| abstract
| - The Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livy, often referred to as The Discourses or Discourses on Livy, is the second most well known book after The Prince (which is to say not very) by Niccolò Machiavelli. It covers the first ten books of Titus Livy's Ab Urbe Condita, as well as throwing in a number of other historical and (then) current examples and advice as to how to run a republic; it also includes some advice on how to run a Principality, and there is some overlap with The Prince in places. Much of it revolves on the difference between different sets of morality, namely the old pagan morality and the current Christian morality. There is a lot of focus on doing what is necessary, even if it's not good. He also writes quite a lot about virtu (meaning those actions which are becoming of a good man) and how a republic cannot last without it, and how lacking it was in the then present day (chiefly because of Christianity). If this sounds familiar, and you've read Nietzsche, it should: Nietzsche read Machiavelli well and took this premise as an important element. His conclusions, however, are rather different. While he's no democrat in the current sense of the term, he did believe that the masses not only had a part to play, but that their political involvement made a republic stronger and guaranteed liberty. See also The Prince.
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