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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What historical records did Machiavelli use to support his point for keeping two important items out of peril?
(a) Historical records of Tullus and Metius.
(b) Historical records of Hannibal and England.
(c) Historical records of Rome and France.
(d) Historical records of military tactics.

2. What is Machiavelli's conclusion regarding how someone can establish a Republic where there is great equality?
(a) By uniting the whole public behind wars and efforts to grow the Empire.
(b) By assuring that the assets that create wealth are kept within the power of the State.
(c) By removing ambitious and unquiet spirits that makes men want to move up in rank.
(d) By finding methods to maintain poverty throughout the general masses.

3. What are the three ways a Republic can expand that Machiavelli recognized?
(a) By conquering distant provinces, by supporting other provinces to conquer enemies, and to make allies with strong Republics.
(b) By making trade alliances with wealthy provinces, by joining in war with weak Republics, and by making alliances with powerful tyrannies.
(c) By joining in league with other Republics, make other Republics associates, and to make other Republics subjects immediately.
(d) By sending Nobles out to establish colonies, by sending armies out to conquer foreign provinces, and making other provinces associates.

4. What were the reasons that Machiavelli cited for the Roman Senate choosing to pay a public stipend to fighting men (soldiers)?
(a) To hide the increased taxes that were used to build houses for Nobles.
(b) Because without the stipend, wars could not be made for any length of time, neither could Rome besiege towns nor lead armies to a distance.
(c) To increase the number of soldiers in the army.
(d) To keep the citizens in poverty so they would support wars.

5. What are two reasons Machiavelli gives for foreign forces building a city?
(a) To exercise power over enemies and expand the power of an established system.
(b) To offer people in other lands the benefits of the existing system and to make their abilities and resources for universally beneficial.
(c) To relieve existing towns of excessive inhabitants and for the defense of the country from which the forces come.
(d) To spread the culture of the homeland and use resources for financial development.

6. From what did Machiavelli develop the information that he wrote into "The Discourses"?
(a) From long experience and continuous study of worldly affairs.
(b) From his world travels to study governments in other cultures.
(c) From interviews with political thinkers of the day.
(d) From research that he did in the many libraries throughout the former Roman Empire.

7. When Machiavelli writes, "For sometimes of necessity our judgment is the truth, as human affairs are always in motion, either ascending or descending," what is he writing about what he believes about truth?
(a) You can't make sound judgments without having a firm grasp on the truth.
(b) Machiavelli considers truth to be relative.
(c) Truth is not as important as the people you make relationships with.
(d) Truth is irrelevant to the reason for making judgments.

8. To what does Machiavelli compare great kingdoms and republics from history?
(a) To his projections of the future in which Machiavelli speculated on how power would be preserved.
(b) To his ideal state that combined the most successful institutions from those civilizations.
(c) To great works of antique art that have been found and preserved.
(d) To the state of political instability in which was common to Machiavelli's day.

9. According to Machiavelli, what caused the Roman Republic to form?
(a) Political rivalries between powerful generals.
(b) Economic agreements between fertile cities.
(c) Trade agreements between cities with resources and cities with technologies.
(d) Class warfare between the patricians and the plebes.

10. What support did Machiavelli use for his view of what he considers to be the worst example provided by leaders?
(a) The lawlessness that overtook Carthage as its Princes suspended harsh sentences for crimes against the State.
(b) A recent denial of appeal by Girolamo Savonarola to five citizens sentenced to death after Savonarola wrote the law allowing appeals.
(c) Tribunes who called the army from foreign provinces and decommissioned its Captains.
(d) A series of Caesars who named friends to be Captains.

11. What, according to Machiavelli in Book , 1 Section 38, is the fate of irresolute Republics?
(a) They have no alternative but to join alliances with powerful Republics that will take control of them.
(b) They cannot settle conflicts except with force because their weakness prevents them from resolving doubts over issues.
(c) They face invasion, destruction and anhilation.
(d) They will eventually fade away and reemerge as a tyranny.

12. What is Machiavelli's explanation for initiating his recommended approach with enemies against an empire?
(a) Because taking out the head of a movement will lead to the death of the body.
(b) Because the public humiliation of the enemy will expose supporters to the Citizens who will then act to neutralize the conspiracy.
(c) Because those who try to crush it, make its force greater, and make that evil which is suspected from it to be accelerated.
(d) Because putting the leaders of enemies in positions of public responsibility will require them to make decisions that will be rejected by conspiracies.

13. What did Machiavelli report led gatherings of people to make laws?
(a) To set order to the defense of the city.
(b) So resources could be justly distributed.
(c) To protect economic activity that benefited the city.
(d) To avoid evils that people committed on others.

14. What does Machiavelli consider to be the means of someone rising from the bottom to gain a great fortune?
(a) Hard work and creativity.
(b) Deceit and self preservation.
(c) Diligence and humility.
(d) Force and fraud.

15. What was an example from Roman history that Machiavelli used to suggest the Plebes possesses greater wisdom than Nobles?
(a) A time when the Plebes could have chosen all Plebes for four Tribunes, chose, instead, four Nobles because they recognized the weaknesses of Plebes filling those offices.
(b) The failed attempt of the Nobles to put Plebes of ill-repute to selection for Tribunes.
(c) The Magistrates decision to delay battle against the Samnites.
(d) The willingness of the Plebes to go to war for the glory of Rome.

Short Answer Questions

1. What are the two important items that Machiavelli considers to be unwise for a Prince to put entirely into peril?

2. What are three reasons that Machiavelli gives for cities becoming unhappy?

3. What does Machiavelli identify as the easiest way to "...ruin a Republic where the People have authority...."

4. What are the two means that Machiavelli identifies as how laws are developed in cities at the beginning of Section 2, Book One.

5. What does Machiavelli identify as an important action for Nobles to take to control the ambitions of Citizens seeking position?

(see the answer keys)

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