CHAP. V.
How we ought to govern Cities and Principalities which before they were conquered were governed by their own Laws.
When the states which we have acquired, placed in the circumstances we have described, have been used to live free and to be governed by their own laws, he who has conquered has three ways of preserving them.
The first, is to destroy them.
The second, to inhabit them.
The third to grant them their laws, to draw a tribute from them, and to establish in them a small number of persons to form a government which may keep the country in peace. This new government created by the prince will be sensible that it exists only by his favour and his power, and it is therefore interested to do every thing in its power to maintain it. Besides, we can more easily preserve a city accustomed to enjoy its liberty by employing in it only a small number of its citizens than by any other means.
The Lacedemonians and the Romans furnish us with examples of those different ways of retaining a state.
The first governed Athens and Thebes by founding in them a government composed of a few persons; nevertheless they again lost those two cities.
The Romans, to make sure of Capua, Carthage, and Numantia, destroyed them and did not lose them.
They were, on the contrary, desirouş to hold Greece as they had held the Spartans, by restoring its liberty and its laws: this mode did not however succeed. They were compelled to destroy several cities in this province in order to retain it; for there is indeed no other certain way of preserving them. Whoever becomes master of a city accustomed to enjoy its liberty, and does not destroy it, ought to expect to be destroyed by it. In all its revolts it has always the cry of liberty for its rallying point and its refuge, as well as its ancient institutions, which neither length of time nor benefits can efface: do what we may, take whatever precautions we can, if we only divide the inhabitants, and do not disperse them, this name of liberty will never depart from their memory or from their hearts, no more than their ancient institutions, but they will immediately recur to it on the slightest occasion. We see what was done at Pisa after so many years passed under the yokę of the Florentines. But when cities or provinces have been used to live under a prince, and that his race becomes extinct, already bowed to obedience, deprived of their ancient sovereign, incapable of agreeing together in giving themselves a new one, and still lefs susceptible of becoming free, they are much more tardy in taking up arms, and present the prince with more means of assuring and attaching them to himself.
In republics, on the contrary, hatred is stronger and more active, the desire of vengeance more animated, and the remembrance of their ancient liberty will not permit them to enjoy a single instant repose; so that the surest means is either to live among them, or to destroy them.