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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 October 2013
Alexander the Great and his legacy suffuse The Prince, a fact that has received little attention. Machiavelli uses Alexander to illustrate the form of rule in which one is lord and all others are slaves. In recounting the Roman Republic's conquest of Greece, Machiavelli treats Alexander's vanquished successors. Alexander's legacy enters Rome itself, igniting in Romans the desire to subject the world to sole preeminence. According to Machiavelli, Caesar imitated Alexander, and Caesar overturned the republic, initiating the rule of one in Rome. Caesar had his own Roman successors, the emperors who ruled under his name. Rome succeeded in imposing the rule of one on Europe. That form of rule exists in Machiavelli's times with the states of the Turk and the Sultan as well as with the papacy in a limited respect. Something of the old Rome and its Alexandrian aspirations persists in Christian Rome.
1 Machiavelli, Niccolò, The Prince, trans. Mansfield, Harvey C., 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985)Google Scholar. I cite this work by chapter and page number.
2 The common name points to the Hellenic influences in the East that Rome had conquered. Indeed, two of the ten emperors whom Machiavelli treats in the chapter, Heliogabalus and Alexander, were from Syria, the land that Alexander the Great conquered and that his general, Seleucus Nicator, took over after his death and which Antiochus ruled when the Romans contended for Greece. Pompey the Great, Caesar's great rival in the republic, ultimately brought the old Seleucid kingdom into Rome's dominion, making it a Roman province.
3 John P. McCormick notes in passing this phenomenon in The Prince: “since the ancient and modern Caesars and Alexanders are spelled the same way in the Italian text, Machiavelli often compels his readers to pause and reflect upon which ‘Cesare’ or ‘Alessandro’ he may be discussing at any particular time” (McCormick, “Prophetic Statebuilding: Machiavelli and the Passion of the Duke,” Representations 115 [2011]: 3Google Scholar).
4 According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the first pope to take a regnal name was Pope John II in 533. See Mann, Horace, “Pope John II,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 8 (New York: Robert Appleton, 1910)Google Scholar, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08421b.htm. Pope Alexander I is thought to have been the fifth in succession and ruled at the beginning of the second century. See Shahan, Thomas, “Pope St. Alexander I,” Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 1 (New York: Robert Appleton, 1907)Google Scholar, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01285c.htm.
5 Strauss, Leo, Thoughts on Machiavelli (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958)Google Scholar, 55 and n7, 306. See also de Alvarez, Leo Paul, The Machiavellian Enterprise: A Commentary on “The Prince” (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1999)Google Scholar, 19.
6 Machiavelli: Tutte le opere, ed. Martelli, Mario (Florence: Sansoni, 1971)Google Scholar, 260.
7 McCormick both notes Machiavelli's assertion that Caesar imitated Alexander and refers to a “venerable tradition,” which he attributes particularly to Dante, that saw the Roman Caesars as heirs to Alexander, but he does not attribute that particular insight to Machiavelli (“Prophetic Statebuilding,” 3).
8 De Alvarez, Machiavellian Enterprise, 20–21 and n6. Mansfield in his commentary on The Discourses on Livy makes a similar suggestion regarding Machiavelli's understanding of the connection between Alexander and Christianity. See particularly his commentary on 2.28 of the Discourses in Mansfield, Harvey C., Machiavelli's New Modes and Orders: A Study of the “Discourses on Livy” (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1979)Google Scholar, 281.
9 According to Plutarch, Alexander “believed that he came as a heaven-sent governor to all, and as a mediator for the whole world, those whom he could not persuade to unite with him, he conquered by force of arms, and he brought together into one body all men everywhere, uniting and mixing in one great loving-cup, as it were, men's lives, their characters, their marriages, their very habits of life. He bade them all consider as their fatherland the whole inhabited earth, as their stronghold and protection his camp, as akin to them all good men, and as foreigners only the wicked” (On the Fortune or the Virtue of Alexander 329 C 6; quoted from Moralia, trans. Babbitt, Frank Cole [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962Google Scholar], 4:399).
10 Plutarch relates the suspicion that Alexander was the son of the god Ammon. This suspicion of a divine birth was confirmed when the high priest of the temple of Ammon in Siwa, Egypt, apparently “bade Alexander welcome from his father Ammon.” Plutarch emphasizes the extent to which Alexander asserted his supremacy by nurturing his claim to be a god, noting that to “the barbarians” Alexander “carried himself very haughtily, as if he were persuaded of his divine birth and parentage” (Plutarch, Life of Alexander, in The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, trans. Dryden, John, ed. Clough, Arthur Hugh [New York: Modern Library]Google Scholar, 2:161; see also 140, 166, and 191).
11 Tarn, W. W., Alexander the Great (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948)Google Scholar, 1:145–46. The Alexandrian romances in the Middle Ages had made use of Alexander's apparent prefiguring of Christ. See, for example, Selden, Daniel L., “The Coptic Alexander Romance,” in A Companion to Alexander Literature in the Middle Ages, ed. Zuwiyya, Z. David (Leiden: Brill, 2011)Google Scholar, 154.
12 Nietzsche, Friedrich, On the Genealogy of Morals, 2.20; quoted from On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo, trans. Kaufmann, Walter (New York: Vintage Books, 1989)Google Scholar, 90.
13 In Discourses 1.20 Machiavelli describes Alexander as having achieved universal empire: “For it is seen that two virtuous princes in succession are sufficient to acquire the world, as were Philip of Macedon and Alexander the Great” (Discourses on Livy, trans. Mansfield, Harvey C. and Tarcov, Nathan [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996]Google Scholar, 54). Fabrizio, in Machiavelli's Art of War, describes Alexander as “prince of all the world” (Art of War, trans. Lynch, Christopher [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003]Google Scholar, 164).
14 Livy 9.17–19 speculates on what might have happened had Alexander turned his sights west on Carthage and Rome. Machiavelli refers to Livy's conclusions in Discourses 2.10.
15 Of course, Machiavelli points out in The Prince that the works of historians, which leave a memory of past rulers, allow leaders in future times and in other countries to imitate their glorious predecessors (14, 60).
16 For an instructive interpretation of this chapter, see Tarcov, Nathan, “Machiavelli and the Foundations of Modernity: A Reading of Chapter 3 of The Prince,” in Educating the Prince: Essays in Honor of Harvey Mansfield, ed. Blitz, Mark and Kristol, William (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000), 30–44Google Scholar.
17 Machiavelli, Opere, 262.
18 Machiavelli, Opere, 262.
19 That bloodline extends back to the barbarian conquest of Rome, as the barons of France in Machiavelli's day are the descendants of the warriors who overthrew the Asiatic rule of the Roman Empire.
20 Machiavelli, Opere, 262.
21 The Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople in 1453, sixteen years before Machiavelli's birth. Machiavelli underscores in The Prince that the Turk currently possesses Greece (3, 10). The sultan of the Ottoman Empire during the time Machiavelli wrote The Prince was Selim I, who in 1517 conquered the Mamluk Sultanate and thus incorporated Egypt, Syria, and the Arabian Peninsula into his empire. With his so doing, his empire represented a significant portion of Alexander's empire.
22 Machiavelli, Opere, 263.
23 In 1.26 of the Discourses Machiavelli says of “Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander” that “from a small king [he] became prince of Greece” (61).
24 These provinces were senatorial provinces and were not occupied by Roman legions.
25 Alexander's mother, Olympias, was from the royal line of Epirus (Abbott, Jacob, Makers of History: Pyrrhus [New York: Harper & Brothers, 1901], 14–15Google Scholar). Pyrrhus's sister, Deidamia, as a child had been betrothed to Alexander's son by Roxana (Plutarch, Life of Pyrrhus, in Lives, 1:521). De Alvarez notes that Pyrrhus “allied himself with one of Alexander's successors,” but does not note his own close connection to Alexander himself (Machiavellian Enterprise, 21).
26 For Pyrrhus's likeness to Alexander see Plutarch, Life of Pyrrhus, 1:524, 526, 534, and Life of Demetrius, in Lives, 2:472.
27 Diodorus Siculus writes that the Syracusans were hopeful that Pyrrhus would respond favorably to their pleas because he was married to Agathocles's daughter, Lanassa (Library of History, 22.8). Agathocles at this point was no longer tyrant of Syracuse, having died about ten years earlier. See also Plutarch, Life of Pyrrhus, 1:525 for this connection.
28 Cary, M., The Legacy of Alexander: A History of the Greek World from 323 to 146 B.C. (New York: Dial, 1932), 127–31Google Scholar.
29 Whereas Machiavelli focuses on the “disparity of the subject” for Pyrrhus's failure, Plutarch highlights a distinctive personality quirk that rendered the general unable to consolidate his gains. See Plutarch, Life of Pyrrhus, 1:540 and 545.
30 The Tarentines detected a similar intention when he garrisoned their city with his own troops, an act which infuriated the populace and resulted in its resistance to its erstwhile protector. The cities in Sicily also began to be suspicious of his intentions. See Plutarch, Life of Pyrrhus, 1:537 and 539.
31 Machiavelli, Opere, 260.
32 The Prince, 8n2. See also Tarcov, “Machiavelli and the Foundations of Modernity,” 43n8.
33 Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd ed., ed. Hornblower, Simon and Spawforth, Antony (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003)Google Scholar, s.v. “provincia/province.”
34 Oxford Classical Dictionary, s.v. “pro consule, pro praetore.”
35 Livy 25.23: “the Romans just then were angling for the friendship of the Aetolians” (quoted from The War with Hannibal: Books XXI–XXX of The History of Rome from Its Foundation, trans. de Sélincourt, Aubrey [New York: Penguin Books, 1986]Google Scholar, 327). The Roman envoy to the Aetolians tells them that “the Romans had inherited from their forebears the tradition of treating their allies with consideration,” and adds that the Aetolians “would be held in the greater honour in that they would be the first overseas people to have made ties of friendship with Rome” (Livy 26.24; War with Hannibal, 386).
36 Livy 23.33.
37 See Plutarch, Life of Flamininus, in Lives, 1:506: for the Romans, victory in this war meant that they were “to be the conquerors of Macedon, a name which Alexander had made famous amongst them for strength and valour.”
38 See Plutarch's comments on the danger Rome faced in this situation had not Titus acted the way he did: “Had not, therefore, Titus upon a principle of prudence and foresight, lent an ear to peace, and had Antiochus found the Romans still at war in Greece with Philip, and had these two, the most powerful and warlike princes of that age, confederated for their common interests against the Roman state, Rome might once more have run no less a risk, and been reduced to no less extremities, than she had experienced under Hannibal. But now, Titus opportunely introducing this peace between the wars, dispatching the present danger before the new one had arrived, at once disappointed Antiochus of his first hopes and Philip of his last” (Life of Flamininus, 1:506).
39 Plutarch, Life of Flamininus, 1:503. See also Plutarch's discussion of the Aetolians' disappointment that the Romans were making peace with Philip on easy terms rather than “overthrow[ing] the power which had first inflicted servitude upon Greece” (ibid., 506).
40 Livy 33.32–33; Rome and the Mediterranean: Books XXXI–XLV of “The History of Rome from Its Foundation,” trans. Bettenson, Henry (New York: Penguin Books, 1976)Google Scholar, 127.
41 Nabis appears in chapters 9 and 19 of The Prince.
42 Plutarch reports that after Antiochus's power was removed from Greece, “the Romans pressed harder upon Greece, and encompassed the Achaeans with their power; the popular leaders in the several cities yielded before them; and their power speedily, under the divine guidance, advanced to the consummation due to it in the revolutions of fortune” (Life of Philopoemen, in Lives, 1:495) .
43 Ibid., 484.
44 After this battle, Rome also targeted the cities of Chalcis and Thebes for vengeful destruction. See Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, ed. William Smith (Boston: Little, Brown, 1854), s.vv. “Chalcis,” “Corinth,” and “Thebae Boeotiae.”
45 Machiavelli, Opere, 263.
46 Of course, one could make the argument that Alexander imitated both Achilles and Cyrus. For the homage that Alexander paid to the historical Cyrus, see Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander 6.29.
47 Plutarch would seem to be one of those, to whom Machiavelli here refers, who maintain that Caesar imitated Alexander. In fact, Plutarch writes an account of Caesar's life, which he couples with his account of Alexander's. Plutarch's Life of Alexander displays Alexander's desire “for the empire of the world” and the degree to which he accomplished his ambition (Lives, 2:161). In recounting Caesar's life, he refers to Caesar's reading of history that ignites the envy that fuels his future emulation of Alexander. Specifically, Plutarch recounts that once while the young Caesar was serving as a soldier in Spain, “after reading some part of the history of Alexander, he sat a great while very thoughtful, and at last burst out into tears.” When his surprised friends asked him the reason for his tears, the distraught Caesar replied: “‘Do you think,’ said he, ‘I have not just cause to weep, when I consider that Alexander at my age had conquered so many nations, and I have all this time done nothing that is memorable’” (Life of Caesar, in Lives, 2:206). In the Life of Antony, Plutarch says of Caesar that “the true motive that led him was the same that formerly led Alexander and Cyrus against all mankind, the unquenchable thirst of empire, and the distracted ambition of being the greatest man in the world” (Lives, 2:485). In his commentary on this chapter of The Prince, de Alvarez focuses on the connection between Cyrus and Alexander, but neglects the important one the chapter establishes between Alexander and Caesar (Machiavellian Enterprise, 67).
48 In the Discourses Machiavelli declares Caesar “the first tyrant in Rome, such that never again was that city free” (1.37, 80).
49 Plutarch, Life of Alexander, 2:164.
50 See Discourses 1.1 for Machiavelli's discussion of Alexander's founding of Alexandria.
51 Opere, 288.
52 See Jona Lendering, “Roman Provinces,” http://www.livius.org/gi-gr/governor/provinces.html.
53 Herodian, History 2.9.
54 Herodotus refers, for example, to Miltiades, the Athenian, as general and tyrant (στρατηγέοντος καì τυραννεύοντος) of the Chersonesites of the Hellespont (Herodotus 4.137). Herodotus enumerates the tyrants from the Hellespont and some from Ionia at 4.138. The Old Testament refers to Darius and his princes: “It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom a hundred and twenty satraps, to be throughout the whole kingdom” (Dan. 6:1 RSV).
55 Some of the Greek satraps organized a rebellion against Darius's rule, encouraging other Greek cities to depose the tyrants whom Darius had imposed on them (Herodotus 5.35–38). One of their leaders approached the leading free states of Greece in order to gain support for their attack on Persia. The people of Athens, who had recently rid themselves of their own family of tyrants, the Pisistratidae, were so receptive to the envoy's pleas that Athens come to the aid of the Ionian cities and thereby gain Persian riches that a combined force of Athenians and Ionians captured a capital city of Darius's empire, Sardis, and burned it (Herodotus 5.97 and 101). This brought in reprisal the Persian invasion of Greece and attempted attack on Athens, an attempt that failed with the Athenian victory at Marathon.
56 See also chapter 19 for Machiavelli's quite positive analysis of the French monarchy.
57 De Alvarez also draws out the implications of Machiavelli's comparison here: “The explicit connection made between the Turk and the Christian pontificate makes evident that it is the same as the kingdom of Darius or of Cyrus” (de Alvarez, Machiavellian Enterprise, 99). See also Scott, John and Sullivan, Vickie, “Patricide and the Plot of The Prince: Cesare Borgia and Machiavelli's Italy,” American Political Science Review 88 (1994): 892CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
58 When speaking of how good varies from “province to province” in the Discourses, Machiavelli highlights both Persia and Rome, noting that after the world “had first placed its virtue in Assyria, it put it in Media, then in Persia, until it came to be in Italy and Rome” (2 pr. 124). I thank Ioannis Evrigenis for this reference.