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Agathocles was cruel and merciless – and although he held onto his power, he was not glorious as he is remembered as a tyrant. Borgia on the other hand committed a savage act, but is remembered as a glorious ruler. Glory places a limit on what the prince can do for Machiavelli.

Knowing … that the severities of the past had earned him a certain amount of hatred, to purge the minds of the people and to win them over completely he determined to show that if cruelties had been inflicted they were not his doing but prompted by the harsh nature of his minister. This gave Cesare a pretext; then, one morning, Remirro’s body was cut in two pieces on the piazza at Cesna, with a block of wood and a bloody knife beside it. The brutality of this spectacle kept the people of the Romagna for a time appeased and stupefied. (Machiavelli, 1961: 57–8, my emphasis)

So Borgia managed to restore order to an area he had conquered by installing a minister to do just this, and when the criticism of these methods started to be aimed at him, he had the minister killed and his body displayed in the town square so that his subjects would think that he had listened to them. Machiavelli thinks that this is marvellous. But precisely how is this different from the criticisms that he levels at Agathocles? The answer lays in glory. Agathocles was remembered as a tyrant who murdered many of his citizens and largely destroyed the areas under his control. He is not the type of ruler that future students of power and politics would wish to emulate. Borgia is remembered as ‘severe yet loved, magnanimous and generous’ and the leader of a glorious state, and precisely the type of leader who we should copy and learn the virtues of politics from (Machiavelli, 1961: 61).

Far, then, from Machiavelli thinking that the prince can do anything he wants in order to protect his position, Machiavelli thinks that glory rather than the Christian virtues places restrictions on the actions of a prince. Brutal, faithless acts are permitted as a means to an end to a glorious state. As he discusses in his Discourses on Livy when discussing Romulus’ murder of his brother Remus, ‘when the act accuses him, the result should excuse him; and when the result is good, as in the case of Romulus, it will always absolve him from blame’ (Machiavelli, 1950: 139). Whereas it might not be morally right to murder one’s brother, the resulting founding of Rome, the eternal city, means we can forget this transgression. The end does not always justify the means, but if the ends are glorious the means can be justified. Glory is the purpose of politics for Machiavelli, and the nature of man and politics is such that, in order to bring about a glorious state, it is necessary to do some things which are not quite so good.

So Machiavelli presents us with a consequentialist account of politics and morality. We cannot determine from his works a right or wrong set of political actions, and the virtue of a prince is to be able to do the right thing at the right time; to have the skill to be able to make political judgements based upon necessity. Therefore, the rightness or wrongness of an act cannot be determined by its intentions, motivations or adherence to a moral code, but rather from what occurs as a result of them. If a prince’s achievements lead to a strong state with artistic and financial achievements, and that prince is then remembered as one to study and attempt to emulate for future generations, then he can be forgiven the occasional act that might otherwise be considered contrary to morality. If you are remembered solely for your breaches of morality and you achieve little else than power, then you will not be regarded as glorious.

Activity 2. Please attempt the activities below:

1 Why did Machiavelli think Agathocles was a tyrant and Borgia was glorious? Is there a contradiction here?

2 Why does Machiavelli think that a prince should not always follow the Christian virtues?