page_title: The Prince
section_title: Conquests by virtue (Chapter 6)
hierarchical_section_title: The Prince / Summary / Totally New States (Chapters 6–9) / Conquests by virtue (Chapter 6)
caption_attribution_description: Moses Smashing the Tables of the Law
context_page_description: The Prince is a 16th-century political treatise by the Italian diplomat and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli. From his correspondence, a version appears to have been distributed in 1513, using a Latin title, De Principatibus. However, the printed version was not published until 1532, five years after Machiavelli's death. This was carried out with the permission of the Medici pope Clement VII, but "long before then, in fact since the first appearance of The Prince in manuscript, controversy had swirled about his writings".
  Although The Prince was written as if it were a traditional work in the mirrors for princes style, it is generally agreed that it was especially innovative. This is partly because it was written in the vernacular Italian rather than Latin, a practice that had become increasingly popular since the publication of Dante's Divine Comedy and other works of Renaissance literature.
  The Prince is sometimes claimed to be one of the first works of modern philosophy, especially modern political philosophy, in which the "effectual" truth is taken to be more important than any abstract ideal.
context_section_description: Princes who rise to power through their own skill and resources (their "virtue") rather than luck tend to have a hard time rising to the top, but once they reach the top they are very secure in their position.  This is because they effectively crush their opponents and earn great respect from everyone else.  Because they are strong and more self-sufficient, they have to make fewer compromises with their allies.
  Machiavelli writes that reforming an existing order is one of the most dangerous and difficult things a prince can do. Part of the reason is that people are naturally resistant to change and reform. Those who benefited from the old order will resist change very fiercely. By contrast, those who can benefit from the new order will be less fierce in their support, because the new order is unfamiliar and they are not certain it will live up to its promises.  Moreover, it is impossible for the prince to satisfy everybody's expectations. Inevitably, he will disappoint some of his followers. Therefore, a prince must have the means to force his supporters to keep supporting him even when they start having second thoughts, otherwise he will lose his power. Only armed prophets, like Moses, succeed in bringing lasting change. Machiavelli claims that Moses killed uncountable numbers of his own people in order to enforce his will.
  Machiavelli was not the first thinker to notice this pattern. Allan Gilbert wrote: "In wishing new laws and yet seeing danger in them Machiavelli was not himself an innovator," because this idea was traditional and could be found in Aristotle's writings. But Machiavelli went much further than any other author in his emphasis on this aim, and Gilbert associates Machiavelli's emphasis upon such drastic aims with the level of corruption to be found in Italy.
caption: Machiavelli described Moses as a conquering prince, who founded new modes and orders by force of arms, which he used willingly to kill many of his own people. The Bible describes the reasons behind his success differently.
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