acquired their provinces in Italy and adopted the Condottiere system
from their neighbors. 'A prince, therefore, should have but one object,
one thought, one art--the art of war.' Those who have followed this rule
have attained to sovereignty, like Francesco Sforza, who became Duke of
Milan; those who have neglected it have lost even hereditary kingdoms,
like the last Sforzas, who sank from dukedom into private life. Even
amid the pleasures of the chase a prince should always be studying the
geographical conformation of his country with a view to its defense, and
should acquire a minute knowledge of such strategical laws as are
everywhere applicable. He should read history with the same object, and
should keep before his eyes the example of those great men of the past
from whom he can learn lessons for his guidance in the present.

This brings us to the peroration of the _Principe_, which contains the
practical issue toward which the whole treatise has been tending, the
patriotic thought that reflects a kind of luster even on the darkest
pages that have gone before. Like Thetis, Machiavelli has dipped his
Achilles in the Styx of infernal counsels; like Cheiron, he has shown
him how the human and the bestial natures should be combined in one who
has to break the teeth of wolves and keep his feet from snares; like
Hephaistos, he has forged for him invulnerable armor. The object toward
which this preparation has been leading is the liberation of Italy from
the barbarians. The slavery of Israel in Egypt, the oppression of the
Persians by the Medes, the dispersion of the Athenians into villages,
were the occasions which enabled Moses and Cyrus and Theseus to display
their greatness. The new Prince, who would fain win honor in Italy and
confer upon his country untold benefits, finds her at the present moment
'more enslaved than the Hebrews, more downtrodden than the Persians,
more disunited than the Athenians, without a chief, without order,
beaten, despoiled, mangled, overrun, subject to every sort of