[1] For the events which brought this empire into being see ALEXANDER
THE GREAT. For the detailed accounts of the separate dynasties into
which it was divided after Alexander's death, see SELEUCID DYNASTY,
ANTIGONUS, PERGAMUM, &c., and for its effect on the spread of
Hellenic culture see HELLENISM.
[2] For details see separate articles on the chief generals.
[3] For Ptolemaïc Egypt, see PTOLEMIES and EGYPT.
[4] A _tenth_ of the produce is suggested to have been the normal tax
by what the Romans found obtaining in the Attalid kingdom. The
references given by Beloch (_Griech. Gesch._ iii. i, p. 343) to prove
it for the Seleucid kingdom are questionable. Beloch refers (1) to
the letter of Demetrius II. to Lasthenes in which [Greek: hai dekatai
kai ta tele] are mentioned, 1 Macc. 11, 35 (Beloch, by an oversight,
refers to the paraphrase of the documents in Joseph. _Ant._ xiii. 4,
§ 126 seq., in which the mention of the [Greek: dekatai] is
omitted!). The authenticity of this document is, however, very
doubtful. He refers (2) to Dittenb. 171 (1st ed.), line 101; but here
the tax seems to be, not an imperial one, but one paid to the city of
Smyrna.
[5] The salt monopoly is mentioned in 1 Macc. 10, 29; 11, 35, a
suspected source, but supported in this detail by the analogy of
Ptolemaïc Egypt and Rome. For domains in Antigonid, Attalid and
Bithynian realms, see Cic. _De leg. agr._ ii. 19, 50.
[6] Antiochus Epiphanes was an extreme case. For the Antigonid court
see Diog. Laërt. vii. 13; Plut. _Arat._ 17; for the Seleucid, Athen.
iv. 155b; v. 211a; for the Ptolemaïc, Diog. L. vii. 177; Athen. vi.
246c; Plut. _Cleom._ 33; Just. xxx. 1.
[7] For the Antigonid [Greek: nauarchos] or admiral, see Polyb. xvi. 6.
MACEDONIUS, (1) bishop of Constantinople in succession to Eusebius of
Nicomedia, was elected by the Arian bishops in 341, while the orthodox
party elected Paul, whom Eusebius had superseded. The partisans of the
two rivals involved the city in a tumultuous broil, and were not quelled
until the emperor Constantius II. banished Paul. Macedonius was
recognized as patriarch in 342. Compelled by the intervention of
Constans in 348 to resign the patriarchate in favour of his former
opponent, he was reinstalled in 350. He then took vengeance on his
opponents by a general persecution of the adherents of the Nicene
Creed. In 359, on the division of the Arian party into Acacians (or pure
Arians) and semi-Arians or Homoiousians, Macedonius adhered to the
latter, and in consequence was expelled from his see by the council of
Constantinople in 360. He now became avowed leader of the sect of
Pneumatomachi, Macedonians or Marathonians, whose distinctive tenet was
that the Holy Spirit is but a being similar to the angels, subordinate
to and in the service of the Father and the Son, the relation between
whom did not admit of a third. He did not long survive his deposition.
See the Church Histories of Socrates and Sozomen; Art. in _Dict. Chr.
Biog._; F. Loofs in Herzog-Hauck's _Realencyk._; H. M. Gwatkin,
_Arianism_.
MACEDONIUS, (2) bishop of Mopsuestia, was present at the councils of
Nicaea and Philippopolis, and inclined to the reactionary party who
thought the Athanasians had gone too far.
MACEDONIUS, (3) bishop of Constantinople (fl. 510), a strict
Chalcedonian who vainly opposed the fanaticism of the monophysite
Severus and was deposed in 513.
MACEIÓ or MACAYO, a city and port of Brazil and capital of the state of
Alagôas, about 125 m. S.S.W. of Pernambuco, in lat. 9° 39´ 35´´ S.,
long. 35° 44´ 36´´ W. Pop. including a large rural district and several
villages (1890), 31,498; (1908, estimate), 33,000. The city stands at
the foot of low bluffs, about a mile from the shore line. The water-side
village of Jaraguá, the port of Maceió, is practically a suburb of the
city. South of the port is the shallow entrance to the Lagôa do Norte,
of Lagôa Mundahú, a salt-water lake extending inland for some miles.
Maceió is attractively situated in the midst of large plantations of
coco-nut and _dendé_ palms, though the broad sandy beach in front and
the open sun-burned plain behind give a barren character to its
surroundings. The heat is moderated by the S.E. trade winds, and the
city is considered healthful. The public buildings are mostly
constructed of broken stone and mortar, plastered outside and covered
with red tiles, but the common dwellings are generally constructed of
_tapia_--rough trellis-work walls filled in with mud. A light tramway
connects the city and port, and a railway--the Alagôas Central--connects
the two with various interior towns. The port is formed by a stone reef
running parallel with and a half-mile from the shore line, within which
vessels of light draft find a safe anchorage, except from southerly
gales. Ocean-going steamers anchor outside the reef. The exports consist
principally of sugar, cotton, and rum (_aguardiente_). Maceió dates from
1815 when a small settlement there was created a "villa." In 1839 it
became the provincial capital and was made a city by the provincial
assembly.
McENTEE, JERVIS (1828-1891), American artist, was born at Rondout, New
York, on the 14th of July 1828, and was a pupil of Frederick E. Church.
He was made an associate of the National Academy of Design, New York, in
1860, and a full academician in 1861. In 1869 he visited Europe,
painting much in Italy. He was identified with the Hudson River School,
and excelled in pictures of autumn scenery. He died at Rondout, N.Y., on
the 27th of January 1891.
MACER, AEMILIUS, of Verona, Roman didactic poet, author of two poems,
one on birds (_Ornithogonia_), the other on the antidotes against the
poison of serpents (_Theriaca_), imitated from the Greek poet Nicander
of Colophon. According to Jerome, he died in 16 B.C. It is possible that
he wrote also a botanical work. The extant hexameter poem _De viribus_
(or _virtutibus_) _herbarum_, ascribed to Macer, is a medieval
production by Odo Magdunensis, a French physician. Aemilius Macer must
be distinguished from the Macer called _Iliacus_ in the Ovidian
catalogue of poets, the author of an epic poem on the events preceding
the opening of the Iliad. The fact of his being addressed by Ovid in one
of the epistles _Ex Ponto_ shows that he was alive long after Aemilius
Macer. He had been identified with the son or grandson of Theophanes of
Mytilene, the intimate friend of Pompey.
See Ovid, _Tristia_, iv. 10, 43; Quintilian, _Instit._ x. 1, 56, 87;
R. Unger, _De Macro Nicandri imitatore_ (Friedland, 1845); C. P.
Schulze in _Rheinisches Museum_ (1898), liii. p. 541; for Macer
Iliacus see Ovid, _Ex Ponto_, ii 10, 13, iv. 16, 6; _Amores_, ii. 18.
MACERATA, a city of the Marches, Italy, the chief town of the province
of Macerata and a bishop's see, 44 m. by rail S. of Ancona. Pop. (1901),
6,176 (town), 22,473 (commune). Crowning a hill 919 ft. above sea-level,
with a picturesque mass of buildings enclosed by walls and towers,
Macerata looks out over the Adriatic. The cathedral is modern, but some
of the churches and palaces are not without interest. Besides the
university, agricultural school and industrial institute, Macerata has a
communal library founded by Leo XII., containing a small but choice
collection of early pictures, and in the municipal buildings, a
collection of antiquities from Helvia Ricina. There is an enormous
amphitheatre or _sferisterio_ for _pallone_, a ball game which is very
popular in the district. The industries comprise the making of bricks,
matches, terra-cotta and chemicals.
Macerata, as well as Recanati, was founded by the inhabitants of Ricina
after the destruction of their city by Alaric in 408. During the Lombard
period it was a flourishing town; but it was raised from comparative
insignificance by Nicholas IV. to be the seat of the governors of the
March. It was enclosed in the 13th century by a new line of walls more
than 2½ m. in circuit; and in the troubles of the next two hundred years
it had frequent occasion to learn their value. For the most part it
remained faithful to the popes, and in return it was rewarded by a
multitude of privileges. Though in 1797 the inhabitants opened their
gates to the French, two years afterwards, when the country people took
refuge within the walls, the city was taken by storm and delivered to
pillage. The bishopric of Macerata dates from the suppression of the see
of Recanati (1320).
MACFARREN, SIR GEORGE ALEXANDER (1813-1887), English composer, was born
in London on the 2nd of March 1813, and entered the Royal Academy of
Music in 1829. A symphony by him was played at an Academy concert in
1830; for the opening of the Queen's Theatre in Tottenham Street, under
the management of his father, in 1831, he wrote an overture. His _Chevy
Chase_ overture, the orchestral work by which he is perhaps best known,
was written as early as 1836, and in a single night. On leaving the
Academy in 1836, Macfarren was for about a year a music teacher in the
Isle of Man, and wrote two unsuccessful operas. In 1837 he was appointed
a professor at the Academy, and wrote his _Romeo and Juliet_ overture.
In the following year he brought out _The Devil's Opera_, one of his
best works. In 1843 he became conductor at Covent Garden, producing the
_Antigone_ with Mendelssohn's music; his opera on _Don Quixote_ was
produced under Bunn at Drury Lane in 1846; his subsequent operas include
_Charles II._ (1849), _Robin Hood_ (1860), _She Stoops to Conquer_
(1864), and _Helvellyn_ (1864). A gradual failure of his eyesight, which
had been defective from boyhood, resulted in total blindness in 1865,
but he overcame the difficulties by employing an amanuensis in
composition, and made hardly a break in the course of his work. He was
made principal of the Royal Academy of Music in succession to Sterndale
Bennett in February 1875, and in March of the same year professor of
music in Cambridge University. Shortly before this he had begun a series
of oratorios: _St John the Baptist_ (Bristol, 1873); _Resurrection_
(Birmingham, 1876); _Joseph_ (Leeds, 1877); and _King David_ (Leeds,
1883). In spite of their solid workmanship, and the skill with which the
ideas are treated, it is difficult to hear or read them through without
smiling at some of the touches of quite unconscious humour often
resulting from the way in which the Biblical narratives have been, as it
were, dramatized. He delivered many lectures of great and lasting value,
and his theoretical works, such as the _Rudiments of Harmony_, and the
treatise on counterpoint, will probably be remembered longer than many
of his compositions. He was knighted in 1883, and died suddenly in
London on the 31st of October 1887.
An excellent memoir by H. C. Banister appeared in 1891.
McGEE, THOMAS D'ARCY (1825-1868), Irish-Canadian politician and writer,
second son of James McGee, a coast-guard, was born at Carlingford, Co.
Louth, on the 13th of April 1825. He early showed a remarkable aptitude
for oratory. At the age of thirteen he delivered a speech at Wexford,
and when four years later he emigrated to America he quickly gained a
reputation as a writer and public speaker in the city of Boston. He thus
attracted the attention of O'Connell, and before he was twenty years of
age he returned to London to become parliamentary correspondent of the
_Freeman's Journal_, and shortly afterwards London correspondent of the
_Nation_, to which he also contributed a number of poems. He married in
1847 Mary Theresa Caffry, by whom he had two children. In 1846 he became
one of the moving spirits in the "Young Ireland" party, and in promoting
the objects of that organization he contributed two volumes to the
"Library of Ireland." On the failure of the movement in 1848 McGee
escaped in the disguise of a priest to the United States, where between
1848 and 1853 he established two newspapers, the _New York Nation_ and
the _American Celt_. His writings at first were exceedingly bitter and
anti-English; but as years passed he realized that a greater measure of
political freedom was possible under the British constitution than under
the American. He had now become well-known as an author, and as a
lecturer of unusual ability. In 1857 McGee, driven from the United
States by the scurrilous attacks of the extreme Irish revolutionaries,
took up his abode in Canada, and was admitted to the bar of the province
of Lower Canada in 1861. At the general election in 1858 he was returned
to parliament as the member for Montreal, and for four years he was
regarded as a powerful factor in the house. On the formation of the
Sandfield-Macdonald-Sicotte administration in 1862 he accepted the
office of president of the council. When the cabinet was reconstructed a
year later the Irish were left without representation, and McGee sought
re-election as a member of the opposite party. In 1864 he was appointed
minister of agriculture in the administration of Sir E. P. Tache, and he
served the country in that capacity until his death. He actively
supported the policy of federation and was elected a member of the first
Dominion parliament in 1867. On the 7th of April 1868, after having
delivered a notable speech in the house, he was shot by an assassin as
he was about to enter his house at Ottawa. His utterances against the
Fenian invasion are believed to have been the cause of the crime for
which P. J. Whelan was executed. McGee's loss was keenly felt by all
classes, and within a few weeks of his death parliament granted an
annuity to his widow and children. McGee had great faith in the future
of Canada as a part of the empire. Speaking at St John, N.B., in 1863,
he said: "There are before the public men of British America at this
moment but two courses: either to drift with the tide of democracy, or
to seize the golden moment and fix for ever the monarchical character of
our institutions. I invite every fellow colonist who agrees with me to
unite our efforts that we may give our province the aspect of an empire,
in order to exercise the influence abroad and at home of a state, and to
originate a history which the world will not willingly let die." Sir
Charles Gavan Duffy considered that as a poet McGee was not inferior to
Davis, and that as an orator he possessed powers rarer than those of T.
F. Meagher.
McGee's principal works are: _A Popular History of Ireland_ (2 vols.,
New York, 1862; 1 vol., London, 1869); _Irish Writers of the
Seventeenth Century_ (Dublin, 1846); _Historical Sketches of O'Connell
and his Friends_ (Boston, 1844); _Memoirs of the Life and Conquests of
Art McMurrogh, King of Leinster_ (Dublin, 1847); _Memoir of C. G.
Duffy_ (Dublin, 1849); _A History of the Irish Settlers in North
America_ (Boston, 1851); _History of the Attempts to establish the
Protestant Reformation in Ireland_ (Boston, 1853); _Life of Edward
Maginn, Coadjutor Bishop of Derry_ (New York, 1857); _Catholic History
of North America_ (Boston, 1854); _Canadian Ballads and Occasional
Pieces_ (New York, 1858); _Notes on Federal Governments Past and
Present_ (Montreal, 1865); _Speeches and Addresses, chiefly on the
Subject of the British American Union_ (London, 1865); _Poems_, edited
by Mrs M. A. Sadleir with introductory memoir (New York, 1869). See
Fennings Taylor, _The Hon. Thomas D'Arcy McGee_ (Montreal, 1867); J.
K. Foran, _Thomas D'Arcy McGee as an Empire Builder_ (Ottawa, 1904);
H. J. O'C. French, _A Sketch of the Life of the Hon. T. D. McGee_
(Montreal); Appleton's _Cyclopaedia of American Biography_., iv. 116;
N. F. Dvin's _Irishman in Canada_ (1887); C. G. Duffy, _Four Years of
Irish History_ (1883); Alfred Webb, _Compendium of Irish Biography_
(Dublin, 1878). (A. G. D.)
McGIFFERT, ARTHUR CUSHMAN (1861- ), American theologian, was born in
Sauquoit, New York, on the 4th of March 1861, the son of a Presbyterian
clergyman of Scotch descent. He graduated at Western Reserve College in
1882 and at Union theological seminary in 1885, studied in Germany
(especially under Harnack) in 1885-1887, and in Italy and France in
1888, and in that year received the degree of doctor of philosophy at
Marburg. He was instructor (1888-1890) and professor (1890-1893) of
church history at Lane theological seminary, and in 1893 became Washburn
professor of church history in Union theological seminary, succeeding Dr
Philip Schaff. His published work, except occasional critical studies in
philosophy, dealt with church history and the history of dogma. His best
known publication is a _History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age_
(1897). This book, by its independent criticism and departures from
traditionalism, aroused the opposition of the General Assembly of the
Presbyterian Church; though the charges brought against McGiffert were
dismissed by the Presbytery of New York, to which they had been
referred, a trial for heresy seemed inevitable, and McGiffert, in 1900,
retired from the Presbyterian ministry and entered the Congregational
Church, although he retained his position in Union theological seminary.
Among his other publications are: _A Dialogue between a Christian and a
Jew_ (1888); a translation (with introduction and notes) of Eusebius's
_Church History_ (1890); and _The Apostles' Creed_ (1902), in which he
attempted to prove that the old Roman creed was formulated as a protest
against the dualism of Marcion and his denial of the reality of Jesus's
life on earth.
McGILLIVRAY, ALEXANDER (c. 1730-1793), American Indian chief, was born
near the site of the present Wetumpka, in Alabama. His father was a
Scotch merchant and his mother the daughter of a French officer and an
Indian "princess." Through his father's relatives in South Carolina,
McGillivray received a good education, but at the age of seventeen,
after a short experience as a merchant in Savannah and Pensacola, he
returned to the Muscogee Indians, who elected him chief. He retained his
connexion with business life as a member of the British firm of Panton,
Forbes & Leslie of Pensacola. During the War of Independence, as a
colonel in the British army, he incited his followers to attack the
western frontiers of Georgia and the Carolinas. Georgia confiscated some
of his property, and after the peace of 1783 McGillivray remained
hostile. Though still retaining his British commission, he accepted one
from Spain, and during the remainder of his life used his influence to
prevent American settlement in the south-west. So important was he
considered that in 1790 President Washington sent an agent who induced
him to visit New York. Here he was persuaded to make peace in
consideration of a brigadier-general's commission and payment for the
property confiscated by Georgia; and with the warriors who accompanied
him he signed a formal treaty of peace and friendship on the 7th of
August. He then went back to the Indian country, and remained hostile to
the Americans until his death. He was one of the ablest Indian leaders
of America and at one time wielded great power--having 5000 to 10,000
armed followers. In order to serve Indian interests he played off
British, Spanish and American interests against one another, but before
he died he saw that he was fighting in a losing cause, and, changing his
policy, endeavoured to provide for the training of the Muscogees in the
white man's civilization. McGillivray was polished in manners, of
cultivated intellect, was a shrewd merchant, and a successful
speculator; but he had many savage traits, being noted for his
treachery, craftiness and love of barbaric display. (W. L. F.)
MACGILLIVRAY, WILLIAM (1796-1852), Scottish naturalist, was born at
Aberdeen on the 25th of January 1796. At King's College, Aberdeen, he
graduated in 1815, and also studied medicine, but did not complete the
latter course. In 1823 he became assistant to R. Jameson, professor of
natural history in Edinburgh University; and in 1831 he was appointed
curator of the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh, a
post which he resigned in 1841 to become professor of natural history
and lecturer on botany in Marischal College, Aberdeen. He died at
Aberdeen on the 4th of September 1852. He possessed a wide and
comprehensive knowledge of natural science, gained no less from personal
observations in different parts of Scotland than from a study of
collections and books. His industry and extensive knowledge are amply
shown in his published works. He assisted J. J. Audubon in his classical
works on the _Birds of America_, and edited W. Withering's _British
Plants_. His larger works include biographies of A. von Humboldt, and of
zoologists from Aristotle to Linnaeus, a _History of British
Quadrupeds_, a _History of the Molluscous Animals of Aberdeen, Banff and
Kincardine_, a _Manual of British Ornithology_, and a _History of
British Birds_, in 5 vols. (1837-1852). The last work holds a high rank
from the excellent descriptions of the structure, habits and haunts of
birds, and from the use in classification of characters afforded by
their anatomical structure. His _Natural History of Deeside_,
posthumously published by command of Queen Victoria, was the result of a
sojourn in the highlands of Aberdeenshire in 1850. He made large
collections, alike for the instruction of his students and to illustrate
the zoology, botany and geology of the parts of Scotland examined by
him, especially around Aberdeen, and a number of his original
water-colour drawings are preserved in the British Museum (Natural
History).
His eldest son, JOHN MACGILLIVRAY (1822-1867), published an account of
the voyage round the world of H.M.S. "Rattlesnake," on board of which
he was naturalist. Another son, PAUL, published an _Aberdeen Flora_ in
1853.
MacGREGOR, JOHN ["ROB ROY"] (1825-1892), Scottish canoeist, traveller
and philanthropist, son of General Sir Duncan MacGregor, K.C.B., was
born at Gravesend on the 24th of January 1825. He combined a roving
disposition with a natural taste for mechanics and for literature. In
1839 he went to Trinity College, Dublin, and in 1844 to Trinity,
Cambridge, where he was a wrangler. He was called to the bar in 1851,
but did not pursue his profession. He travelled a great deal in Europe,
Egypt, Palestine, Russia, Algeria and America, and between 1853 and 1863
was largely occupied with researches into the history and methods of
marine propulsion. He was the pioneer of British canoeing. In 1865 he
started on a long canoeing cruise in his "Rob Roy" canoe, and in this
way made a prolonged water tour through Europe, a record of which he
published in 1866 as _A Thousand Miles in the Rob Roy Canoe_. This book
made MacGregor and his canoe famous. He made similar voyages in later
years in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, the North Sea and Palestine.
Another voyage, in the English Channel and on French waters, was made in
a yawl. He published accounts of all these journeys. He did not,
however, confine his energies to travelling. He was active in charity
and philanthropic work, being one of the founders of the Shoe-black
Brigade. In 1870 and again in 1873 he was elected on the London school
board. He died at Boscombe on the 16th of July 1892.
MACH, ERNST (1838- ), Austrian physicist and psychologist, was born on
the 18th of February 1838 at Turas in Moravia, and studied at Vienna. He
was professor of mathematics at Grätz (1864-1867), of physics at Prague
(1867-1895), and of physics at Vienna (1895-1901). In 1879 and 1880 as
_Rector Magnificus_ he fought against the introduction of Czech instead
of German in the Prague University. In 1901 he was made a member of the
Austrian house of peers. In philosophy he began with a strong
predilection for the physical side of psychology, and at an early age he
came to the conclusion that all existence is sensation, and, after a
lapse into noümenalism under the influence of Fechner's _Psychophysics_,
finally adopted a universal physical phenomenalism. The Ego he considers
not an entity sharply distinguished from the Non-ego, but merely, as it
were, a medium of continuity of sensory impressions. His whole theory
appears to be vitiated by the confusion of physics and psychology.
WORKS.--_Kompendium der Physik für Mediziner_ (Vienna, 1863);
_Einleitung in die Heimholtz'sehe Musiktheorie_ (Grätz, 1866); _Die
Gesch. u. d. Wurzel d. Satzes von d. Erhaltung d. Arbeit_ (Prague,
1872); _Grundlinien d. Lehre v. d. Bewegungsempfindungen_ (Leipzig,
1875); _Die Mechanik in ihrer Entwickelung_ (Leipzig, 1883; rev. ed.,
1908; Eng. trans., T. J. McCormack, 1902); _Beiträge zur Analyse d.
Empfindungen_ (Jena, 1886), 5th ed., 1906, entitled _Die Analyse d.
Empfindungen; Leitfaden d. Physik für Studierende_ (Prague, 1881, in
collaboration); _Populärwissenschaftliche Vorlesungen_ (3rd ed.,
Leipzig, 1903); _Die Prinzipien d. Wärmelehre_ (2nd ed., 1900);
_Erkenntnis und Irrtum_ (Leipzig, 1905).
MACHAERODUS, or MACHAIRODUS, the typical genus of a group of long-tusked
extinct cats, commonly known as sabre-tooths. Although best regarded as
a sub-family (_Machaerodontinae_) of the _Felidae_, they are sometimes
referred to a separate family under the name _Nimravidae_ (see
CARNIVORA). The later forms, as well as some of the earlier ones, are
more specialized as regards dentition than the modern _Felidae_,
although in several other respects they exhibit more primitive features.
The general type of dentition is feline, but in some instances more
premolars are retained, as well as a small tubercular molar behind the
lower carnassial. The characteristic feature is, however, the great
development of the upper canines, which in the more specialized types
reach far below the margin of the lower jaw, despite the development of
a flange-like expansion of the extremity of the latter for their
protection. In these extreme forms it is quite evident that the jaws
could not be used in the ordinary manner; and it seems probable that in
attacking prey the lower jaw was dropped to a vertical position, and the
huge upper tusks used as stabbing instruments. The group is believed to
be derived from a creodont allied to the Eocene _Palaeonictis_ (see
CREODONTA).
_Nimravus_, of the American Oligocene, with two premolars and two molars
in the lower jaw, and comparatively short upper canines, seems to be the
least specialized type; next to which comes _Hoplophoneus_, another
North American Oligocene genus, in which the tubercular lower molar is
lost, and the upper canine is longer. It is noteworthy, however, that
this genus retains the third trochanter to the femur, which is lost in
_Nimravus_. _Machaerodus_, in the wider sense, includes the larger and
more typical forms. In the Pliocene of France and Italy it is
represented by _M. megantereon_, a species not larger than a leopard,
and allied forms occur in the Pliocene of Greece, Hungary, Samos,
Persia, India and China, as well as in the Middle Miocene of France and
Germany. Far larger is the Pleistocene _M. cultridens_ of the caverns of
Europe, with serrated upper tusks several inches in length. From Europe
and Asia the sabre-toothed tigers may be traced into North and thence
into South America, the home of _M. (Smilodon) neogaeus_, the largest of
the whole tribe, whose remains occur in the Brazilian caves and the silt
of the Argentine pampas. This animal was as large as a tiger, with tusks
projecting seven inches from the jaw and very complex carnassials; the
feet were very short, with only four toes to the hind-pair, and the
humerus has lost the foramen at the lower end. Very noteworthy is the
occurrence of an imperfectly known specialized type--_Eusmilus_--in the
Lower Oligocene of Europe and perhaps also North America. Unlike all
other cats, it had only two pairs of lower incisors, and the large
cheek-teeth were reduced to the carnassial and one premolar in advance
of the same. (R. L.*)
MACHALE, JOHN (1791-1881), Irish divine, was born on the 15th of March
1791 at Tuber-na-Fian, Mayo, and was educated at Maynooth, where after
graduating in 1814 he was ordained priest and appointed lecturer in
theology, succeeding to the professoriate in 1820. In 1825 he became
coadjutor bishop of Killala, and in July 1834 archbishop of Tuam and
metropolitan. He visited Rome in 1831, and was there again at the
proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin
(Dec. 1854) and in 1869-1870 at the Vatican council. Though he did not
favour the dogma of Papal Infallibility he submitted as soon as it was
defined. Machale was an intensely patriotic Irishman, who fought hard
for Catholic Emancipation, for separate Roman Catholic schools, and
against the Queen's Colleges. He translated part of the _Iliad_ (Dublin,
1861), and made an Irish version of some of Moore's melodies and of the
Pentateuch. He died at Tuam on the 7th of November 1881.
MACHAULT D'ARNOUVILLE, JEAN BAPTISTE DE (1701-1794), French statesman,
was a son of Louis Charles Machault d'Arnouville, lieutenant of police.
In 1721 he was counsel to the parlement of Paris, in 1728 _maître des
requêtes_, and ten years later was made president of the Great Council;
although he had opposed the court in the _Unigenitus_ dispute, he was
appointed intendant of Hainaut in 1743. From this position, through the
influence at court of his old friend René Louis, Marquis d'Argenson, he
was called to succeed Orry de Fulvy as controller-general of the
finances in December 1745. He found, on taking office, that in the four
years of the War of the Austrian Succession the economies of Cardinal
Fleury had been exhausted, and he was forced to develop the system of
borrowings which was bringing French finances to bankruptcy. He
attempted in 1749 a reform in the levying of direct taxes, which, if
carried out, would have done much to prevent the later Revolutionary
movement. He proposed to abolish the old tax of a tenth, which was
evaded by the clergy and most of the nobility, and substitute a tax of
one-twentieth which should be levied on all without exception. The cry
for exceptions, however, began at once. The clergy stood in a body by
their historical privileges, and the outcry of the nobility was too
great for the minister to make headway against. Still he managed to
retain his office until July 1754, when he exchanged the controllership
for the ministry of marine. Foreseeing the disastrous results of the
alliance with Austria, he was drawn to oppose more decidedly the schemes
of Mme de Pompadour, whose personal ill-will he had gained. Louis XV.
acquiesced in her demand for his disgrace on the 1st of February 1757.
Machault lived on his estate at Arnouville until the Revolution broke
out, when, after a period of hiding, he was apprehended in 1794 at Rouen
and brought to Paris as a suspect. He was imprisoned in the
Madelonnettes, where he succumbed in a few weeks, at the age of
ninety-three.
His son, LOUIS CHARLES MACHAULT D'ARNOUVILLE (1737-1820), was bishop of
Amiens from 1774 until the Revolution. He was famous for his charity;
but proved to be a most uncompromising Conservative at the estates
general of 1789, where he voted consistently against every reform. He
emigrated in 1791, resigned his bishopric in 1801 to facilitate the
concordat, and retired to the ancestral château of Arnouville, where he
died in 1820.
MACHAUT, GUILLAUME DE (c. 1300-1377), French poet and musician, was born
in the village of Machault near Réthel in Champagne. Machaut tells us
that he served for thirty years the adventurous John of Luxembourg, king
of Bohemia. He followed his master to Russia and Poland, and, though of
peaceful tastes himself, saw twenty battles and a hundred tourneys. When
John was killed at Crécy in 1346 Machaut was received at the court of
Normandy, and on the accession of John the Good to the throne of France
(1350) he received an office which enabled him to devote himself
thenceforth to music and poetry. Machaut wrote about 1348 in honour of
Charles III., king of Navarre, a long poem much admired by
contemporaries, _Le Jugement du roi de Navarre_. When Charles was thrown
into prison by his father-in-law, King John, Machaut addressed him a
_Confort d'ami_ to console him for his enforced separation from his
young wife, then aged fifteen. This was followed about 1370 by a poem of
9000 lines entitled _La Prise d'Alexandrie_, one of the last chronicles
cast in this form. Its hero was Pierre de Lusignan, king of Cyprus.
Machaut is best known for the strange book telling of the love affair of
his old age with a young and noble lady long supposed to be Agnes of
Navarre, sister of Charles the Bad; Paulin Paris in his edition of the
_Voir dit_ (_Historie vraie_) identified her as Perronne d'Armentières,
a noble lady of Champagne. In 1362, when Machaut must have been at least
sixty-two years of age, he received a rondeau from Perronne, who was
then eighteen, expressing her devotion. She no doubt wished to play
Laura to his Petrarch, and the _Voir dit_ contains the correspondence
and the poems which they exchanged. The romance, which ended with
Perronne's marriage and Machaut's desire to remain her _doux ami_, has
gleams of poetry, especially in Perronne's verses, but its subject and
its length are both deterrent to modern readers. But Machaut with
Deschamps marks a distinct transition. The _trouvères_ had been
impersonal. It is difficult to gather any details of their personal
history from their work. Machaut and Deschamps wrote of their own
affairs, and the next step in development was to be the self-analysis of
Villon. Machaut was also a musician. He composed a number of motets,
songs and ballads, also a mass supposed to have been sung at the
coronation of Charles V. This was translated into modern notation by
Perne, who read a notice on it before the Institute of France in 1817.
Machaut's _Oeuvres choisies_ were edited by P. Tarbe (Rheims and
Paris, 1849); _La Prise d'Alexandrie_, by L. de Mas-Latrie (Geneva,
1877); and _Le Livre du voir-dit_, by Paulin Paris (1875). See also F.
G. Fétis, _Biog. universelle des musiciens ..._ (Paris, 1862), and a
notice on the _Instruments de musique au xiv^e siècle d'après
Guillaume de Machaut_, by E. Travers (Paris, 1882).
MACHIAVELLI, NICCOLÒ (1469-1527), Italian statesman and writer, was born
at Florence on the 3rd of May 1469. His ancestry claimed blood
relationship with the lords of Montespertoli, a fief situated between
Val di Pesa and Val d'Elsa, at no great distance from the city.
Niccolò's father, Bernardo (b. 1428), followed the profession of a
jurist. He held landed property worth something like £250 a year of our
money. His son, though not wealthy, was never wholly dependent upon
official income.
Of Niccolò's early years and education little is known. His works show
wide reading in the Latin and Italian classics, but it is almost certain
that he had not mastered the Greek language. To the defects of
Machiavelli's education we may, in part at least, ascribe the peculiar
vigour of his style and his speculative originality. He is free from the
scholastic trifling and learned frivolity which tainted the rhetorical
culture of his century. He made the world of men and things his study,
learned to write his mother-tongue with idiomatic conciseness, and
nourished his imagination on the masterpieces of the Romans.
The year of Charles VIII.'s invasion and of the Medici's expulsion from
Florence (1494) saw Machiavelli's first entrance into public life. He
was appointed clerk in the second chancery of the commune under his old
master, the grammarian, Marcello Virgilio Adriani. Early in 1498 Adriani
became chancellor of the republic, and Machiavelli received his vacated
office with the rank of second chancellor and secretary. This post he
retained till the year 1512. The masters he had to serve were the _dieci
di libertà e pace_, who, though subordinate to the _signoria_, exercised
a separate control over the departments of war and the interior. They
sent their own ambassadors to foreign powers, transacted business with
the cities of the Florentine domain, and controlled the military
establishment of the commonwealth. The next fourteen years of
Machiavelli's life were fully occupied in the voluminous correspondence
of his bureau, in diplomatic missions of varying importance, and in the
organization of a Florentine militia. It would be tedious to follow him
through all his embassies to petty courts of Italy, the first of which
took place in 1499, when he was sent to negotiate the continuance of a
loan to Catherine Sforza, countess of Forli and Imola. In 1500
Machiavelli travelled into France, to deal with Louis XII. about the
affairs of Pisa. These embassies were the school in which Machiavelli
formed his political opinions, and gathered views regarding the state of
Europe and the relative strength of nations. They not only introduced
him to the subtleties of Italian diplomacy, but also extended his
observation over races very different from the Italians. He thus, in the
course of his official business, gradually acquired principles and
settled ways of thinking which he afterwards expressed in writing.
In 1502 Machiavelli married Marietta Corsini, who bore him several
children, with whom, in spite of his own infidelities, he lived on good
terms, and who survived him twenty-six years. In the same year Piero
Soderini was chosen gonfalonier for life, in accordance with certain
changes in the constitution of the state, which were intended to bring
Florence closer to the Venetian type of government. Machiavelli became
intimately connected with Soderini, assisted him in carrying out his
policy, suggested important measures of military reform which Soderini
adopted, and finally was involved in ruin by his fall.
The year 1502 was marked by yet another decisive incident in
Machiavelli's life. In October he was sent, much against his will, as
envoy to the camp of Cesare Borgia, duke of Valentinois. The duke was
then in Romagna, and it was Machiavelli's duty to wait upon and watch
him. He was able now to observe those intricate intrigues which
culminated in Cesare's murder of his disaffected captains. From what
remains of Machiavelli's official letters, and from his tract upon the
_Modo che tenne il duca Valentino per ammazzar Vitellozzo Vitelli_, we
are able to appreciate the actual relations which existed between the
two men, and the growth in Machiavelli's mind of a political ideal based
upon his study of the duke's character. Machiavelli conceived the
strongest admiration for Cesare's combination of audacity with
diplomatic prudence, for his adroit use of cruelty and fraud, for his
self-reliance, avoidance of half-measures, employment of native troops,
and firm administration in conquered provinces. More than once, in
letters to his friend Vettori, no less than in the pages of the
_Principe_, Machiavelli afterwards expressed his belief that Cesare
Borgia's behaviour in the conquest of provinces, the cementing of a new
state out of scattered elements, and the dealing with false friends or
doubtful allies, was worthy of all commendation and of scrupulous
imitation. As he watched Cesare Borgia at this, the most brilliant
period of his adventurous career, the man became idealized in his
reflective but imaginative mind. Round him, as a hero, he allowed his
own conceptions of the perfect prince to cluster. That Machiavelli
separated the actual Cesare Borgia, whom he afterwards saw, ruined and
contemptible, at Rome, from this radiant creature of his political
fancy, is probable. That the Cesare of history does not exactly match
the Duca Valentino of Machiavelli's writings is certain. Still the fact
remains that henceforth Machiavelli cherished the ideal image of the
statesman which he had modelled upon Cesare, and called this by the name
of Valentino.
On his return to Florence early in January 1503, Machiavelli began to
occupy himself with a project which his recent attendance upon Cesare
Borgia had strengthened in his mind. The duties of his office obliged
him to study the conditions of military service as they then existed in
Italy. He was familiar with the disadvantages under which republics
laboured when they engaged professional captains of adventure and levied
mercenary troops. The bad faith of the condottiere Paolo Vitelli
(beheaded at Florence in 1499) had deeply impressed him. In the war with
Pisa he had observed the insubordination and untrustworthiness of
soldiers gathered from the dregs of different districts, serving under
egotistical and irresponsible commanders. His reading in Livy taught him
to admire the Roman system of employing armies raised from the body of
the citizens; and Cesare Borgia's method of gradually substituting the
troops of his own duchy for aliens and mercenaries showed him that this
plan might be adopted with success by the Italians. He was now
determined, if possible, to furnish Florence with a national militia.
The gonfalonier Soderini entered into his views. But obstacles of no
small magnitude arose. The question of money was immediately pressing.
Early in 1503 Machiavelli drew up for Soderini a speech, _Discorso sulla
provisione del danaro_, in which the duty and necessity of liberal
expenditure for the protection of the state were expounded upon
principles of sound political philosophy. Between this date and the last
month of 1506 Machiavelli laboured at his favourite scheme, working out
memorials on the subject for his office, and suggesting the outlines of
a new military organization. On the 6th of December 1506 his plan was
approved by the signoria, and a special ministry, called the nove _di
ordinanza e milizia_, was appointed. Machiavelli immediately became
their secretary. The country districts of the Florentine dominion were
now divided into departments, and levies of foot soldiers were made in
order to secure a standing militia. A commander-in-chief had to be
chosen for the new troops. Italian jealousy shrank from conferring this
important office on a Florentine, lest one member of the state should
acquire a power dangerous to the whole. The choice of Soderini and
Machiavelli fell, at this juncture, upon an extremely ineligible person,
none other than Don Micheletto, Cesare Borgia's cut-throat and assassin.
It is necessary to insist upon this point, since it serves to illustrate
a radical infirmity in Machiavelli's genius. While forming and promoting
his scheme, he was actuated by principles of political wisdom and by the
purest patriotism. But he failed to perceive that such a ruffian as
Micheletto could not inspire the troops of Florence with that devotion
to their country and that healthy moral tone which should distinguish a
patriot army. Here, as elsewhere, he revealed his insensibility to the
ethical element in human nature.
Meanwhile Italy had been the scene of memorable events, in most of which
Machiavelli took some part. Alexander VI. had died suddenly of fever.
Julius II. had ascended the papal chair. The duke of Valentinois had
been checked in mid-career of conquest. The collapse of the Borgias
threw Central Italy into confusion; and Machiavelli had, in 1505, to
visit the Baglioni at Perugia and the Petrucci at Siena. In the
following year he accompanied Julius upon his march through Perugia into
the province of Emilia, where the fiery pope subdued in person the
rebellious cities of the Church. Upon these embassies Machiavelli
represented the Florentine dieci in quality of envoy. It was his duty to
keep the ministry informed by means of frequent despatches and reports.
All this while the war for the recovery of Pisa was slowly dragging on,
with no success or honour to the Florentines. Machiavelli had to attend
the camp and provide for levies amid his many other occupations. And yet
he found time for private literary work. In the autumn of 1504 he began
his _Decennali_, or _Annals of Italy_, a poem composed in rough terza
rima. About the same time he composed a comedy on the model of
Aristophanes, which is unfortunately lost. It seems to have been called
_Le Maschere_. Giuliano de' Ricci tells us it was marked by stringent
satire upon great ecclesiastics and statesmen, no less than by a
tendency to "ascribe all human things to natural causes or to fortune."
That phrase accurately describes the prevalent bias of its author's
mind.
The greater part of 1506 and 1507 was spent in organizing the new
militia, corresponding on the subject, and scouring the country on
enlistment service. But at the end of the latter year European affairs
of no small moment diverted Machiavelli from these humbler duties.
Maximilian was planning a journey into Italy in order to be crowned
emperor at Rome, and was levying subsidies from the imperial burghs for
his expenses. The Florentines thought his demands excessive. Though they
already had Francesco Vettori at his court, Soderini judged it advisable
to send Machiavelli thither in December. He travelled by Geneva, all
through Switzerland, to Botzen, where he found the emperor. This journey
was an important moment in his life. It enabled him to study the Swiss
and the Germans in their homes; and the report which he wrote on his
return is among his most effective political studies. What is most
remarkable in it is his concentrated effort to realize the exact
political weight of the German nation, and to penetrate the causes of
its strength and weakness. He attempts to grasp the national character
as a whole, and thence to deduce practical conclusions. The same
qualities are noticeable in his _Ritratti delle cose di Francia_, which
he drew up after an embassy to Louis XII. at Blois in 1510. These notes
upon the French race are more scattered than the report on German
affairs. But they reveal no less acumen combined with imaginative
penetration into the very essence of national existence.
Machiavelli returned from Germany in June 1508. The rest of that year
and a large part of 1509 were spent in the affairs of the militia and
the war of Pisa. Chiefly through his exertions the war was terminated by
the surrender of Pisa in June 1509. Meanwhile the league of Cambray had
disturbed the peace of Italy, and Florence found herself in a perilous
position between Spain and France. Soderini's government grew weaker.
The Medicean party lifted up its head. To the league of Cambray
succeeded the Holy League. The battle of Ravenna was fought, and the
French retired from Italy. The Florentines had been spectators rather
than actors in these great events. But they were now destined to feel
the full effects of them. The cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, who was
present at the battle of Ravenna, brought a Spanish army into Tuscany.
Prato was sacked in the August of 1512. Florence, in extreme terror,
deposed the gonfalonier, and opened her gates to the princes of the
house of Medici.
The government on which Machiavelli depended had fallen, never to rise
again. The national militia in which he placed unbounded confidence had
proved inefficient to protect Florence in the hour of need. He was
surrounded by political and personal enemies, who regarded him with
jealousy as the ex-gonfalonier's right-hand man. Yet at first it appears
that he still hoped to retain his office. He showed no repugnance to a
change of masters, and began to make overtures to the Medici. The _nove
della milizia_ were, however, dissolved; and on the 7th of November 1512
Machiavelli was deprived of his appointments. He was exiled from
Florence and confined to the dominion for one year, and on the 17th of
November was further prohibited from setting foot in the Palazzo
Pubblico. Ruin stared him in the face; and, to make matters worse, he
was implicated in the conspiracy of Pier Paolo Boscoli in February 1513.
Machiavelli had taken no share in that feeble attempt against the
Medici, but his name was found upon a memorandum dropped by Boscoli.
This was enough to ensure his imprisonment. He was racked, and only
released upon Giovanni de' Medici's election to the papacy in March
1513. When he left his dungeon he retired to a farm near San Casciano,
and faced the fact that his political career was at an end.
Machiavelli now entered upon a period of life to which we owe the great
works that have rendered his name immortal. But it was one of prolonged
disappointment and annoyance. He had not accustomed himself to
economical living; and, when the emoluments of his office were
withdrawn, he had barely enough to support his family. The previous
years of his manhood had been spent in continual activity. Much as he
enjoyed the study of the Latin and Italian classics, literature was not
his business; nor had he looked on writing as more than an occasional
amusement. He was now driven in upon his books for the employment of a
restless temperament; and to this irksomeness of enforced leisure may be
ascribed the production of the _Principe_, the _Discorsi_, the _Arte
della guerra_, the comedies, and the _Historie fiorentine_. The
uneasiness of Machiavelli's mind in the first years of this retirement
is brought before us by his private correspondence. The letters to
Vettori paint a man of vigorous intellect and feverish activity,
dividing his time between studies and vulgar dissipations, seeking at
one time distraction in low intrigues and wanton company, at another
turning to the great minds of antiquity for solace. It is not easy to
understand the spirit in which the author of the _Principe_ sat down to
exchange obscenities with the author of the _Sommario della storia
d'Italia_. At the same time this coarseness of taste did not blunt his
intellectual sagacity. His letters on public affairs in Italy and
Europe, especially those which he meant Vettori to communicate to the
Medici at Rome, are marked by extraordinary fineness of perception,
combined, as usual in his case, with philosophical breadth. In
retirement at his villa near Percussina, a hamlet of San Casciano,
Machiavelli completed the _Principe_ before the end of 1513. This famous
book is an analysis of the methods whereby an ambitious man may rise to
sovereign power. It appears to have grown out of another scarcely less
celebrated work, upon which Machiavelli had been engaged before he took
the _Principe_ in hand, and which he did not finish until some time
afterwards. This second treatise is the _Discorsi sopra la prima deca di
Tito Livio_.
Cast in the form of comments on the history of Livy, the _Discorsi_
are really an inquiry into the genesis and maintenance of states. The
_Principe_ is an offshoot from the main theme of the _Discorsi_,
setting forth Machiavelli's views at large and in detail upon the
nature of principalities, the method of cementing them, and the
qualities of a successful autocrat. Being more limited in subject and
more independent as a work of literary art, this essay detaches itself
from the main body of the _Discorsi_, and has attracted far more
attention. We feel that the _Principe_ is inspired with greater
fervency, as though its author had more than a speculative aim in
view, and brought it forth to serve a special crisis. The moment of
its composition was indeed decisive. Machiavelli judged the case of
Italy so desperate that salvation could only be expected from the
intervention of a powerful despot. The unification of Italy in a state
protected by a national army was the cherished dream of his life; and
the peroration of the _Principe_ shows that he meant this treatise to
have a direct bearing on the problem. We must be careful, however, not
to fall into the error of supposing that he wrote it with the sole
object of meeting an occasional emergency. Together with the
_Discorsi_, the _Principe_ contains the speculative fruits of his
experience and observation combined with his deductions from Roman
history. The two works form one coherent body of opinion, not
systematically expressed, it is true, but based on the same
principles, involving the same conclusions, and directed to the same
philosophical end. That end is the analysis of the conception of the
state, studied under two main types, republican and monarchical. Up to
the date of Machiavelli, modern political philosophy had always
presupposed an ideal. Medieval speculation took the Church and the
Empire for granted, as divinely appointed institutions, under which
the nations of the earth must flourish for the space of man's
probation on this planet. Thinkers differed only as Guelfs and
Ghibellines, as leaning on the one side to papal, on the other to
imperial supremacy. In the revival of learning, scholarship supplanted
scholasticism, and the old ways of medieval thinking were forgotten.
But no substantial philosophy of any kind emerged from humanism; the
political lucubrations of the scholars were, like their ethical
treatises, for the most part rhetorical. Still the humanists effected
a delivery of the intellect from what had become the bondage of
obsolete ideas, and created a new medium for the speculative faculty.
Simultaneously with the revival, Italy had passed into that stage of
her existence which has been called the age of despots. The yoke of
the Empire had been shaken off. The Church had taken rank among
Italian tyrannies. The peninsula was, roughly speaking, divided into
principalities and sovereign cities, each of which claimed autocratic
jurisdiction. These separate despotisms owned no common social tie,
were founded on no common _jus_ or right, but were connected in a
network of conflicting interests and changeful diplomatic
combinations. A keen and positive political intelligence emerged in
the Italian race. The reports of Venetian and Florentine ambassadors
at this epoch contain the first germs of an attempt to study politics
from the point of view of science.
At this moment Machiavelli intervenes. He was conscious of the change
which had come over Italy and Europe. He was aware that the old
strongholds of medieval thought must be abandoned, and that the
decaying ruins of medieval institutions furnished no basis for the
erection of solid political edifices. He felt the corruption of his
country, and sought to bring the world back to a lively sense of the
necessity for reformation. His originality consists in having extended
the positive intelligence of his century from the sphere of
contemporary politics and special interests to man at large regarded
as a political being. He founded the science of politics for the
modern world, by concentrating thought upon its fundamental
principles. He began to study men, not according to some
preconception, but as he found them--men, not in the isolation of one
century, but as a whole in history. He drew his conclusions from the
nature of mankind itself, "ascribing all things to natural causes or
to fortune." In this way he restored the right method of study, a
method which had been neglected since the days of Aristotle. He formed
a conception of the modern state, which marked the close of the middle
ages, and anticipated the next phase of European development. His
prince, abating those points which are purely Italian or strongly
tinctured with the author's personal peculiarities, prefigured the
monarchs of the 16th and 17th centuries, the monarchs whose motto was
_L'état c'est moi!_ His doctrine of a national militia foreshadowed
the system which has given strength in arms to France and Germany. His
insight into the causes of Italian decadence was complete; and the
remedies which he suggested, in the perorations of the _Principe_ and
the _Arte della guerra_, have since been applied in the unification of
Italy. Lastly, when we once have freed ourselves from the antipathy
engendered by his severance of ethics from the field of politics, when
we have once made proper allowance for his peculiar use of phrases
like _frodi onorevoli_ or _scelleratezze gloriose_, nothing is left
but admiration for his mental attitude. That is the attitude of a
patriot, who saw with open eyes the ruin of his country, who burned
above all things to save Italy and set her in her place among the
powerful nations, who held the duty of self-sacrifice in the most
absolute sense, whose very limitations and mistakes were due to an
absorbing passion for the state he dreamed might be reconstituted. It
was Machiavelli's intense preoccupation with this problem--what a
state is and how to found one in existing circumstances--which caused
the many riddles of his speculative writings. Dazzled, as it were,
with the brilliancy of his own discovery, concentrated in attention on
the one necessity for organizing a powerful coherent nation, he forgot
that men are more than political beings. He neglected religion, or
regarded it as part of the state machinery. He was by no means
indifferent to private virtue, which indeed he judged the basis of all
healthy national existence; but in the realm of politics he postponed
morals to political expediency. He held that the people, as
distinguished from the nobles and the clergy, were the pith and fibre
of nations; yet this same people had to become wax in the hands of the
politician--their commerce and their comforts, the arts which give a
dignity to life and the pleasures which make life liveable,
neglected--their very liberty subordinated to the one tyrannical
conception. To this point the segregation of politics from every other
factor which goes to constitute humanity had brought him; and this it
is which makes us feel his world a wilderness, devoid of atmosphere
and vegetation. Yet some such isolation of the subject matter of this
science was demanded at the moment of its birth, just as political
economy, when first started, had to make a rigid severance of wealth
from other units. It is only by a gradual process that social science
in its whole complexity can be evolved. We have hardly yet discovered
that political economy has unavoidable points of contact with ethics.
From the foregoing criticism it will be perceived that all the
questions whether Machiavelli meant to corrupt or to instruct the
world, to fortify the hands of tyrants or to lead them to their ruin,
are now obsolete. He was a man of science--one who by the vigorous
study of his subject matter sought from that subject-matter itself to
deduce laws. The difficulty which remains in judging him is a
difficulty of statement, valuation, allowance. How much shall we allow
for his position in Renaissance Italy, for the corruption in the midst
of which he lived, for his own personal temperament? How shall we
state his point of departure from the middle ages, his sympathy with
prevalent classical enthusiasms, his divination of a new period? How
shall we estimate the permanent worth of his method, the residuum of
value in his maxims?
After finishing the _Principe_, Machiavelli thought of dedicating it to
one of the Medicean princes, with the avowed hope that he might thereby
regain their favour and find public employment. He wrote to Vettori on
the subject, and Giuliano de' Medici, duke of Nemours, seemed to him the
proper person. The choice was reasonable. No sooner had Leo been made
pope than he formed schemes for the aggrandizement of his family.
Giuliano was offered and refused the duchy of Urbino. Later on, Leo
designed for him a duchy in Emilia, to be cemented out of Parma,
Piacenza, Reggio and Modena. Supported by the power of the papacy, with
the goodwill of Florence to back him, Giuliano would have found himself
in a position somewhat better than that of Cesare Borgia; and Borgia's
creation of the duchy of Romagna might have served as his model.
Machiavelli therefore was justified in feeling that here was an
opportunity for putting his cherished schemes in practice, and that a
prince with such alliances might even advance to the grand end of the
unification of Italy. Giuliano, however, died in 1506. Then Machiavelli
turned his thoughts towards Lorenzo, duke of Urbino. The choice of this
man as a possible Italian liberator reminds us of the choice of Don
Micheletto as general of the Florentine militia. To Lorenzo the
_Principe_ was dedicated, but without result. The Medici, as yet at all
events, could not employ Machiavelli, and had not in themselves the
stuff to found Italian kingdoms.
Machiavelli, meanwhile, was reading his _Discorsi_ to a select audience
in the Rucellai gardens, fanning that republican enthusiasm which never
lay long dormant among the Florentines. Towards the year 1519 both Leo
X. and his cousin, the cardinal Giulio de' Medici, were much perplexed
about the management of the republic. It seemed necessary, if possible,
in the gradual extinction of their family to give the city at least a
semblance of self-government. They applied to several celebrated
politicians, among others to Machiavelli, for advice in the emergency.
The result was a treatise in which he deduced practical conclusions from
the past history and present temper of the city, blending these with his
favourite principles of government in general. He earnestly admonished
Leo, for his own sake and for Florence, to found a permanent and free
state system for the republic, reminding him in terms of noble eloquence
how splendid is the glory of the man who shall confer such benefits upon
a people. The year 1520 saw the composition of the _Arte della guerra_
and the _Vita di Castruccio_.
The first of these is a methodical treatise, setting forth
Machiavelli's views on military matters, digesting his theories
respecting the superiority of national troops, the inefficiency of
fortresses, the necessity of relying upon infantry in war, and the
comparative insignificance of artillery. It is strongly coloured with
his enthusiasm for ancient Rome; and specially upon the topic of
artillery it displays a want of insight into the actualities of modern
warfare. We may regard it as a supplement or appendix to the
_Principe_ and the _Discorsi_, since Machiavelli held it for a
fundamental axiom that states are powerless unless completely armed in
permanence. The peroration contains a noble appeal to the Italian
liberator of his dreams, and a parallel from Macedonian history,
which, read by the light of this century, sounds like a prophecy of
Piedmont.
The _Vita di Castruccio_ was composed at Lucca, whither Machiavelli
had been sent on a mission. This so-called biography of the medieval
adventurer who raised himself by personal ability and military skill
to the tyranny of several Tuscan cities must be regarded in the light
of an historical romance. Dealing freely with the outline of
Castruccio's career, as he had previously dealt with Cesare Borgia, he
sketched his own ideal of the successful prince. Cesare Borgia had
entered into the _Principe_ as a representative figure rather than an
actual personage; so now conversely the theories of the _Principe_
assumed the outward form and semblance of Castruccio. In each case
history is blent with speculation in nearly the same proportions. But
Castruccio, being farther from the writer's own experience, bears
weaker traits of personality.
In the same year, 1520, Machiavelli, at the instance of the cardinal
Giulio de' Medici, received commission from the officers of the
_Studio pubblico_ to write a history of Florence. They agreed to pay
him an annual allowance of 100 florins while engaged upon the work.
The next six years were partly employed in its composition, and he
left a portion of it finished, with a dedication to Clement VII., when
he died in 1527. In the _Historie fiorentine_ Machiavelli quitted the
field of political speculation for that of history. But, having
already written the _Discorsi_ and the _Principe_, he carried with him
to this new task of historiography the habit of mind proper to
political philosophy. In his hands the history of Florence became a
text on which at fitting seasons to deliver lessons in the science he
initiated. This gives the work its special character. It is not so
much a chronicle of Florentine affairs, from the commencement of
modern history to the death of Lorenzo de' Medici in 1492, as a
critique of that chronicle from the point of view adopted by
Machiavelli in his former writings. Having condensed his doctrines in
the _Principe_ and the _Discorsi_, he applies their abstract
principles to the example of the Florentine republic. But the _History
of Florence_ is not a mere political pamphlet. It is the first example
in Italian literature of a national biography, the first attempt in
any literature to trace the vicissitudes of a people's life in their
logical sequence, deducing each successive phase from passions or
necessities inherent in preceding circumstances, reasoning upon them
from general principles, and inferring corollaries for the conduct of
the future. In point of form the _Florentine History_ is modelled upon
Livy. It contains speeches in the antique manner, which may be taken
partly as embodying the author's commentary upon situations of
importance, partly as expressing what he thought dramatically
appropriate to prominent personages. The style of the whole book is
nervous, vivid, free from artifice and rhetoric, obeying the writer's
thought with absolute plasticity. Machiavelli had formed for himself a
prose style, equalled by no one but by Guicciardini in his minor
works, which was far removed from the emptiness of the latinizing
humanists and the trivialities of the Italian purists. Words in his
hands have the substance, the self-evidence of things. It is an
athlete's style, all bone and sinew, nude, without superfluous flesh
or ornament.
It would seem that from the date of Machiavelli's discourse to Leo on
the government of Florence the Medici had taken him into consideration.
Writing to Vettori in 1513, he had expressed his eager wish to "roll
stones" in their service; and this desire was now gratified. In 1521 he
was sent to Carpi to transact a petty matter with the chapter of the
Franciscans, the chief known result of the embassy being a burlesque
correspondence with Francesco Guicciardini. Four years later, in 1525,
he received a rather more important mission to Venice. But Machiavelli's
public career was virtually closed; and the interest of his biography
still centres in his literary work. We have seen that already, in 1504,
he had been engaged upon a comedy in the manner of Aristophanes, which
is now unfortunately lost. A translation of the _Andria_ and three
original comedies from his pen are extant, the precise dates of which
are uncertain, though the greatest of them was first printed at Rome in
1524. This is the _Mandragola_, which may be justly called the ripest
and most powerful play in the Italian language.
The plot is both improbable and unpleasing. But literary criticism is
merged in admiration of the wit, the humour, the vivacity, the satire
of a piece which brings before us the old life of Florence in a
succession of brilliant scenes. If Machiavelli had any moral object
when he composed the _Mandragola_, it was to paint in glaring colours
the corruption of Italian society. It shows how a bold and plausible
adventurer, aided by the profligacy of a parasite, the avarice and
hypocrisy of a confessor, and a mother's complaisant familiarity with
vice, achieves the triumph of making a gulled husband bring his own
unwilling but too yielding wife to shame. The whole comedy is a study
of stupidity and baseness acted on by roguery. About the power with
which this picture of domestic immorality is presented there can be no
question. But the perusal of the piece obliges us to ask ourselves
whether the author's radical conception of human nature was not false.
The same suspicion is forced upon us by the _Principe_. Did not
Machiavelli leave good habit, as an essential ingredient of character,
out of account? Men are not such absolute fools as Nicia, nor such
compliant catspaws as Ligurio and Timoteo; women are not such weak
instruments as Sostrata and Lucrezia. Somewhere, in actual life, the
stress of craft and courage acting on the springs of human vice and
weakness fails, unless the hero of the comedy or tragedy, Callimaco or
Cesare, allows for the revolt of healthier instincts. Machiavelli does
not seem to have calculated the force of this recoil. He speculates a
world in which _virtu_, unscrupulous strength of character, shall deal
successfully with frailty. This, we submit, was a deep-seated error in
his theory of life, an error to which may be ascribed the numerous
stumbling-blocks and rocks of offence in his more serious writings.
Some time after the _Mandragola_, he composed a second comedy,
entitled _Clizia_, which is even homelier and closer to the life of
Florence than its predecessor. It contains incomparable studies of the
Florentine housewife and her husband, a grave business-like citizen,
who falls into the senile folly of a base intrigue. There remains a
short piece without title, the _Commedia in prosa_, which, if it be
Machiavelli's, as internal evidence of style sufficiently argues,
might be accepted as a study for both the _Clizia_ and the
_Mandragola_. It seems written to expose the corruption of domestic
life in Florence, and especially to satirize the friars in their
familiar part of go-betweens, tame cats, confessors and adulterers.
Of Machiavelli's minor poems, sonnets, _capitoli_ and carnival songs
there is not much to say. Powerful as a comic playwright, he was not a
poet in the proper sense of the term. The little novel of _Belfagor_
claims a passing word, if only because of its celebrity. It is a
good-humoured satire upon marriage, the devil being forced to admit
that hell itself is preferable to his wife's company. That Machiavelli
invented it to express the irritation of his own domestic life is a
myth without foundation. The story has a medieval origin, and it was
almost simultaneously treated in Italian by Machiavelli, Straparola
and Giovanni Brevio.
In the spring of 1526 Machiavelli was employed by Clement VII. to
inspect the fortifications of Florence. He presented a report upon the
subject, and in the summer of the same year received orders to attend
Francesco Guicciardini, the pope's commissary of war in Lombardy.
Guicciardini sent him in August to Cremona, to transact business with
the Venetian _provveditori_. Later on in the autumn we find him once
more with Guicciardini at Bologna. Thus the two great Italian historians
of the 16th century, who had been friends for several years, were
brought into relations of close intimacy.
After another visit to Guicciardini in the spring of 1527, Machiavelli
was sent by him to Civita Vecchia. It seemed that he was destined to be
associated in the papal service with Clement's viceroy, and that a new
period of diplomatic employment was opening for him. But soon after his
return to Florence he fell ill. His son Piero said that he took medicine
on the 20th of June which disagreed with him; and on the 22nd he died,
having received the last offices of the Church.
There is no foundation for the legend that he expired with profane
sarcasms upon his lips. Yet we need not run into the opposite extreme,
and try to fancy that Machiavelli, who had professed Paganism in his
life, proved himself a believing Christian on his death-bed. That he
left an unfavourable opinion among his fellow citizens is very decidedly
recorded by the historian Varchi. The _Principe_, it seems, had already
begun to prejudice the world against him; and we can readily believe
that Varchi sententiously observes, that "it would have been better for
him if nature had given him either a less powerful intellect or a mind
of a more genial temper." There is in truth a something crude,
unsympathetic, cynical in his mental attitude toward human nature, for
which, even after the lapse of more than three centuries, we find it
difficult to make allowance. The force of his intellect renders this
want of geniality repulsive. We cannot help objecting that one who was
so powerful could have been kindlier and sounder if he willed. We
therefore do him the injustice of mistaking his infirmity for
perversity. He was colour-blind to commonplace morality; and we are
angry with him because he merged the hues of ethics in one grey monotone
of politics.
In person Machiavelli was of middle height, black-haired, with rather a
small head, very bright eyes and slightly aquiline nose. His thin, close
lips often broke into a smile of sarcasm. His activity was almost
feverish. When unemployed in work or study he was not averse to the
society of boon companions, gave himself readily to transient amours,
and corresponded in a tone of cynical bad taste. At the same time he
lived on terms of intimacy with worthy men. Varchi says that "in his
conversation he was pleasant, obliging to his intimates, the friend of
virtuous persons." Those who care to understand the contradictions of
which such a character was capable should study his correspondence with
Vettori. It would be unfair to charge what is repulsive in their letters
wholly on the habits of the times, for wide familiarity with the
published correspondence of similar men at the same epoch brings one
acquainted with little that is so disagreeable. (J. A. S.)
Among the many editions of Machiavelli's works the one in 8 vols.,
dated Italia, 1813, may be mentioned, and the more comprehensive ones
published by A. Parenti (Florence, 1843) and by A. Usigli (Florence,
1857). P. Fanfani and L. Passerini began another, which promised to be
the most complete of all; but only 6 vols. were published (Florence,
1873-1877); the work contains many new and important documents on
Machiavelli's life. The best biography is the standard work of
Pasquale Villari, _La Storia di Niccolò Machiavelli e de' suoi tempi_
(Florence, 1877-1882; latest ed., 1895; Eng. trans. by Linda Villari,
London, 1892); in vol. ii. there is an exhaustive criticism of the
various authors who have written on Machiavelli. See also T. Mundt,
_Niccolò Machiavelli und das System der modernen Politik_ (3rd ed.,
Berlin, 1867); E. Feuerlein, "_Zur Machiavelli-Frage_" in H. von
Sybel's _Histor. Zeitschrift_ (Munich, 1868); P. S. Mancini,
_Prelezioni con un saggio sul Machiavelli_; F. Nitti, _Machiavelli
nella vita e nelle opere_ (Naples, 1876); O. Tomasini, _La Vita e gli
scritti di Niccolò Machiavelli_ (Turin, 1883); L. A. Burd, _Il
Principe, by Niccolò Machiavelli_ (Oxford, 1891); Lord Morley,
_Machiavelli_ (Romanes lecture, Oxford, 1897). _The Cambridge Modern
History_, vol. i. (Cambridge, 1903), contains an essay on Machiavelli
by L. A. Burd, with a very full biography.
MACHICOLATION (from Fr. _machicoulis_), an opening between a wall and a
parapet, formed by corbelling out the latter, so that the defenders
might throw down stones, melted lead, &c., upon assailants below.
MACHINE (through Fr. from Lat. form _machina_ of Gr. [Greek: mechane]),
any device or apparatus for the application or modification of force to
a specific purpose. The term "simple machine" is applied to the six
so-called mechanical powers--the lever, wedge, wheel and axle, pulley,
screw, and inclined plane. For machine-tools see TOOLS. The word machine
was formerly applied to vehicles, such as stage-coaches, &c., and is
still applied to carriages in Scotland; a survival of this use is in the
term "bathing machine." Figuratively, the word is used of persons whose
actions seem to be regulated according to a rigid and unchanging system.
In politics, especially in America, machine is synonymous with party
organization. A stage device of the ancient Greek drama gave rise to the
proverbial expression, "the god from the machine," Lat. _deus ex
machina_, for the disentangling and conclusion of a plot by supernatural
interference or by some accident extraneous to the natural development
of the story. When a god had to be brought on the stage he was floated
down from above by a [Greek: geranos] (crane) or other machine ([Greek:
mechane]). Euripides has been reproached with an excessive use of the
device, but it has been pointed out (A. E. Haigh, _Tragic Drama of the
Greeks_, p. 245 seq.) that only in two plays (_Orestes_ and
_Hippolytus_) is the god brought on for the solution of the plot. In the
others the god comes to deliver a kind of epilogue, describing the
future story of the characters, or to introduce some account of a
legend, institution, &c.
MACHINE-GUN, a weapon designed to deliver a large number of bullets or
small shells, either by volleys[1] or in very quick succession, at a
high rate of fire. Formerly the mechanism of machine-guns was hand
operated, but all modern weapons are automatic in action, the gas of the
explosion or the force of recoil being utilized to lock and unlock the
breech mechanism, to load the weapon and to eject the fired cartridge
cases. The smaller types approximate to the "automatic rifle," which is
expected to replace the magazine rifle as the arm of the infantryman.
The large types, generically called "pompoms," fire a light artillery
projectile, and are considered by many artillery experts as "the gun of
the future." The medium type, which takes the ordinary rifle ammunition
but is fired from various forms of carriage, is the ordinary machine-gun
of to-day, and the present article deals mainly with this.