The most plausible answer is that Machiavelli reshaped Livy’s account in order to teach a series of non-Livian lessons to his audience – young, potentially virtuous readers who lack political authority (D Dedicatory, 2.pr.3, 3.5.1). Through his remoulding of Livy’s text, Machiavelli resurrects traditional Roman civic virtue, such as we find throughout the ancient historiographical tradition and especially in Livy, but he indicates that that old virtue is insufficient without a brilliant, youthful virtù to support it.4 In particular, Discourses 1.9 on Romulus and the founding of Rome teaches good men how to act badly for good reasons (to commit founding injustices in order to serve the common good) and bad men how to found something good for selfish reasons (to order a republic out of interest in their own power and authority, narrowly construed). By illustrating the ways in which traditional virtue and virtù are intertwined in political practice, Machiavelli points to a striking coincidence of interest between the prince and the people when it comes to the glory of the one and the well-being of the other (Liv. 24.4–5, 21; P 6, 8; D Dedicatory, 1.55.5, 1.58.1, 2.2.1, 2.15.2, 2.30.1–2, 3.6.2). The traditional Roman commitment to the common good helps to excuse the ruthlessness of virtù – a quality that often leads to strategies, decisions and actions that ‘a prudent individual knows’ but that ‘do not have in themselves evident reasons with which one can persuade others’ (D 1.11.3). Through his masterful reworking of these themes, Machiavelli teaches the potentially excellent individual not to reject all ambition in favour of traditional Roman moderation, but rather to use certain traditional virtues both as effective ‘cover’ and as instrumental means for the prudent fulfilment of worldly ambition without reliance on fortune or the arms of others (P 15; D 3.42; Sullivan 1996: 124).
In Machiavelli’s presentation, Rome required men of virtù to found, and even to re-found, its orders in order to keep the city healthy and powerful. Through the efforts of bold, chameleon-like leaders, Rome remained virtuous and powerful for longer than any other republic of which we have memory, largely overcoming the supposedly natural tendency for human things to decline just when they attain the pinnacle of success (D 1.6.4, 1.37.1, 2.pr.2, 3.1).5 Machiavelli, as we have noted, was by no means the first to consider the rise and fall of republics in terms of the success and then the corruption of virtue, but in changing what virtue entails, he has changed the entire narrative. From the perspective of the most excellent individual, the founding prince, a republic maintains his glory and his authority for longer than any other regime; the well-ordered republic most successfully overcomes the problem of political succession – that is, the tendency of leaders’ sons to become lazy, indulgent, unwisely cruel, cowardly and unfamiliar with the struggles of their forefathers. The most virtuous founding is the one that best secures virtuous successors – individuals of great virtue and, even more importantly, those of great virtù – and only a republic can secure such a succession. Against modern princes and famous wise men who ‘enjoy the benefit of time’ rather than ‘the benefit of their virtue and prudence’, Machiavelli teaches all truly ‘wise princes’ to take the prudent, acquisitive and relentless ancient Roman Republic as a model, both in their conquests and in their foundings (P 3; cf. D 2.18–19).
2.3 The Virtuous Republic
We have explained how the virtuous republic benefits its founders, but what about their successors and subjects? What good did the Romans derive from their good orders? For Livy, human beings flourish through virtue, and virtue thrives best in a free state; at its highest points, the Republic combines both glory and warrior discipline with civic justice, reverence for the mos maiorum and concord (see Chapter 11). In these ways, Livy’s historiography comes into close ethical contact with classical philosophical traditions of ‘human flourishing’ and the ‘political art’ more generally.
Livy emphasises these themes throughout his work, but nowhere more clearly than in his admiring account of Rome during the Second Punic War. Late in that war, the traditional Roman virtues reached their peak:
People nowadays may laugh at the admirers of antiquity. I for my part do not believe it possible, even if there ever existed a commonwealth of wise men such as philosophers dream of but have never really known, that there could be an aristocracy more grave or more temperate in their desire for power [cupidine imperii] or a people with purer manners and a higher moral tone [than the Romans]. That a century of juniors should have been anxious to consult their seniors as to whom they were to place in supreme authority is a thing hardly credible in these days, when we see in what contempt children hold the authority of their parents. (Liv. 26.22; cf. Polyb. 6.47–54; Levene 2010: 313–315)
In practice, at least, Livy’s nobles are by no means always moderate and grave, nor are his people always pure and moral; but for all the traditional ‘admirers of antiquity’ to whom Livy is referring, this passage captures the essence of Roman moderation and respect for authority within the virtuous republic. According to Livy, at least, the Roman Republic was truly a republic of virtue up until the Second Punic War because it wisely combined reverence, obedience, moderation and pure mores, all of which were manifested symbolically in the respect of the young for the old. Even if the Romans did not embody their own virtuous ideals completely, they achieved those ideals better than any other people, and their citizens therefore lived the most admirable of human lives. The Roman Republic was the truest aristocracy possible in this world: it cultivated and exhibited the traditional virtues at a higher level and for a longer period than any other commonwealth.
While Livy sets his highest praise of Rome against the utopias of the ancient philosophers, Machiavelli offers his exaltation of the best republic as an alternative to the Christian promise of a heavenly paradise, an idea with neo-Platonic and Stoic roots, but one that was most fully developed in St Augustine’s City of God. Even more than the pagan utopias, Machiavelli teaches, the Christian promise of eternal life has disarmed the earthly world; it has destroyed virtue; it has denigrated the admirable desire for worldly honour, unnaturally subjected humanity to Fortuna, suffused the world with idleness, and weakened men by teaching ‘humility, abjectness, and contempt of things human’ (D 2.2.2). In contrast, Machiavelli’s well-ordered Republic, based on his distinctive understanding of Rome’s greatness, is the most complete ‘paradise’ possible in this world:
For larger peoples are seen there, because marriages are freer and more desirable to men since each willingly procreates those children he believes he can nourish. He does not fear that his patrimony will be taken away, and he knows not only that they are born free and not slaves, but that they can through their virtue become princes. Riches are seen to multiply there in larger number, both those that come from agriculture and those that come from the arts. For each willingly multiplies that thing and seeks to acquire those goods he believes he can enjoy once acquired. From which it arises that men in rivalry think of private and public advantages, and both the one and the other come to grow marvellously.(D 2.2.3)6
In this passage Machiavelli comes close to the ideal republican polities of modern neo-republicans, albeit without their emphasis on the liberal ideals of individual freedom and rights. Machiavelli has liberated human ambition from its traditional limits and venerated earthly prosperity as the cardinal achievement of the successful republic.
While Livy praises the Romans for staving off luxury and wealth longer than any other people, Machiavelli praises their expansionism and successful acquisitiveness. While Livy praises the Romans for moderating their desires, Machiavelli praises them for avoiding the middle path and suggests that in the well-ordered republic every citizen can comfortably pursue his desires (D 3.21). While Livy praises the Republic for cultivating