CHAPTER 10

Machiavellis Agathocles: from criminal example to princely

exemplum John P. McCormick Introduction This chapter
explores Niccol Machiavellis use of historical figures to
impart political lessons imperfectly or only partially conveyed
by the general rules that the Florentine so (in)famously sets
out throughout The Prince and the Discourses . 1 I suggest
that Machiavelli deploys a particular example, Agathocles the
Sicilian, to establish across his major works an elaborate
cross-comparative web of individuals situated in similar
political circumstances; specifically, circumstances in which a
prince or magistrate finds himself positioned between the
insolence of the aristocrats and the rage of the people (D
I.16). I demonstrate that this web of comparisons and
contrasts, at the center of which Machiavelli places
Agathocles, convey at different textual moments, in
multiple registers and at varying intensities political advice
regarding cruelty, criminality, faith-keeping, class allegiance
and civic military organization.
In general, I show how Machiavelli presents specific political
actions and particular historical circumstances in ways that
often affirm and extend, but sometimes qualify and even
contravene, Machiavellis own political precepts and his own
evaluations of many individual actors discussed throughout
his political writings. These cross-comparisons, I argue,
enable Machiavelli to challenge conventional assessments of
such individuals offered by previous writers, and,
concomitantly, to redefine traditional notions of virtue, glory,
liberty and justice. Machiavelli often relies upon historical
details provided by previous writers when discussing the
political actors that he places in conceptual proximity to

Agathocles (sometimes he even subtly implores his audience

to re-consult such sources, especially, when Machiavelli
indicates that he has omitted pertinent details). But
Machiavelli almost always winds up contradicting, either
directly or by implication, the moral political assessments
offered by these rival authors and very often his own
initially ventured moral political assessments.
At the simplest level, in chapter 8 of The Prince , Machiavelli
presents Agathocles as a criminal; a morally reprehensible
example to be condemned and not emulated. Machiavelli
places the Sicilian in a chapter explicitly devoted to
individuals who gain power through crimes and violence
(P 8, P 9). Agathocles, generally
123

124 John P. McCormick

considered a tyrant by ancient authors, 2 seems to be a
prince who achieved significant political success at the
severe cost of forfeiting the opportunity to be considered
excellent, virtuous or glorious by posterity. Yet, besides
explicitly accentuating Agathocles virtue at crucial
junctures, Machiavelli concludes the chapter by dramatically
altering his evaluation of the Syracusan prince. After
qualifying his remarks with the curious proviso, if it may be
permitted to speak well of evil, Machiavelli proceeds to
uphold Agathocles, without equivocation, as a master of the
practice he calls cruelty well-used ( crudelt bene usate ), a
tenet of central, perhaps even preeminent, importance within
The Prince .
Why does Machiavelli initially present Agathocles as a

criminal example deserving of blame, only to praise him

subsequently as a princely example worthy of notice and,
even, imitation? 3 Moreover, what precise role does evil
play in Machiavellis political lessons that enlist Agathocles,
and to what extent does the Florentines mode of writing
make it permissible for his audience to learn to begin thinking
well of evil if perhaps evil reconstructed in Machiavellian
terms?
To address these questions, I examine the rhetorical and
literary techniques through which Machiavelli invites readers
to evaluate various political actors in light of his account of
Agathocles (and, conversely, those through which he invites
readers to consistently re-evaluate his initial depiction of the
Sicilian). Prominent among such figures are Cesare Borgia,
Liverotto of Fermo, Scipio Africanus, Nabis the Spartan, and
Machiavelli himself. These rhetorical techniques include
linguistic cues, intellectual tropes and literary (often Biblical)
allegories; constant recurrences of similar circumstances
confronted by princes and magistrates throughout history;
and consistent re-presentations of comparable actions
undertaken (or avoided) by such diverse figures.
Sometimes Machiavelli more or less directly invites readers to
consider the behavior of other political actors in light of
Agathocles example, such as Liverotto, whom Machiavelli
places in the same chapter of The Prince as the Sicilian. In
other instances, Machiavelli induces comparative
considerations on the part of his audience through more
distant, but still close, textual proximity: for example,
Machiavelli implicitly asks readers to consider why he deems
Agathocles, who appears in a chapter situated between those
devoted to Borgia and Nabis, a criminal when he fails to
overtly condemn as criminals the last two figures, who
behave in ways quite similar to Agathocles. On other
occasions, Machiavelli elicits comparative reflections more
indirectly, as in the case (set forth in both The Prince and the

Discourses ) of Scipio, who, like Agathocles, invaded Africa to

free his patria from a grievous Carthaginian threat; but who,
unlike Agathocles, succumbed to domestic controversies
and conspiracies initiated by envious senatorial elites that
cut short his illustrious political career. At other junctures,
Machiavelli applies similar words or phrases to figures
appearing in disparate places throughout his works, such that
readers are prompted to ponder the conceptual political
relationship between them. For instance, Machiavelli refers to
the hardships and dangers that both he, himself, and
Agathocles incurred in public service performed on behalf of
their cities. While Agathocless arduous efforts on behalf of
his patria enabled him to
Machiavellis Agathocles 125
successfully outmaneuver aristocratic opposition to his
policies and to fend off foreign domination, Machiavelli had to
stand by helplessly while an aristocratic coup and foreign
invasion put an end to the Florentine Republic that he served
so diligently; a coup and an invasion that, as we know, also
resulted in Machiavelli being sacked, imprisoned and
tortured.
I argue that a thorough examination of these other political
actors with whom Machiavelli links Agathocles suggests the
following: in Machiavellis estimation, Agathocles is much
more than a criminal deserving disapprobation; rather, he
serves as Machiavellis chief exemplum of precisely the
appropriate political action necessary to establish a longlasting principality and, perhaps more remarkably, to reform
a corrupt republic. According to Machiavelli, inevitable
conflicts arise in every polity between the great, the grandi ,
and the people, the popolo ; respectively, between those who
wish to dominate and those who desire not to be dominated

(P 9, D I.2 4). Therefore, both would-be tyrants aspiring to

usurp republics and sitting civic magistrates committed to
maintaining them will, Machiavelli insists, almost invariably
find themselves situated in volatile circumstances where
aristocratic aggression provokes popular indignation.
Machiavelli advises individual political actors to favor the
people and to check the nobility whenever possible in such
situations; but precisely how should would-be princes and
civic leaders carry out such tasks? Machiavellis answer
seems to be that the political actor most likely to overcome
such circumstances successfully must be part tyrannical
prince and part civic reformer.
Agathocles is the first prince to whom Machiavelli attributes a
particular action that intellectual authorities, both traditional
and recent, would unequivocally consider tyrannical:
Agathocles usurps a republic by slaughtering his citys
senators and wealthiest citizens (P 8). In full accord with
established writers, Machiavelli at first condemns Agathocles
actions but then, as noted above, seems to condone them as
necessary and appropriate exhibitions of cruelty well-used. 4
How can readers determine with any confidence which
assessment of Agathocles is most fully Machiavellis own?
Machiavellis ultimately positive endorsement of Agathocless
behavior, I demonstrate, is borne out through, among other
things, his overt praise of other individuals, previously and
subsequently discussed, who act similarly when confronted
with the competing, irreconcilable claims of oppression-driven
nobles and freedom-seeking peoples; as well as by his
sometimes explicit, sometimes barely concealed
condemnation of individuals who failed to take Agathoclean
measures in such circumstances.
Slaughtering rich and prominent citizens is clearly useful to
aspiring tyrants: Machiavelli coldly remarks that every new
prince must eliminate potential rivals among the elite, and
that he ought to gain favor with the common people (P 6, P

9). More curiously, however, Machiavelli also intimates that

similar recourse may be necessary for the preservation and
reformation of republics (D I.9, DI.16). In fact, he often
affiliates such behavior with the recurrent need for republics
to punish or eliminate the sons of Brutus (i.e. nobles who
are driven by an insatiable appetite to oppress (P 9, D I.2-4),
who exacerbate socio-economic inequality in their cities (D
I.17-18, I.55, III.24), and who bitterly resent the liberty
enjoyed

126 John P. McCormick

by the common people within democratic as opposed to
oligarchic republics (D I.16, III.3)). 5
Machiavellis discussion of Agathocles, and the crosscomparative web within which he situates him, suggests that
the appropriate and necessary action that a prince or
magistrate must take vis--vis the nobles and the people is,
in fact, evil political action as conceived by traditional
writers. In other words, the Agathoclean exemplum permits
Machiavelli to transform evil into good. By elaborating and
amplifying his account of Agathocles through similar
examples (such as other successful Greek tyrants), and
through counter-examples (such as failed Roman reformers)
that Machiavelli discusses, and that I will examine at length
below, the Florentine redefines the model of a good prince in
ways that contravene the political preferences and moral
injunctions of previous writers. As we will observe, not only
does the good princely founder or tyrannical reformer crush

or exterminate a citys leading citizens (action that,

unsurprisingly, always alarms nobles, as well as their
principal clients, writers); he also extensively arms or rearms
his common citizen subjects; and he uses fraud and force to
fight back or vanquish often superiorly numbered foreign
powers.

Machiavellis politics of exemplarity

Machiavelli communicates the political lessons described
above political lessons guaranteed to provoke aristocratic
outrage and scholarly disapproval through the literary
practice of exemplarity. The best way to understand a
particular example like Agathocles, Machiavelli seems to
suggest, is not only or even primarily through what the
Florentine initially and explicitly writes about that figure (say,
in either a chapter heading or in a seemingly definitive
normative evaluation). Rather, Machiavelli invites, but does
not necessarily direct, readers also and perhaps
preeminently to evaluate Agathocles through careful
consideration of other similarly situated political actors and
the measures they took or refrained from taking in such
circumstances. For instance, Machiavelli never instructs us to
directly compare Agathocles and Scipio Africanus. But
prominent similarities and differences in their respective
behaviors subtly entice us to do so: both invade Africa to free
their cities of an existential Carthaginian military threat; but
one figure is willing to permit the preferences of senators and
writers to dictate how he conducts himself publicly, while the
other one, as we will observe, most certainly does not.
To be sure, the individuals with whom Machiavelli compares
and contrasts Agathocles in the process of constructing his
Agathoclean exemplum do not exclusively serve this

particular purpose; these other individual cases themselves

inevitably exhibit complexities of their own that both
problematize the very exemplary model that I am delineating
here (and they also play important roles in other important
pedagogical strands that comprise Machiavellis political
oeuvre). As the editors of this volume, Michle Lowrie and
Susanne Ldemann, have indicated, 6 this corresponds with
the very essence of exemplarity: although it may appear, at
first, as though one example should suffice to convey an
authors political and moral lessons, multiple examples and
counter-examples prove to

Machiavellis Agathocles 127

be imbricated in a network of associations that impart
more profound, but also admittedly more potentially
tenuous and elusive political conclusions.
Nevertheless, Machiavelli, I will attempt to show,
differs profoundly from previous (and later)
theoreticians who enlist exemplarity in the course of
imparting their political lessons; most profoundly,
because the Florentine unequivocally declares an
intention that his advice conform with utility (D II,
Preface); that it prove useful to those who
understand it (P 15). After all, Machiavelli separates
himself from previous writers most emphatically when
he professes an unprecedented concern with
effectual truth (P 15). But what does unequivocal
and emphatic mean within a literary rhetorical
framework that often deploys exemplarity in the
indirect and implicit manner that I just outlined?
Ultimately, will it be possible to reconcile Machiavellis
obvious recourse to exemplarity, a practice that
always complicates as much as clarifies the

relationship between theory and practice, with his

explicit motivation to put theory more directly into
practice than ever before? 7
One initial point of contrast between Machiavelli and
the writers may be illustrative in this regard.
Machiavelli states explicitly in the Discourses , his
intention is to present as models of imitation and
not merely admiration the following: the most
virtuous deeds illustrated by histories that were
performed within monarchies and republics by kings,
captains, citizens, lawgivers and others on behalf of
their fatherlands (D I, Preface). Whereas Livy, in the
preface to his history of Rome (which serves as
Machiavelli ostensible model) declared his intention to
highlight good examples from Romes past to be
imitated and the abominable ones to be avoided, 8
Machiavellis emphasis on virtuous examples
unfolding from the example of Agathocles, as we will
observe combines what is conventionally considered
morally good and reprehensible. Exempla that
combine good and evil, it would seem, are more useful
than those that accentuate the differences between
those qualities.

Between Borgia and Nabis, virtue

and criminality
Machiavelli places his account of Agathocles career in
a chapter of The Prince (chap. 8) bookended by those
in which the Florentine endorses, explicitly, the crimes
of Cesare Borgia (chap. 7), and, implicitly, those of
Nabis the Spartan (chap. 9); yet, in the intervening
chapter, Machiavelli condemns Agathocles crimes,
despite the fact that the latter earned the Sicilian

greater political success than either Borgia or Nabis

ever achieved (far greater, in fact, than Borgia). 9
There is virtually no difference between the crimes of
Borgia and those of Agathocles. Each betrays friends
and allies. Borgia spectacularly eliminates his
problematically effective lieutenant, Remirro deOrco;
he dissimulates himself out of having to supply
military support to his patron, the French King,
without whose help he would never have come to
power. Agathocles betrays the Syracusan senate that
consented to his assuming supreme command, and
defies the Carthaginians who aided his coup against
the former. Each commits large-scale murder: Borgia
strangles en masse unfaithful co-condottieri at
Senigallia; 10 and Agathocles massacres the senate
and richest citizens of Syracuse.
128 John P. McCormick
The one crime that Agathocles commits, which Borgia
apparently does not the murder of fellow citizens
is implicitly absolved by the example of Nabis.
Machiavelli implies that Nabis came to the principality
of Sparta with the support of fellow citizens, and
without perpetrating intolerable violence, but he
provides no specific details of Nabiss policies in
chapter 9. If readers consult the historical sources for
such details as they most certainly ought to do
whenever Machiavelli extravagantly swears off
specifics they will find that Nabis murdered and
despoiled the elite citizens of Sparta in a much more
vicious and protracted fashion than did Agathocles
who did so, with Machiavellis explicit commendation,
at a stroke.

Scipio Africanus and worldly glory

Machiavelli emphasizes the fact that Agathocles successfully
invaded Africa to compel the Carthaginians to abandon their
siege of his native city, Syracuse a feat that immediately
calls to mind the later actions of Publius Cornelius Scipio,
actions that attained for the Roman commander both the
glorious title Africanus, and the eternally exalted status of
consummate citizen/statesman/captain. 11 Machiavellis
criticisms of Scipios affability in subsequent chapters of The
Prince suggest that, as far as Machiavelli is concerned, the
much crueler Agathocles was more genuinely virtuous than
Scipio, despite the fact that the latter won glory in the
estimation of traditional and recent writers and the former
did not. Because Scipio lived under the government of the
Senate, Machiavelli suggests that he bought time to hone
military skills that came more instinctively to Agathocles,
thus earning the latter greater credit for conquering
Carthage, even though he never wins the title Africanus,
from senators and writers. 12
This remark that Scipio operated under the government of
the Senate resonates in the Discourses , as Machiavelli
describes how Scipio defers to senatorial authority,
permitting prominent senators to drive him into exile for
exerting too much authority within the domestic politics of
Rome. Even if Agathocles eliminated the very senators who
might have bestowed a glorious title like Africanus on him,
and incurred the wrath of aristocratically subservient writers
who would have celebrated that title through history,
Agathocles ruled Syracuse for the length of his long life,
without incurring controversies and conspiracies like
those ignited and launched against Scipio, and Agathocles
did so more generally for the benefit of his patria .

Agathocles leaves Syracuse socio-economically and militarily

more vibrant than when he usurped it; Scipios exit from the
Roman political stage would signal, for Machiavelli, the
beginning of the socio-economic/ military crisis that would
end with the collapse of the republic.

Liverotto, aristocratic homicide, and

papal parricide
By pairing Agathocles and Liverotto in a chapter devoted to
criminality (P 8), Machiavelli seems to be offering merely
ancient and modern examples of violent usurpers of
republics. 13 But the subtle details of his contrasting
accounts

Machiavellis Agathocles 129

of Agathocles impressive long-term success and Liverottos
fairly rapid demise insinuate, but do not openly display,
something more profound: Machiavelli demonstrates, without
explicit comment at this juncture of The Prince , just how
pernicious he considers the influence of the Roman Catholic
Church to be in contemporary Italy. The prevalence of
mercenary arms and the duplicitous political relations of
dependence that they engender, both fostered by the
Church, prevent a petty criminal like Liverotto from ever
rising to the rank of a founder, conqueror, or liberator
comparable to that of (the otherwise also criminal)
Agathocles.

Machiavelli describes how Agathocles, in the midst of a

formal, public gathering of the Syracusan Senate and people,
murders all the senators and richest citizens in the full light of
day. By contrast, Liverotto, with the aid of foreign
mercenaries and half of Fermos elite, duplicitously lures the
rest of Fermos first citizens to a secret room, during a
celebratory banquet, and murders them in the shadows of
the night. (Machiavellis imagery here recalls the upper
room that hosted a somewhat different Last Supper.)
Agathocles, triumphant over all adversaries, domestic and
foreign, extends Syracusan rule over the entirety of Sicily.
Liverotto, still largely dependent on papal mercenaries, is
betrayed and murdered by the same before extending his
principality much beyond the boundaries of Fermo, leaving
his patria in the nefarious clutches of the Church. Agathocles,
Machiavelli implies, dies in his bed, a benefactor of his
patria , while Liverotto winds up strangled by the Popes
instrument, Cesare Borgia, no better, in the end, than a
civic parricide.

Successful Greek tyrants and failed

Roman reformers
By way of the example of Agathocles, Machiavelli, throughout
The Prince and the Discourses , implicitly groups the Sicilian
with other Greek tyrants. 14 Most of such figures Hiero,
Nabis, Clearchus and Cleomenes eliminate their cities
nobilities, restore relative socio-economic equality to their
patria , end their dependence on foreign mercenaries and/or
expand the ranks of their armed citizenries (often by
liberating slaves to do so). By establishing this ideal type,
which Machiavelli ever more explicitly commends throughout
his writings, the Florentine subtly indicts Roman figures such
as Scipio, the Gracchi, Gaius Marius, and Julius Caesar, for
failing to successfully enact similar socio-economic and civic
military reforms in their republic. Unlike their Greek

counterparts, the ideal typical Roman reformer never

comprehensively (that is, through violence, criminality and
cruelty well-used) overcomes senatorial opposition to his
attempted populist, socio-economic and civic-military
reforms. The deference to the senatorial order of their
republic exhibited by the aspiring Roman tyrants cum
reformers, but vigorously eschewed by their more successful
Greek counterparts, Machiavelli intimates, insured the decline
and fall of the Roman Republic.
Throughout the Discourses , Machiavelli embeds his
discussion of Greek tyrants and Roman reformers within a
broader account of the unavoidable corruption to which all
republics must succumb. Republics, Machiavelli repeatedly
insists, inevitably experience rising inequality over the course
of time (D I.17-20, I.55).

130 John P. McCormick

At first, Machiavelli describes this pernicious inequality in
purely civil terms all republics, even Rome, are destined to
suffer a serious decline in equality before the law (D I.18).
But, much more subtly, Machiavelli also intimates that this
rise in civil inequality can be traced to an underlying
expansion of economic inequality (D I.17 18, I.55, and III.24).
As Machiavelli ultimately demonstrates in his chapter on
Romes Agrarian Laws (D I.37), economic inequality is a
republican disease not readily amenable to a strictly
republican cure. Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus exhibited good
intentions, Machiavelli claims, when they sought to address
the economic inequality that was corrupting Romes civic
military virtue in the wake of the Punic Wars. But, he

concludes, they exhibited mortally woeful prudence when

they expected the Roman Senate to sit by idly while they
passed legislation aimed at stemming this economic
inequality. The Gracchi basically asked the Senates
permission to legally redistribute to the increasingly
impoverished and proletarianized Roman plebs the vast
wealth controlled by Roman senators. The Senate, of course,
responded by murdering one Gracchus brother and, a decade
later, by compelling the suicide of the other. 15
Elsewhere in the Discourses , Machiavelli recounts how the
Greek prince, Agis, suffered a fate similar to that of the
Gracchi: at the behest of the Spartan nobility, the republics
chief magistrates, the Ephors, killed Agis before he could
reinstitute Lycurguss laws, and so restore Spartas famously
foundational economic equality (D I.9). Cognizant of this fact,
a subsequent, more prudent Spartan prince, Cleomenes
using his authority well, Machiavelli writes took the
initiative in murdering the Ephors, along with other members
of the senatorial opposition, rather than, like his imprudent
predecessor, waiting to be eliminated by them (D I.19).
Through such actions, which Machiavelli deems worthy of
praise and conforming to justice, Cleomenes, now
unimpeded by aristocratic obstruction, set about
reestablishing socio-economic equality in Sparta. 16
Of course, Plutarch provided the classic juxtaposition of the
Gracchi and Agis/Cleomenes; Roman versus Spartan
statesmen who attempted to reinstitute socio-economic
equality in their republics. 17 But Machiavelli expands this
contrast by making central to his ideal typical Greek versus
Roman reformers, respectively, the examples of Agathocles
and Julius Caesar. By the time we assimilate the Greek
examples of Clearchus and Cleomenes in the Discourses to
those of Agathocles, Hiero and Nabis in The Prince , it
becomes fairly clear that Machiavelli favors Greek tyrannical
action over Gracchan imprudent inaction. But Machiavelli is

much more circumspect when enlisting the example of Julius

Caesar into his negative exemplum of the ideal typical,
failed Roman reformer.
In the Discourses , Machiavelli frequently rehearses and pays
homage to traditional civic humanist criticisms of Gaius
Marius and Julius Caesar for seeking to exert undue, even
tyrannical, influence over the Roman Republic. Machiavelli
often closely follows classical republican and especially
Florentine humanist tropes by praising Scipio as the Roman
republics consummate hero, and by criticizing Caesar as her
consummate usurper. Machiavelli declares that individuals
should wish to be praised, as Scipio Africanus is, for
defending and maintaining

ONE THIRTY ONE MISSING

132 John P. McCormick
We will never know if Caesar, as he claimed, in truth intended
to use his dictatorial authority to institute long-lasting civic,
economic and military reforms that would have reinvigorated
the Roman Republic. We will never know if he aspired to be a
genuine rector rei publicae . Nevertheless, according to
Machiavelli, if Caesar did intend to become a tyrant,
conventionally understood, he should have killed Brutus, the
living symbol of republican liberty in Rome. If, on the
contrary, Caesar intended to be a republican reformer a
civil prince, like Nabis, Cleomenes, Clearchus and, of course,
Agathocles then Machiavelli insists that he should have
killed the sons of Brutus; in this case, the distant
descendant of Brutus and his young noble collaborators, both
of whom who resisted reforms aimed at improving the lot of

the Roman people and who desired to restore and entrench

senatorial ascendance in Rome.
In the ambiguity of Caesars motivations here, we see the
indeterminacy of both Machiavellis invocation of the sons of
Brutus, as an exemple of oppressioncraving nobles, and his
criticisms of Caesar as a usurper of the Roman Republic. 20 If
Caesar intended to become king, then young Brutus acted
appropriately in the manner of his family forebear who so
illustriously ended the Tarquin monarchy by assassinating
the dictator. If Caesar had intended to reform and restore the
Roman Republic, then young Brutus becomes, rather than the
second coming of the elder Brutus, instead the instantiation
of the second coming of his treasonous and ambitious sons;
the leader of a clique of aristocratic obstructers to popular
reforms, whom Caesar, in the manner of Agathocles, Nabis,
Cleomenes and Clearchus, should have eliminated rather
than pardoned. 21
Because Caesar killed neither Brutus nor his figurative
sons, the dictator and his reforms lasted only a very short
time, and Romes disastrous Civil Wars soon recommenced.
Caesars failure to practice Agathoclean cruelty well-used vis-vis the Roman Senate, Machiavelli suggests, wrought
longer-term turmoil and misery for all of Romes citizens.
Caesar bequeathed to Rome the following patrimonies:
intensification of civil war, the permanent collapse of the
republic, and the political emasculation of both the nobles
and the people by his nephew Octavian, who would become
the Emperor Augustus. These are the consequences for which
Machiavelli sarcastically claims that Rome, Italy and the
whole world owe such great thanks to Caesar (D I.10).
Traditional writers, therefore, were correct to criticize Caesar,
Machiavelli seems to suggest; they were mistaken, however,
for having done so on erroneous grounds.
After all, the pernicious outcomes resulting from Caesars so-

called tyranny were generated as much or more so by sins of

omission as by any sins of commission on the dictators part.
Caesar was, in effect, a deeply deficient Caesarist. After all,
Caesar, unlike Cosimo de Medici, for instance, does not rise
to the principate through popular support only, ultimately, to
disarm the people militarily. 22 He does not, like Walter
Brienne (the Duke of Athens), Louis XI of France or the Roman
Emperors, according to Machiavelli, separate the people, as a
whole, from his military forces. 23 He does not, like Augustus,
expand the numbers and increase the authority of a personal
coterie of bodyguards, the praetorian guard. Caesars great
nephew would set the precedent for subsequent emperors
who act in the

\
Machiavellis Agathocles 133
manner of tyrants that Machiavelli unhesitatingly despises:
those who separate the soldiers from the people (P 19), those
who resort to extensive proscriptions (D I.52) and those who
maintain satellites (i.e. personal bodyguards) (D I.40 twice).
The emperors retain the name Caesar, but they effectively
act the part of Octavian not Julius.
Like so many of the Greek tyrants discussed and often
praised by Machiavelli, Caesar does not behave very
tyrannically at all, certainly as far as his citizen soldiers are
concerned. However, his failure to commit the one act that
cause writers to call Agathocles, Nabis, Cleomenes and
Clearchus tyrantseliminating their cities nobilities is
the chief cause of his failure as a princely reformer. Thus, the
distinction between Scipio and Caesar traditionally set forth
by the humanists proves to be no distinction at all, for
Machiavellis ultimate purposes. Each, in the end, allowed

themselves to be undone by the Roman Senate rather than

vigorously endeavoring to crush the latter so as to reform and
revitalize the Roman Republic, and thus insure for it greater
longevity than it would, in fact, enjoy in historical reality. From
this perspective, both Scipio and Caesar deserve to be listed
among the failed civil princes whom Machiavelli names in
chapter 9 of The Prince , Giorgio Scali and the Gracchi: they
prove to be would-be reformers who, rather than mobilize an
armed citizenry against their republics corrupt senatorial
orders, are themselves consequently crushed by the latter
to the ultimate detriment of the entire polity.
But in what sense are the Greek reformers who comprise
Machiavellis composite exemplum of the successful tyrant
cum reformer any more successful, long term, than the
failed Roman ones, whom, I suggest, Machiavelli is criticizing
as failures here? None of the Greek tyrants including those
who enjoy considerable short-term military successes against
superiorly numbered foreign enemies, like Agathocles and
Nabis establishes modes and orders that last as long as
those of Romulus, whom Machiavelli explicitly celebrates or
those of Augustus, whom he implicitly derides. Machiavelli
demonstrates quite clearly how imperial expansion by
Macedonia, Carthage, and, most decisively, Rome eventually
(and, to Machiavellis mind, unfortunately) extinguished the
considerable political and military achievements of these
Greek tyrants and the civic military orders that they
reinvigorated in Syracuse, Sparta and Heraclea (P 6, P 8, P 9;
D I.9, D I.16).
Machiavelli also, most certainly suggests, if more subtly, that
the failure of Romes reformers, after the Punic Wars, to
imitate the actions of precisely these Greek tyrants insured
that a different, more pernicious model of tyranny, that of the
Roman emperors, would smother civic liberty in Rome and,
more or less, throughout the world for centuries to come
(indeed, perhaps forever, unless trends established across

millennia were corrected by radical civic military measures

in the present). Thus, it is the qualitative substance of the
Greek princes socio-economic and civic military policies
including eliminating the sons of Brutusrather than the
quantitative measure of longevity that matters most in
Machiavellis moral political assessments here. This is borne
out by Machiavellis implicit comparison of the Agathoclean
exemplum with the great founder prophets discussed in
chapter 6 of The Prince .

134 John P. McCormick

The legendary founder prophets

Via the invocation of Hiero in chapter 6 of The Prince ,
Machiavelli invites comparisons of his Greek tyrants,
including Agathocles, with the great founders whom he so
famously exalts in this chapter Moses, Romulus, Theseus,
and Cyrus. 24 Machiavelli seems to suggest that had the
new modes and orders established by the last been
extinguished earlier in their polities lifespans by more
powerful empires, as those of the Greek tyrants were (by the
Macedonians, the Carthaginians and, especially, the
Romans), their actions in all likelihood would have gone
unvenerated and even perhaps would have been entirely
condemned by posterity. To whatever extent they may have
been remembered at all, Moses, Romulus, Theseus, and
Cyrus, in all probability, would have been vilified
posthumously as criminal, petty tyrants by historians in
precisely the same way that such writers went on to treat
Hiero, Nabis, Clearchus, Cleomenes and Agathocles, simply
because the last did not establish political orders that

endured for centuries.

In other words, the success and longevity of the cities,
peoples and empires that the great founder prophets
established served to whitewash the full extent of their
criminality; most traditional writers, beholden to these longlived orders, downplayed the crimes of the successful
founders and attributed to them great (often supernatural)
acts that they may never have actually performed.
Conversely, eventual political decline not remotely or
directly attributable to the actions of these Greek petty
tyrants permitted historians to accentuate their crimes, or,
in Machiavellis estimation, to overlook the necessary political
actions that they, like all proto-founders or would-be
reformers, must undertake whether they come to be
viewed by posterity as immortal prophets or lowly usurpers.

Machiavellis hardships and dangers

Finally, through the words, hardships and dangers, which
Machiavelli uses to describe his own endeavors in the
dedication of The Prince and those of Agathocles in chapter 8,
Machiavelli signals how desperately he wishes that his
arduous efforts in political, military and diplomatic service to
Florence might have benefitted the latter as much as
Agathocless efforts benefitted his patria, Syracuse: the
many hardships and dangers endured by Agathocles bore
fruit through the establishment of the kind of principality that
Machiavelli hoped would arise out of central Italy; a
principality that sharply curbed the ambitions of local nobles
(and clerics!), and that more expansively armed common
citizens; a principality that might have unified the Italian
peninsula, and cast out foreign oppressors, just as
Agathocles principality did, so decisively, in ancient Sicily.
Machiavelli, as mentioned above, attempted to advance his

own republics security against foreign threats through

diplomatic and military means: he served as Florences
emissary to the empires that threatened his republic, those of
France, Germany and the Holy See; as mentioned above, he
sought to recruit and train a large-scale Florentine civic
military. 25 However, the Florentine

-----------------------Machiavellis Agathocles 135

aristocracy consistently scuttled Machiavellis efforts to
better serve his patria. Florences nobles the ottimati, the
grandi blocked Machiavellis appointment as the republics
ambassador, and they undermined his efforts to establish a
fullscale citizen army within the city. Machiavelli often
attributed to his own relatively humble origins the fact that
he received so little cooperation, recognition and reward from
his fellow citizens for his difficult and dangerous service to
the fatherland. 26
Obviously, the hardships and dangers that, in Machiavellis
own words, link him with Agathocles, produced greater
results for the Sicilian: after rising from low station to high
office through Syracuses civic military and then by
vigorously removing any aristocratic obstruction to his plans,
Agathocles greatly expanded his armys ranks. By contrast,
the thoroughly civilian Machiavelli acceded to the objections
of his citys nobles, and settled for the establishment of a
small militia comprised of peasants from Florences
countryside. 27 Agathocles led the heavily armed Syracusans
against fearsome Carthage to secure his citys independence
on his own terms; the poorly armed Florentines sent
emissaries like Machiavelli, for all intents and purposes, to
beg the great powers who besieged them to, pretty please,

leave them alone. Agathocles died in his bed, king of all

Sicily, with dreams of re-invading Carthage and adding parts
of Africa to his dominion. Machiavelli watched defenselessly
as a Spanish army invaded Florentine territory, abolished the
democratic republic headed by his patron, Piero Soderini, and
reinstalled a pro-aristocratic Medici principality in his patria.

Conclusion
Machiavelli is the most (in)famous expositor of political
prescriptions in the history of political thought. The Prince is,
after all, the most frequently cited howto book on politics
ever written. This is, at best, a partial characterization of the
means by which Machiavelli imparts political advice. In order
to apprehend the full meaning of Machiavellis political
thought, I have shown that an alert reader must pay attention
not only to his explicit statements of judgment and
injunctions to action, but also, just as closely, to the complex
web of analogies that he constructs through a peculiar
manner of story telling; a narrative approach that highlights
slightly different choices made and actions taken by various
political actors and their concomitant outcomes in myriad
historical circumstances.
Machiavelli, arguably at his most pedagogical, espouses
examples, and proceeds from particular case to case without
himself always subsuming those particular examples under a
general rule or category. Rather, the Florentine invites
readers themselves to engage in judicious
comparisons/contrasts and reach moral political conclusions
concerning the relationship of these particular examples to
each other without consistent recourse to definitive
statements on his part (or at least without recourse to
political precepts appearing in the immediate textual
vicinity). In this sense, Machiavelli is an instructor who guides
without always prescribing. This serves as a sketch of

Machiavellis formal method of exemplarity, but what of its

content?
-----------------------136 John P. McCormick
Machiavellis use of exemplarity often turns traditions for
which exempla are central against themselves; Machiavelli
prods readers to draw conclusions often diametrically
opposed to standard ideologies, whether those pertaining to
traditional republicanism, civic humanism, or orthodox
Christianity. Machiavellis exemplary method allows him a
comparatively safe space from and within which (at least
temporarily) he can forward political ideas that might be
overtly rejected had they been expressed more directly. For
instance, from the standpoint of classical philosophy, Roman
republicanism, Christian dogma, and Italian humanism,
Agathocles was an evil tyrant, a criminal unworthy of being
considered virtuous, excellent or glorious.
As far as the Florentine is concerned, however, Agathocles
and the various tyrants with whom Machiavelli associates
him cares not a whit for the preferences and predilections
of the generators and expounders of traditional morality, who
constitute and perpetuate such schools of thought, namely,
nobles and writers. Princes who followed the exemplum
Machiavelli makes of Agathocles would care only for their
own, ever more widely and heavily armed, popolo ; and they
would undertake the task of eliminating enemies whom they
share in common with the people, that is, aristocratic
oppressors at home and potential conquerors abroad.
Machiavellis ultimate lesson is that these concerns, and no
others, meet the demands of virtue, excellence and, even,
justice. Such are the exemplary qualities of a good prince as
redefined by Machiavelli.

Endnotes
Authors note: I thank Michle Lowrie and Yuna Blajer
de la Garza for their comments and criticisms on
earlier drafts. This essay is part of a book project
titled The Peoples Princes: Machiavelli, Leadership
and Liberty .
1 Niccol Machiavelli, Il Principe ( De Principatibus ),
composed circa 1513 and published in 1532, ed. G.
Inglese (Turin 1995), abbreviated as P, cited with
chapter numbers within the text. I will also cite
Machiavelli, Discorsi [1513 19], C. Vivanti, ed. (Turin
1997); hereafter D within the text.
2 The most prominent negative accounts of
Agathocless career include: Diodorus, The Library of
History: Diodorus of Sicily ; and Polyaenus,
Stratagems of War , trans. R. Shepherd (Chicago 1974)
194 195. More amenable evaluations are offered by
Justin, Epitome of the Phillipic History of Pompeius
Trogus , ed. R. Develin, trans. J. C. Yardley (Oxford
1994), Book XXII, and Book XXIII, chaps. 1 2, pp. 172
182; and Polybius, who reproves the unavailable
history of Timaeus for exaggerating Agathocless
faults. See Polybius, Histories , XII.15 (Oxford 2010)
426. Matthew Stukus offers a valuable compilation and
analysis of the extant classical sources on Agathocles
in The Monstrous Agathocles
(http://lovesexandthermonuclearwar.wordpress.
com/2012/05/16/the-monstrous-agathocles/).
3 On this question, see the paradigm setting piece by
Kahn (1993); and, with further qualification, Kahn
(2013).

4 For intriguing accounts of the many ways that

Machiavelli ignores, eschews and flaunts traditional
notions of tyranny, especially, the one most relevant
to the late medieval Italian context, Bartolo di
Sassoferrato, see: Barthas (2007), and Pedull (2013),
especially, xl xliv.
-----------------------Machiavellis Agathocles 137
5 See McCormick (2011a).
6 Lowrie and Ldemann, introduction to this volume.
7 Rebecca Langlands emphasizes the situational
quality of late republican/early imperial Roman
engagements with exempla; specifically, the idea that
circumstances largely dictate the appropriateness of
actions performed by a political actor. See Langlands
(2011) 100 122. In contrast, Machiavelli seems to
endorse a more narrow range of actions for individuals
who confront circumstances that, in Machiavellis
rendering, are likewise more conceptually constrained.
8 See Livy Preface .
9 For my more fully elaborated discussion of
Agathocles and Borgia, see: McCormick (2011b) and
(2014b).
10 See also Machiavelli (1989) vol. I, 163 170. 11 I
more intensively compare Machiavellis accounts of
Agathocles and Scipio in McCormick, (forthcoming
2014c).

12 Lowrie (2009) 183 84, 196 99 identifies the power

to immortalize as a form of revenge that emasculated
citizens cum writers perpetuated on imperial elites in
the Augustan period.
13 For more fully elaborated considerations on the
Agathocles Liverotto relationship, see McCormick
(2014b)
14 This section is a condensed version of McCormick
(2012) and (2014a).
15 I discuss Machiavellis analysis of the Gracchi at
greater length in McCormick (2009) and (2013).
16 Cleomenes, however, proves less adept than
Agathocles or Nabis in both pursuing redistribution at
home and exerting military power abroad, as
Machiavelli notes how he was eventually overcome by
Macedonia.
17 Plutarch (1988).
18 Oppel (1974); also Jurdjevic (1999).
19 Indeed, Machiavelli plainly states that the Roman
Republic fell back into the hands of the party of the
aristocrats, after Caesars assassination (D I.52)
that is, until Cicero convinced the Senate to lend
Octavian Caesar excessive authority to move against
Mark Antony leading to their own destruction.
20 Chaplin (2001) 78, 82, 201 argues that misreadings
of exemplary figures and episodes are as central to
the Roman tradition of exemplarity as are ostensibly
accurate readings.

21 Lowrie (work in progress) analyzes the role of

repetition and reversibility in Roman discourses that
posit the Gracchi, Marius, Caesar and Cicero (among
others) as exempla.
22 This is, of course, one of the prevailing narratives
of Machiavelli (1962) (first published 1525).
23 See Machiavelli (1962) II.34 38; P 13; P 19.
24 I explore this comparison more extensively in
McCormick (2014d).
25 See Raimondi (2013) and Najemy (2007) 75 108.
26 See, e.g., de Grazia (1989) 251. Some interpreters
consider Agathocless poor and abject origin to be the
very reason that he has not been more celebrated
historically (e.g., P XIV, D I.10). Lefort (1972) 380 and
Coby (1999) 234 235 suggest that Agathocless low
birth is what ultimately separates him from figures
who act in a similar manner and yet nevertheless
attain glory, such as Scipio, Moses, Romulus, and
Borgia. But, as I have explained in the foregoing, this
is only part of the story.
27 See Raimondi (2013) and Najemy (2007).
-----------------------138 John P. McCormick References
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Lowrie, Michele, and Ldemann, Susanne, eds.

Exemplarity and Singularity : Thinking through
Particulars in Philosophy, Literature, and Law.
Florence, KY, USA: Taylor and Francis, 2015. ProQuest
ebrary. Web. 20 August 2015.
Copyright 2015. Taylor and Francis. All rights
reserved.

Lowrie, Michele, and Ldemann, Susanne, eds.

Exemplarity and Singularity : Thinking through
Particulars in Philosophy, Literature, and Law.
Florence, KY, USA: Taylor and Francis, 2015. ProQuest
ebrary. Web. 20 August 2015.
Copyright 2015. Taylor and Francis. All rights
reserved.