Chapter 9 - Page 2

or wake away authority when it pleases him.

Therefore, to make this point clearer, I say that the nobles ought to
be looked at mainly in two ways: that is to say, they either shape
their course in such a way as binds them entirely to your fortune, or
they do not. Those who so bind themselves, and are not rapacious,
ought to be honoured and loved; those who do not bind themselves may
be dealt with in two ways; they may fail to do this through
pusillanimity and a natural want of courage, in which case you ought
to make use of them, especially of those who are of good counsel; and
thus, whilst in prosperity you honour them, in adversity you do not
have to fear them. But when for their own ambitious ends they shun
binding themselves, it is a token that they are giving more thought to
themselves than to you, and a prince out to guard against such, and to
fear them as if they were open enemies, because in adversity they
always help to ruin him.

Therefore, one who becomes a prince through the favour of the people
ought to keep them friendly, and this he can easily do seeing they
only ask not to be oppressed by him. But one who, in opposition to the
people, becomes a prince by the favour of the nobles, ought, above
everything, to seek to win the people over to himself, and this he may
easily do if he takes them under his protection. Because men, when
they receive good from him of whom they were expecting evil, are bound
more closely to their benefactor; thus the people quickly become more
devoted to him than if he had been raised to the principality by their
favours; and the prince can win their affections in many ways, but as
these vary according to the circumstances one cannot give fixed rules,
so I omit them; but, I repeat, it is necessary for a prince to have
the people friendly, otherwise he has no security in adversity.

Nabis,[*] Prince of the Spartans, sustained the attack of all Greece,
and of a victorious Roman army, and against them he defended his
country and his government; and for the overcoming of this peril it
was only necessary for him to make himself secure against a few, but
this would not have been sufficient had the people been hostile. And
do not let any one impugn this statement with the trite proverb that
"He who builds on the people, builds on the mud," for this is true
when a private citizen makes a foundation there, and persuades himself
that the people will free him when he is oppressed by his enemies or
by the magistrates; wherein he would find himself very often deceived,
as happened to the Gracchi in Rome and to Messer Giorgio Scali[+] in
Florence. But granted a prince who has established himself as above,
who can command, and is a man of courage, undismayed in adversity,