sier to be loved by good men than by bad, and to
obey the laws than to seek to control them.

And to learn what means they must use to retain their authority, they
have only to take example by the conduct of good princes, such as
Timoleon of Corinth, Aratus of Sicyone, and the like, in whose lives
they will find such security and content, both on the side of the ruler
and the ruled, as ought to stir them with the desire to imitate them,
which, for the reasons already given, it is easy for them to do. For
men, when they are well governed, ask no more, nor look for further
freedom; as was the case with the peoples governed by the two whom I
have named, whom they constrained to continue their rulers while they
lived, though both of them sought repeatedly to return to private life.

But because, in this and the two preceding Chapters, I have noticed the
ill-will which arose against the kings, the plots contrived by the sons
of Brutus against their country, and those directed against the elder
Tarquin and Servius Tullius, it seems to me not out of place to
discourse of these matters more at length in the following Chapter, as
deserving the attention both of princes and private citizens.

CHAPTER VI.--_Of Conspiracies._

It were an omission not to say something on the subject of conspiracies,
these being a source of much danger both to princes and to private men.
For we see that many more princes have lost their lives and states
through these than in open warfare; power to wage open war upon a prince
being conceded to few, whereas power to conspire against him is denied
to none. On the other hand, since conspiracies are attended at every
stage by difficulties and dangers, no more hazardous or desperate
undertakings can be engaged in by any private citizen; whence it comes
that while many conspiracies are planned, few effect their object.
Wherefore, to put princes on their guard against these dangers, and to
make subjects more cautious how they take part in them, and rather learn
to live content under whatever government fortune has assigned them,
I shall treat of them at length, without omitting any noteworthy
circumstance which may serve for the instruction of either. Though,
indeed, this is a golden sentence Of Cornelius Tacitus, wherein he says
that "_the past should have our reverence, the present our obedience,
and that we should wish for good princes, but put up with any._"[1]
For assuredly whosoever does otherwi