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The Discourses on Livy: Preserving a Free Way of Life

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The Discourses on Livy: Preserving a Free Way of Life THE DISCOURSES ON LIVY: PRESERVING A FREE WAY OF LIFE Julia Conaway Bondanella In The Discourses on Livy, Machiavelli embarks on a quest to discover both the necessary attributes of a vivere libero—a free way of life—and its effects on those who live it, revealing himself to be an experienced and enthusi- astic public servant, a student of history, and a passionate proponent of free republics rather than a forerunner of the modern political scientist.1 Comparing himself to early explorers like Columbus, he embarks on an investigation of the best model of republican government.2 Although his contemporaries preferred the Venetian model, and at the time he wrote, most Italian city republics were becoming principalities, he per- sists in going down a path he describes as “still untrodden” (Preface to Autograph Manuscript).3 Undoubtedly he shares in the judgment of his classical models from Aristotle to Cicero, that political action is among the most glorious human activities (I. 10, 47–50)4 and that the goal of a republic is to achieve civic greatness, but he quali\ es this verdict with the direct claim that “governments by peoples are better than governments by princes” (I. 58, 144). In The Discourses on Livy, the primary model for a great republic is Rome, and the chief characteristics 1 Ernst Cassirer and others have depicted Machiavelli as a scientist who analyzes the forms of political life. Maurizio Viroli’s careful and convincing analysis of his rhetoric supports the view of Machiavelli as a student of the classics and passionate advocate of republican liberty rather than a “scientist.” See Viroli, Machiavelli (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 73–113, or, more recently, Viroli’s introduction to Machiavelli, The Prince, trans. Peter Bondanella (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), vi–xxxix. All citations from this work come from this edition. 2 I prefer to translate modi e ordini nuovi as new methods and institutions. For a differ- ent view, see Harvey Mans eld, Machiavelli’s New Modes and Orders (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1979). 3 Discourses on Livy, trans. and ed. Julia Conaway Bondanella and Peter Bondanella (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 15. All future citations from this work come from this translation and will be listed in the text by book and chapter, as well as by the relevant page number of this edition. 4 In his Florentine Histories (I. Proem), Machiavelli says that “politics have greatness in them.” See the edition edited and translated by Laura F. Ban\ eld and Harvey C. Mans eld, Jr. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988). 70 julia conaway bondanella of the vivere libero re] ect Roman practice: they include political liberty, devotion to the common good, equality under just laws, mixed, elective government, the active participation of the people, expansionism, open opportunities to compete for civic honors, and the avoidance of excessive self-interest, ambition, envy, tyranny, corruption, and harm. Maintaining a free way of life requires tolerating internal political con] ict and using new standards for judging political actions, but most of all it requires the right institutions (ordini ) and methods (modi ) as well as citizens with exceptional talents (virtù). Political action in a free republic clearly confers special worth on human life. In Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy, only a free, republican government by the people can achieve greatness and glory. Because Athens and Venice had free beginnings and lived under their own laws, they were able “to reach the level of greatness they presently enjoy” (I. 1, 19–20). Machiavelli claims that founders of both republics and kingdoms rank second only to the founders of religion in earning glory and praise, but he warns that tyranny is an ever-present danger because human beings, including the powerful, are all too readily seduced by false goods—especially those that appeal to their own self-interest.5 He warns, re ecting an essentially pessimistic Augustinian view of human nature best outlined in The Prince, that human beings, no matter how talented, are all too quickly distracted from the common good, because they are also fundamentally weak, changeable, and sel sh. Only in a republic with the right institutions and values can this somewhat deplorable human readiness to indulge private appetites and interests be contained and turned toward the common good and the establish- ment of a free way of life. For Machiavelli, the only republic with the right institutions, values, and valor was the Roman Republic, another city with free beginnings. The necessities “imposed upon the city by Romulus, Numa, and the others” combined with “the fertility of the site, the convenience of the sea, the frequent victories, and the great size of its empire were unable to corrupt it for centuries, and these laws kept it full of as much exceptional ability [virtù] as ever adorned any other city or republic” (I. 1, 22).6 5 “Among all men who are praised, the most highly praised are those who have been leaders and founders of religions. Close afterwards come those who have founded either republics or kingdoms” (I. 10, 47). 6 Quentin Skinner discusses the theme of “grandezza” or greatness in “Machiavelli’s Discorsi and the pre-humanist origins of republican ideas,” in Machiavelli and Republican-.
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