Explore "Discourses on Livy" by Niccolò Machiavelli on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Of the creation of the Decemvirate in Rome, and what therein is to be noted. Wherein among other matters is shown how the same causes may lead to the safety or to the ruin of a commonwealth.
It being my desire to treat fully of those disorders which arose in Rome on the creation of the decemvirate, I think it not amiss first of all to relate what took place at the time of that creation, and then to discuss those circumstances attending it which seem most to deserve notice. These are numerous, and should be well considered, both by those who would maintain the liberties of a commonwealth and by those who would subvert them. For in the course of our inquiry it will be seen that many mistakes prejudicial to freedom were made by the senate and people, and that many were likewise made by Appius, the chief decemvir, prejudicial to that tyranny which it was his aim to establish in Rome.