Pagina 9 van 310

Again, the prince who holds a country differing in the above

respects ought to make himself the head and defender of his less

powerful neighbours, and to weaken the more powerful amongst

them, taking care that no foreigner as powerful as himself shall,

by any accident, get a footing there; for it will always happen

that such a one will be introduced by those who are discontented,

either through excess of ambition or through fear, as one has

seen already. The Romans were brought into Greece by the

Aetolians; and in every other country where they obtained a

footing they were brought in by the inhabitants. And the usual

course of affairs is that, as soon as a powerful foreigner enters

a country, all the subject states are drawn to him, moved by the

hatred which they feel against the ruling power. So that in

respect to those subject states he has not to take any trouble to

gain them over to himself, for the whole of them quickly rally to

the state which he has acquired there.