justify what I have before said in this chapter, respecting the conduct that princes ought to adopt.
It is in the first place necessary to obsetve, that the Roman emperors had not only to restrain the ambition of the nobles and the insolence of the people, but they had also to contend with the cruelty and avarice of the soldiery. Several of these princes perished by being shipwrecked on this latter rock, so much the more difficult to avoid, as they could not satify the avidity of the troops without discontenting the people, who sighed for peace as much as the others panted for war. So that the former wished for a pacific prince, and the soldiers for one who delighted in war, who was ambitious, cruel, and insolent, not certainly with respect to themselves, but opposed to the people, that they might have double pay, and be able to satiate their avarice and cruelty. Now of those Roman Emperors to whom nature had refused this odious character, or who were not able to assume it, most of them perished miserably from their want of power to keep the people and the legions in check. Thus the greater part of them, particularly those who were new princes, despairing of being able to reconcile interests totally opposite, determined to take part with the troops, troubling themselves but little about the discontents of the people; and this conduct was the safest, for in the alternative of
