Machiavelli’s The Prince is teaching the politically ambitious rulers how to use violence in order to secure the power as a personal end. Machiavelli advises a ruler to use violence as part of politics in order to maintain the rule but most importantly he should use violence to aim at political stability and the overall benefit of the community. In this regard, Machiavelli opposes the illicit use of political violence because he believes that ultimately that will be destructive to the user. Machiavelli’s view on political violence does seem to be strict however it distinguishes the practical and moral use of violence.
The two historical figure whom Machiavelli uses models in order to explain his theories are Cesare Borgia and Agathocles. These figures use of violence can furthermore be compared and contrasted with the ideas of De Las Casas. De Las Casas was against the levels of the violence used towards the native’s in the new territories that Spaniards had “conquered. ” So Las Casas was arguing that legitimate rulers hold power because they come to power through the church’s influence, this is opposite of what Machiavelli believes.
Machiavelli in The Prince discusses about power and main points he emphasizes are; its acquisition, maintenance and the correct use of it and how violence is unavoidable. In giving advice to the rulers, Machiavelli doesn’t mind going against the religious beliefs in regards of using violence and destruction to achieve the goal. In retrospect, he only suggests that all the necessary political acts have to be played out in order to seize the power and maintain it for a long time.
As a reference to this situation, he gives the reasoning that “it is necessary to a prince, if he wants to maintain himself, to learn to be able not to be good, and use this and not use it according to necessity”(XV). There are several rules that a virtuous and successful rulers have to follow these are as follows: kill the strong people who can compete with you, make friends with the weak people around you, never use mercenaries of auxiliary forces, use huge amounts of violence and cruelty on a new state at first, but then be nicer, don’t let people hate you, make people fear you.
Machiavelli through setting these rules lays out a standard conduct for the person who wants to be a ruler. It is important to understand the way Machiavelli establishes virtu as a judging tool whether a ruler is successful. The way Machiavelli interprets virtu, is the way of doing specific things in best way possible without ruining damaging the reputation in front of the people. Agathocles occupies an extraordinary and symbolic position in Machiavelli’s The Prince. He is being compared to Cesare Borgia in chapter 7 and to the discussion of civil principalities in chapter 9.
Agathocles is portrayed a man of “virtue of spirit and body” as well as having the “greatness of… Soul” but these attributes does not qualify him to be the ruler who is virtuous. The reason for Agathocles fails to be portray the virtu is because despite his “actions of virtue” due to “his savage cruelty and inhumanity together with his infinite crimes (VIII). This illustrates that Agathocles transition in use of violence from the moderate level to excessive level to maintain the power seems to be an act that Machiavelli is against.
Agathocles was born as “the son of a potter,” and he rose to through the ranks of the military in Syracuse by betraying his fellow citizens and massacring the nobility in order to establish his reign. He than appointed himself “to this position, he determined to make himself prince and to possess by force and without obligation to others. ” Thus, Machiavelli makes the case that reputation is important in maintaining the power and if the ruler fails to keep the reputation clean than he can still acquire power but car acquire glory.
In Agathocles case when looked into his action we can see that the opposite happens, he securely rules for many years “after infinite betrayals and cruelties. This gives credibility to Agathocles because the way he used violence and cruelties were well used, and when it is used “out of the necessity to secure oneself’ than as the time goes on people forget it so it becomes eliminated. Machiavelli throughout The Prince emphasize that a ruler who uses violence must have a proper end because a necessary evil will always remain as evil.
With this in mind, it is possible to observe Machiavelli’s criteria and determine violence in a practical sense. Machiavelli’s best role model for this is Cesare Borgia, he describes Cesare’s accomplishment as” for I do not know what better teaching | could give to a new prince than the examples of his [Borgia’s] actions”. While Machiavelli describes Borgia as the kind of ruler who uses the violence well however his act when looked at it deeper shows the opposite, he seems to have abused violence, It can see by Borgia’s career because it was brief, brutal and prolific.
Borgia came to power through luck due to his father and through his father, Pope Alexander VI, he received help and he conquered the Romagna in the space of a few years and assembled everyone under his central power. Contrary to how Machiavelli depicts Borgia despite of the fact that he was being overly cruel and vengeful Borgia allowed the standing ministers to maintain their positions. Machiavelli through Borgia illustrates that a ruler does not have to kill lots of people and destruct the whole system to achieve and maintain power because this can be attained through moderate violence.
Machiavelli goes on listing and explaining the actions that Borgia took to maintain its power which are much similar to Agathocles, some of them were; killing his opponents and converting all of their supporters to his side, getting rid of mercenaries and auxiliaries and establishing his own army. As a matter of fact, by doing these he secured his new state, Romagna, by first crushing it with cruelty than run the new state himself.
So by being cruel, he also used a scapegoat so that no one could dare to hate him, then after he was done he got rid of the scapegoat. A quote from The Prince portrays this better,” Borgia was so ruthless and so talented, he knew so well that you have to win over people or destroy them and he had built up such solid foundation for his power in such a short time that if he hadn’t had these two armies threatening him, or if he hadn’t been so ill, he would have overcome every obstacle. “
