Machiavelli and the Roman Empire

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Recommended: Machiavelli’s reputation as a leader

Machiavelli argued, as Hegel would later, that one must look to history and the accounts of previous nations' events in order to "sense...that flavor that they have in themselves" in common with those from the past (Discourses 6). This seems to follow the adage that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, yet for Machiavelli he seems more concerned with actually emulating history in order to repeat success than looking out for particular things to avoid. For this reason, he pulls examples from an eclectic range of histories in order to demonstrate how his principles in both The Prince and the Discourses on Livy, when followed, will lead to a successful state. In particular, he refers to the Roman Republic a great deal in the Discourses, which are focused around Livy's account of Rome's history, to demonstrate what about this ancient society was so unique and worthy of repeating in terms of its existence as a republic. In fact, the Roman Republic serves as Machiavelli's central example in the work. In The Prince, however, since Machiavelli was more concerned with the behavior of an individual who wields absolute power over a principality, he looks more to the Roman Empire, since there are few examples one can find from the history of the Republic where one man was thrust into a situation where he could act prince-like and, as a result, the arguments made would have been harder to support had he used the Republic as his central example. The Roman Republic figures as such an important nation because Machiavelli sees in it the characteristics that are necessary for a successful republic and also because of its origin from a monarchy he sees a way for representative governments to start replacing, w...

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...that he probably was at that time residing under.

References

Adams, Robert M. Introduction to "Machiavelli the Democrat." From The Prince. ©1992. W. W. Norton & Company. New York.

Gilbert, Felix. "Fortune, Necessity, Virtu." From The Prince. Ed. By Robert M. Adams. ©1992. W. W. Norton & Company. New York.

Hegel, G.W.F. Reason in History. Translated by Robert S. Hartman. ©1997. Prentice-Hall, Inc. Upper Saddle River, NJ.

Macchiavelli, Niccolo. Discourses on Livy. Translated by Harvey C. Mansfield and Nathan Tarcov. ©1996. The University of Chicago Press. Chicago.

The Prince. Translated by Robert M. Adams. ©1992. W. W. Norton & Company. New York.

Also, some historical information (not referenced explicitly) came from: Microsoft Encarta 2002. ©1993-2001. Microsoft Corporation.

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