was done to
any other), it may perhaps be asked, how it happens that of these
revolutions, some have been attended by bloodshed and others not.

The answer I take to be this. The government which suffers change either
has or has not had its beginning in violence. And since the government
which has its beginning in violence must start by inflicting injuries on
many, it must needs happen that on its downfall those who were injured
will desire to avenge themselves; from which desire for vengeance
the slaughter and death of many will result. But when a government
originates with, and derives its authority from the whole community,
there is no reason why the community, if it withdraw that authority,
should seek to injure any except the prince from whom it withdraws it.
Now the government of Rome was of this nature, and the expulsion of the
Tarquins took place in this way. Of a like character was the government
of the Medici in Florence, and, accordingly, upon their overthrow in the
year 1494, no injury was done to any save themselves.

In such cases, therefore, the changes I speak of do not occasion any
very great danger. But the changes wrought by men who have wrongs to
revenge, are always of a most dangerous kind, and such, to say the
least, as may well cause dismay in the minds of those who read of them.
But since history abounds with instances of such changes I need say no
more about them.

CHAPTER VIII.--_That he who would effect Changes in a Commonwealth, must
give heed to its Character and Condition_

I have said before that a bad citizen cannot work grave mischief in a
commonwealth which has not become corrupted. This opinion is not only
supported by the arguments already advanced, but is further confirmed by
the examples of Spurius Cassius and Manlius Capitolinus. For Spurius,
being ambitious, and desiring to obtain extraordinary authority in
Rome, and to win over the people by loading them with benefits (as, for
instance, by selling them those lands which the Romans had taken from
the Hernici,) his designs were seen through by the senate, and laid him
under such suspicion, that when in haranguing the people he offered them
the money realized by the sale of the grain brought from Sicily at the
public expense, they would have none of it, believing that he offered it
as the price of their freedom. Now, had the people been corrupted, they
would not have refused this bribe, but would have opened rather than
clo