A further threat to political stability arises from the notorious propensity of self-governing republics to slander and exhibit ingratitude towards their leading citizens. Machiavelli first alludes to this deficiency in chapter 29, where he argues that one of the gravest errors any city is liable to commit 'in keeping herself free' is that of doing 'injury to citizens whom she should reward'. This is a particularly dangerous disease to leave untreated, since those who suffer such injustices are generally in a strong position to strike back, thereby bringing their city 'all the quicker to tyranny - as happened to Rome with Caesar, who by force took for himself what ingratitude denied him' (259).
Finally, Machiavelli discusses what he takes to be the most serious danger to the balance of a mixed constitution, the danger that an ambitious citizen may attempt to form a party based on loyalty to himself instead of to the common good. He begins to analyse this source of instability in chapter 34, after which he devotes most of the remainder of the first Discourse to considering how such corruption tends to arise, and what type of ordini are needed to ensure that this gateway to tyranny is kept closed.
One way of encouraging the growth of faction is by allowing the prolongation of military commands. Machiavelli even implies that it was 'the power citizens gained' in this way, more than anything else, that eventually 'made Rome a slave' (267). The reason why it is always 'to the detriment of liberty' when such 'free authority is given for a time 'is that absolute authority always corrupts the people by turning them into its 'friends and partisans' (270, 280).
This is what happened in Rome's armies under the late republic. 'When a citizen was for a long time commander of an army, he gained its support and made it his partisan', so that the army 'in time forgot the Senate and considered him its head' (486). Then it only needed Sulla, Marius, and later Caesar to seek out 'soldiers who, in opposition to the public good, would follow them' for the balance of the constitution to be tilted so violently that tyranny quickly supervened (282, 486). The proper response to this menace is not to take fright at the very idea of dictatorial authority, since this may sometimes be vitally needed in cases of national emergency (268-9). Rather the answer should be to ensure, by means of the right ordini, that such powers are not abused.
This can be achieved in two main ways: by requiring that all absolute commands be 'set up for a limited term but not for life'; and by ensuring that their exercise is restricted in such a way that they are only able 'to dispose of that affair that caused them to be set up'. As long as these ordini are observed, there is no danger that -79- absolute power will corrupt absolutely and 'weaken the government' (268).引自 The Price of Liberty
The other principal source of faction is the malign influence exercised by those with extensive personal wealth. The rich are always in a position to do favours to other citizens, such as 'lending them money, marrying off their daughters, protecting them from the magistrates' and in general conferring benefits of various kinds. Patronage of this nature is extremely sinister, since it tends to 'make men partisans of their benefactors' at the cost of the public interest. This in turn serves to 'give the man they follow courage to think he can corrupt the public and violate the laws' (493). Hence Machiavelli's insistence that 'corruption and slight aptitude for free life spring from inequality in a city'; hence too his frequently reiterated warning that 'the ambition of the rich, if by various means and in various ways a city does not crush it, is what quickly brings her to ruin' (240, 274).
The only way out of this predicament is for 'well-ordered republics' to 'keep their treasuries rich and their citizens poor' (272). Machiavelli is somewhat vague about the type of ordini needed to bring this about, but he is eloquent about the benefits to be expected from such a policy. If the law is used to 'keep the citizens poor', this will effectively prevent them - even when they are 'without goodness and wisdom' - from being able to 'corrupt themselves or others with riches' (469). If at the same time the city's coffers remain full, the government will be able to outbid the rich in any 'scheme of befriending the people', since it will always be possible to offer greater rewards for public than for private services (300). Machiavelli accordingly concludes that 'the most useful thing a free community can bring about is to keep its members poor' (486). He ends his discussion on a grandly rhetorical note by adding that he could 'show with a long speech that poverty produces much better fruits than riches', if 'the writings of other men had not many times made the subject splendid' (488).
以下乱入一句《银英》外传里的话。
「天才要如何生存、如何在组织里立足、或是组织该如何对待天才，这些都是非常棘手的问题，要面面俱到实在是不容易。」
