Niccolò Machiavelli is either scorned or considered the realist thinker par excellence. Even those who laud his realism may keep distance from his moral implications of politics. Such readings of Machiavelli have, more recently, been challenged thanks to individuals like Quinton Skinner, Harvey Mansfield, and Philip Bobbitt. Many people remember Machiavelli for his primer for princes—The Prince; however, his more serious and insightful work is the Discourses on Livy.
Where the Prince was a far more practical work, the Discourses straddles political theory, military theory, philosophy, and practical politics. All Machiavelli scholars know that it is the Discourses which is the superior work—though many equally assert that the two works should be read as companions. I agree. That said, it is time to examine some of the substantive content of Machiavelli’s less well-known but more profound and deep masterpiece.
The Discourses is divided into three books and draws upon mostly the history of the Roman Republic by Titus Livy, though Machiavelli draws on other ancient works and contemporary events to underscore his points. The first book largely deals with political philosophy and theory. The second book largely deals with military theory and warfare, things that rulers and nations cannot avoid so must have a grasp of. The third book is largely a miscellaneous collection of reflections on leadership, religion, politics, and heroism.
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Machiavelli begins his great treatise on the questions of polities and political forms. This is standard political philosophy basics. Machiavelli observes that there are two types of polities, native and colonist (or non-native) polities. That is, cities are either inhabited and maintained by the original founders or having been taken over by foreigners or constructed by migratory peoples who are not natives of the land they build their city in, “[A]ll cities are built either by men who are natives of place where they are built or by foreigners.” The concern for liberty, customs, and traditions, which is a major side concern for Machiavelli, is also tied to this problem. Native cities tend to be established in liberty as they were constructed through the open association and union with neighbors. Cities that have been conquered by foreigners are almost never free. Only cities built in foreign lands by a disposed people, in building their own city (like Aeneas and the Trojan-Romans), are free because it was their own labor that brought about the formation of their city which they call home.
The crux of Machiavelli’s argument on liberty vs. slavery, here, is that it is rooted in genus—beginning. A city that starts in slavery rarely becomes free. A city that starts in freedom struggles to maintain its freedom. Polities and political forms are generally premised on native liberty and foreign subjection and slavery. A city that is native but overrun, that originally native population falls under the yoke of the foreign conquerors. A city that that is native but wards off the foreign influx, remains free. A city that has been founded by foreigners generally makes use of the existing native infrastructure and, in that sense, is also enslaved to the structures and systems which they have imposed onto themselves rather than build anew from the ground. Only in rare circumstances do a disposed people build from the ground up—Aeneas is the shining example of this rare differentiation.
Unlike the multitude of political philosophers before him, Machiavelli rejects the trifold/six-fold schema of political forms: Monarchy, Oligarchy, Constitutionalism for students of Aristotle, Principality, Aristocracy, Democracy in the words of Machiavelli (with their contingent deformed iterations leading to the six forms). A deeply dialectical thinker, as book one makes clear, Machiavelli sees all political forms being reducible to two: Republic and Tyranny. A republic, res publica, is the public thing. A republic is the political form which sees all interests represented in the body-politic. Now, this representation does not need to be equal (and it often isn’t). But if all parties and interests are represented such a political form has claim to be a republic. Majority-rule (democratic-tyranny) is not a republic just as much as divine monarchy (single-rule tyranny) is not a republic. A tyranny, then, is any form of government which does not include representative interests from all segments of society.
Machiavelli makes clear his disdain for monarchy. Monarchy is the form that is most likely to be tyrannical. Democracy, on the other hand, is the form that is likely to be most unstable. Machiavelli’s republicanism is premised on the mixed constitution; but the mixed constitution, he believes, comes about through political conflict. The mixed constitution represents all segments and factions of society; this is why it is a mixed constitution. Only a mixed constitution, that is, a republic, has claim to be a republic because all parties are represented in some fashion in the political form.
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The central theme of book one is how the best form of political governance, or how the Roman republic became a more perfect republic, is through conflict. Machiavelli does not believe in the “from heaven” concept of constitutions. Nor does he agree with the classical political philosophers (Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, etc.) that the best political regime can be rationally constructed by a study of nature replicated into a constitution. The world is a messy and imperfect place. But it is precisely this messiness and imperfectness that drives progress forward.
Given the reality of no polity ever having achieved that utopian constitution, constitutional formations are imperfect and can trend in two directions: worse or better. In other words, more tyranny or less tyranny. Or as Machiavelli preferred, more tyrannical or a more perfect republic. Machiavelli’s general thought is very much compatible with Abraham Lincoln and the idea of constructing “a more perfect union.” As Machiavelli states, “It is necessary for anyone who organizes a republic and establishes laws in it to take for granted that all men are evil and that they will always act according to the wickedness of their nature whenever they have the opportunity.”
Machiavelli’s bleak vision of man is reflective of his mixed Catholic heritage. On one hand Machiavelli is very Catholic. His vision of man is akin to Augustine’s fallen man. Man is tainted, if you will, by original sin and the lust for domination and self-interest and power. The task of law and government is to curb the wickedness of man and move him in the direction of the common good. But Machiavelli was a heterodox Catholic at best, a closet atheist at worst. Machiavelli had no love for the institutional church, that is for sure. In fact, he saw the Roman Court—the Papal States—as a barrier to possible Italian unification. (Therefore, Machiavelli was a sort of forerunner to Italian nationalism.) Nevertheless, it is Machiavelli’s understanding of man as a conflictual animal that undergirds his political theory of dialectical advancement.
Since polities do not start out with “ideal” constitutions, all polities suffer from internal strife that either destroys the polity or strengthens it. As it relates to Rome, the subject of his analysis, internal conflict strengthened it. Again, Machiavelli—reflecting on what is now called the “Conflict of the Orders” between the patricians and plebeians—writes, “In this way, after many disorders, disturbances, and the danger of disagreements that arose between the plebeians and nobility, the creation of the tribunes came about for the security of the plebeians, and these tribunes were established with such power and prestige that they could always thereafter act as intermediaries between the plebeians and the senate and could curb the insolence of the nobles.”
The conflict of the orders brought about greater republicanism because, although a de jure republic, Rome was de facto tyranny (or oligarchy). Only the interests of the rich land-owning patrician elite were represented after the expulsion of Tarquin and his sons. The conflict of the orders, which created the plebeian tribunates, was instrumental in achieving several things. First was the greater representation of the interests of Roman society—thus making the republic more perfect and more republican and less tyrannical because republicanism is about having all interests in society represented (even if unequally). Second is that the representation of the plebeians gave them a “buy in” (so to speak) to perform duties and defend the republic which they now had a stake in. This is the greater value of republican government over all other forms of government (i.e. tyranny in whatever constitutional guise it manifests itself): The common populace feel they have a stake in its success and survival and will therefore be more willing to make sacrifices for its preservation. Look at this way, if in a tyranny the peasants have zero representation in government, they will not defend the nation when the going gets tough. People yearn for liberty and justice (another Augustinian inheritance in Machiavelli albeit secularized in his thought) and will seek liberty and justice in whomever they think will best dispense it to them. In a republic, however, since the peasants have a represented stake in the nation, they will more enthusiastically fight for its defense and survival in times of trouble because they have a motivating reason to do so. Third is that the compromises reached in political conflict leads to greater liberty and stability in society. Liberty and stability, as Machiavelli sees it, are two sides of the same coin; they share a sort of symbiotic relationship. A nation with excessive liberty and no stability will collapse into anarchy where liberty is subsequently deprived. A nation with excessive “stability” (i.e.: authoritarianism) will slip into civil war where stability is subsequently deprived. Thus, the relationship between liberty and stability is a tenuous one but one that binds together through political conflict leading to compromise like the establishment of the plebeian tribunates.
Since conflict is the product of greater political representation and therefore liberty and stability, political conflict (rather than unity) is to be celebrated. “If these disturbances were the cause of the creation of the tribunes, they deserve the highest praise, because besides giving to the people its role in democratic administration, the tribunes were established as the guardians of Roman liberty.” Rome’s republic was great because it developed over the course of centuries of conflict, beginning with the overthrow of Tarquin where the aristocrats reasserted their ancient privileges and rights, and the conflict of the orders between the patrician aristocrats and the plebeian underclass which established privileges and rights to the plebeians. It is because the plebeians achieved privileges and rights through conflict that made them more attached to the body-politic than before, “The Roman plebeians generally thought that they deserved the consulate, because they compromised the largest part of the city; they ran greater risks in the wars; and they kept Rome free and powerful with their own might and muscle.”
The development of the best form of government is, in Machiavelli, almost by force of historical accident. Constitutions development over the course of history, becoming better (ideally) over time. It is not the rejection of ancestral lineage that creates the best constitution but the development of that ancestral lineage that manifests itself in fruition over the course of history. The Romans, Machiavelli tells us, had an instinct for liberty however imperfect their founding was. Machiavelli also says the Romans were right in honoring their history, their founding, and founders—precisely because it was the spirit of struggle and liberty that continued to be developed on leading to the overthrow of Tarquin and the eventual inclusion of the plebeians into the constitutional order. None of this would have been possibility without conflict. And it would have been equally unlikely that this would have developed had not the Romans had the seed and taste for liberty in their genus.
The formation of the Roman Republic, the Twelve Tablets of the Roman Law, and its propagation throughout the rest of Europe, came about through historical development. Conflicts between Rome and its tyrant kings, conflicts between patricians and plebeians, compromise and new creations, all worked to produce that great messiness that was the Roman Republic and her laws. The republic that was so venerable and great did not descend from heaven at the snap of Juno’s finger, nor was the Roman Constitution crafted by Romulus or Aeneas. Instead, the republic and her laws were the product of dialectic conflict in history which produced the most remarkable form of government ever to grace the earth with its just laws embodying liberty and order as the byproduct of these conflicts.
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One of the peculiar twists of Machiavelli is how he inverts the Augustinian worldview. Saint Augustine of Hippo famously said that man, in his fallenness, lusted for domination. Man, in his estrangement and depravity, lusted to control others. Fallen man lives in conflict. Machiavelli inherits this anthropological truth but turns it on its head. It is not that the lust for greatness and praise needs to be curbed, as Augustine thought, but that it needs to be unleashed. Machiavelli was a firm believer that since the world was struggle, because man was wicked, the polity that best managed to allow the libido without turning on itself would be the most successful polity. Again, he looked to Rome’s founding for evidence of this just as he did with regard for the genus of liberty and how that was the motivating impulse over the course of history for Rome’s republican development and eventual greatness.
It is also a somewhat common misreading of Machiavelli, as promoted by the likes of Quentin Skinner, that Machiavelli was a revivalist of the classical civic virtue tradition. This is true and untrue; for Machiavelli does write and reflect upon the need of the common good, but Machiavelli does not have a communitarian or conventionalist attitude toward this question as the classical writers (like Aristotle and Cicero) did. Instead, Machiavelli is prophet of modernity in his individualism. It is the individual drive for domination and greatness, and his heroic struggling for others, that testifies to individual greatness.
Augustine saw the founding episode of Rome: Romulus murdering Remus, as evidence for Rome’s depravity. Machiavelli turns Augustine on his need in reading the episode of Romulus murdering Remus as that which showed Rome’s greatness and laid the genus of individual greatness in the germ of the Roman people. States, as Machiavelli notes, are usually founded by individuals and not collectives. While this usually takes the form of king or emperor, looking back across history will show this: Romulus founds Rome (or in Virgilian retelling, Aeneas); Gilgamesh founds Uruk; Menes founded the Egyptian Empire; Sargon founded Akkad, and so on. Regarding Romulus though:
I must say that many are likely to judge it a bad example for the founder of a body politic, as Romulus was, to have first murdered his brother and later to have consented to the execution of Titus Tatius, the Sabine, elected by him as to his companion in the kingdom, concluding that citizens, out of ambition and desire to rule, could, after the example of their leader, attack those opposed to their authority. This opinion would be true, if were not to consider the goal which led Romulus to commit such a homicide.
Also, this must be taken as a general rule: that never or rarely does it happen that a republic or a kingdom is organized well from the beginning or is completely reformed apart from its old institutions, unless it is organized by one man alone; or rather, it is necessary for a single man to be the one who gives it shape, and from whose mind such organization derives. Thus, the prudent founder of a republic, one who has this courageous desire to serve not his own interests but the common good, and not his own heirs but rather everyone in their native land, must strive to assume sole authority.
Machiavelli recasts Romulus as an individual who had the common good in mind. His ambition and sole seizure of power, reflecting a lust to dominate for sure, was not aimed at self-gratification and ambition (as Augustine or other moralists argue) but for the “common good.” Machiavelli, here, recognizes how it is often problematic to have the “common good” come into being through multiplicity; so in the conflict that breeds greater representation, order, and liberty, Remus had to be killed by Romulus for the sake of the many. “That Romulus was among those who deserve to be excused for the death of his brother and his companion, and that what he did was for the common good and not for private ambition, is shown by the fact he immediately established a senate with which he consulted and according to whose opinions made decisions.”
Throughout the Discourses, Machiavelli gives many examples of how individual acts of heroism and sacrifice, even inspirational suicide (when Decius killed himself and Torquates his son) for the survival of the common good and the republic that was Rome. Why Romulus factors so importantly in this is that the genus of the Roman state and people is not merely in act of sacrifice for the common good, but risk-taking behavior. Romulus took the risk to murder Remus and consent to the execution of Titus Tatius which inflected into the genus of the Romans an exceptional risk-taking spirit. The release of the libido, through risk-taking behavior, is that which is needed in any republic for it to survive. That the origins of Rome, in Machiavelli’s eyes, was founded upon risk-taking individualism with the common good in mind, it was bound to happen—as happened—that Rome would become a risk-taking republic with liberty being the great value that tied the Romans together and led to many moments of individual risk-taking behavior (even at the cost of the risk-taker’s life).
For Machiavelli, the greatness of the Romans (collectively), and of individual Romans (individualistically), is tied to their desire to take initiative, embark and undertake risky action, and keep the greater good in mind. Students of economics know that risk-taking behavior is uncommon. Most people are risk-averse. If Romulus was risk-averse, he would have never killed his brother or consented to Titus Tatius’ death. If this was the genus of Rome then the Romans would have never thrown off the tyranny of Tarquin and his sons and Cincinnatus, and many of the great Roman heroes, would have never left the comfort of their villas and farms to serve the public in times of crisis.
Crisis, as Machiavelli also describes, brings out the greatness—risk-taking behavior—of individuals. It takes individuals to inspire the many. Rather than curb the lust for greatness, rather than limit the lust for ambition, rather than build barriers to stymy risk-taking behavior, the episode of Romulus murdering Remus unleashed risk-taking behavior, heroic individualism, and consideration for the common good wherein one man (Romulus) bore the weight of future generations in his actions. What is needed for greatness, according to Machiavelli, is nothing short of allowing for individual initiative, ambition, and risk. A people who are risk-averse, despise individual initiative and ambition as “greedy” and “selfish” are a weak people who will, in time, be destroyed by a more vigorous, ambitious, and risk-taking people.
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Machiavelli was not a religious believer but believed in the social utility of religion. The question of God, salvation, and the immortality of the soul did not matter to him. What mattered to him was the reality of religion in life and how religion is useful for nations and why a nation’s vitality is tied to the vitality of its religion.
There is a realpolitik outlook concerning religion from Machiavelli’s disposition. Chapters 13-15 of book I deal with the initial utility of religion in states which inculcated in men courage and resolution. During the Siege of Veii, soothsayers proclaimed, “Veii would be defeated during the year in which Lake Albanus overflowed its banks; this made the soldiers endure the hardships of the siege, in their hope of taking the city by storm, and they remained content to continue the campaign until Camillus was made dictator and captured the city after the ten years during which it had been under siege.” Because the soldiers, who were deeply religious, believed in the prophecy that the city would fall, they were willing to endure hardships for ten years and the city finally fell.
Religious people see correlation where others do not. This is their great advantage against those who lack such steadfast convictions. As Machiavelli equally discusses, soothsayers and fortune tellers always accompanied the armies and read the signs of the day—auspices—as to whether the army was to have success. When the soothsayers read bad auspices and reported it, the army abstained from combat. When the soothsayers read good auspices and reported it, the army engaged in combat. As Machiavelli notes, it doesn’t matter whether the signs were accurate in their foretelling, what mattered was that “the auspices serve any purpose other than sending the soldiers confidently into battle, for from such confidence victory almost always result[ed].” For Machiavelli, the practical utility of religion is what matters, not its overall theologies or worldview. As long as religion instilled courage into its believers—especially in the army—it was instrumental to aiding the Romans in their expansion and greatness.
Machiavelli’s more extensive commentary on religion and its benefit in society comes about in the beginning of Book III. Machiavelli understands man as a religious animal. Religion is the origo of man and his polity; that is, religion establishes the founding myth and origin story of peoples and their cities. Machiavelli also admits “all the things of this world have a limited existence”—including states and religions—but the states and religions that are able to persevere the longest are those that honor their origins:
As for the first means, it is evident how necessary it was for Rome to have been taken by the Gauls in order for it to be reborn, and in being reborn, to take on new life and new vigour and to take up once again the observance of religion and justice, which were beginning to become corrupt. This is very clearly understood through Livy’s history, where he demonstrates that in calling out their army against the Gauls and in creating tribunes with consular authority, the Romans failed to observe any religious ceremony.
What Machiavelli reflects upon in the relationship of religion and state is that a state cannot sustain itself without a mythology, a religion, or some sense of consciousness about itself. Throughout history religion provides that sense of self and meaning in the world and has, irrespective of theological reality, a profound utility. The vitality of a state and its people are shown in their respect and reverence for their religions. “[A]s soon as Rome was retaken, the Romans renewed all institutions of their ancient religion, punished the Fabii who had fought ‘in opposition to the laws of nations.”
For Machiavelli, it is not the ethics of a religion that matters. Though he does not look kindly upon religions that praise meekness as a virtue. Instead, Machiavelli looks to religion as instrumental in providing a consciousness and sense of mission and destiny in men. Men who fervently believe in something, anything, will be harder to defeat than men who believe in nothing.
Here, Machiavelli gives his own version of Plato’s myth of the noble lie from the Republic. Plato asserted in The Republic that the functionality of polities depend on some sort of noble lie, some sort of basic myth which its citizens believe in even if it isn’t true. This was Plato’s observation of how polities sustain themselves and any ideal republic needs its mythos. So too does Machiavelli see this truth in the utility and conscionable consequences of religion. Religion provides that common consciousness and mythos to which a disparate polity unites and demands sacrifice from its adherents.
In this regard we can consider Machiavelli “a true believer.” That is, he believes it necessary for people to believe in the Transcendent because it gives men a sense of eternity and sublimity which they are willing to die for (or undertake intense hardships for believing themselves pious and reverent in doing so). States in terminal decline, and people accepting their doom, shun religion—as seen in the Gallic sack of Rome in 380 B.C. States on the rise, and a people vigorous and confident—as seen in Rome’s founding and re-founding—embrace religion with a fanaticism that gives them an edge in worldly matters. And that is why religion is important more than its claims to theology or readings of prophecy.
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The Discourses of Livy shows that Machiavelli favors a republic over all other forms of government—even though the real political dialectic is between republics and non-republics (i.e. tyrannies). Machiavelli prefers republican governance mostly for state and practical purposes. While Machiavelli certainly is a fan of liberty and order, he does not believe people are naturally inclined to liberty though they may be inclined to order through servility. The task then is to awaken or inculcate a spirit of liberty in the herd.
Monarchy, oligarchy, and indeed, anarchistic democracy, are insufficient in doing this. In this way all of those other forms of government are, in Machiavelli’s reductionism, alternative forms of tyranny where some, or many, are servile slaves to the rule of one, a few, or the majority. Republics, on the other hand, in giving the greatest representation of all interests of society a stake in the body politic, allow for the greatest amount of “buy-in” from its citizens.
It is an engaged citizenry, not a passive citizenry, that is the root of liberty. Had it not been for the active citizenry in responding to the rape and murder of Lucretia, Rome would still have slumbered under the tyranny of Tarquin and his sons and their descendants. Had it not been for the active citizenry which constituted the majority of the Roman population, the plebeians, Rome’s manpower pool and ability to shepherd great will and common commitment to defeating her neighbors could never have come about—thereby having allowed other powers to trample on Rome and take away Roman liberty. Had it not been for the active citizens who led Rome in her dark hours, whether Cincinnatus or Decius or Torquates, whose individual actions inspired their citizens and soldiers to persevere, Roman liberty would have been extinguished by Rome’s foes.
Machiavelli is a theorist of liberty. But his philosophy of liberty is not one of natural liberty a la John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, or Thomas Paine. Machiavelli’s theory of liberty is a liberty that emerges with struggle and the willingness to expand, or reclaim, liberty by actions of the will. Liberty and order are not antagonistic to each other. As proven by the Conflict of the Orders and Rome’s rise to greatness, the persevering order of the Roman state corresponded with her growth in liberty afforded to the multitude beyond the patrician class. That said, liberty is not necessarily guaranteed under excessive order. But excessive order which doesn’t permit enough liberty is a fragile order, again seen through the history of Tarquin and his sons. Maximum order comes with maximum liberty—but this is not a licentious liberty, it is a liberty that sustains itself through duties to protect it which require citizen engagement and sacrifice.
Therefore, the republic is the only suitable form of government for liberty and order to flourish for a long period of time. While all earthly things come to an end, those earthly polities that had the longest life were those polities that struck the balance of liberty and order by giving a great stake in its wellbeing to its citizens. Because republics give the greatest stake to the masses, the masses will more willingly defend the republic and fight for the republic than in tyrannical forms of government.
There is an ironic statism entailed in all this. For the longevity of the state it is in the state’s own interest to give its citizens a great deal of liberty. In doing so the citizens feel attached to their state for the liberty they have under it and will be more willing to fight and die for the state under the liberty they enjoy. In this sense liberty and statism go together in Machiavelli’s outlook. And that is what the Discourses and The Prince are all about: How best to maintain and run a state and all the functions of governance and political stewardship. According to Machiavelli, the best way to do this is through republican states which, in giving liberty and providing stability to its citizens, and honoring and promoting the religion of the people, is able to depend upon its citizens to undertake the hardships and sacrifices sometimes necessary in the bloody struggle that characterizes life on earth.
Thus, even in Machiavelli’s preference for republicanism we see his political realism—realpolitik—on full display. Political realism, not idealism, was the cause of his support for republican regimes. This is essential when understanding Machiavelli and the modern world.
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Paul Krause is the editor-in-chief of VoegelinView. He is writer, classicist, and historian. He has written on the arts, culture, classics, literature, philosophy, religion, and history for numerous journals, magazines, and newspapers. He is the author of Finding Arcadia, The Odyssey of Love and the Politics of Plato, and a contributor to the College Lecture Today and Making Sense of Diseases and Disasters. He holds master’s degrees in philosophy and religious studies (biblical studies & theology) from the University of Buckingham and Yale, and a bachelor’s degree in economics, history, and philosophy from Baldwin Wallace University.
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