A Conversation with Machiavelli · Pair 13 of 39
Editor's summary Machiavelli holds that the Romans, who used the auspices in every important action, nonetheless acted against them when reason required, but so artfully that they did not seem to scorn religion; the consul Papirius, who fought though the sacred chickens had not fed, is his proof. Guicciardini does not hold it certain that the captains used the authority of auspices and augury craftily, and believes that, above all in the earliest times, their minds were taken up with this religion. Nor does Papirius tell against him: the consul had his report from the keepers of the chickens, whose office it was, and had no need to heed what third persons told him.
I Romani interpretavano gli auspizj secondo la necessità, e con la prudenza mostravano di osservare la Religione, quando forzati non l'osservavano, e se alcuno temerariamente la dispregiava, lo punivano.
The Romans interpreted the auspices according to necessity, and with prudence made a show of observing religion when, forced, they did not observe it, and if anyone rashly despised it, they punished him.
Argument. The chapter continues Machiavelli's run on Roman religion. The rubric states the thesis before the example, in three parts: the Romans read the auspices by necessity, kept up the show of observing them when they did not, and punished anyone who despised them rashly. The chapter opens by restating how much the auguries mattered, so that what follows reads as the management of something important, not contempt for something trivial.
History. The pullarii kept the sacred chickens that went with a Roman army. Before battle the birds were offered food; if they ate so greedily that grain fell from their beaks, the sign was favourable (Cicero, De divinatione 2.72).
Argument. The thesis in small: when reason said a thing should be done and the auspices were against it, the Romans did it anyway, but dressed the doing in "terms and modes" that kept it from looking like contempt of religion. Papirius is introduced as the man who used this "term" before his story is told.
History. The story is Livy's (10.40), from the Third Samnite War: the battle of Aquilonia, 293 BC, under the consul Lucius Papirius Cursor. In Livy the consul tells his nephew that if the keeper has lied, the omen falls on the keeper's own head; the keeper, posted in the front line, is struck down by a stray javelin.
Argument. Machiavelli tells it as a demonstration. The "prince of the pullarii" who reports a favourable sign is the liar the dart later kills: the consul turns the lie into a true sign by putting the liar where the gods can punish him, and fights with his army's piety intact. Every step is a management of appearances. The reply reads the same steps as ordinary procedure Guicciardini .01.
History. "Appius Pulcher" is Publius Claudius Pulcher, consul in 249 BC, who had the chickens thrown into the sea before the sea-fight off Drepana and lost his fleet (Cicero, De natura deorum 2.7). Machiavelli gives him his father's name, Appius.
Argument. The counter-example, and the third clause of the rubric: rash contempt, punished. Machiavelli says the two men were judged not so much for losing and winning as for going against the auspices "prudently" and "rashly". Both went against them. Read strictly, the second "the one ... the other" would make Appius the prudent one, since he was "the one" who lost; the sense requires the reverse, and the English keeps the Italian's looseness.
Argument. The conclusion is functional: this way of taking the auspices existed to send soldiers confidently into battle, and confidence almost always wins. Guicciardini does not dispute that; what he doubts is the rubric's picture of captains working the auspices knowingly Guicciardini .01.
Established from the 1824 edition (WIT-NM-DISC-1824-IA), page-image-backed, which governs. Collated against the 1554 Giglio printing, Venice (WIT-NM-DISC-1554-IA), which is comparison evidence only.
Paragraph divisions are editorial. The witness prints the chapter as one unbroken block.
E fra gli altri aruspizj — 1824. The 1554 witness reads Et tra gli altri auspici. The 1824 text names haruspicy, the reading of entrails, where the 1554 has auspices, the reading of birds. The chickens that follow are auspices in either case.
tanto attentamente — 1824. The 1554 witness reads tanto attamente. 1824: so carefully. 1554: so aptly. Either way the Romans dressed up the decision so that it did not look like contempt of religion.
che costituissero i Pollarj — 1824. The 1554 witness reads che ponessero i Pollarj. Same sense: the keepers of the chickens were to be stationed in the front line.
nella prima guerra Punica, che volendo azzuffarsi con l'esercito Cartaginese — 1824. The 1554 witness reads nella prima guerra Carthaginese, che uolendo azzuffarsi con l'essercito de nemici. The 1554 calls the war Carthaginian and the army simply the enemy's. Same war, same battle.
Orthography, capitalization, word division and punctuation follow the governing witness throughout; no reading is hybridized between witnesses.
auspizj, augurj, aruspizj. Three different words, kept as three: auspices, the taking of signs from birds; auguries, the art and its readings; haruspicies, properly the reading of entrails. Machiavelli uses them loosely: he counts the chicken-auspices among the "haruspicies" in .01, and calls the whole practice "haruspicating" in .05. The English keeps his words rather than correcting his Roman antiquities.
pullarii. The keepers of the sacred chickens, whose feeding was read as an auspice: if the birds ate eagerly, the gods approved. Left in Latin, as the Italian keeps the office's name (Pollarj); Guicciardini calls them Pullarii.
il Principe de' Pollarj. "The prince of the pullarii": the chief of the college. The word is kept because it is the word Machiavelli uses of rulers; here it has its Latin sense of first man.
termine. "Term" in the older sense of a manner of proceeding, not a word: termini e modi is close to "ways and means", and "which term" picks up the device Papirius used, not anything he said.
.03, rispose. The Italian gives the verb no subject, and the last man named is the nephew. It is the consul who answers; the English supplies him in brackets.
.03, contro di lui. "Against him" could be the liar, but the sense is the anger the gods might have taken against the army, which by the liar's death has purged itself of it. The English says "it", for the army.
zuffa, azzuffarsi, combattere, giornata. Engagement, engage, fight, battle: four words, kept apart. Zuffa is used of Aquilonia, a pitched battle, so it is not a skirmish.
.03, in pregiudizio suo. "To his prejudice", in the old sense of harm: if the chicken-keeper lied, the lie falls on his own head, as it does.
The sources. Livy 10.40, for Lucius Papirius Cursor, son of the dictator of the same name, before Aquilonia (293 BC). The chickens thrown into the sea belong to Publius Claudius Pulcher, before the sea-fight off Drepana in Sicily (249 BC), in Cicero, De natura deorum 2.7, and Livy, Periochae 19. Machiavelli calls him Appius, his father's name.
I Romani interpretavano gli auspicii secondo la necessità, e con la prudenza mostravano di osservare la religione, quando forzati non l'osservavano, e se alcuno temerariamente la dispregiava, lo punivano
The Romans interpreted the auspices according to necessity, and with prudence made a show of observing religion when, forced, they did not observe it, and if anyone rashly despised it, they punished him Canestrini sets Machiavelli's chapter title over the reply, in his own spelling, with lower-case religione and no full stop.
Argument. Three acts in one sentence. He withholds certainty — "I do not hold it for certain" — that the captains used the auspices craftily, as Machiavelli's rubric and his account of Papirius suppose Machiavelli .02. He states his own belief against Machiavelli's: that, especially in the first times, their minds were held by the religion. And he finds that Machiavelli's own example does not tell against him.
Argument. Papirius, in Guicciardini's reading, did nothing irreligious. He had the report from the pullarii whose office it was to make it, and it was favourable; what some of them told certain soldiers, who told his nephew, who told him, came from third persons, and he had no need to act on it Machiavelli .03. Where Machiavelli sees a general turning a lie into a sign, Guicciardini sees a consul following procedure. He says nothing of Appius Machiavelli .04.
Term. Gli animi loro occupati da questa religione: their minds taken up, occupied, by the religion — held by it, not using it.
Established from Canestrini 1857, Opere inedite vol. 1, pp. 1–65 (WIT-FG-CONS-1857-CANESTRINI) — the editio princeps, which governs. Collated against Palmarocchi 1933 (WIT-FG-CONS-1933-PALMAROCCHI): page images and the Wikisource transcription consulted as collation evidence, not reproduced (LICENSE §5).
Paragraph divisions are editorial. The witness prints the chapter as one unbroken block.
di chi era lo officio — 1933. The 1857 witness reads di chi ora lo officio. Canestrini's page, at the resolution of the only scan available, prints "ora", now, which leaves the clause without a verb. This edition emends from the 1933 edition's "era", whose office it was, and brackets the emended letter.
il quale — 1857. The 1933 witness reads el quale. The 1933 edition has the Florentine form of the article. No difference in sense.
Orthography, capitalization, word division and punctuation follow the governing witness throughout; no reading is hybridized between witnesses.
di chi [e]ra lo officio. Canestrini's page, in the only scan of it available, prints ora, "now", which leaves the clause without a verb. The Italian here is emended from Palmarocchi's 1933 edition, era, "whose office it was", and the bracket marks the emended letter.
astutamente. "Craftily", not "astutely", which in modern English praises. Guicciardini's question is whether the captains worked a religion they did not believe in.
né mi repugna. "Repugnant" in its older sense: contrary, inconsistent. The example of Papirius does not tell against Guicciardini's view. Machiavelli uses the noun two chapters earlier, of his two reasons against the Church, which "have no repugnance".
relazione ... referito. "Report ... reported". The pullarii's report is the one Papirius had to act on; what the soldiers told his nephew, who told him, came from third persons. Machiavelli's riferì, riferendolo, riferendogli are the same verb and take the same English.
attendere. "Attend to": Machiavelli's consul tells the nephew to attend to his own office, and Guicciardini says the consul did not have to attend to hearsay.