Princes have tried various tactics to maintain power: disarming their subjects, dividing their subjects into factions, encouraging their enemies, winning over the suspicious, building new fortresses, and tearing down fortresses.
New princes must never disarm their subjects,
Princes have tried various tactics to maintain power: disarming their subjects, dividing their subjects into factions, encouraging their enemies, winning over the suspicious, building new fortresses, and tearing down fortresses.
New princes must never disarm their subjects, for if a prince arms his people, their arms become his. If a prince disarms them, the people will hate him, and he will be forced to employ mercenaries.
Conventional wisdom says that creating factions is a good way to control a state. This may have been true when Italy was more s