public buildings; the Marzocco was dashed from its column on the quay
into the Arno; and in a moment the dead republic awoke to life.
Therefore, argues Machiavelli, so tenacious is the vitality of a free
state that a prudent conqueror will extinguish it entirely or will rule
it in person with a rod of iron. This, be it remembered, is the advice
of Machiavelli, the the Florentine patriot, to Lorenzo de' Medici, the
Florentine tyrant, who has recently resumed his seat upon the neck of
that irrepressible republic.

Hitherto we have been considering how the state acquired by a conqueror
should be incorporated with his previous dominions. The next section of
Machiavelli's discourse is by far the most interesting. It treats of
principalities created by the arms, personal qualities, and good fortune
of adventurers. Italy alone in the sixteenth century furnished examples
of these tyrannies: consequently that portion of the _Principe_ which is
concerned with them has a special interest for students of the
Renaissance. Machiavelli begins with the founders of kingdoms who have
owed but little to fortune and have depended on their own forces. The
list he furnishes, when tested by modern notions of history, is to say
the least a curious one. It contains Moses, Cyrus, Romulus, and Theseus.
Having mentioned Moses first, Machiavelli proceeds to explain that,
though we have to regard him as the mere instrument of God's purpose,
yet the principles on which the other founders acted were 'not different
from those which Moses derived from so supreme a teacher.' What these
men severally owed to fortune was but the occasion for the display of
the greatness that was in them. Moses found the people of Israel
enslaved in Egypt. Romulus was an exile from Alba. Cyrus had to deal
with the Persian people tired of the empire of effeminate Medes. Theseus
undertook to unite the scattered elements of the Athenian nation. Thus
each of these founders had an opening provided for him, by making use of