Explore "Discourses on Livy" by Niccolò Machiavelli on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
That a people is wiser and more constant than a prince.
That "nothing is more fickle and inconstant than the multitude" is affirmed not by Titus Livius only, but by all other historians, in whose chronicles of human actions we often find the multitude condemning some citizen to death, and afterwards lamenting him and grieving greatly for his loss, as the Romans grieved and lamented for Manlius Capitolinus, whom they had themselves condemned to die. In relating which circumstance our author observes "In a short time the people, having no longer cause to fear him, began to deplore his death. " And elsewhere, when speaking of what took place in Syracuse after the murder of Hieronymus, grandson of Hiero, he says, "It is the nature of the multitude to be an abject slave, or a domineering master."