The Prince

to hold them, there are three ways. The first is to ruin them. The second is to go there to live personally. The third is to let them live under their own laws, exacting a tribute, and creating within them a State of a few who will keep it friendly to you. Because that State, being created by that Prince, knows that it cannot stand without his friendship and power, and it must do everything to maintain him; and a city accustomed to live free is more easily held by means of its own citizens than in any other way, if one wishes to preserve it. There are for example the Spartans and the Romans. The Spartans held Athens and Thebes, creating a state of a few there; nevertheless, they lost them. The Romans, to hold Capua, Carthage, and Numantia, destroyed them and did not lose them. They wanted to hold Greece almost as the Spartans held it, making it free and leaving it its laws, and it did not succeed for them; in such a way that they were forced to destroy many cities of that Province to hold it; because in truth there is no secure way to possess them other than their ruin. And whoever becomes master of a City accustomed to live free, and does not destroy it, should expect to be destroyed by it, because it always has as a refuge in rebellion the name of liberty and its ancient institutions, which neither by length of time nor by benefits are ever forgotten; and whatever one does or provides, if one does not disunite or dissipate the inhabitants, that name nor those institutions are never forgotten, but immediately in every accident they are resorted to, as Pisa did after so many years that it had been placed in servitude by the Florentines. But when the Cities or the Provinces are accustomed to live under a Prince, and that lineage is extinguished, being on one side used to obeying, and on the other not having the old Prince, they do not agree to make one among themselves, and they do not know how to live freely; so that they are slower to take up arms, and with more ease a Prince can gain them and secure himself of them. But in Republics, there is greater hatred, more desire for vengeance, nor does the memory of ancient liberty let them nor can it let them rest: so that the most secure way is to extinguish them or to live there.