Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy

Overview

Three books, a hundred and forty-two short chapters, roughly 350 pages. Machiavelli wrote it in the same years as The Prince, after the Medici returned to Florence in 1512, stripped him of his office, had him tortured on suspicion of conspiracy and released him to a farm outside the city. It was published in 1531, four years after his death.

The form is a commentary. He takes episodes from the first ten books of Livy’s history of Rome, the period from the founding to the war with Hannibal, and uses each as a case from which to derive a rule. The chapter titles read like propositions: that the multitude is wiser and more constant than a prince, that the fortresses princes build do more harm than good, that a state which wishes to remain free must renew itself.

It is discursive, repetitive and unfinished in places. It is also, unlike The Prince, a book about how free peoples govern themselves.

The argument

Book I is on internal politics. Machiavelli starts with constitutional forms, takes Polybius’ cycle of degeneration, and argues that Rome’s mixed constitution, combining consuls, senate and tribunes, resisted the cycle. Then comes the claim that made Renaissance readers uncomfortable: the disunion between the senate and the plebs, all those secessions and riots, was the cause of Rome’s liberty. Every law protecting freedom came out of that friction. A state where the classes do not contend is either tyrannised or asleep.

He is equally direct about religion. Roman religion was a political institution, and Numa’s use of oracles and auspices did more for Rome than Romulus’ arms. Machiavelli praises it for making citizens brave and oath-bound, and blames the Church of his own day for two specific crimes: teaching Italians to admire humility rather than worldly glory, and being strong enough to keep Italy divided while too weak to unite it.

Book II is on expansion and war. Rome grew by absorbing defeated peoples, by making allies rather than subjects at first, and by relying on its own citizen soldiers. Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless, the theme he shares with The Prince. He argues against the common view that money is the sinew of war: good soldiers get money, money does not get soldiers.

Book III is on individuals and renewal. Republics decay as the founding severity fades, and must be brought back to first principles every so often, by a law or by an act sufficiently memorable to frighten people back into the old discipline. His examples include the execution of Brutus’ own sons. He treats conspiracies at length and with disconcerting practicality, examines why the same tactics succeed for one commander and fail for another, and returns repeatedly to the ingratitude of peoples toward those who have served them.

How to read it

Read Book I, chapters 1 to 18, closely. That is the constitutional core and contains the argument about tumults, the discussion of religion, and the case for popular judgement. Then read I.58, on whether the people or a prince is wiser, and III.1, on returning to beginnings. Most courses assign a selection close to that.

Read The Prince first if you have not. The two books are usually set against each other, and the interesting question is whether they conflict. The standard positions: that Machiavelli is a republican who wrote The Prince as a job application, that he is a teacher of tyranny whose republicanism is a pose, or that both books describe the same politics for different circumstances, one for founding and one for maintaining.

You do not need to know Livy. Machiavelli summarises each episode before drawing his rule, and the Bondanella notes fill the gaps. Do notice where he changes a story to fit his conclusion, because he does.

Mansfield and Tarcov translate literally and keep virtù and other terms visible, which makes the book harder and more accurate. The Bondanellas read more easily. For a first encounter the Oxford is kinder.

The common misreading is that this is a nicer Machiavelli. It is not. He is as willing to recommend killing the sons of Brutus here as anything in The Prince; the difference is that the beneficiary is a republic rather than a prince.

Questions it raises

• Can conflict between classes really be the source of liberty, or was Rome free despite its tumults rather than because of them?
• Machiavelli praises Roman religion for its political usefulness and blames Christianity for weakening Italy. Is a religion judged by its effects still a religion?
• If a republic must periodically be returned to its beginnings by terror, is it stable or merely long-lived?
• The people are said to be wiser and more constant than a prince. What is the evidence, and does it survive modern mass politics?
• Are The Prince and the Discourses the same teaching in different circumstances, or two different books?
• Machiavelli assumes human nature is constant, which is what lets Rome instruct Florence. Is that assumption doing legitimate work or hiding the differences?