ugh young, was a match for him, and the account of the
mission is very curious; there was deep dissimulation on both sides.

Machiavelli returned to Florence in January, 1503, after three eventful
months passed in the court and camp of Borgia.

The treatise _The Prince_ has been described as "a display of cool,
judicious, scientific atrocity on the part of Caesar Borgia (Duke
Valentino), which seemed rather to belong to a fiend than to the most
depraved of men. Principles which the most hardened ruffian would
scarcely hint to his most trusted accomplice, or avow without the
disguise of some palliating sophism even to his own mind, are professed
without the slightest circumlocution, and assumed as the fundamental
axioms of all political science."

On being reproved for the maxims contained in the work, Machiavelli
replied, "If I taught princes how to tyrannize, I also taught the people
how to destroy them"; and in these words posterity has vindicated the
reputation of the talented Italian statesman and author.

Those who from a private station have ascended to the dignity of princes,
by the favor of fortune alone, meet with few difficulties in their
progress, but encounter many in maintaining themselves on the throne.
Obstructed by no impediments during their journey, they soar to a great
height, but all the difficulties arise after they are quietly seated.
These princes are chiefly such as acquire their dominions by money or by
favor. Such were the men whom Darius placed in Greece, in the cities of
Ionia and of the Hellespont, whom, for their own security and glory, he
raised to the rank of sovereigns.

Such were the emperors who from a private station arrived at the empire
by corrupting the soldiery. They sustained their elevation only by the
pleasure and fortune of those who advanced them, two foundations equally
uncertain and insecure. They had neither the experience nor the power
necessary to maintain their position. For, unless men possess superior
genius or courage, how can they know in what manner to govern others who
have themselves always been accustomed to a private station? Deficient in
knowledge, they will be equally destitute of power for want of troops
on whose attachment and fidelity they can depend. Besides, those states
which have suddenly risen, like other things in nature of premature and
rapid growth, do not take sufficient root in the minds of men, but
they must fall with the first stroke of adv