When those States that are conquered, as it is said,
have been accustomed to live under their own Laws,
and in liberty, there are three wayes for a man to
hold them. The first is to demolish all their
strong places; the other, personally to goe and dwell
there; the third, to suffer them to live under their
own Laws, drawing from them some tribute, and creating
therein an Oligarchy, that may continue it in thy
service: for that State being created by that
Prince, knowes it cannot consist without his aid and
force, who is like to doe all he can to maintain it;
and with more facility is a City kept by meanes of
her own Citizens, which hath been us’d before
to live free, than by any other way of keeping.
We have for example the Spartans and the Romans; the
Spartans held Athens and Thebes, creating there an
Oligarchy: yet they lost it. The Romans
to be sure of Capua, Carthage, and Numantia, dismantell’d
them quite, and so lost them not: they would have
kept Greece as the Spartans had held them, leaving
them free, and letting them enjoy their own Laws;
and it prospered not with them: so that they
were forc’d to deface many Cities of that province
to hold it. For in truth there is not a surer
way to keep them under, than by demolishments; and
whoever becomes master of a City us’d to live
free, and dismantells it not, let him look himselfe
to bee ruin’d by it; for it alwayes in time
of rebellion takes the name of liberty for refuge,
and the ancient orders it had; which neither by length
of time, nor for any favours afforded them, are ever
forgotten; and for any thing that can be done, or
order’d, unlesse the inhabitants be disunited
and dispers’d, that name is never forgotten,
nor those customes: but presently in every chance
recourse is thither made: as Pisa did after so
many yeeres that she had been subdu’d by the
Florentines. But when the Cities or the Provinces
are accustomed to live under a Prince, and that whole
race is quite extirpated: on one part being us’d
to obey; on the other, not having their old Prince;
they agree not to make one from among themselves:
they know not how to live in liberty, in such manner
that they are much slower to take armes; and with more
facility may a Prince gaine them, and secure himselfe
of them. But in Republiques there is more life
in them, more violent hatred, more earnest desire of
revenge; nor does the remembrance of the ancient liberty
ever leave them, or suffer them to rest; so that the
safest way, is, either to ruine them, or dwell among
them.
Of new Principalities, that are conquer’d by
ones own armes and valour.
