Is it not a shame, after such an example of moderation in these creatures, that men should be yet intemperate? It were well if they lost their stings too in their revenge, as well as the other, that they might hurt but once, and do no mischief by their proxies. It would tire them out, if either they were to execute all with their own hands, or to wound others at the peril of their own lives.
A prince should behave himself generously in the power which God has given him of life and death, especially towards those that have been at any time his equals; for the one has his revenge, and the other his punishment in it. He that stands indebted for his life has lost it; but he that receives his life at the foot of his enemy, lives to the honor of his preserver: he lives the lasting monument of his virtue; whereas, if he had been led in triumph, the spectacle would have been quickly over. Or what if he should restore him to his kingdom again? would it not be an ample accession to his honor to show that he found nothing about the conquered that was worthy of the conqueror? There is nothing more venerable than a prince that does not revenge an injury. He that is gracious is beloved and reverenced as a common father; but a tyrant stands in fear and in danger even of his own guards. No prince can be safe himself of whom all others are afraid; for to spare none is to enrage all. It is an error to imagine that any man can be secure that suffers nobody else to be so too. How can any man endure to lead an uneasy, suspicious, anxious life, when he may be safe if he please, and enjoy all the blessings of power, together with the prayers of his people? Clemency protects a prince without a guard; there is no need of troops, castles, or fortifications: security on the one side is the condition of security on the other; and the affections of the subject are the most invincible fortress. What can be fairer, than for a prince to live the object of his people’s love; to have the vows of their heart as well as of their lips, and his health and sickness their common hopes and fears? There will be no danger of plots; nay, on the contrary, who would not frankly venture his blood to save him, under whose government, justice, peace, modesty, and dignity flourish? under whose influence men grow rich and happy; and whom men look upon with such veneration, as they would do upon the immortal gods, if they were capable of seeing them? And as the true representative of the Almighty they consider him, when he is gracious and bountiful, and employs his power to the advantage of his subjects.
When a prince proceeds to punishment, it must be either to vindicate himself or others. It is a hard matter to govern himself in his own case. If a man should advise him not to be credulous, but to examine matters, and indulge the innocent, this is rather a point of justice than of clemency: but in case that he be manifestly injured, I would have him forgive, where he may safely do it: and be tender even where he cannot forgive; but far more exorable in his own case, however, than in another’s.
It is nothing to be free of another man’s purse, and it is as little to be merciful in another man’s cause. He is the great man that masters his passion where he is stung himself, and pardons when he might destroy. The end of punishment is either to comfort the party injured, or to secure him for the future. A prince’s fortune is above the need of such a comfort, and his power is too eminent to seek an advance of reputation by doing a private man a mischief. This I speak in case of an affront from those that are below us; but he that of an equal has made any man his inferior, has his revenge in the bringing of him down. A prince has been killed by a servant, destroyed by a serpent: but whosoever preserves a man must be greater than the person that he preserves. With citizens, strangers, and people of low condition, a prince is not to contend, for they are beneath him: he may spare some out of good will, and others as he would do some little creatures that a man cannot touch without fouling his fingers: but for those that are to be pardoned or exposed to public punishment, he may use mercy as he sees occasion; and a generous mind can never want inducements and motives to it; and whether it be age or sex, high or low, nothing comes amiss.
To pass now to the vindication of others, there must be had a regard either to the amendment of the person punished, or the making others better for fear of punishment, or the taking the offender out of the way for the security of others. An amendment may be procured by a small punishment, for he lives more carefully that has something yet to lose—it is a kind of impunity to be incapable of a farther punishment. The corruptions of a city are best cured by a few and sparing severities; for the multitude of offenders creates a custom of offending, and company authorizes a crime, and there is more good to be done upon a dissolute age by patience than by rigor; provided that it pass not for an approbation of ill-manners, but only as an unwillingness to proceed to extremities. Under a merciful prince, a man will be ashamed to offend, because a punishment that is inflicted by a gentle governor seems to fall heavier and with more reproach: and it is remarkable also, that “those sins are often committed which are very often punished.” Caligula, in five years, condemned more people to the sack than ever were before him: and there were “fewer parricides before the law against them than after;” for our ancestors did wisely presume that the crime would never be committed, until by law for punishing it, they found that it might be done. Parricides began with the law against them, and the punishment instructed men in the crime. Where there are few punishments, innocency is indulged as a public good, and it is a dangerous thing to show a city how strong it is in delinquents. There is a certain contumacy in the nature of man that makes him oppose difficulties. We are better to follow than to drive; as a generous horse rides best with an easy bit. People obey willingly where they are commanded kindly.
When Burrhus the prefect was to sentence two malefactors, he brought the warrant to Nero to sign; who, after a long reluctancy came to it at last with this exclamation: “I would I could not write!” A speech that deserved the whole world for an auditory, but all princes especially; and that the hearts of all the subjects would conform to the likeness of their masters. As the head is well or ill, so is the mind dull or merry. What is the difference betwixt a king and a tyrant, but a diversity of will under one and the same power. The one destroys for his pleasure, the other upon necessity; a distinction rather in fact than in name.
A gracious prince is armed as well as a tyrant; but it is for the defence of his people and not for the ruin of them. No king can ever have faithful servants that accustoms them to tortures and executions; the very guilty themselves do not lead so anxious a life as the persecutors: for they are not only afraid of justice, both divine and human, but it is dangerous for them to mend their manners; so that when they are once in, they must continue to be wicked upon necessity. An universal hatred unites in a popular rage. A temperate fear may be kept in order; but when it comes once to be continual and sharp, it provokes people to extremities, and transports them to desperate resolutions, as wild beasts when they are pressed upon the toil, turn back and assault the very pursuers. A turbulent government is a perpetual trouble both to prince and people; and he that is a terror to all others is not without terror also himself. Frequent punishments and revenges may suppress the hatred of a few, but then it stirs up the detestation of all, so that there is no destroying one enemy without making many. It is good to master the will of being cruel, even while there may be cause for it, and matter to work upon.
Augustus was a gracious prince when he had the power in his own hand; but in the triumviracy he made use of his sword, and had his friends ready armed to set upon Antony during that dispute. But he behaved himself afterwards at another rate; for when he was betwixt forty and fifty years of age he was told that Cinna was in a plot to murder him, with the time, place and manner of the design; and this from one of the confederates. Upon this he resolved upon a revenge, and sent for several of his friends to advise upon it. The thought of it kept him waking, to consider, that there was the life of a young nobleman in the case, the nephew of Pompey, and a person otherwise innocent. He was off and on several times whether he should put him to death or not. “What!” says he, “shall I live in trouble and in danger myself, and the contriver of my death walk free and secure? Will nothing serve him but that life which Providence has preserved in so many civil wars—in so many battles both by sea and land; and now in the state of an universal peace too—and not a simple murder either, but a sacrifice; for I am to be assaulted at the very altar—and shall the contriver of all this villainy escape unpunished?” Here Augustus made a little pause, and then recollecting himself: “No, no, Cæsar,” says he, “it is rather Cæsar than Cinna that I am to be angry with: why do I myself live any longer after that my death is become the interest of so many people? And if I go on, what end will there be of blood and of punishment? If it be against my life that the nobility arm itself, and level its weapons, my single life is not worth the while, if so many must be destroyed that I may be preserved.”
His wife Livia gave him here an interruption, and desired him that he would for once hear a woman’s counsel. “Do,” says she, “like a physician, that when common remedies fail, will try the contrary: you have got nothing hitherto by severity—after Salvidianus there followed Lepidus—after him Muræna—Cæpio followed him, and Egnatius followed Cæpio—try now what mercy will do—forgive Cinna. He is discovered, and can do no hurt to your person; and it will yet advantage you in your reputation.” Augustus was glad of the advice, and he gave thanks for it; and thereupon countermanded the meeting of his friends, and ordered Cinna to be brought to him alone; for whom he caused a chair to be set, and then discharged the rest of the company. “Cinna,” says Augustus, “before I go any farther, you must promise not to give me the interruption of one syllable until I have told you all I have to say, and you shall have liberty afterwards to say what you please. You cannot forget, that when I found you in arms against me, and not only made my enemy, but born so, I gave you your life and fortune. Upon your petition for the priesthood, I granted it, with a repulse to the sons of those that had been my fellow-soldiers; and you are at this day so happy and so rich, that even the conquerors envy him that is overcome; and yet after all this, you are in a plot, Cinna, to murder me.” At that word Cinna started, and interposed with exclamations, “that certainly he was far from being either so wicked or so mad.” “This is a breach of conditions, Cinna,” says Augustus, “it is not your time to speak yet: I tell you again, that you are in a plot to murder me;” and so he told him the time, the place, the confederates, the order and manner of the design, and who it was that was to do the deed. Cinna, upon this, fixed his eye upon the ground without any reply: not for his word’s sake, but as in a confusion of conscience: and so Augustus went on. “What,” says he, “may your design be in all this? Is it that you would pretend to step into my place? The commonwealth were in an ill condition, if only Augustus were in the way betwixt you and the government. You were cast the other day in a cause by one of your own freemen, and do you expect to find a weaker adversary of Cæsar? But what if I were removed? There is Æmilius Paulus, Fabius Maximus, and twenty other families of great blood and interest, that would never bear it.” To cut off the story short; (for it was a discourse of above two hours; and Augustus lengthened the punishment in words, since he intended that should be all;) “Well, Cinna,” says he, “the life that I gave to you once as an enemy, I will now repeat it to a traitor and to a parricide, and this shall be the last reproach I will give you. For the time to come there shall be no other contention betwixt you and me, than which shall outdo the other in point of friendship.” After this Augustus made Cinna consul, (an honor which he confessed he durst not so much as desire) and Cinna was ever affectionately faithful to him: he made Cæsar his sole heir; and this was the last conspiracy that ever was formed against him.
This moderation of Augustus was the excellency of his mature age; for in his youth he was passionate and sudden; and he did many things which afterward he looked back upon with trouble: after the battle of Actium, so many navies broken in Sicily, both Roman and strangers: the Perusian altars, where 300 lives were sacrificed to the ghost of Julius; his frequent proscriptions, and other severities; his temperance at last seemed to be little more than a weary cruelty. If he had not forgiven those that he conquered, whom should he have governed? He chose his very life-guard from among his enemies, and the flower of the Romans owed their lives to his clemency. Nay, he only punished Lepidus himself with banishment, and permitted him to wear the ensigns of his dignity, without taking the pontificate to himself so long as Lepidus was living; for he would not possess it as a spoil, but as an honor. This clemency it was that secured him in his greatness, and ingratiated him to the people, though he laid his hand upon the government before they had thoroughly submitted to the yoke; and this clemency it was that made his name famous to posterity. This is it that makes us reckon him divine without the authority of an apotheosis. He was so tender and patient, that though many a bitter jest was broken upon him, (and contumelies upon princes are the most intolerable of all injuries) yet he never punished any man upon that subject. It is, then, generous to be merciful, when we have it in our power to take revenge.