Discourses on Livy

Copyright
Title Page
Contents
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
Suggested Readings
A Note on the Translation
Translators’ Acknowledgments
Dedicatory Letter
First Book
Preface
1. What Have Been Universally the Beginnings of Any City Whatever, and What Was That of Rome
2. Of How Many Species Are Republics, and Which Was the Roman Republic
3. What Accidents Made the Tribunes of the Plebs Be Created in Rome, Which Made the Republic More Perfect
4. That the Disunion of the Plebs and the Roman Senate Made That Republic Free and Powerful
5. Where the Guard of Freedom May Be Settled More Securely, in the People or in the Great; and Which Has Greater Cause for Tumult, He Who Wishes to Acquire or He Who Wishes to Maintain
6. Whether a State Could Have Been Ordered in Rome That Would Have Taken Away the Enmities between the People and the Senate
7. How Far Accusations May Be Necessary in a Republic to Maintain It in Freedom
8. As Much As Accusations Are Useful to Republics, So Much Are Calumnies Pernicious
9. That It Is Necessary to Be Alone If One Wishes to Order a Republic Anew or to Reform It Altogether outside Its Ancient Orders
10. As Much As the Founders of a Republic and of a Kingdom Are Praiseworthy, So Much Those of a Tyranny Are Worthy of Reproach
11. Of the Religion of the Romans
12. Of How Much Importance It Is to Take Account of Religion, and How Italy, for Lacking It by Means of the Roman Church, Has Been Ruined
13. How the Romans Made Religion Serve to Reorder the City and to Carry Out Their Enterprises and to Stop Tumults
14. The Romans Interpreted the Auspices according to Necessity, and with Prudence Made a Show of Observing Religion When Forced Not to Observe It; and If Anyone Rashly Disdained It, They Punished Him
15. The Samnites, as an Extreme Remedy for the Things Afflicting Them, Had Recourse to Religion
16. A People Used to Living under a Prince Maintains Its Freedom with Difficulty, If by Some Accident It Becomes Free
17. Having Come to Freedom, a Corrupt People Can with the Greatest Difficulty Maintain Itself Free
18. In What Mode a Free State, If There Is One, Can Be Maintained in Corrupt Cities; or, If There Is Not, in What Mode to Order It
19. After an Excellent Prince a Weak Prince Can Maintain Himself, but after a Weak One No Kingdom Can Be Maintained by Another Weak One
20. Two Virtuous Princes in Succession Produce Great Effects; and That Well-Ordered Republics Have of Necessity Virtuous Successions, and So Their Acquisitions and Increases Are Great
21. How Much Blame That Prince and That Republic Merit That Lack Their Own Arms
22. What Is to Be Noted in the Case of the Three Roman Horatii and the Three Alban Curiatii
23. That One Should Not Put All One’s Fortune in Danger, and Not All One’s Forces; and Because of This, the Guarding of Passes Is Often Harmful
24. Well-Ordered Republics Institute Rewards and Punishments for Their Citizens and Never Counterbalance One with the Other
25. He Who Wishes to Reform an Antiquated State in a Free City May Retain at Least the Shadow of Its Ancient Modes
26. A New Prince Should Make Everything New in a City or Province Taken by Him
27. Very Rarely Do Men Know How to Be Altogether Wicked or Altogether Good
28. For What Cause the Romans Were Less Ungrateful toward Their Citizens Than the Athenians
29. Which Is More Ungrateful, a People or a Prince
30. Which Modes a Prince or a Republic Should Use So As to Avoid the Vice of Ingratitude; and Which a Captain or a Citizen Should Use So As Not to Be Crushed by It
31. That the Roman Captains Were Never Extraordinarily Punished for an Error Committed; nor Were They Ever Punished When Harm Resulted to the Republic through Their Ignorance or through Bad Policies Adopted by Them
32. A Republic or a Prince Should Not Defer Benefiting Men in Their Necessities
33. When an Inconvenience Has Grown Either in a State or against a State, the More Salutary Policy Is to Temporize with It Rather Than to Strike at It
34. The Dictatorial Authority Did Good, and Not Harm, to the Roman Republic; and That the Authorities Citizens Take for Themselves, Not Those Given Them by Free Votes, Are Pernicious to Civil Life
35. The Cause Why the Creation of the Decemvirate in Rome Was Hurtful to the Freedom of That Republic, Notwithstanding That It Was Created by Public and Free Votes
36. Citizens Who Have Had Greater Honors Should Not Disdain Lesser Ones
37. What Scandals the Agrarian Law Gave Birth to in Rome; and That to Make a Law in a Republic That Looks Very Far Back and Is against an Ancient Custom of the City Is Most Scandalous
38. Weak Republics Are Hardly Resolute and Do Not Know How to Decide; and If They Ever Take Up Any Policy, It Arises More from Necessity Than from Choice
39. In Diverse Peoples the Same Accidents May Often Be Seen
40. The Creation of the Decemvirate in Rome, and What Is to Be Noted in It; Where It Is Considered, among Many Other Things, How through Such an Accident One Can Either Save or Crush a Republic
41. To Leap from Humility to Pride, from Mercy to Cruelty, without Due Degrees Is Something Imprudent and Useless
42. How Easily Men Can Be Corrupted
43. Those Who Engage in Combat for Their Own Glory Are Good and Faithful Soldiers
44. A Multitude without a Head Is Useless; and That One Should Not First Threaten and Then Request Authority
45. Nonobservance of a Law That Has Been Made, and Especially by Its Author, Is a Thing That Sets a Bad Example; and to Freshen New Injuries Every Day in a City Is Most Harmful to Whoever Governs It
46. Men Ascend from One Ambition to Another; First One Seeks Not to Be Offended, and Then One Offends Others
47. However Deceived in Generalities, Men Are Not Deceived in Particulars
48. He Who Wishes That a Magistracy Not Be Given to Someone Vile or Someone Wicked Should Have It Asked for Either by Someone Too Vile and Too Wicked or by Someone Too Noble and Too Good
49. If Those Cities That Have had a Free Beginning, Such as Rome, Have Difficulty in Finding Laws That Will Maintain Them, Those That Have Had One Immediately Servile Have Almost an Impossibility
50. One Council or One Magistrate Should Not Be Able to Stop the Actions of Cities
51. A Republic or a Prince Should Make a Show of Doing through Liberality What Necessity Constrains Him to Do
52. To Repress the Insolence of One Individual Who Rises Up in a Powerful Republic, There Is No More Secure and Less Scandalous Mode Than to Anticipate the Ways by Which He Comes to That Power
53. Many Times the People Desires Its Own Ruin, Deceived by a False Appearance of Good; and That Great Hopes and Mighty Promises Easily Move It
54. How Much Authority a Grave Man May Have to Check an Excited Multitude
55. How Easily Things May Be Conducted in Those Cities in Which the Multitude Is Not Corrupt; and That Where There Is Equality, a Principality Cannot Be Made, and Where There Is Not, a Republic Cannot Be Made
56. Before Great Accidents Occur in a City or in a Province, Signs Come That Forecast Them, or Men Who Predict Them
57. The Plebs Together Is Mighty, by Itself Weak
58. The Multitude Is Wiser and More Constant Than a Prince
59. Which Confederation or Other League Can Be More Trusted, That Made with a Republic or That Made with a Prince
60. That the Consulate and Any Other Magistracy Whatever in Rome Was Given without Respect to Age
Second Book
Preface
1. Which Was More the Cause of the Empire the Romans Acquired, Virtue or Fortune
2. What Peoples the Romans Had to Combat, and That They Obstinately Defended Their Freedom
3. Rome Became a Great City through Ruining the Surrounding Cities and Easily Admitting Foreigners to Its Honors
4. Republics Have Taken Three Modes of Expanding
5. That the Variation of Sects and Languages, Together with the Accident of Floods or Plague, Eliminates the Memories of Things
6. How the Romans Proceeded in Making War
7. How Much Land the Romans Gave per Colonist
8. The Cause Why Peoples Leave Their Ancestral Places and Inundate the Country of Others
9. What Causes Commonly Make Wars Arise among Powers
10. Money Is Not the Sinew of War, As It Is according to the Common Opinion
11. It Is Not a Prudent Policy to Make a Friendship with a Prince Who Has More Reputation Than Force
12. Whether, When Fearing to Be Assaulted, It Is Better to Bring On or Await War
13. That One Comes from Base to Great Fortune More through Fraud Than through Force
14. Often Men Deceive Themselves Believing That through Humility They Will Conquer Pride
15. Weak States Will Always Be Ambiguous in Their Resolutions; and Slow Decisions Are Always Hurtful
16. How Much the Soldiers of Our Times Do Not Conform to the Ancient Orders
17. How Much Artillery Should Be Esteemed by Armies in the Present Times; and Whether the Opinion Universally Held of It Is True
18. How by the Authority of the Romans and by the Example of the Ancient Military Infantry Should Be Esteemed More Than Horse
19. That Acquisitions by Republics That Are Not Well Ordered and That Do Not Proceed according to Roman Virtue Are for Their Ruin, Not Their Exaltation
20. What Danger That Prince or Republic Runs That Avails Itself of Auxiliary or Mercenary Military
21. The First Praetor the Romans Sent Anyplace Was to Capua, Four Hundred Years after They Began to Make War
22. How False the Opinions of Men Often Are in Judging Great Things
23. How Much the Romans, in Judging Subjects for Some Accidents That Necessitated Such Judgment, Fled from the Middle Way
24. Fortresses Are Generally Much More Harmful Than Useful
25. To Assault a Disunited City So As to Seize It by Means of Its Disunion Is a Contradictory Policy
26. Vilification and Abuse Generate Hatred against Those Who Use Them, without Any Utility to Them
27. For Prudent Princes and Republics It Should Be Enough to Conquer, for Most Often When It Is Not Enough, One Loses
28. How Dangerous It Is for a Republic or a Prince Not to Avenge an Injury Done against the Public or against a Private Person
29. Fortune Blinds the Spirits of Men When It Does Not Wish Them to Oppose Its Plans
30. Truly Powerful Republics and Princes Buy Friendships Not with Money but with Virtue and the Reputation of Strength
31. How Dangerous It Is to Believe the Banished
32. In How Many Modes the Romans Seized Towns
33. How the Romans Gave Free Commissions to Their Captains of Armies
Third Book
1. If One Wishes a Sect or a Republic to Live Long, It Is Necessary to Draw It Back Often toward Its Beginning
2. That It Is a Very Wise Thing to Simulate Craziness at the Right Time
3. That It Is Necessary to Kill the Sons of Brutus If One Wishes to Maintain a Newly Acquired Freedom
4. A Prince Does Not Live Secure in a Principality While Those Who Have Been Despoiled of It Are Living
5. What Makes a King Who Is Heir to a Kingdom Lose It
6. Of Conspiracies
7. Whence It Arises That Changes from Freedom to Servitude and from Servitude to Freedom Are Some of Them without Blood, Some of Them Full of It
8. Whoever Wishes to Alter a Republic Should Consider Its Subject
9. How One Must Vary with the Times if One Wishes Always to Have Good Fortune
10. That a Captain Cannot Flee Battle When the Adversary Wishes Him to Engage in It in Any Mode
11. That Whoever Has to Deal with Very Many, Even Though He Is Inferior, Wins If Only He Can Sustain the First Thrusts
12. That a Prudent Captain Ought to Impose Every Necessity to Engage in Combat on His Soldiers and Take It Away from Those of Enemies
13. Which Is More to Be Trusted, a Good Captain Who Has a Weak Army or a Good Army That Has a Weak Captain
14. What Effects New Inventions That Appear in the Middle of the Fight and New Voices That Are Heard May Produce
15. That One Individual and Not Many Should Be Put over an Army; and That Several Commanders Hurt
16. That in Difficult Times One Goes to Find True Virtue; and in Easy Times Not Virtuous Men but Those with Riches or Kinship Have More Favor
17. That One Individual Should Not Be Offended and Then That Same One Sent to an Administration and Governance of Importance
18. Nothing Is More Worthy of a Captain Than to Foretell the Policies of the Enemy
19. Whether to Rule a Multitude Compliance Is More Necessary Than Punishment
20. One Example of Humanity Was Able to Do More with the Falisci Than Any Roman Force
21. Whence It Arises That with a Different Mode of Proceeding Hannibal Produced Those Same Effects in Italy as Scipio Did in Spain
22. That the Hardness of Manlius Torquatus and the Kindness of Valerius Corvinus Acquired for Each the Same Glory
23. For What Cause Camillus Was Expelled from Rome
24. The Prolongation of Commands Made Rome Servile
25. Of the Poverty of Cincinnatus and of Many Roman Citizens
26. How a State Is Ruined Because of Women
27. How One Has to Unite a Divided City; and How That Opinion Is Not True That to Hold Cities One Needs to Hold Them Divided
28. That One Should Be Mindful of the Works of Citizens Because Many Times underneath a Merciful Work a Beginning of Tyranny Is Concealed
29. That the Sins of Peoples Arise from Princes
30. For One Citizen Who Wishes to Do Any Good Work in His Republic by His Authority, It Is Necessary First to Eliminate Envy; and How, on Seeing the Enemy, One Has to Order the Defense of a City
31. Strong Republics and Excellent Men Retain the Same Spirit and Their Same Dignity in Every Fortune
32. What Modes Some Have Held to for Disturbing a Peace
33. If One Wishes to Win a Battle, It Is Necessary to Make the Army Confident Both among Themselves and in the Captain
34. What Fame or Word or Opinion Makes the People Begin to Favor a Citizen; and Whether It Distributes Magistracies with Greater Prudence Than a Prince
35. What Dangers Are Borne in Making Oneself Head in Counseling a Thing; and the More It Has of the Extraordinary, the Greater Are the Dangers Incurred in It
36. The Causes Why the French Have Been and Are Still Judged in Fights at the Beginning As More Than Men and Later As Less Than Women
37. Whether Small Battles Are Necessary before the Main Battle; and If One Wishes to Avoid Them, What One Ought to Do to Know a New Enemy
38. How a Captain in Whom His Army Can Have Confidence Ought to Be Made
39. That a Captain Ought to Be a Knower of Sites
40. That to Use Fraud in Managing War Is a Glorious Thing
41. That the Fatherland Ought to Be Defended, Whether with Ignominy or with Glory; and It Is Well Defended in Any Mode Whatever
42. That Promises Made through Force Ought Not to Be Observed
43. That Men Who Are Born in One Province Observe Almost the Same Nature for All Times
44. One Often Obtains with Impetuosity and Audacity What One Would Never Have Obtained through Ordinary Modes
45. What the Better Policy Is in Battles, to Resist the Thrust of Enemies and, Having Resisted It, to Charge Them; or Indeed to Assault Them with Fury from the First
46. Whence It Arises That One Family in One City Keeps the Same Customs for a Time
47. That a Good Citizen Ought to Forget Private Injuries for Love of His Fatherland
48. When One Sees a Great Error Made by an Enemy, One Ought to Believe That There Is a Deception Underneath
49. A Republic Has Need of New Acts of Foresight Every Day If One Wishes to Maintain It Free; and for What Merits Quintus Fabius Was Called Maximus
Glossary
Notes
Index of Proper Names