ossession of
Affrique, and quitt Sicily to Agathocles. He then that should consider
the actions and valour of this man, would not see any, or very few
things to be attributed unto Fortune; seeing that as is formerly sayd,
not by any ones favour, but by the degrees of service in warre with many
sufferings and dangers, to which he had risen, he came to the
Principality; and that hee maintained afterwards with so many resolute
and hazardous undertakings. Yet cannot this be term'd vertue or valour
to slay his own Citizens, betray his friends, to be without faith,
without pitty, without religion, which wayes are of force to gaine
dominion, but not glory: for if Agathocles his valour bee well weighd,
in his enturing upon, and comming off from dangers, and the greatnesse
of his courage, in supporting and mastering of adversities, no man can
see why he should be thought any way inferiour even to the ablest
Captaines. Notwithstanding his beastly cruelty and inhumanity with
innumerable wickednesses, allow not that he should be celebrated among
the most excellent men. That cannot then be attributed to Fortune or
Vertue, which without the one or the other was attaind to by him. In our
dayes, while Alexander the sixth held the sea, Oliverotte of Fermo, who
some few yeeres before had been left young by his parents, was brought
up under the care of an uncle of his on the mothers side, called John
Foliani, and in the beginning of his youth given, by him to serve in the
warres under Paulo Vitelli: to the end that being well instructed in
that discipline, he might rise to some worthy degree in the warrs.
Afterwards when Paulo was dead, he served under Vitellozzo his brother,
and in very short time, being ingenious, of a good personage, and brave
courage, he became one of the prime men among the troops he served in:
but thinking it but servile to depend upon another, he plotted by the
ayd of some Citizens of Fermo (who lik'd rather the thraldome of their
City than the liberty of it) and by the favour of the Vitelli, to make
himselfe master of Fermo; and writ to John Foliani, that having been
many yeeres from home, he had a mind to come and see him and the City,
and in some part take notice of his own patrimony; and because he had
not imployd himselfe but to purchase honour, to the end his Citizens
might perceive, that he had not vainely spent his time, he had a desire
to come in good equipage and accompanied with a hundred horse of his
fri