A Conversation with Machiavelli · Pair 4 of 39
Editor's summary Machiavelli defends Rome's tumults against those who say only fortune and military virtue made up for its disorder: they seldom cost exile or blood, and every law made for liberty, the tribunes among them, arose from the disunion of people and nobles. Guicciardini traces the disunions to a removable cause, the patricians' hold on every magistracy; had the honours been shared from the start, there would have been neither divisions nor tribunes. He allows that the seditions did less harm than in many cities, but the remedy was useful, not the cause, and praising the disunions is praising a sick man's sickness for the goodness of his cure. He does not believe Rome's orders of government a model: its military discipline sustained all the other defects of its government.
Che la disunione della Plebe e del Senato romano fece libera e potente quella Repubblica.
That the disunion of the plebs and of the Roman senate made that republic free and powerful.
Argument. The chapter answers an opinion: that Rome was tumultuary and confused, and that fortune and military virtù made up for its defects. Machiavelli grants fortune and soldiery a part in Rome's empire and then turns the concession: good soldiery presupposes good order, and where there is good order good fortune seldom fails. Guicciardini ends his reply by granting the opinion its military half Guicciardini .03.
History. The span first announced, from the death of the Tarquins to the creation of the tribunes, is short: some fifteen years in the tradition (509–494 BC). In .02 the argument widens to the whole period from the Tarquins to the Gracchi.
Argument. The claim. Every republic holds two humours, the people's and the great's, and the laws made for liberty arise from their disunion. Those who condemn the tumults are counting the noise and not the effects. The evidence is how little the tumults cost: in more than three hundred years, eight or ten citizens exiled, very few killed, not many fined.
History. From the expulsion of the Tarquins (509 BC in the tradition) to the tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus, killed in 133 BC. The count is Machiavelli's own, and a low one: Livy's early books also record the exile of Coriolanus and Camillus and the deaths of Spurius Cassius, Spurius Maelius and Marcus Manlius.
Argument. A chain, each link arising from the next: good examples from good education, good education from good laws, good laws from the tumults. The end of the tumults, examined, was laws and orders for liberty, not exile or violence against the common good.
Argument. The objection is put in the reader's mouth — the shouting, the shut shops, the plebs leaving the city — and answered inside the same period: every city, and above all one that means to use its people in great things, must give them ways to vent their ambition. Rome's were the tumults just described, or refusing to enrol for war, until the people were in part satisfied. The desires of free peoples are seldom pernicious to liberty, since they arise from oppression or the fear of it; and where they are mistaken, a good man speaking to them can set them right.
History. The secessions of the plebs: to the Sacred Mount in 494 BC, which produced the tribunes, and again in 449 and 287 BC. Refusal of the military levy was the plebs' repeated lever in the early republic (Livy, book 2).
Cross-reference. Guicciardini's reply takes up the word rimedio for its own simile Guicciardini .02 — the word, not the thing: Machiavelli's remedy is the harangue, Guicciardini's the concessions that answered the seditions.
Argument. The verdict: Rome's government should be blamed more sparingly, since good effects need good causes; and if the tumults produced the tribunes, they deserve the highest praise, for the tribunes were the guard of Roman liberty. Guicciardini answers the praise of the tribunes in his first paragraph Guicciardini .01. The next chapter asks where that guard is better placed.
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.
con i quali il Popolo possa sfogare l'ambizione sua — 1824. The 1554 witness reads con i quali il popolo sfoghi l'ambitione sua. Giglio's people vent their ambition; the 1824's may vent it. The 1824 makes the outlet a capacity the city provides.
rade volte sono perniziosi alla libertà, perché e' nascono o da essere oppressi, o da suspizione d'avere a essere oppressi — 1824. The 1554 witness reads rade uolte sono dannosi alla liberta, perche e nascono o da essere oppressi, o da suspitione di hauerci ad essere. Same sense: harmful for pernicious, and Giglio leaves the second oppressi understood.
E se i tumulti furono cagione della creazione de' Tribuni, meritano somma laude — 1824. The 1554 witness reads Et della creatione de i Tribuni, meritano somma laude. Giglio has no conditional: the tumults earn the highest praise for the tribunes' creation, stated flatly. The 1824 makes the praise follow from the causal claim the chapter has argued.
furono constituiti per guardia della Libertà romana — 1824. The 1554 witness reads furono ordinati per guardia della liberta Romana. Same sense.
Orthography, capitalization, word division and punctuation follow the governing witness throughout; no reading is hybridized between witnesses.
discorrere. "To discourse" (D01): Machiavelli's opening verb, and Guicciardini's in his last paragraph, where he declines to discourse on the rest of the Roman orders.
tumulti, tumultuaria, tumultuariamente. "Tumults", "tumultuary", "tumultuously": one root through the chapter, kept, because the chapter is a defence of the word.
che dicono, Roma essere stata. The Italian has the Latin construction, the accusative with the infinitive; the English says "who say that Rome was", since the Latin order does not survive into English (D19).
la virtù militare. "Military virtù": the capacity that, on the many's opinion, made up for Rome's disorders. Guicciardini gives the opinion back at the end of his reply: the virtù of its military discipline "sustained all the other defects".
a' loro difetti. "Their defects": the Italian does not say whose, the Romans' or the republic's.
milizia. "Soldiery", as in I.1 (D60): the armed force and its order, not a citizen militia.
Imperio. "Empire", lower case (D124): the dominion Rome acquired, the republic's as much as the emperors'.
conviene. "It is fitting" (D85): where the soldiery is good, the order must be good too.
occorre. "It occurs" (D01): the verb of Machiavelli's ragioni che mi occorrono in I.12.
rade volte, radissime. "Seldom", "very seldom".
Io dico, che coloro ..., mi pare che biasimino. The sentence changes construction after its subject: "those who condemn ..., it seems to me that they blame". Kept.
dannano. "Condemn", twice. The fining of citizens, condannò in danari, is "fined", so that "condemn" stays with the tumults' critics.
duoi umori diversi. "Two diverse humours": the physician's word for the dispositions of a body, here the body politic. Popolo and Grandi are "the people" and "the great".
seguìto. "Come about": the accent marks the participle of seguire, "to follow", in its sense of taking place.
pertanto. "On that account": kept apart from però, "therefore" (D22), and adunque, "then" (D74).
inordinata. "Unordered": the negative of ordine, order, as disordine is disorder.
inconsideratamente. "Inconsiderately": the critics do not consider (considerino) what the tumults bring forth.
efferati. "Savage": wild, made fierce.
partirsi tutta la Plebe di Roma. The secessions of the plebs, when it left the city in a body.
non che altro, chi legge. "To say nothing of others, whoever reads": the scenes frighten even a reader of them.
dare il nome. "Give its name": enrol for military service. Refusing it was the plebs' strike.
a placarlo ... soddisfargli. "To placate it ... to satisfy them": the Italian moves from the people as one body to its members, and so does the English.
d'avere a essere oppressi. "Of having to be oppressed": the fear of a future oppression. Avere a is "be to" elsewhere (D61); here the English cannot take it twice over.
concioni. "Harangues", as in FG I.2: speeches to the assembled people. Orando, "by oration", is their verb.
uomo da bene. "Good man": a man of standing and integrity.
Tully. Marcus Tullius Cicero, whom Machiavelli calls by his nomen, as older English did. The thought is in Cicero's On Friendship (25.95): the assembly, made up of the most ignorant, can yet tell a demagogue from a serious man.
ottime. "Very good": the elative of buono, as pessimo is "very bad".
meritano somma laude. The subject runs on from the tumults, though what was constituted for the guard of liberty were the tribunes. The Italian is as elliptical as the English.
per guardia della Libertà romana. "As guard of Roman liberty": the tribunes as the keepers of liberty, the subject of the next chapter, which asks where that guard is more securely placed.
bisognava. "It was required": the edition's rendering of the impersonal bisognare, in every tense (D260); the reasons are in the note on bisogni at Machiavelli I.2.
Che la disunione della plebe e del senato romano fece libera e potente quella repubblica
That the disunion of the plebs and of the Roman senate made that republic free and powerful Canestrini sets Machiavelli's chapter title over the reply, without the capitals of the 1824 Discorsi and without a full stop.
Argument. He moves the cause back a step. Machiavelli found liberty in the disunion Machiavelli .02; Guicciardini asks where the disunion came from, and finds it in a founding choice: the city was divided into patricians and plebeians and the plebs shut out of every magistracy. Had there been no such distinction, or had half the honours been given to the plebs from the start, as was done later, the divisions would not have arisen. They were damaging — though in a less virtuous republic they would have done more harm — and without them the plebs would not have wanted tribunes, and liberty would have run no more danger from one order than the other. Once the honours were shared, the tribunate was perhaps more harmful than useful, and at least in the latter times the instrument and pretext of those who would disturb the republic; its two great powers, proposing laws and the veto, he cannot praise.
History. Half the honours "as was done afterwards": the Licinian-Sextian laws of 367 BC opened the consulship to plebeians, and other magistracies followed. The fuller treatment he says he wrote "at another time" is his earlier political writing; the translator's note names the Dialogo del reggimento di Firenze.
Cross-reference. In I.3 he had already denied the tribunes the place Machiavelli gave them as intermediaries between plebs and senate.
Argument. The denial is explicit, and it turns the chapter's title back on it: it was not the disunion that made Rome free and powerful Machiavelli .02. He concedes what can be conceded — Rome's seditions did less damage than other cities', and the patricians did well to yield rather than find a way to do without the plebs — and then gives the reply its image: to praise the disunions is to praise a sick man's sickness for the goodness of the remedy. The disorder was there from Rome's beginning, but the kings held it harmless; it broke out when they were expelled, and no one noticed it then: men were thinking of the present ill, and those without great skill in public things learn them only by experience. So a republic has seldom, or perhaps never, had its ordering perfect from the beginning. The remedy was useful; failing to remove the causes was not.
History. Servius Tullius, sixth king, was remembered as the plebs' friend and the author of the census classes. Under the kings, plebeian families were at times enrolled among the patricians. After the expulsion, in the tradition 504 BC, the Sabine Attus Clausus — Appius Claudius — was received into the patriciate with his clients (Livy 2.16): Guicciardini's instance of a stranger preferred over the plebs' own leaders.
Argument. He will not discourse now on the rest of Rome's orders, using Machiavelli's verb from the chapter's first line Machiavelli .01, and says only that he does not believe they were fit for a founder to copy. Then the concession that closes the reply: Rome's military discipline was excellent, and its virtù sustained all the government's other defects. That is the military half of the opinion Machiavelli set out to answer; of fortune Guicciardini says nothing. He adds the condition under which it holds: defects of government matter less in a city that governs itself by arms than in cities that live by industry, whirligigs and the arts of peace — which, from a Florentine, may be read as a glance at Florence; the text does not name 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).
nuove. The 1857 witness reads nuova leggi, as the letter prints. The 1933 witness reads nuove legge. The printed letter is a-shaped on a scan that loses the bar of e throughout (plabe, aletti in the same reply), and nuova leggi does not agree. Read as nuove, with the 1933 edition (D111).
al quale ancora speravano — 1857. The 1933 witness reads al quale ancora loro speravano. The 1933 edition supplies the subject; same sense.
quanto a quelli ordini — 1857. The 1933 witness reads dico quanto a quelli ordini. The 1933 edition has dico, making the second quanto a restatement.
tra' patrizii e e' plebei — 1857. The 1933 witness reads tra patrizi e plebei. Canestrini doubles the article; no difference of sense.
Orthography, capitalization, word division and punctuation follow the governing witness throughout; no reading is hybridized between witnesses.
The paragraphs. Canestrini prints this reply in three paragraphs, and they are kept: the cause of the disunion, its remedy, and the rest of the Roman orders.
altra volta scritto più largamente. "At another time written more largely": Canestrini's note refers to other writings he was to publish in the volumes that followed; Guicciardini had weighed the Roman orders at length in the Dialogo del reggimento di Firenze.
però. "Therefore", twice (D22): he writes briefly because he has written at length before; and because experience is the only teacher of public things, a republic has seldom been ordered perfectly from the start.
nuove leggi. Canestrini's letter prints like an a, as barless e does throughout this scan. Read as nuove, as the 1933 edition prints it.
ordini. "Orders", of the ranks of the city: patricians and plebeians. The same word is the orders of government in .03.
patrizii, plebei, plebe. "Patricians", "plebeians", "the plebs". Guicciardini names the two ranks where Machiavelli says nobles and plebs.
Ché se ... non nascevano. The imperfect in the result of a contrary-to-fact condition is counterfactual (D47): "would not have arisen". The period then runs on through non arebbe and né sarebbe, what the plebs would not have desired and the magistracy would not have been.
comunicati gli onori, era comunicata la potenza. "The honours communicated, the power was communicated": an entailment, stated as a rule — to share the honours is to share the power. Kept as a plain past, not drawn into the counterfactual.
manco virtuosa. "Less virtuous": the adjective of virtù. A republic with less of it would have suffered more from the same divisions.
nocumento, noceva. "Harm", "did harm". Danno and dannose are "damage" and "damaging"; the tumults' nocivi in Machiavelli are "harmful".
è certo ... forse. "It is certain that ... perhaps": the certainty is that the tribunate was perhaps more damaging than useful. Kept as printed.
instrumento e colore. "Instrument and colour": the tribunate as the tool and the pretext of those who would disturb the republic.
massime. "Above all", as in Machiavelli's e massime quelle cittadi.
lo intercedere. "Interceding": the tribune's veto, as in I.3.
laudare le disunioni ... la infermità. The simile's last word is the sickness, and the English keeps it last. Infermo and infermità are "sick man" and "sickness", one root. The remedio is Machiavelli's word for the harangues (il rimedio delle concioni).
sotto e' re non noceva. "Under the kings it did no harm": the kings held the authority, so the senate could not oppress the plebs, and the kings saw to the plebs' conveniences (comodi, D59).
Servius Tullius. The sixth king, remembered as a friend of the plebs and the author of the census; più ambiziosamente che non si doveva, "more ambitiously than was due", is Guicciardini's judgment on his courting of it.
eleggere ... ne' patrizii. "Choose ... into the patricians": the kings' enrolment of plebeian families among the patricians. Eleggere is "choose", as throughout (I.1).
ancora. "Yet", in al quale ancora speravano: the plebeians bore the patrician rank more readily because they might yet reach it. The 1933 edition adds the subject, loro.
fastiditi. "Disdained": held in loathing, as ignoble.
forestieri. "Strangers" (D57).
Appius Claudius. The Sabine Attus Clausus, received with his clients into the patriciate in the first years of the republic, in the tradition 504 BC; ancestor of the Claudii.
il male presente. "The present ill": the kings. Male is "ill" (FG I.2).
perizia. "Skill": the expertness of the practised.
ordinazione. "Ordering": with ordine, ordinare, ordinatore.
il non levare da principio le cause. "The not removing from the beginning of the causes": the infinitive as a noun, kept, set against il rimedio as the thing that was not useful.
non voglio ora discorrere. "I do not wish now to discourse": he uses Machiavelli's verb, from the first line of the chapter, to decline the discussion (D01).
non credo. "I do not believe": his act of assent withheld (credo, glossary).
per esemplo. "For an example": as a model to copy.
la virtù sua ... tutti gli altri difetti. The military discipline's virtù "sustained all the other defects": the opinion of the many that Machiavelli set out to answer, that military virtù supplied Rome's defects, is where Guicciardini ends.
si regge, si governano. Both "govern themselves" (D64).
girandole. "Whirligigs": the spinning wheels of a firework, and figuratively shifts and schemes. It is set between industria, "industry", in the older sense of ingenious application, and "the arts of peace"; the word is not a neutral one.