The Prince (19 page)

HANNIBAL (247-182 BC) Son of Hamilcar. Commander of Carthaginian forces from 221 BC, he took an army, which included war elephants, across the Iberian peninsula, over the Pyrenees and Alps and down into northern Italy in what became known as the Second Punic War. Despite impressive victories he was forced to return home when the Romans attacked Carthage, and was defeated at the Battle of Zama (201 BC) by Scipio Africanus. He then served for many years as chief magistrate of Carthage, introducing all kinds of reforms, before the Romans forced him into exile. Eventually, to avoid falling into Roman hands, he killed himself by poisoning.

HELIOGABALUS (
c.
203-222) Roman emperor (218-22). Grandson of the aunt of murdered emperor Caracalla, and priest in the cult of the sun deity El Gabal, Heliogabalus was proclaimed the true successor to Caracalla, with some people claiming he was Caracalla's illegitimate son by a union between first cousins. Installed as emperor after the emperor Macrinus had been defeated and executed, he attempted to revolutionize Roman religious traditions and flouted sexual taboos, marrying five times before, aged eighteen, he was murdered and replaced by his cousin Severus Alexander.

HIERO OF SYRACUSE Hiero II, King of Syracuse (270-215 BC). Illegitimate son of a nobleman and one-time general with Pyrrhus, Hiero became commander of Syracusan forces on the departure of Pyrrhus in 275 BC and was elected ruler of the town after defeating the Mamertines (Mamertina was present-day Messina). After fighting and losing a war with Roman forces, he made a pact with Rome in 263 BC, which assured his kingdom's security in return for support for the Romans in their war with Carthage. Hiero was a relative of Archimedes, whose inventions, particularly in the military field, he supported.

JOANNA, QUEEN (1373-1435) Joanna II ruled Naples from 1414 to 1435. Childless herself, she allowed her court to be run by her favourites and lovers, playing off the Anjou and Aragon families by offering prominent members of each succession to her throne. Conflict between the royal lines saw the two most successful mercenary commanders of the period, Francesco Sforza and Braccio da Montone, pitted against each other.

JULIAN Marcus Didius Julianus (
c.
133-193). Consul under Pertinax, Julian was proclaimed emperor by the Praetorian Guard after they had murdered Pertinax. He reigned for only sixty-six days before he himself was murdered when Septimius Severus, who had refused to recognize his leadership, arrived in Rome.

JULIUS II Giuliano della Rovere (1443-1513), Cardinal of San Pietro ad Vincula, was made pope in 1503 after the twenty-six-day reign of Pius III, who had been elected after the death of Alexander VI. Julius had for many years been a fierce rival of Alexander and was unlikely to be supportive of his son Cesare Borgia. He rapidly dismantled the Borgia family's power and set about ending the feud between the dominant Orsini and Colonna families. Having thus secured his authority in Rome, he reasserted papal territorial rights in the Romagna, attacking the Venetians and taking Perugia and Bologna in 1506. This gave the papacy unprecedented temporal power. In 1508 he formed the League of Cambrai together with France, Spain and the Holy Roman Empire to expel the Venetians from Romagna altogether. But after the Venetians were defeated at Agnadello (or Vailà) in 1509, Julius feared French domination and joined forces with Venice to drive Louis XII out of Italy. Julius was hugely influential as a patron of the arts. He had the foundation stone of St Peter's Basilica laid in 1506 and commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

LEOXGiovanni de' Medici (1475-1521). Made a cardinal at age thirteen, Giovanni, son of Lorenzo de' Medici, was elected pope in 1513, taking the name of Leo X. His papacy was memorable for the sale of indulgences to pay for building work on St Peter's Basilica, his determined promotion of his Medici relations and his response to Martin Luther's ninety-five theses against indulgences. In 1513 he joined forces with the Venetians and various foreign powers to expel the French from Italy, but later allied himself with the French against the Holy Roman Empire.

LOUIS XI (1423-83) King of France (1461-83). Louis increased the power of the king in relation to the barons and added Burgundy and Anjou to the French throne. In a treaty of 1474 he gained the right to levy troops in Switzerland.

LOUIS XII (1462-1515) King of France (1498-1515). Louis was the king who got France most determinedly involved in the affairs of Italy. Originally Duke of Orleans, he succeeded his cousin Charles VIII in 1498 and quickly made a deal with Pope Alexander VI that allowed him to renounce his first wife and marry Charles's widow, thus adding Brittany to the French crown. Since the house of Orleans had claims to both Milan and Naples, Louis made an agreement with Venice to split Milan's territory and took the town in 1499. Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, took it back in 1500 but was driven out again. Louis then used the same policy in the south, reaching an agreement with Spain to divide the Kingdom of Naples and taking the town for France in 1501. However, the occupying powers fell out over the terms of the partition and in 1503 the Spanish defeated the French at Gari gliano. In 1508 Louis joined the Holy Roman Empire, England, the Papal States, Florence and Spain in the so-called League of Cambrai, an aggressive alliance against the Venetians. Louis led the alliance's army and scored a comprehensive victory over the Venetians at Agnadello (or Vailà) in 1509. But the consequent increase in the power of both Rome and France caused the two powers to fall out and in 1510 Pope Julius II, together with England, Spain, Switzerland and the Holy Roman Empire, formed the Holy League to drive France out of Italy, a goal that was finally achieved at the battle of Novara in 1513. Two years later, however, Louis's successor, Francis I, would return to take Milan and much of northern Italy.

LUCA RAINALDI, BISHOP An ambassador for the Emperor Maximilian.

LUDOVICO II Also known as Ludovico il Moro. SeeSFORZA, LUDOVICO.

MACRINUS Marcus Opellius Macrinus (
c.
165-218). Roman emperor (217-18). Macrinus was the first emperor not to have been a senator or a member of a senatorial family. He rose from humble origins to bureaucratic service under Severus and was then appointed prefect by Caracalla and proclaimed emperor after Caracalla was murdered (many believed that Macrinus himself was responsible for the murder). His brief reign was spent entirely in the east, where military setbacks eroded his power-base until eventually he was defeated by supporters of the fourteen-year-old Heliogabalus, grandson of Caracalla's aunt, Julia Maesa.

MANTUA, MARQUISOFFrancesco Gonzaga (1466-1519). Victorious mercenary commander of the forces of the League of Venice against Charles VIII of France at the battle of Fornovo in 1495.

MARCUS AURELIUS Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180), Roman emperor (161-180). A Stoic philosopher, his work
Meditations
, written in Greek while campaigning with his army, is still considered a masterpiece. A successful reformer in domestic policy, he faced serious military threats from Parthia and from various tribes in Germany and Gaul. He died of natural causes and was immediately deified.

MAXIMILIAN(1459-1519) Habsburg ruler of the Holy Roman Empire (1486-1519). Maximilian aimed to unify the empire's heterogeneous possessions by centralizing the administration. He also hoped to recover the empire's dominant position in Italy and to become leader of the Christian world by launching a crusade against Islam. While his domestic reforms enjoyed a certain amount of success, his foreign policies were confused and ineffective and led to the loss of Switzerland, which became an independent confederation in 1499. Although Maximilian hoped to regain territory from Venice, he was constantly thwarted by the need to give precedence to countering French expansionism in the peninsula. In 1495 he joined the League of Venice, which aimed to expel the French from Italy, but gained nothing from participation. In 1496 he was invited by the Duke of Milan (his wife's uncle) to send an army to meet the threat of a French invasion, but France did not attack. Persuaded to move south to help Pisa resist the Florentines, the imperial army surprisingly failed to save the town. In 1507 he began a long-drawn-out attempt to take territory from Venice, but without making significant progress. In 1512 Maximilian joined the Holy League to push the French out of Italy. When Francis I once again took Milan for the French in 1515, Maximilian became involved in yet another, this time unsuccessful, attempt to keep France north of the Alps. Maximilian was succeeded by his grandson Charles V, who became King of Spain as well.

MAXIMINUS Gaius Julius Verus Maximinus (
c.
173-238), Roman emperor (235-238). Born in Thrace and from a humble background, Maximinus rose to become a seasoned military commander and led an army rebellion against the young emperor Alexander Severus, who was abandoned by his own troops and murdered. Hated by the aristocratic Senate, Maximinus faced numerous rebellions and conspiracies, which he ruthlessly suppressed, until he was eventually murdered by his own troops.

MOSES Old Testament Hebrew leader who led the Jews out of their captivity in Egypt to ‘the promised land'.

NABISRuler of Sparta (207-192 BC), ruthless in his determination to return Sparta to its former glory. After a period of successful territorial expansionism, Nabis was attacked by the Romans in alliance with his other enemies. Decisively beaten by Philopoemen, he nevertheless managed to hold on to the city of Sparta before being murdered by a group of Aetolians who were supposedly coming to his aid.

NIGER, GAIUSPESCENNIUS(
c.
140-194) Roman governor of Syria, who proclaimed himself emperor after the murder of Pertinax in 193, and was defeated and killed by the forces of Septimius Severus in 194.

OLIVEROTTO Oliverotto Euffreducci (
c.
1475-1502). Mercenary commander who took power in Fermo in 1502 and used ruthless force to eliminate his enemies. Oliverotto was killed by Borgia at Senigallia in 1502.

ORCO, REMIRRODERamiro de Lorqua (
c.
1452-1502). Military commander in the service of Cesare Borgia. After being involved in many military campaigns on Borgia's behalf, he was given the governorship of the Romagna in 1501. Arrested on corruption charges, he was beheaded in 1502.

ORSINIOne of the two powerful Roman families (the other was the Colonna) whose feuding dominated political life in Rome from the second half of the thirteenth century to the end of the fifteenth. Both families had mercenary armies. Cesare Borgia used the Orsini army in his early campaigns but broke with them when he suspected them of conspiring against him. He later invited the Orsini leaders to Senigallia with the pretence of negotiating an agreement and had them killed.

NICCOLÒ ORSINICount of Pitigliano (1442-1510). Mercenary commander who led Venetian forces in their war against the League of Cambrai, and joint commander with his cousin Bartolomeo d'Alviano at the battle of Agnadello (or Vailà) at which, largely thanks to disagreements between the two, the Venetians were routed.

PAULO, SIGNORPaulo Orsini was leader of the Orsini faction during the period of Cesare Borgia's rise to power. He accepted the invitation to negotiate at Senigallia, where Borgia had him strangled on arrival.

PERTINAX Publius Helvius Pertinax (126-193) was Roman emperor for three months in 193. Proclaimed emperor after the assassination of Commodus, Pertinax failed to give the army the financial rewards they expected, while his attempts to impose discipline antagonized them. He was murdered when 300 mutinous soldiers of the Praetorian Guard stormed his palace. PETRARCHFrancesco Petrarca (1304-74). Scholar, poet and early

Humanist whose work on the sonnet form was to be hugely influential in European poetry for centuries to come. The lines Machiavelli quotes at the conclusion of
The Prince
are taken from poem XVI of
Il canzoniere
, in which Petrarch appeals to Italian leaders to stop using foreign mercenaries to fight Italian civil wars.

PETRUCCI, PANDOLFO(1452-1512) A powerful figure in Siena from 1487 when the faction he belonged to toppled its opponents in a coup. From 1502 he became ruler of the town, though always officially maintaining republican institutions. In his role as ambassador of Florence, Machiavelli negotiated with him on several occasions.

PHILIP OF MACEDONIA Machiavelli actually refers to two Philips.

1. Philip II (382-336 BC) King of Macedonia (359-336 BC), father of Alexander the Great. Coming to power after the death of his older brothers, Philip II rebuilt the Kingdom of Macedonia with a series of wars and astute treaties. He was murdered by one of his bodyguards.

2. Philip V (238-178 BC) King of Macedonia (220-178 BC). Followed a successful expansionist policy until the Romans, who had finally defeated the Carthaginians, turned their attention to the threat he posed in 200 BC and comprehensively defeated him in 197 BC, confining him within the borders of Macedonia.

PHILOPOEMEN (253-183 BC) Greek statesman and general who led the Achaean army on numerous occasions.

PITIGLIANO, COUNT OF See ORSINI NICCOLÒ.

PYRRHUS (318-272 BC) King of Epirus, Pyrrhus was an extremely successful military commander and a constant threat to the Romans in southern Italy and Sicily, where he also fought the Carthaginians. His costly victory at the Battle of Asculum in 279 BC led to the use of the expression ‘Pyrrhic victory'.

ROMULUS Legendary founder and first king of Rome.

ROUEN, Cardinal of, later Archbishop of Georges d'Amboise (1460-1510). D'Amboise was already adviser to the Duke of Orleans when the latter acceded to the French throne (1498) as Louis XII. Louis at once made d'Amboise prime minister and persuaded Alexander VI to appoint him as cardinal as part of a more general agreement between the two. D'Amboise encouraged Louis in his Italian adventures and drew on the support of Cesare Borgia in an attempt to have himself elected pope on the death of Borgia's father Alexander VI.