The essential writings of Machiavelli (19 page)

CHAPTER ELEVEN
O
N THE RELIGION OF THE
R
OMANS

Rome’s founding father was Romulus, and Rome, like a good daughter, recognized that she owed to him her birth and upbringing. And yet the heavens determined that Romulus’s institutions were not adequate for a state like Rome, and so they inspired the Roman senate to elect Numa Pompilius as Romulus’s successor, so that what Romulus had neglected was instituted by Numa.
⁴⁹
He found the populace of Rome most ferocious
⁵⁰
and, wanting to bring them to civil order through the arts of peace, turned to religion as vital if he wanted to maintain civil order, and so he constituted it in such a way that for many centuries there was never so much fear of God as there was in that state.
⁵¹
This also helped all the undertakings of the Senate and the great men of Rome. Whoever considers the countless ventures of Roman individuals or the populace as a whole will see how Roman citizens were more afraid of breaking an oath than they were of breaking the law, just as are men who esteem the power of God more than the power of man. This is clearly evident in the examples of Scipio and Manlius Torquatus. After Hannibal had defeated the Romans at Cannae,
⁵²
many Roman citizens had given up their city as lost and decided to abandon Italy for Sicily. When Scipio heard this, he faced them sword in hand, and forced them to swear that they would not abandon their city
⁵³
In the case of Lucius Manlius, the father of Titus Manlius (who was later called Torquatus), he had been indicted by Marcus Pomponius, the plebeian tribune, but before the day of the trial Titus went to Marcus Pomponius and threatened to kill him if he did not swear to lift the indictment against his father, and forced Marcus Pomponius to take an oath. Marcus, having taken the oath in terror, saw himself compelled to withdraw the accusation.
⁵⁴
Likewise, the Romans whose love of their city and its laws had not been enough to keep them in Italy were kept there by an oath they had been forced to take. And the tribune put aside the hatred he had for the father, the offense of the son, and his personal honor, in order to keep the oath he had taken. This arose from the religion that Numa had introduced into Rome.

Anyone who looks closely at Roman history can see how religion served to govern the armies, encourage the plebeians, keep good men good, and shame the evil. If one were to debate to which of its kings Rome was more indebted—Romulus or Numa—I believe Numa would have to be ranked first, for where there is religion, an army can be introduced with ease, though where there is an army but no religion, religion can be introduced only with difficulty. It is evident that Romulus did not need divine authority in order to set up a senate and other civil and military institutions, but Numa did need it, and feigned familiarity with a nymph who advised him how to counsel the populace:
⁵⁵
all this, because Numa wanted to establish new and drastic laws in Rome, and doubted that his own authority would suffice.

In fact, there has never been a legislator of drastic laws who did not turn to God, for otherwise his laws would not be accepted. A wise legislator can see many good things that are perhaps not evident enough in themselves to persuade others. Therefore, wise legislators who want to avoid this difficulty have recourse to God. Lycurgus and Solon did this, as did many others who had the same goals. The Roman populace admired Numa’s goodness and wisdom and embraced all his ideas. It is true that in that era, filled as it was with religion, the men with whom he had to work being rough and simple, Numa achieved his designs with ease, as he was able to imprint on these men whatever new form he pleased. Without doubt, whoever wants to create a republic in our day will find it easier to do so among the people of the mountains, who are uncivilized, than among people who are used to living in cities, where civilization is corrupt, since it is far easier for a sculptor to shape a beautiful statue from a rough piece of marble than from one that has already been badly chiseled by another.

Weighing these matters, I conclude that the religion introduced by Numa was among the foremost reasons for the happiness of the city, because it brought with it good institutions; good institutions brought good fortune, and good fortune brought successful enterprises. As the observance of religious worship is the reason for the greatness of a republic, so the contempt for religious worship is the reason for its ruin. A state in which a fear of God is missing will either come to ruin or be sustained by the people’s fear of a prince who can make up for the lack of religion. But because princes are transient, it stands to reason that that kingdom will fail as soon as his skill is absent. Therefore, states that depend only on the skill of a single prince do not last, because that skill will cease to exist with the life of the prince, and it is rare for this skill to resurge in a successor, as Dante wisely says:

Rarely does human worth descend from branch
to branch: so it is demanded by Him who grants
this gift, as He wants us to pray to Him for it.
⁵⁶

Therefore the security of a republic or kingdom is not in having a prince who merely reigns wisely during his lifetime, but in having one who can establish institutions in such a way that the state will be maintained after his death. And though it is easier to persuade unrefined men to embrace a new institution or idea, it is nonetheless possible to persuade civilized men who do not like to think of themselves as being unrefined. The people of Florence did not consider themselves rough or ignorant and yet Brother Girolamo Savonarola persuaded them that he was talking to God. I do not wish to judge whether he was being truthful about this or not, because one must speak of such a man with reverence, but I will say that countless people believed him without ever having witnessed any extraordinary event that might compel them to do so. But his life and doctrine, and the subjects of his sermons, were enough to make them believe him. Thus nobody should despair of attaining what has been attained in the past by others, because men, as we have said in our preface, have always been born, and have lived and died, within the same order of things.

49.
Numa Pompilius was the second of the seven legendary kings of Rome, who was said to have ruled from 715 to 673
BCE
.

50.
Machiavelli is directly translating Livy’s words (Book I, chapter 19):
ferocem populum
.

51.
King Numa Pompilius was believed to have founded many of Rome’s religious institutions. Livy describes Numa’s reforms in Book I, chapters 19–21.

52.
A major battle (216
BCE
) between the forces of Rome and Carthage during the Second Punic War. The Roman army was utterly crushed by Hannibal. Of 80,000 Roman troops, only 14,000 managed to escape.

53.
Livy describes this incident in Book XXII, chapter 53.

54.
Livy describes this incident in Book VII, chapter 4.

55.
Livy (Book I, chapter 19) writes: “But he needed some miraculous contrivance in order to convince them, and so pretended that he held nocturnal meetings with the goddess Egeria.”

56.
Machiavelli quotes Dante’s
Purgatory
, Canto VII, line 120, with a slight alteration. Where Machiavelli has human worth “descending” from one branch to another, Dante says
risurge
, “rises.”

CHAPTER TWELVE
O
N THE IMPORTANCE OF TAKING RELIGION INTO ACCOUNT, AND HOW, DUE TO THE
C
HURCH OF
R
OME
, I
TALY HAS BEEN RUINED THROUGH LACK OF RELIGION

Princes or republics that wish to maintain themselves intact must above all else keep the ceremonies of their religion uncorrupted and in veneration. There is in fact no greater harbinger of a state’s ruin than signs of religious worship being held in contempt. This is easy to assess if one knows the foundation on which the religion is based in a state, because every religion has its beginnings in one of a state’s principal institutions. The religion of the pagans was founded on the responses of oracles and the sects of diviners and haruspices.
⁵⁷
All the subsequent ceremonies, sacrifices, and rites of the pagan religion depended on these, because the pagans were prepared to believe that the god who could foretell what would be good or bad in their future could also bring it about. There followed temples, sacrifices, supplications, all the ceremonies for venerating the gods, the oracle of Delos, the temple of Jupiter Ammon, and other famous oracles that filled the world with devotion and admiration. But when the oracles began to make pronouncements in favor of the powerful and the oracles’ falseness was discovered, men became skeptical and ready to destroy all institutions.

The rulers of a republic or kingdom must preserve the foundation of their religion. If they do so, they will find it easy to keep their state religious, and in consequence keep the state benevolent and harmonious. They must also keep and cultivate everything that contributes to favor their religion, even things they consider false. The wiser and more knowledgeable in natural phenomena a ruler is, the more he will do so. This method was followed by wise rulers, and so belief in miracles arose, which has been celebrated even in false religions: Because wise men amplify the importance of miracles, regardless of what might have caused them, they rely on the awe of the people at these miracles to gain their trust. In Rome there were many such miracles, among them the one that occurred when the Romans were sacking the city of Veii.
⁵⁸
Soldiers entered the Temple of Juno, and approaching her image, asked,
Vis venire Romam?
(“Do you want to come to Rome?”) Some of the soldiers were convinced that she nodded her head, others that she said yes. As these men were in the grip of religion (for as Livy tells us, the soldiers entered the temple devoutly and with reverence), they thought that they were quite unexpectedly hearing the answer that they in fact expected.
⁵⁹
Their faith and credulity were encouraged by Camillus and the other rulers of the city
⁶⁰
If religiosity had been supported by the rulers of the Christian republic as it had been set up by its founder, the Christian states and republics would be more united and much happier than they are. Nor can there be a better surmise about the decline of religion when one sees how the men closest to the Church of Rome, the head of our religion, are not very religious. Anyone considering the origins of our religion will see to what extent our current practices have strayed, and would doubtless judge our religion near ruin.

Many are of the opinion that Italian cities owe their well-being to the Church of Rome, but I would like to offer some arguments against this that occur to me. I will cite two cases which, in my view, cannot be contested. First, the papal court and the bad example it sets has led to an utter loss of piety and religion in Italy. This has brought about endless disadvantages and turmoil, because as one might presume that where there is religion there is every good, where religion is lacking one might presume the opposite. We Italians have the Church and the priests to thank for the fact that we have become irreligious and evil. But we also owe the Church another, greater debt, the second cause of our ruin: This is that the Church has kept, and is still keeping, Italy divided. In fact, no land has ever been united or happy unless it is completely under the rule of a republic or prince, as has happened in France and Spain. It is because of the Church that Italy is not in such a position and does not have a single republic or prince ruling it. Although the Church has resided in Italy and held temporal power here, it has not been powerful or skillful enough to occupy the rest of Italy and become its ruler. Nor has it been so weak that, for fear of losing control of its temporal possessions, it refused to call in foreign powers to defend it against anyone in Italy who had become too powerful. There are many examples from our distant past, such as when the pope called upon Charlemagne to drive out the Lombards who practically ruled all of Italy
⁶¹
and there are also examples from our own times, as when with the help of France the Church seized power from the Venetians and then proceeded to drive out the French with the help of the Swiss.
⁶²
The Church has not been powerful enough to occupy Italy, but has not allowed anyone else to occupy it either. Hence the Church has been the reason why Italy remains under many princes and lords, unable to unite under a single ruler. From this has sprung so much discord and weakness that Italy has become easy prey to powerful barbarians and whoever else might attack it. For this, we Italians owe thanks to the Church, and to the Church alone. If one could send the papal court with all its authority to settle in the lands of the Swiss—who today are the only people living as the ancients did, both in their religiosity and military institutions—the evil ways of the papal court would soon cause more discord in that country than any other calamity in all its history.

57.
Soothsayers who practiced divination by the inspection of the entrails of animals.

58.
Veii was a wealthy Etruscan city-state that lay ten miles northwest of Rome (modern Veio), and was conquered by the Romans in 396
BCE
.

59.
Livy describes this incident in Book V, chapter 22, but quotes the Roman soldier as asking the statue:
Visne Romam ire, Iuno?
(“Would you like to go to Rome, Juno?”)

60.
Marcus Furius Camillus conquered Veii in 396
BCE
. He had been appointed Dictator of Rome to direct Rome’s second major war of expansion into Etruscan territory. See also chapter 8 above and chapter 1 of Book III below.

61.
The Lombard king Alboin had conquered much of northern Italy in 569 CE, as well as territories in central and southern Italy. In the winter of 753–54, Pope Stephen II traveled to Gaul and consecrated Pepin and his sons, Charlemagne and Carloman, kings of the Romans when they promised him help against the Lombards. Charlemagne marched on Rome in 774 when he was called upon by Pope Adrian I, ending the rule of the Lombard dynasty.

62.
In 1509, Pope Julius II formed an allegiance with the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, Louis XII of France, and Ferdinand II of Aragon against the Republic of Venice. This allegiance came to an end in 1510, when the pope switched sides and re-allied himself with Venice. Julius II set his sights on expelling the French from Italy, and managed to do so in 1512 with the aid of Swiss troops.