Introduction

Machiavelli’s supreme example of severe and stirring leadership was Titus Manlius. In 340 b.c., Titus and his fellow consul commanded the Roman army in what Machiavelli called the most important battle in the city’s early history. Facing a Latin force of identical size, training, and determination, whose victory would have meant Rome’s enslavement, Titus instilled a decisive extra degree of resolve and discipline in his troops by having his own son decapitated for disobeying his orders. (The son had engaged in unauthorized single combat.) Titus’s harsh standards served to restore old virtù and breathe new life into original principles – for Machiavelli a prerequisite of republican vitality and longevity. Though revered for his character, Titus was not a popular general and therefore not in a position to use the army for private purposes. His extraordinary reputation rested, finally, on the fact that he had continually renewed it through decisive action at different stages in his life.

From the Romans, Machiavelli acquired a preference for brief, intense wars that would help to pay for themselves through the spoils they provided. He believed that it was better to invade than to be invaded: “he who assaults comes with greater spirit than he who waits; moreover, he takes away many advantages from the enemy.” And it was better to obtain territory by force than by money: “things acquired with gold, one doesn’t know how to defend with iron.” A military leader, moreover, with a hastily improvised force “who sees that for lack of funds or friends the army cannot be held together for long, is mad not to try his luck before it falls apart: waiting he will surely lose, trying he could win.” As Machiavelli memorably put it: