It is upon this point where the writings of
Machiavel, having for the rest excelled all other authors, come
as far to excel themselves.
"Commonwealths, says he, have had three ways of propagating
themselves: One after the manner of monarchies, by imposing the
yoke, which was the way of Athens, and, toward the latter times,
of Lacedaemon; another by equal leagues, which is the way of
Switzerland (I shall add of Holland, though since his time); a
third by unequal leagues, which, to the shame of the world, was
never practised, nay, nor so much as seen or minded, by any other
commonwealth but that only of Rome. They will each of them,
either for caution or imitation, be worthy to be well weighed,
which is the proper work of this place. Athens and Lacedaemon
have been the occasion of great scandal to the world, in two, or
at least one of two regards: the first, their emulation, which
involved Greece in perpetual wars; the second, their way of
propagation, which by imposing yokes upon others, was plainly
contradictory to their own principles.
"For the first: governments, be they of what kind soever, if
they be planted too close, are like trees, that impatient in
their growth to have it hindered, eat out one another. It was not
unknown to these in speculation, or, if you read the story of
Agesilaus, in action, that either of them with 30,000 men might
have mastered the East; and certainly, if the one had not stood
in the other's light, Alexander had come too late to that end,
which was the means (and would be if they were to live again) of
ruin, at least to one of them; wherefore with any man that
understands the nature of government this is excusable.
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