84 pages • 2 hours read
Niccolò MachiavelliThe Discourses
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1531A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Virtues of the Ancients
The Renaissance, which begins in the 1400s in Machiavelli’s home city of Florence, is literally a “rebirth,” a rediscovery of the ancient Greek and Roman cultures that underpin European society. Scholars find and translate ancient texts; explorers unearth the ruins of old cities; musicians and painters revive lost ways of performing and painting.
As a rebirth, the Renaissance is also a look backward, to a fabled golden age that seems grander and more civilized than more recent eras. Writers like Machiavelli and Montaigne laud the virtues of Rome and Greece and compare their own times unfavorably to that glorious past.
The Renaissance is also the first stirring of a new age in European civilization, a process that takes the old techniques and styles and builds on them, growing in complexity and sophistication right down to the present day. Western civilization is built largely on the Renaissance, which, in turn, is built on the rediscovery of ancient Greek and Roman intellectual and artistic achievements.
Today we are used to the idea that we have transcended the ancients, with our highly developed science, art, and commerce. The ancients produce fine statuary and mosaic murals; we have mile-wide artworks by Christo and worldwide broadcasts of concerts and motion pictures. Romans develop irrigation pipes and valves; we put people on the Moon. Yet even today it’s possible to wonder whether our cultural ancestors from the Mediterranean might have wisdom to offer that we still don’t fully appreciate, as the recent Internet vogue for the Stoic philosophy of the Imperial Roman ruling class makes clear.
For this reason, quite aside from his intriguing political and military ideas, Machiavelli is worth studying, as he performs the vital task of bringing back to life much of the strategic and tactical wisdom of the Roman Republic.
The Superiority of Republics
Machiavelli is best known for his book The Prince, essentially a manual for autocrats, which offers cold and calculating practical advice for those who would rule a nation. Machiavelli’s fame rests largely on The Prince, and most people think of him as a purveyor of dark wisdom for evil despots. The term “Machiavellian” has come to mean “craftily manipulative and ruthless.”
In fact, Machiavelli is very much a republican at heart: he supports the superiority of republics, which are governed more or less democratically on behalf of their citizens, over a principality or similar form of autocratic rule by a single individual. Moreover, his arguments in favor of republics in the Discourses influence later political thinkers who come to advocate republican forms of government, including the founders of the United States.
Machiavelli argues that republics are superior to principalities for several reasons. Firstly, a republic is governed for the benefit of its citizens rather than for the aggrandizement of a dictator. For another, decisions made by republics take their form from debates among the citizens and between the people and their leaders; this process tends to result in better decisions than the fiats and whims of an autocrat.
Republics also are founded on laws and principles that set limits to what a government can do; this restrains leaders from undertaking dangerous projects that an arbitrary ruler might launch. In foreign affairs, republics are more likely to pursue alliances with nearby states and less likely to try to conquer them. A dictator can spend his country’s blood and treasure on dreams of imperial glory, but a republic must see first to the safety and prosperity of its citizens. (In this respect, Rome is an outlier as a republic that builds an empire.)
Republics have their weaknesses, especially in wartime, when the deliberative process of a democracy can cause delays instead of decisiveness. Republics also tend to decay over time, as ambitious leaders bend or break the laws to benefit themselves. Over many generations, this corruption can cause a people to forget its noble ideals and become inured to abuse, until a demagogue convinces them to abandon their traditions entirely and follow him, usually into servitude and oppression. This happens to the Roman Republic, which, after hundreds of years of freedom followed by decades of bickering and civil strife, is brought down and replaced by imperial rule.
Machiavelli believes that very few republics, once decayed, can revive themselves, especially without the vision and fortitude of a good and strong leader. For such men Machiavelli devotes many chapters of the Discourses (and most of The Prince) to the techniques of power politics. Both statesman and dictator need such abilities if they are forcefully to move a country in the direction that they want it to go.
In foreign affairs, republics need to be as tough-minded, skillful, and ruthless as any autocrat if they want to navigate safely through the treacherous waters of international relations. While a republic may cherish the ideals of good citizenship, equality, and virtuous governance that help its people to thrive, it also must be willing to do whatever it takes to protect itself and its citizens from foreign predators. In this respect, both The Prince and the Discourses provide ample instruction in the ways of hard-headed statecraft.
The Importance of the Great Leader
For Machiavelli, the ideals of good governance are moot unless they can be brought into play, and few countries will form into republics unless they are founded by strong men of excellent character and great resolve. In Rome, Lucius Junius Brutus is such a man, who leads his fellow citizens in a revolt against a tyrant king and then administers an oath of citizenship that vows never to be subject again to a tyrant. Unfortunately, men of great power, fortitude, and public appeal can also become dictators, as with Julius Caesar, whose conquest of Rome puts an end to the republic.
A great leader who wishes to establish a republic must be willing to fight for it, as many private interests will rise against it and men of little spirit will fear it. The leader must use every means at his disposal, including cruel and violent ones, if he is to succeed in his quest. Machiavelli believes great leaders cannot shy away from tough-minded acts or their projects likely will fail.
A new republic is a fragile thing and will die out after the founder is gone unless he has built institutions and promoted values that will sustain the new state for generations. Chief among these are a strong public religion that unites the people and promotes piety toward the country’s fundamental values. Those values must include respect for the duly constituted laws of the state, a value notably absent under a dictator, who can rule only through fear.
After its founding, a republic still needs strong and honorable statesmen to lead it. The Roman people favor virtuous, heroic men for its leaders; they tend to choose, for consuls and tribunes, men who value a strict code of honor and duty toward the state. Time and again, Machiavelli relates stories of these leaders' heroism and sacrifice.
Over time, a republic will tend to become corrupted, so that it needs a new statesman of special strength and ability to return it to its foundational principles. The Roman Republic’s citizens manage again and again to choose such leaders to help them find their way back from decay. Rome’s record of success is remarkable, lasting more than 400 years until bitter disputes well up, degrade the city’s principles, and bring about the rise of demagogues.
