OF CRUELTY AND CLEMENCY, AND WHETHER IT IS BETTER TO BE LOVED OR FEARED
Proceeding to the other qualities before named, I say that every prince
must desire to be considered merciful and not cruel. He must, however,
take care not to misuse this mercifulness. Cesare Borgia was considered
cruel, but his cruelty had settled the Romagna, united it, and brought
it peace and confidence. If this is considered a benefit, it will be
seen that he was really much more merciful than the Florentine people,
who, to avoid the name of cruelty, allowed Pistoia to be destroyed. A
prince, therefore, must not mind incurring the charge of cruelty for
the purpose of keeping his subjects united and confident; for, with a
very few examples, he will be more merciful than those who, from excess
of tenderness, allow disorders to arise, from whence spring murders
and rapine; for these as a rule injure the whole community, while the
executions carried out by the prince injure only one individual. And of
all princes, it is impossible for a new prince to escape the name of
cruel, new states being always full of dangers. Wherefore Virgil makes
Dido excuse the inhumanity of her rule by its being new, where she says:
Res dura, et regni novitas me talia cogunt
Moliri, et late fines custode tueri.
Nevertheless, he must be cautious in believing and acting, and must
not inspire fear of his own accord, and must proceed in a temperate
manner with prudence and humanity, so that too much confidence does
not render him incautious, and too much diffidence does not render him
intolerant.
From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved more
than feared, or feared more than loved. The reply is, that one ought to
be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go
together, it is much safer to be feared than loved, if one of the two
has to be wanting. For it may be said of men in general that they are
ungrateful, voluble, dissemblers, anxious to avoid danger, and covetous
of gain; as long as you benefit them, they are entirely yours; they
offer you their blood, their goods, their life, and their children, as
I have before said, when the necessity is remote; but when it
approaches, they revolt. And the prince who has relied solely on their
words, without making other preparations, is ruined, for the friendship
which is gained by purchase and not through grandeur and nobility of
spirit is merited but is not secured, and at times is not to be had.
And men have less scruple in offending one who makes himself loved than
one who makes himself feared; for love is held by a chain of obligation
which, men being selfish, is broken whenever it serves their purpose;
but fear is maintained by a dread of punishment which never fails.
Still, a prince should make himself feared in such a way that if he
does not gain love, he at any rate avoids hatred; for fear, and the
absence of hatred may well go together, and will be always attained by
one who abstains from interfering with the property of his citizens and
subjects or with their women. And when he is obliged to take the life
of any one, to do so when there is a proper justification and manifest
reason for it; but above all he must abstain from taking the property
of others, for men forget more easily the death of their father than
the loss of their patrimony. Then also pretexts for seizing property
are never wanting, and one who begins to live by rapine will always
find some reason for taking the goods of others, whereas causes for
taking life are rarer and more quickly destroyed. But when the prince
is with his army and has a large number of soldiers under his control,
then it is extremely necessary that he should not mind being thought
cruel; for without this reputation he could not keep an army united,
or disposed to any duty.
Among the noteworthy actions of Hannibal is numbered this, that
although he had an enormous army, composed of men of all nations
and fighting in foreign countries, there never arose any dissension
either among them or against the prince, either in good fortune or in
bad. This could not be due to anything but his inhuman cruelty, which
together with his infinite other virtues, made him always venerated
and terrible in the sight of his soldiers, and without it his other
virtues would not have sufficed to produce that effect. Thoughtless
writers admire on the one hand his actions, and on the other blame the
principal cause of them. And that it is true that his other virtues
would not have sufficed may be seen from the case of Scipio (very rare
not only in his own times, but in all times of which memory remains),
whose armies rebelled against him in Spain, which arose from nothing
but his excessive kindness, which allowed more license to the soldiers
than was consonant with military discipline. He was reproached with
this in the senate by Fabius Maximus, who called him a corrupter of the
Roman militia.
The Locri having been destroyed by one of Scipio's officers were not
revenged by him, nor was the insolence of that officer punished,
simply by reason of his easy nature; so much so, that some one wishing
to excuse him in the senate, said that there were many men who knew
rather how not to err, than how to correct the errors of others. This
disposition would in time have tarnished the fame and glory of Scipio
had he persevered in it under the empire, but living under the rule of
the senate this harmful quality was not only concealed but became a
glory to him. I conclude, therefore, with regard to being feared and
loved, that men love at their own free will, but fear at the will of
the prince, and that a wise prince must rely on what is in his power
and not on what is in the power of others, and he must only trouble
himself to avoid incurring hatred, as has been explained.