ONE I HAVE PARDONED FOR HIS HIGH POSITION, ANOTHER FOR HIS HUMBLE STATE
3. YET NONE BY CLEMENCY
The thread of the discourse holds together well. In what went before he so asserted that clemency agrees with the nature of men, that he would contend that man is not man who is not at the same time of a clement disposition and inclined to gentleness. For clemency is truly humaneness:
to partake of which is nothing else than to be a man. Now because it is more proper to his purpose, he adds that it is a heroic virtue, without which princes cannot rule: just as Vopiscus [Aurel., 44.1] says: the greatest of all gifts. He proves this by many reasons, which will be
separately noted in their places. Yet the first he immediately adds, namely, that the prince cannot, by whatever virtues, win the favor of the populace unless he exercises a SALUTARY POWER. Although the king or emperor may excel in other endowments of fortune, of body, or of mind, all these will lose their charm, unless with gentleness he makes himself lovable and gracious toward his subjects. But all his doings and sayings will be
received in a kindly manner, if once he has won the people’s favor by this one virtue. This is in accord with the wise saying of the Gymnosophist who, asked by Alexander how he as a ruler might win great personal glory, replied that this would happen if he would not be an object of terror.
IT IS SURELY A BANEFUL MIGHT
As he says in another place [Clem., 1.13.3]: A power exercised to the ill of many cannot long stand. This is contention of contraries, for he continues immediately, HE ALONE HAS FIRM AND WELL-GROUNDED GREATNESS, ETC.
HE ALONE HAS FIRM AND WELLGROUNDED GREATNESS The prince ought to ponder not only what is permitted to him, but in what way he should look after his power. He can rage like a mad beast THROUGH HUMAN CARNAGE. But this will be not rule but robbery. And, “to a robber there are as many enemies as there are men.” Therefore, any man who abuses his high station to the ruin of many so that he arms them against himself is doing himself a bad turn. But stable is the rule of him who rules not only for his own sake but for his subjects’ as well indeed he will be a shepherd of the people, as Homer [Il., 2.243] calls Agamemnon.
FOR THE SAFETY OF EACH AND ALL
He has in mind that precept of Plato’s [in Cic. Off., 1.25.85], that those who preside over the state should care for the whole body thereof, lest while they are looking after a part, they forsake the rest. For those who care for the interests of a part of the citizens and neglect another part, says Cicero, introduce into the state a dangerous element — dissension and party strife.
WHOSE CARE... TO STAND GUARD
Plancus uses another construction in Cicero’s Letters [Ep. Faro., 10.8.5]:
From all this it may be inferred that anxiety to protect the highest interests of the Republic has… kept me sleeplessly vigilant. This is a metaphor drawn from watchmen, commonly posted in cities, when there is danger from enemies. It is as if he called the prince a sort of public watchman, who stands guard over the people’s safety “round the clock.” Thus Homer wisely teaches [Il., 2.24f]: To sleep the whole night through be seemeth not a man that is a counselor, / To whom a host is entrusted, and upon whom rest so many cares. And Julius Caesar used to call imperial rule “the care of others’ safety.”
AS IF SOME MONSTER OR DEADLY BEAST
For if the prince tyrannically rages against his own people, of a populous city he will make a vast solitude. In his Panegyric [48.3f] Pliny speaks of Domitian’s times as follows: After your public audiences neither flight nor devastation follows! We linger at ease, we dwell as if in a common
household, where recently the fiercest of beasts fortified himself with countless terrors, as if, shut up in a sort of cavern, he sometimes licked up the blood of his neighbors, sometimes lurched out to overthrow and destroy the most eminent citizens. Standing guard at the gates were dread and threats… besides which there was he himself, terrible both to meet and to see: haughty in mien, anger in his eyes… etc.
AS TOWARD A BRIGHT
This is extraordinary praise of the good prince: that his subjects, so long as they enjoy the sight of him, think they are gazing on the sun, or some life- giving STAR. So speaks Horace in a poem addressed to Augustus [C., 4.5.58]: To thy country give again, blest leader, the light of thy presence! / For when, like spring, thy face has beamed / Upon the folk, more pleasant runs the day, / And brighter shines the sun. Nor are the epithets BRIGHT AND BENEFICENT superfluous, since even the philosophers distinguish between stars that are favorable and prosperous, and others that are adverse and harmful. In fact Porphyry holds that some of the heavenly gods — who are the stars themselves — are beneficent; some nefarious.
TO THROW THEMSELVES ON HIS BEHALF
Now he explains more fully what he had previously said: that obviously that power is stable which does not serve the advantages of one rather than the common good. Great fortune, as it almost always arouses envy, should be girt with stout defenses. But now, he who takes into his own faithful care the safety of all, rightly commends his own safety to all.
Either external or internal and domestic enemies threaten the life of the prince. The latter stealthily attack him, the former rather assemble in open force. Each peril has its own remedy, when the subjects are ready both TO THROW THEMSELVES BEFORE THE ASSASSIN’S DAGGERS AND TO LAY THEIR BODIES BENEATH HIS FEET, ETC.
TO LAY THEIR BODIES BENEATH HIS FFET This is an elegant metaphor rendered more graceful by rhetorical
hyperbole. Properly speaking the way to the ruler’s safety is not paved with human bodies, and it is an exaggeration to say that they lay their
bodies beneath him and prepare a path for him with slaughtered men. But the words go well together, and the metaphors are most appropriate.
Among writers the words sternere and instruere are commonly used for the terms pavire or munire. Lucan [Phars., 1.3339] seems to allude to this notion, when he ironically scoffs at Nero: However, if the Pates could not find any other may / For Nero’s advent — if for eternal empire the gods / Pay dearly as only after a War of great Giants / Could heaven serve its Thunderer — /Then me complain no further, o gods: by this reward / Even these crimes are justified. What if Pharsalia filled / Dire fields, and
Carthaginian ghosts with blood were gorged, etc.