those who still insist that this method is inductive, even in Machiavellis own terminology its mode of operation is clearly held to be reductive. What is the art that Machiavelli will reduce to order? He himself informs us that he is going to uncover and codify the political arrangements, the modi and ordini of political virt and prudence. These will include the modes of political conduct of statesmen and princes but also of republics as embedded in their constitutions and institutions.10 Thus, when Machiavelli refers to the discovery of modi ed ordini nuovi it would appear to be a gross error to assume that he is pointing to an empirical or inductive method which can be sharply and easily distinguished from the content or subject matter to which it is applied. First, because as is obvious from Machiavellis usage here and, indeed, throughout his writings, modi and ordini refer to ways and means which are shot through with political content. Simply put, Machiavellis own way or method consists
7 8 9

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Ibid. Opere, Vol. 1, p. 123, Discourses, I. Preface.

Many twentieth-century interpreters cannot resist seeing him as the founder of a new science of politics, as Galileo was of a new science of earthly and heavenly motion. See, for example, L. Olschki, Machiavelli the Scientist (Berkeley, 1945).

10

J.H. Whitfield argues that with Machiavelli . . . the Florentine tradition of ordini, resolutely in the plural, and with the sense of constitutional arrangements or devices closely linked to leggi, but differentiated has become predominant (J.H. Whitfield, On Machiavellis use of Ordini, in Discourses on Machiavelli (Cambridge, 1969), p. 145). He goes on to note that Machiavelli uses modi and instituti as variations or synonyms. I would like to add that in Machiavellis usage, as often as not, modi occurs along with ordini in the phrase modi et ordini and not just as a variant or synonym of it. For further examples and discussion of Machiavellis usage see section IV, below.

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in uncovering the ways and institutions of successful political life. The preoccupation with modi et ordini flows from the conviction that they comprise the matter and not solely the instrumentalities of politics. Let us take a fuller look at the passage in The Prince cited above, where Machiavelli explicitly lays claim to novelty. Now it remains to examine the wise princes methods and conduct in dealing with subjects or with allies. And because I know that many have written about this, I fear that, when I too write about it, I shall be thought conceited, since in discussing this material I depart very far from the methods of others. But since my purpose is to write something useful to him who comprehends it, I have decided that I must concern myself with the truth of the matter as facts show it rather than with any fanciful notions.11 It is clear from this passage that, as many commentators have emphasized, Machiavelli feels he is embarking on a singularly new path in contrast to previous writers on the subject in yet another sense, i.e. that his modi and ordini will be derived from the actual conduct of statesmen and republics and not from imagination. Here Machiavelli is distinguishing himself not only from modern writers on politics but also from ancient writers. Machiavelli is almost saying his way as a writer on political matters is not only new as compared with his contemporaries, but also unique: no one has ever codified the ways, rules and political institutions of great statesmen and of successful republics. The passage in question reveals how intimately method and substance are interrelated in Machiavellis treatment of politics. For it pivots around several contrasts rather than merely one: Machiavelli distinguishes between his ordini and those of all others and that distinction is immediately developed into one between the useful and, by implication, that which is impractical. In the very next clause this becomes a distinction between truth and imagination which in turn is linked to the contrasting pair action from necessity and action from moral considerations. Arranged in two groups the result offers a striking illustration of how Machiavelli has turned much of classical thought on its head. The true and the necessary are coupled with the politically useful which, in turn, is contrasted with the speculative and the moral as politically impractical. In Machiavellis scheme the political is given ontological priority. The actual world of politics, the experience of the Spartans, Romans, etc., is held to be real and not merely part of the world of appearances. One must not look elsewhere, for example into the soul or out into the cosmos, to discover true being in the good or in necessity as universal reason. Instead, the examination of histories will disclose, to the acute mind, the modi et ordini of real (political) existence, the nature of true necessity and the proper rule of conduct.
11

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Gilbert, p. 57; for the Italian, Opere, Vol. 1, pp. 645.

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We may say then that for Machiavelli his new modi and ordini will emerge from a new way of arriving at them. This new way involves turning towards history then reading it aright; that is (1) discerning necessities and (2) being inspired to act in accordance with them. The errors of modern statesmen and of modern (and ancient) writers on political matters derive from not having a true understanding of books on history, so that as we read we do not draw from them that sense of taste, that flavor which they really have.12 III Imitation and Renewal It would appear that the failure to arrive at a vera cognizione delle storie13 is not a failure solely of intellect but also, and perhaps mainly, of virt, of appetite and guts for such matters. Vera cognizione, then, includes not only knowing what wise ancient statesmen did but also acknowledging the possibility of imitating them and having the desire to do so. In Machiavellis hand the notion of vera cognizione is thoroughly politicized it includes the impulse to great actions as well as the knowledge of how to perform such acts. Machiavelli, it must not be forgotten, is addressing himself to statesmen and active citizens. So that these readers are to be left in no doubt on this matter, he repeats his admonition about political imitation towards the end of the Discourses. After criticizing Florentine policy he points up the political lesson: these are the errors I spoke of in the beginning [of the Discourses], that the princes of our time make when they have to decide about great affairs. As a consequence they should be glad to hear how rulers in antiquity who had to decide about such matters conducted themselves. But mens feebleness in our day, caused by their feeble education and their slight knowledge of affairs, makes them judge ancient decisions [giudicii] partly inhuman, partly impossible.14 The measure of man, of states-man, is to be found in the conduct of eminent men their actions reveal humanity to us, the true norms of human behaviour as well as the wide range of human capacities. If politics is the art of the possible, Machiavelli will not take the average politician of easy compromise and infinite adjustability, the man of the middle way, as providing the measure of the possible. Instead it is the outstanding men concerned with great affairs who are able to be the standard of political prudence and political virt.

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12 13 14

Gilbert, p. 191, Discourses, I. Preface. Opere, Vol. 1, p. 124, Discourses, I. Preface. Gilbert, p. 490, Discourses, III.27. Translation slightly altered.

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As to the training of his mind, the prudent prince reads histories and observes in them the actions of excellent men, sees how they have conducted themselves in wars, observes the causes for their victories and defeats, in order to escape the latter and imitate the former; above all, he does as some excellent men have done in the past; they selected for imitation some man earlier than themselves who was praised and honored, and his actions and heroic deeds they always kept before them, as it is said Alexander the Great imitated Achilles; Caesar, Alexander; Scipio, Cyrus.15 It is clear to Machiavelli that modern statesmen do not read history with the proper (political) attitude. Lacking this interest in history, not reading it for the measure, the modi and ordini, of the political ways of men, for the reality which is to be imitated, they will discover neither their own prudence nor their own virt there. Machiavelli does not make too sharp a distinction between prudence and virt and does not envisage a division of labour between the two say, for instance, between the counsellor and the prince or between those who theorize and those who practice. This division of labour does not really exist in Machiavellis image of his own role as a man (statesman) writing a commentary on Livy he will not only codify ancient prudence, more important he will get men away from this error16 where they think it impossible to imitate the ancients. Nevertheless, it is clear that the recognition of the need and possibility of imitating the virt of ancient statesmen takes precedence over prudence in Machiavelli. His own intent in writing is unfailingly political. The most important (new) lesson Machiavelli wants to teach the modern statesman is to choose an ancient statesman for imitation whose actions he will continually keep before him. In doing this he, in turn, will be imitating the practice of great ancient statesmen who, as we have just seen, always chose an earlier figure to imitate. The soul of the statesman, the animo, draws inspiration and life from its adoption of a worthy parent, a magnanimo, which provides it with the proper measure of its capacities and deeds. It is in this sense that Machiavelli conceives the recurrent needs of a people to return to its origins as the way to revitalize its political life. Of course, the call for renewal and revitalization by means of imitation of the ancients was itself not new in Machiavellis day. At the very moment he wrote of these matters Christian humanists like Erasmus and More were also issuing calls for the renewal of prudence, virtue and society through the imitation of the ancients different ancients, the Church fathers, the Apostles, and above all Christ, and different ideas of prudence and virtue, but the emphasis on the need for renewal is the same, and the emphasis on imitation of the ancients as the way to accomplish it. For most early sixteenth-century European reformers,
15

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Gilbert, pp. 567, The Prince, XIV.

16

Gilbert, p. 191, Discourses, I. Preface.

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to innovate is to renovate, to originate is to return to the source, to make new is to renew.17 A summary of the argument down to this point may now be in order. Examination of those passages in the Discourses, The Prince and elsewhere habitually referred to in discussing Machiavellis claim to novelty reveals: 1. a concern with the need to imitate ancient republics, statesmen, and citizens that has become a political problem precisely because his contemporaries feel it is not possible 2. a belief that this may be corrected by vera cognizione delle storie to be derived from a reading of Machiavellis commentary that is itself designed to facilitate the drawing of those practical lessons that comprise the goal of the knowledge of histories; and
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3. the practical lessons are to be given, in part, in the form of ridurre in ordine of ancient and modern political experience. The comparison of ancient and modern events is to be an indispensable part of this task of teaching the lessons of history. Moreover, in the passage from The Prince where Machiavelli speaks of his producing different ordini from others with regard to e modi e governi di uno principe,18 he introduces a distinction between his concern with reality and the concerns of others with imaginary states. Thus this passage too turns back to political histories, to previous political action (to the modi del procedere of statesmen and citizens and gli ordini of republics) as the proper subject matter of political thought but of political thought that, in its turn, is wholly and completely oriented towards political action as the imitation of past greatness. This last point is critical: Machiavelli is preoccupied not with history, not even with political history, but rather with the history of political greatness great statesmen and great republics. We have seen that vera cognizione involves political man seeing himself in a political figure a great political figure of the past. Cognition is recognition. This is its form. The content of vera cognizione involves other acts of recognition. For example, the acknowledgement by others of ones greatness. Greatness is inescapably public: it is the open recognition by others of the greatness of a person or a state. Machiavellis specific concern is with the political renewal of his own Tuscany and this, he believes, can only come about by the recovery of ancient modi and ordini, the source of virt and prudence. Ancient means only one thing to Machiavelli, the Tuscan republics have only one true ancestor
17

I deal with this theme at length in M. Fleisher, Radical Reform and Political Persuasion in the Life and Writings of Thomas More (Geneva, 1973). Opere, Vol. 1, p. 64, The Prince, XV.

18

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Rome.19 Hence he begins the Discourses by returning to Rome and to its origins and first principles, to the ordini of the city. He shows how, despite the fact that unlike Sparta and some other cities its original institutions were defective, it was able to perfect them over time due to the happy accident of the conflict between plebs and senate.20 The conflict led to leggi e ordini in beneficio della publica libert,21 and therefore, despite the violence it created, it must be judged good. So in Book I Machiavelli discusses the ordini by which Rome grew in greatness and perfected her vivere politico. The History of Florence also opens with considerations on the origins of a vivere libero. The growth in the reputation and power of Venice is attributed to its leggi e ordini22 and the birth of the Florentine republic is also dated from the time when with ordini militari e civili fondorono i Fiorentini la loro libert.23 The difference between Florence and Rome being that, while in both cases the founding ordini were not perfect, they were perfected and renewed by the Romans but, unfortunately, not by the Florentines, due in large measure to the difference in the nature of the internal divisions in these two states. If Machiavelli begins the Discourses and the History with considerations on the origins of autonomous political life and these origins are identified with founding ordini and leggi, he closes The Prince and the Discourses with considerations on the renewal of political life, which renewal is identified with a return to original principles. Thus, when in the last chapter of The Prince Machiavelli calls for a leader to find le nuove legge e li nuovi ordini24 to revitalize Italys military (and hence its political) virt they are new only for contemporary Italy, otherwise they are as old as Etruscan and Roman virt and the principle of grounding political life in correct military order, i.e. a militia. Thus, too, in the last book of the Discourses, Machiavelli turns to the problem of the renewal of the Roman vivere politico and its greatness which constitutes a return to origins. This is as it should be since for Machiavelli renovatio always involves a return to original principles hence even ordini are to be judged on how well they permit renewal or new ordini which restore the old vitality. Even ordini, that is to say, are to be evaluated partly, if not primarily, as ways of renewing political life, as productive of virt.
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The Florentine republican ideology already invoked Rome as its sire in the days of the earliest chroniclers. See N. Rubinstein, The Beginnings of Political Thought in Florence, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, V (1942), pp. 198227.
20 21 22 23 24

Opere, Vol. 1, p. 134, Discourses, I.2 Ibid., p. 137, Discourses, I.4. Ibid., Vol. VII, p. 121, Istorie, I.29. Ibid., p. 146, Istorie, II.6. Ibid., Vol. 1, p. 103, The Prince, XXVI.

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Renewal, then, is as necessary to a vivere libero as it is to all life. Political life (i.e. an autonomous political order) is born of the introduction of leggi and ordini. It is perfected, as in the case of Rome, and in contrast to Sparta where there was one law-giver who ordered political life in its foundation at one moment in time, by the subsequent introduction of new ordini in response to the needs of the times. However in both cases political life must be continually renewed by the revitalization of the ordini and modi of a people.25 Politics is essentially, if not exclusively, concerned with ordini and modi. It becomes for Machiavelli, in distinct contrast to much of classical political thought, what it is for statesmen and citizens, a continual problem in innovation. Nuove necessit require nuovi ordini.26 Politics always involves relating a modo del procedere to i tempi, good or bad fortune is determined by the way modi are adopted to changing circumstances.27 By now it should be evident that my method of interpreting Machiavelli consists of an attempt to lay bare the structure of his thought by tracing the various ways he uses the term nuovi in relation to modi and ordini. The relation of his idea of the new to the ideas of renewal and imitation having been indicated, it is time to focus more explicitly on ordini. IV Ordini Turning once more to the opening paragraphs of the Discourses the term ordine in its broadest employment by Machiavelli refers to the unchanging arrangement or order of the heavens, sun, elements and man.28 Here order means the constitutive nature of a thing. This is a very common usage with Machiavelli. It occurs many times even within the narrow confines of the first pages of the Discourses where Machiavelli speaks of constituting republics,29 of the constitution30 of Rome, of reducing the decisions of ancient jurists to order,31 and of

25

Ibid., p. 439: impossibile ordinare una republica perpetua, perch per mille inopinate vie si causa la sua rovina. Discourses, III.17. Ibid., p. 241, Discourses, I.49. Ibid., p. 416, Discourses, III.9.

26 27 28

Ibid., p. 124, Discourses, I. Preface. Machiavelli accuses his contemporaries of thinking imitation of the ancients impossible as if the sky, the sun, the elements, men were changed in motion, arrangement [ordine], and power from what they were in antiquity (Gilbert, p. 191).
29 30 31

ordinare le republiche, ibid. ordinato, ibid., p. 125, Discourses, I.1. ridutte in ordine, ibid., p. 124, Discourses, I. Preface.

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the fact that this ordinazione delle leggi is central to the founding of a city.32 This basic constitution of a thing is determinative of its fate. Venice became the most celebrated Italian city per ordine e per potenza.33 Its security and the growth of its reputation and power it owes to its founding leggi e ordini.34 Buoni ordini will secure buona fortuna.35 Now if, as in the case of Rome (and, inter alia, Florence) and in contrast to Sparta, the founding ordini were not perfect but not so defective as to be beyond remedy, time will afford opportunities to improve political life. This introduces us to the second level of ordini and leggi the adoption of new ordini to improve and perfect a civic life whose basic constitution has certain weaknesses. The possibility of the introduction of such new institutions is itself grounded in the fact that the original order aimed in the right direction. Had it been totally off the mark, Machiavelli intimates, the situation would be hopeless. The virt of the reformer no matter how great cannot carry all before it. Indeed, it is the founding ordini which must produce and sustain virt. Rome could improve itself because its original order made for some virt and hence made possible an increase in virt when the opportunity for change arose. The new ordini which resulted further increased the virt of Roman civic life. The virt and prudence (the two are almost synonymous here) of the lawgiver, founder, or reformer of a political society is manifested in the drawing up of laws. But in the final analysis because no certain remedy can be given for such troubles in republics, it follows that an everlasting republic cannot be established; in a thousand unexpected ways her ruin is caused.36 For Machiavelli there is no possibility of a perfect political balance;37 there will always be new problems arising;38 human affairs are always mutable. Hence new measures will always be necessary to better stabilize the civil and political order. Here we are witnessing the delineation of a third level of ordini, which can be shown to differ from the others. Machiavelli is proclaiming a need for laws to cope with changing times independently of founding structure or of institutions which remedy initial defects. Such changing times are potentially corrupting, a falling away from order and necessity. There is a continuous need to adjust

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32 33 34 35 36 37 38

Ibid., p. 127, Discourses, I.1. Ibid., Vol. VII, p. 120, Istorie, I.28. Ibid., p. 121, Istorie, I.29. Ibid., Vol. I, p. 162, Discourses, I.11. Gilbert, p. 471, Discourses, III.17. bilanciare, Opere, Vol. I, p. 145, Discourses, I.6. Ibid., p. 144, Discourses, I.6.

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ones modo del procedere to i tempi.39 This is the heart of politics, of the survival ability of principalities and republics. Parenthetically, we may observe that precisely because the means adopted must be suitable to the times there can be no fixed and permanent virt every virt carries with it potential defects.40 But defect is not an extreme, as virt is not an Aristotelian mean:4l virt is simply a matter of what befits the occasion. Virt is what maintains (and expands) a vivere politico. Thus virt too is politicized. Machiavelli also uses ordine in referring to his own enterprise. We have already indicated that he proposes to arrive at his goal of vera cognizione delle storie by means of a ridurre in ordine. Hence, further elucidation of ordine both as an order and as a method or principle of ordering brings us back to the problem of Machiavellis own method. Now, as we have observed, there is no general agreement among Machiavellis commentators on either the nature of order or the method by which it is established. To return for a moment to the argument of Walker and others that there is a new method to be found in Machiavelli and that it is the method of induction, a method he, not Bacon, invented,42 we may now adduce several objections to this interpretation. The idea of inventing a method in the modern sense in which Walker uses it would be totally incomprehensible to Machiavelli another example of the anachronistic fallacy. So that even if Walker is correct in his conclusion that Machiavelli invented a new method, Machiavelli could not have been referring to this when he spoke of treading a path no other had walked. This is related to the other error discussed above with regard to the meaning of new in Machiavelli. Walker heads the section in which he discusses Machiavellis method The New Method and the Claim to Originality. He has read Machiavellis statement that he is walking a new path as a claim to originality which is defined in terms of post-sixteenth century, nay post-eighteenth century, notions of originality totally alien to the structure of Machiavellis thought. To cite just one example which will illuminate the difference: Walker well knows that one of Machiavellis basic themes is the need for states to return to their origins, to become original again. For Machiavelli origins never happen just once, they are not unique. Yet it is clear from Walkers usage that this is what he means by new and original. So be it just as long as we understand that Walker is calling Machiavelli original in Walkers terms, but this is not to be confused with what Machiavelli meant when he said he was walking a new path.

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39 40 41 42

Ibid., p. 416, Discourses, III.9. Ibid., p. 447, Discourses, III.21. Machiavelli rules this out on the very same page. The Discourses of Machiavelli, trans. L.J. Walker (London, 1950), p. 92.

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Next, it must be noted that if what is new and original in Machiavellis method includes the derivation of rules and generalizations from experience rather than from any other realm, this principle is insisted upon at least as forcefully, and certainly more explicitly, by contemporaries of Machiavelli such as Erasmus and More in their demands for the reform and renewal of grammar, pedagogy and theology, among other studies. They never tire of repeating that the principles of an art must be reduced from actual practice, and not deduced from metaphysical or other a priori principles. What their criterion of actual or real practice is, is of course crucial for a proper understanding of their method. But this is no less the case with Machiavelli. Because he chooses to make the Roman experience the most authoritative of all does not make his method any more inductive than that of Erasmus and More. It does, however, indicate that his criteria of decisive experience are different:
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1. obviously, for him the decisive realm of human experience is political and not moral, metaphysical or religious in nature hence Rome is taken as the examplar and not Socrates, or Christ; 2. and within this realm certain additional criteria are also operative, e.g. one political experience is to be preferred to another on the ground of greatness. For this reason Roman experience is more significant than Spartan experience. V Varieties of Cycles (the method of cycles and the method of division)43 Another suggestion regarding the meaning of Machiavellis new path leads us back to Polybius and the idea of cycles. Now the influence of Polybius on Machiavelli the fact, for example, that the theoretical discussion on the origin of cities and the cycle of governments in the early portion of the Discourses is nothing more than a paraphrase of Polybius has been recognized at least since the nineteenth century. This has given rise to what amounts to a special field of inquiry within the wider domain of Machiavelli scholarship centring on the problem of how Machiavelli came be to acquainted with

43

Portions of this essay, including the discussion and analysis of cycles and the method of division in Machiavelli, were presented in a paper delivered at a panel devoted to Machiavelli at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, The Palmer House, Chicago, Illinois, 25 September 1976. In his Machiavelli (New York, 1981), Quentin Skinner briefly (pp. 234) mentions what he calls the dichotomies in The Prince but he does not analyse or discuss their significance.

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Polybius cyclical theory of political history since Book VI of Polybius Histories had not yet been translated in Machiavellis day.44 Modern scholarship has thoroughly identified Machiavellis borrowings from Polybius45 and also contended that Machiavellis own conception of history is cyclical. But, to the best of my knowledge, Robert Cumming in his masterful Human Nature and History is the first to argue forcefully that, when he spoke of his new path, Machiavelli specifically meant this theory of history that is, the path which yields vera cognizione delle storie is the outline of the cycle of governments as given in I, 2 of the Discourses. This cycle, it will be recalled, moves from principality to tyranny to aristocracy to oligarchy to democracy to anarchy, and then back to principality.46 Such an interpretation is, of course, fully compatible with Machiavellis own language and many of its basic notions. It does not jar our sensibility as do the many interpretations which view Machiavelli in terms of their own theories of what modern science or political science is all about. Cummings interpretation is subtly and convincingly argued and textually well grounded. However, although it parallels some of the arguments presented here, and offers corroborative evidence for others, it cannot be accepted in full because it does not offer the full story. Walker has argued that Machiavelli really dismisses the Polybian cycle. Polybius goes on to say that a person seeking to apply this theory to existent states might mistake the time at which a change would take place but ought to make no mistake in regard to its being in process of decay or as to the form likely to supervene, provided he looks at the matter impartially. Machiavelli, on the other hand, shrewdly remarks that the cycle is rarely completed; nor does he ever mention cyclic change again.47 Cumming shows that Walker has missed the point: the reason the cycle is in fact rarely completed in no way vitiates the underlying theoretical argument which Machiavelli does not repudiate. Furthermore Cumming demonstrates that the argument Machiavelli offers to explain why the cycle is not finished is itself also derived from Polybius. Finally, Cumming indicates, cyclical change is basic to the very structure of the Discourses.

44

See, for example, Felix Gilbert, L.J. Walker, Jack Hexter, Hans Baron. The early work was by G. Ellinger, Die Antiken Quellen der Staatslehre Machiavellis (Tbingen, 1888), and A. Bini, Polibio e il Machiavelli (Montevarchi, 1900). See, for example, L.J. Walker and the editors of the Feltrinelli edition of Machiavellis works. I have omitted the very first government, the rule of the strong man which Machiavelli, following Polybius, drops out of the recurrent cycle. The Discourses of Machiavelli, trans. Walker, Vol. II, pp. 11 ff., 17.

45

46

47

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Nevertheless Walker does have one valid point: the Polybian cycle of the transformation of one governmental type into its opposite is not the cycle which gives structure to the Discourses and provides the basis for vera cognizione delle storie. Cumming has Machiavelli taking over Polybius governmental cyclical theory and one of his arguments for this is that what Walker fails to recognize is the cyclical structure of Machiavellis own theory. The three books composing the Discourses follow a threephased cycle: the first book considers the foundation of the state and the development of its internal structure; the second book, its external expansion and consequent transformation of its structure; and the third book, the program of reformation that will return it to its starting point.48 But this cycle, as Cumming knows, is quite different from the governmental cycle. If we agree then that the idea of cycle constitutes one fundamental mode of Machiavellis thought and is directly related to his idea of the correct knowledge of history, the problem now open for inquiry centres on the structure or ordine of the cycle or cycles Machiavelli employs. The governmental cycle49 a cycle in which stage by stage, beginning with principato,50 the state goes through the various governmental medi only to return anew to principality51 is slighted by Machiavelli in subsequent discussions in the Discourses because it is less relevant to the problem of the renewal of political life than other cycles. Let us return to the cycle which Cumming finds embedded in the structure of the Discourses, a cycle consisting of 1. the foundation and development of Romes internal structure 2. external expansion 3. the programme of reformation returning the state to its starting point. A closer look discloses some problems and complications with this schema. For one thing the phases of this cycle are not necessarily temporally sequential: the renewal of Roman political life as discussed in Book III frequently overlaps the historical periods discussed in Book II and even in Book I. This is not because Machiavelli, like Homer, occasionally nods. It is explicable by reference to another and much simpler cycle (if we may call it that) which Machiavelli
48 49

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Robert D. Cumming, Human Nature and History (Chicago, 1969), Vol. I, p. 96.

Opere, Vol. I, p. 133, Discourses, I.2: il cerchio nel quale girando tutte le republiche si sono governate e si governano.
50 51

Ibid., p. 131. Ibid., p. 133, my translation.

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employs, which may even be viewed as an abbreviated version of the birth, growth/expansion, renewal cycle namely the order/disorder or decline/ renewal cycle. In the History of Florence, in one version, order comes out of disorder and then disorder emerges from order again.52 In the Discourses it takes on the form of the movement from the degenerative type of government to renewal in the next type to its subsequent degeneration.53 A further problem with the cyclical structure of the Discourses as Cumming gives it is that Book I is not devoted to a discussion of the foundation of Rome but, instead, the discussion is cast in terms of a general consideration of the origins of cities. Now the form which is employed here is at least as basic to Machiavellis mode of reading, ordering and presenting the histories of various states as is the cyclical structure. It is the equally ancient one of the method of division. Thus Machiavelli announces at the beginning of the Discourses that, since the first book will deal with the birth of Rome, he will initially be concerned with the founding of all cities. He immediately proceeds to his first generalization: all cities are built either by men native to the place where they are built, or by foreigners.54 The particular method of division which Machiavelli, with rare exception, employs is the method of division by dichotomy. Division by dichotomy, as the example immediately above shows, seeks to define and classify a subject by dividing it in two, supposedly along the line which distinguishes an essential element in the genus and hence significant differentia in the two species or sub-classes. The procedure of dichotomizing and the accompanying grammatical structure of either . . . or . . . is so native to Machiavellis style that it is a puzzle why commentators have generally chosen to ignore it.55 Machiavellis thought is so marked by this tendency that it may be taken as basic to its modo del procedere. The world is structured in terms of choices or decisions, but the choices are not endlessly multiplied. Instead, where possible, Machiavelli loves to present them as clear-cut alternative or antithetical principles of action forza or fraude, virt or fortuna, ozio or necessit. Perhaps the preoccupation with Machiavellis modernity and with his empiricism inhibited the perception of Machiavellis continuous recourse to an ancient mode of analysis and argument which goes back at least as far as Plato. In any event, the method of division permeates the structure of every paragraph of Discourses, I.1, as well as providing it with its overall form. When
52 53 54 55

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Ibid., Vol. VII, p. 325, Istorie,V.l, my translation. Ibid., Vol. I, pp. 1312, Discourses, I.2. Gilbert, p. 192, Discourses, I.l.

Behind this way of structuring both language and human reality one detects the Roman will to structure things in terms of either . . . or (aut . . . aut), a dominant characteristic of the classical Latin style.

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it is continuously reapplied to the analysis of a subject or class it produces a series of linked, descending levels or stages involving the splitting of just one of the two halves, and thus it yields the particular branching form we associate with Porphyrys tree. This is precisely the method Machiavelli follows so closely in The Prince, giving rise to a long-chained argument which tightly links the first eight chapters. Let us turn, for a moment, to the structure of The Prince. Its very first sentence establishes the form of the argument. All states . . . are either republics or principalities. The diagram on this page reproduces and summarizes the structure of the argument as developed in the remainder of Chapter 1. Level 1 2 3 4 5 Division A Division B

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All states, all dominions are either Republics or Principalities either Hereditary or New either entirely New or Additions to Hereditary states either free or under a prince *

Conquered by mercenaries (Fortuna)

Conquered by arms of a prince (Virt)

(At the point marked by the asterisk the division applies to the acquisition of both dominions that were free and those that had been under a prince. Hence the pattern of branching is broken at this juncture.) The succeeding chapters discuss and dispute the problem of governing the various sub-types. Thus Chapter II deals with hereditary principalities (3, A); Chapter III with new principalities (3, B), but also with new additions to old states (composite principalities); Chapter IV discovers a new dichotomy in a genus of principality which cannot quite fit into the tree pattern as presented up to this point:

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Princedoms of which we have any record are governed in two different ways: in one there is a prince, and all the others are as servants . . . In the other, there is a prince, with the barons who hold their rank not through the rulers favor but through their ancient blood.56 Chapter V discusses the governing of newly acquired principalities which were previously free (5, A); Chapter VI deals with 6, B; Chapter VII with 6, A; Chapters VIII and IX introduce a new dichotomy not related to the tree; Chapter XII announces the end of the examination of the various species of principality in favour of a general discussion of principalities and how they should organize themselves militarily (Chs. XIIXIV); Chapters XVXIX (or to XXIII) are concerned with how princes should behave vis--vis their subjects. The structure Machiavelli employs at this point and frequently at other places, then, is not the Polybian natural cycle of birth/growth and expansion/decay, but the rational/necessary one of the method of division. In the Discourses the pattern is more truncated. A division normally is not pursued for more than a few levels, to be abandoned for another division not directly derived from the first, which in its turn is shortly abandoned. Thus, pursuing his favourite method of division, Machiavelli announces at the beginning of the second discourse, Book I, that I intend to omit discussion of those cities that at their beginning have been subject to somebody, and I shall speak of those that . . . governed themselves by their own judgment, either as republics or as princedoms.57 This genus he further divides into either those that at the outset or shortly thereafter had laws given them by one man at one time, like Lycurgus to the Spartans, or those that acquired their laws by chance at different times and circumstances, like Rome.58 On this level the common characteristic is how cities get their leggi ed ordini,59 and the differentia is based on whether they get them at once and at the hands of one man (by his prudence) or at different times and by chance (accidenti). But it can readily be seen that this division sets up a pattern which does not necessarily overlap either the Polybian natural govenmental cycle or the cycle of birth, expansion and renewal which Cumming recognizes in the Discourses. Sparta, which observed [its laws] more than eight hundred years without debasing them and without any dangerous rebellion60 obviously was subject to neither cycle in

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56 57 58 59 60

Gilbert, p. 20, The Prince, IV. Ibid., p. 195, Discourses, I.2. Ibid., pp. 1956, Discourses, I.2. Opere, Vol. I, p. 129, Discourses, I.2. Gilbert, p. 196, Discourses, I.2.

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part for reasons which are irrelevant to the nature of these cycles, namely, that it was instituted at once and by one person.6l In Sparta as in Rome the mixed form of the constitution blocks the effects of the natural governmental cycle (and offers another explanation why the governmental cycle plays no positive role in the Discourses once we get beyond the first few pages). Sparta never goes through it its mixed form, with which it begins, supposedly prevents the operation of the natural cycle. Rome, in beginning to pass through the cycle, acquires the mixed constitution which also removes it from the subsequent effects of the natural governmental cycle. As numerous commentators have observed, the cycle that Machiavelli, following Polybius, has Rome actually traversing is no cycle at all, let alone the classic governmental cycle. In both cases the idea of the cycle has a purely negative function: it indicates what would have happened if not for the proper ordini and modi. Thus almost in the same breath that Machiavelli expounds the governmental cycle (Discourses, 1.2) he declares it irrelevant to the subsequent considerations of the Discourses. Art, in the case of Rome, has triumphed over nature. Much more relevant to Machiavellis argument is the method of division and its distinction between Sparta and Rome. This is obviously more than an intellectual distinction. It represents a real political choice, indeed the only choice available for anyone [who] sets out . . . to organize a state from the beginning,62 for to find a course [modo] half way between one and the other I believe not possible.63 Thus, the way Machiavelli dichotomizes is the only way open to statesmen and republics. It is also one way by which he presents vera cognizione delle storie or reduces historical experience to order. Continuing the analysis of the second cycle, the one Cumming focuses upon, as a description of Roman constitutional history, we find that Machiavelli sees the original ordini of Rome, though not perfect in themselves, as putting Rome on the right road. In spite of her [Rome] not having a Lycurgus to organize her at the beginning in such a way that she could continue free for a long time, nonetheless so many unexpected events happened, on account of the disunion between the plebians and the Senate, that what an organizer had not done was done by chance. Because if Rome did not gain the first fortune, she gained the second; because her first laws [ordini], though they were defective, nevertheless did not turn from the straight road

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61

To the best of my knowledge, Polybius does not offer this as a significant reason for Spartas longevity. He attributes it to the perfection of the constitution that Lycurgus introduces and not to the fact that it was introduced at one time. Gilbert, p. 209, Discourses, I.6. Ibid., p. 211, Discourses, I.6.

62 63

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leading them to perfection. Romulus and all the other kings made many good laws [leggj], adapted also to a free society [vivere libero].64 The perfection of Romes constitution does not necessarily insure its immortality. Even as it is being perfected it is subject to decay, which if not reversed will lead to ruin. Renewal may be a periodic political task, but its period does not mechanically arrive at the end of the cycle. Like organic life itself, a vivere politico must be continually renewed. Its renewal consists of a revitalization of its original or constitutive principles. The peroration with which Machiavelli ends the Discourses takes as its theme the need of a republic which is interested in maintaining its liberty continually to make new provisions to that end.65 The republic must be perpetually on the alert to introduce remedies to correct corruptions when they appear. We may now detect the source of the second cycle. It lies not in the cosmological cycle of the circling stars to which the first governmental cycle is assimilated, but in the organic-medical cycle of growth/perfection/decay to which earthly life is subject. This cycle too is of ancient lineage. Having cited Polybius for the other cycle we may just as well quote him on this one: every body or state or action has its natural periods first of growth, then of prime, and finally of decay.66 Machiavelli exhibits a tendency to short-circuit even this abbreviated organic cycle so that we are sometimes left with an elementary cycle of decay and renewal, or order/disorder. This is obviously the cycle most politically relevant to statesmen and republics in the widest variety of situations. We may, with Machiavelli, consider even the case of perfecting a political order as involving renewal and, indeed, this is how he occasionally describes it. This leaves only the extremely rare case of the founding of a political order as outside the bounds of this cycle. Here we have the link between Machiavellis reduction of historical experience to order by way of a cycle and by way of division: for the cycle of order/disorder is plainly the division or exclusive political choice: either order or disorder. It is also the cycle Machiavelli is most concerned with in his own political life. These same concerns of perfection-renewal underlie Machiavellis perspective on the history of Florence and his recommendations for a Florentine constitution. Florence, he insists, is not so corrupt that the institution of a militia will not renew and perfect its political life. He not only urged this step on his friend Soderini when the latter was Gonfaloniere, he repeatedly sought to have it instituted under the republican regime. He was so obsessed with the idea that he made it central to his Florentine Constitution even though it was addressed to the Medici who, of course, had no interest in buttressing
64 65

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Ibid., p. 200, Discourses, I.2. Discourses, III.49.


66

Polybius, The Histories, vi.51.4.

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republican institutions. Finally, he made it the recurrent theme of his History of Florence, also written for the Medici. After the founding of the Florentine state, he tells his readers, the single most important element missing from the constitution was a provision for a genuine militia a citizen army. Machiavelli makes it abundantly clear that this deficiency could be overcome at any point in the history of Florence right up to his own day. This is to say that whatever changes Florence underwent since the republic was born, and Machiavelli dates its birth with the end of French and German control, approximately around 1215, it had never been so badly corrupted that its political life could not be brought to perfection or renewal with the introduction of the proper military order. Military order and the virt of both states and statesmen are, of course, intimately related. It is the statesman of virt who establishes the proper military order for a society where it is lacking, or renews it where it is in decay. It is also the military order which produces citizens soldiers and statesmen of virt.67 This is surely one source of the ability of a vivere libero to break through the various natural cycles to which life is otherwise subject. This way lies its longevity if not its immortality. Virt in this sense has never completely abandoned Italy. Machiavelli recalls the Etruscans and then the Romans. But his compatriots must not make the fatal mistake of thinking that military virt fled Italy for good with the barbarian invasions. Barbarian rule in Italy ended when the principal Italian states (Milan, Florence, Venice) drove them out and established their political autonomy. Previously Italian military virt had been concentrated in one city-state which dominated the area, now it was present among the several Tuscan city-states. Thus, politico-military virt was not dead in Italy, it had merely to be renewed for Italy successfully to confront the new barbarians the Spanish and French. Failing this, independent civic life would once again disappear in Italy. But there are no valid grounds for pessimism, let alone fatalism. Tuscany is ready for a vigorous vivere civile.68 Unfortunately, no one with the requisite ability and knowledge has tried it. VI Either Virt or Fortuna In addition to the recurrence of the passionate theme of vera cognizione as recourse to the past for the sake of renewal of political life in the present, we
67

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See Opere, Vol. II, pp. 3727, Arte della guerra, for one among many examples of this argument.

Opere, Vol. I, p. 257, Discourses, I.55: con lo animo e con lordine si vede, o che le mantengono o che le vorrebbono mantenere la loro libert . . . [all they need is] un uomo prudente, e che delle antiche civilit avesse cognizione, vi sintrodurrebbe uno vivere civile.

68

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can note a definite and characteristic tendency by Machiavelli to depart, time and again, from the iron grip of the more naturalistically conceived cycles of history. It is not merely that a mixed constitution prevents the occurrence of the governmental cycle. More important, knowledge of the natural cycle of government does not constitute the essence of vera cognizione delle storie as Polybius stated it did. Polybius had argued that if the statesman knew in what phase of the cycle he was he could act to forestall the advent of the next phase. Cumming attributes this notion of vera cognizione to Machiavelli, but even if true knowledge is primarily knowledge not of the natural six-phase governmental cycle but of the growth/expansion/renewal cycle, we have seen that Machiavelli does not consistently adhere to it. He is too much the political activist for that. If, as Cumming suggests, Machiavelli (following Polybius) recognizes a political structure in history, we must concede that he loosens it to the point where, for instance, he can contend that Florence was ready for the introduction of an ordine nuovo, a proper militia, at any time over a threehundred year period, that is, from its founding to Machiavellis own day. Obviously, whether we consider the act in the category of perfecting or renewing the Florentine consitution, Machiavelli is not taking the growth/ expansion/renewal cycle all that seriously. Otherwise he would have to concede that Florence was either improving or decaying over that long period, and not that the time was perpetually ripe for the introduction of this new institution. Thus, while Machiavelli recognizes the limits of virt, he is extremely reluctant to concede too much to fortuna, especially when it comes to an assessment of the political prospects of his own Florence. If we turn from the content of Machiavellis political interest to the form he gives it, we are once again struck by yet another recourse to the method of division and to mutually exclusive judgments in the pair virt/fortuna. It is now time to examine this most celebrated of all Machiavellian pairs in connection with the relation between the order of division and the cyclical order. We probably owe the practice of sharply contrasting virt and fortuna to the Cynic-Stoic tradition and its concern, in the Hellenistic period, to develop the inner moral resources of the psyche against the onslaught of external fortune, good or bad. Aristotle had, of course, seen no such antithesis between the goods of fortune and the goods of the soul. Later, in what became a typical rhetorical exercise, the Greeks living under Roman domination applied these categories to politics. They debated whether Romes greatness was due to her own virtue or to the goddess Fortune. Machiavellis own response is clear and unequivocal: Roman greatness is grounded in the reciprocal virtues of Roman statesmen and Roman institutions. Fortune, good or bad, does play a role in the affairs of men. The turnings of the heavens do result in changes in the conditions of earthly states,69 but this power of heaven is diminished when prudence is used
69

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Opere, Vol. VIII, p. 265, Decennale, II.

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to discover and remedy political ills. Machiavelli pursues the theme in his literary works. At heavens command the wheels of fortune are turned by necessit and ozio. The one puts the mundane world in order, and the other ruins it.70 When Machiavelli contrasts necessit and ozio, another aspect of the sources and effects of virt and fortuna is illuminated. Necessity, for Machiavelli, is the mother of virt, as ozio or idleness and luxury are the source of political and personal decay. Men never do good unless necessity drives them to it; but when they are free to choose and can do just as they please, confusion and disorder become everywhere rampant. Hence it is said that hunger and poverty make men industrious, and that laws (ordini) make them good. Thus, while the basic cycle is order/disorder/order, men and states are not mere playthings of fortune.71 Well-ordered republics and men of virt can take advantage of good fortune and forestall or even conquer ill-fortune. In a word, human design (ingenium) can outwit heaven and the cycle of fortune. The design must be based on vera cognizione delle storie. Vera cognizione, it is now clear, consists of knowledge of how to circumvent the natural cycles that is, it consists of the modi et ordini nuovi. But the knowledge which they comprise are rules of practical actions. This brings us back to the statesman-citizen and his absolutely critical role, for it is he who must introduce new ordini and also be able to change his modo del procedere to meet new situations. If it is now granted that renewal is necessary for the survival of political life it follows that, among other criteria, the ability to facilitate renewal is one standard by which to evaluate political orders. The Roman constitution is worthy of emulation because, among other things, the institutionalization of the struggle between patricians and plebs continually revitalizes Roman politico-military life. It cannot go the way of ozio it is constrained by the new necessit embodied in its ordini. Also Rome, and republics in general, are to be preferred to principalities because, in the long run, they can take greater advantage of opportunities. Men, after all, are set in their ways their modi del procedere rarely change once they are fixed. Hence, success depends on the frequently fortuitous fit of ones way to the situation. Since situations change but mens ways tend to remain the same, men will experience ups and downs in their lives and fortunes. If a country is ruled by one man this will also be true for its political fortunes, but a republic

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70 71

Ibid., p. 314, Di fortuna.

Opere, Vol. II, p. 62, Parole da dirle sopra la provisione del danaio. Also, Opere, Vol. VIII, p. 324, Dellambizione.

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will generally fare better simply because it can choose from among its citizenry the statesmen whose modo del procedere is best suited to the times. VII The Greatness of Politics and the Politics of Aggrandizement We have seen that longevity is one criterion for preferring one political order over another. But it is not the only one. For example, among republics, Roman ordini are to be preferred to Spartan ordini, despite the fact that Sparta was longer-lived, because they exhibit greater prudence and virt and allow for greater political choice, greater both quantitatively and qualitatively. It is manifestly the case for Machiavelli that the political prudence of the Romans is greater than that of the Spartans, if for no other reason than that Spartan prudence and virt owe more to fortune the good fortune of having one extraordinary person in the right place at the right time to found it. Rome was less dependent on such good fortune and more on its ordini, which are both the expression of and the renewers of its virt. There is also another way in which Rome is more capable of taking advantage of changing circumstances. Given its constitution Sparta could not expand even when political prudence dictated that choice since that would have spelt the ruin of its internal order. In contrast Rome was so ordered that expansion would not destroy it. It could thus exercise a choice not open to Sparta. But vastly more important than the mere multiplication of choices for Machiavelli was the nature of this particular choice. By choosing the path of expansion Rome could choose the way to political greatness. The imperial way was open to it but not to Sparta. Now in the last analysis, as far as Machiavelli is concerned, the way of political greatness is the only way for men and states. All creatures yearn for that expansion or aggrandizement we call immortality. For Machiavelli, immortality can only come through grandezza he has of course ruled out salvation and the hereafter as an alternative way to immortality. Besides, immortality is not simply a matter of living forever, of mere survival. It is a matter of being superior and of that superiority being recognized and acknowledged by others. Greatness, as Machiavelli uses it, always implies comparison and exclusion. One is great relative to others who are not. If all are great, none are great. This because ultimately Machiavellis greatness is a condition enjoyed at the expense of others it is rooted in triumph and domination over others.72 In this sense it is political. But, as a matter of fact, grandezza is political through and through. Thus all other forms of greatness for example, greatness in art are for Machiavelli historically preceded by and flow from political greatness. Moreover, this greatness is promoted when a people pursue the common good rather than private goods73 when, that is,
72

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Opere, Vol. I, p. 280, Discourses, II.2.

73

Ibid., p. 87, The Prince, XX.

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their ends are political greatness and not wealth. In every sense, then, politics is primary. In tracing the new path that Machiavelli said he was treading, we have noted the significance of his selection of political histories as the subject matter for true knowledge. He then insisted that these histories must be read with an eye to greatness and with an appetite for imitation and emulation. Both the idea of imitation and of the reduction to order of the principles of political action are part of his way, and when we follow Machiavellis way we discover it leads to republican Rome, expansionist in its pursuit of greatness. Machiavelli calls upon his Tuscans to know themselves, not by looking within for some moral principle but by turning outward to recognize themselves in the greatness of their ancestors. They should choose and adopt for themselves the civil order which the Roman experience shows to be necessary to conquer fortune and achieve greatness. Little wonder he has since been viewed as the prophet of realism by an imperial, expansionist West. Machiavellis method, it turns out, is not scientific, empirical or inductive. He takes over the old cyclical theory and the method of division and gives them a political twist of his own. The method of division conforms to the structure of political choice as Machiavelli chooses to see it. His perspective is persistently political where political may be defined as greatness or the recognition by others of ones power. The end is political, and the way to greatness is also political. It involves choices which lead to the thwarting of the natural cyclical tendencies of either cosmological or earthly organic origin. For Machiavelli it is the Roman republic, and not Christ, that halted the recurrent cycles of the wheel of fortune that many ancients sought to escape, and provides the proper example for imitation. Western republican thought from Harrington to Montesquieu and beyond will return to Machiavelli and to the study of Rome and other historical states and to the idea of civic virtue, the citizen and the citizen-soldier as basic to the location and solution of the problems of their day in a word, they will perceive these problems as political. Martin Fleisher THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK

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