Machiavelli,Roman Empire and the Concept of “Oriental Despotism”

Chen Haoyu

(School of Government Peking University,Beijing 100871)

The long-standing concept “oriental despotism”in the tradition of western political thought has been called into question and put under reconsideration in recent decades.〔1〕What makes intellectuals and all those who want to question Eurocentrism uneasy is that this concept may easily slip into a stereotype,distort the real image and miss the peculiarity of the east;or even worse,its use may be out of prejudice and can act as pretensions of western dominion and hegemony.

Faced with this new trend in the scholarly world,we shall try to revisit every western political thinker specifically so as to clarify their contribution to the becoming of the concept of oriental despotism,whether to deconstruct the alleged long tradition or to save the concept from abuse.Machiavelli has been assigned a special place in its development.To be precise,Machiavelli never uses the expression “oriental despotism”.However,he does make several comparisons in his oeuvre between eastern and western states,discussing their different state structures,military organizations,and temperaments of their citizens.Based on these texts,many scholars allege that Machiavelli has put forward an orientalist thesis and that he actually borders on attaching the label “oriental despotism” to those eastern states.

In this paper,I would like to question the validity of this historiography and to reconsider Machiavelli’s comparisons between western and eastern regimes.After literature review in the first part,I will devote the three following parts to scrutinize several passages extracted from Machiavelli’s three major political works respectively.These paragraphs have been frequently used to testify Machiavelli’s orientalist overtones.However,I shall argue that they are susceptible of other readings as well.Every time Machiavelli seems to denounce the eastern despotic regimes,his discussions are accompanied or followed by some considerations on Roman Empire,and his criticisms have always been translated and reverted into a thorough denunciation of Roman Empire.To put it in an inaccurate way,Roman Empire seems to be the incarnation of oriental despotism in the occident.I shall briefly conclude in the last part that,Machiavelli is not intent to put up an orientalist thesis but is more concerned with a general lesson about liberty that can be applied to both the occident and the orient.

Ⅰ.Introduction

Michael Curtis wrote in his book Orientalism and Islam that it was Machiavelli who made “perhaps the sharpest,earliest,and most influential” remarks on the distinction between Western and Eastern systems,embodied by France and Ottoman empire respectively,with the latter “represented the Orient where royal power was not restrained by law” (Curtis 2009,54-55).Tracing the genesis of the notion of the Asiatic mode of production,Perry Anderson wrote in his book Lineages of the Absolutist State that “theoretic juxtaposition and contrast of European and Asian state structures formed,as we have seen,a long tradition from Machiavelli and Bodin onwards (…) it was indeed coeval with the new birth of political theory as such in the Renaissance,and thereafter accompanied its development step by step down to the Enlightenment” (Anderson 1974,462).

Oriental despotic regimes are depicted against occidental liberal states.Through the lens of an “Other” and the clarity created by comparison,the west in turn probably can find and confirm its own identity.Thus Machiavelli was also believed to have inaugurated a modern interpretation of “a distinctive European tradition of politics”,since “Machiavelli’s focus on France and the Ottoman empire as modern archetypes inaugurated a highly influential tradition” (Rubiés 2005,117).Thierry Hentsch similarly argues that “Machiavelli paved the way for the model which was to become dominant in the classification of political regimes,and would later nourish the concept of Oriental despotism”,and the same author then briefly concludes that,Machiavelli makes manifest the political birth of the West in and for itself,via a vision of the Other” (Hentsch 1992,64-65).

Several other scholars who have also dealt with Machiavelli’s passages on the east do not draw such a direct link between them and the concept of oriental despotism.They think that Machiavelli holds a rather delicate and even vacillating notion of both the orient and occident.For John M.Najemy,Machiavelli’s excellency and originality lies in his ability to bravely break all “myths,assumptions,preconceptions,and old stereotypes”,of course including those “with which contemporaries continued to view East and West,Europe and Asia” (Najemy 2009,145).Najemy argues that this quality of Machiavelli’s political thought is all the more valuable since these old preconceptions and dichotomies would soon resurge and harden in the following generations.Similar to Najemy,LucetteValensi also wants to sever Machiavelli from the long historiography of oriental despotism,because Machiavelli’s texts “had to be skewed for him to be made the founder of a tradition,the first link in an unbroken chain”.The dichotomy Machiavelli establishes between Turkey and France “is not black and white”,since we cannot “read into it an unequivocal critique of the Ottoman Empire” and “it is more complex than it has generally been made out to be” (Valensi 1993,58-60).Christopher Lynch in his interpretive essay of Machiavelli’s Art of War also reminds us that if we detect “an expression of Eurocentrism” in this work,such as appearing to prefer military strategies of the west to those of the east,this Eurocentrism is nonetheless “self-conscious,deliberate and ‘revisionist’” and thus cannot be taken at face value (Lynch 2003,197-198).

Both Najemy and Valensi avoid to read into Machiavelli’s texts some preconceived notions and are more sensitive to Machiavelli’s whole picture.On the basis of their analysis,we still need to take one more step.For although they dismiss the habit of treating Machiavelli’s paragraphs on Asia as the herald of orientalism,they are still short of pointing out clearly what these passages are really for and of fixing them squarely into Machiavelli’s argumentation.As I shall show in the following analysis,Machiavelli’s comments on the east induce his parallel analysis of Roman Empire,and Asia gradually,as Lynch says,“functions as the standard of corruption” (Lynch 2003,218) against which Roman Empire is measured and reprimanded for reaching the highest degree.

Ⅱ.State structure in the prince

We shall begin with paragraphs from Chapter Four of The Prince.In this chapter,Machiavelli contrasts the different state structures of Turkey and France,and as we have shown above they seem to act as strong evidence of Machiavelli’s orientalist implications.Machiavelli states that：

Principalities (…) have been governed in two diverse modes:either by one prince,and all the others servants who as ministers help govern the kingdom by his favor and appointment;or by a prince and by barons who hold that rank not by favor of the lord but by antiquity of bloodlines.In our times the examples of these two diverse kinds of government are the Turk and the king of France.The whole monarchy of the Turk is governed by one lord;the others are his servants.Dividing his kingdom into sanjaks,he sends different administrators to them,and he changes and varies them as he likes.But the king of France is placed in the midst of an ancient multitude of lords,acknowledged in that state by their subjects and loved by them:they have their privileges,and the king cannot take them away without danger to himself.(IV,17)〔2〕

Some scholars think that Machiavelli here have touched upon those very points that would be more fully elaborated and used as invectives against eastern regimes by later political thinkers.The existence of an aristocracy that retains some independency and acts as an intermediary power between the prince and common people is believed to be vital for thwarting the excessive expansion of the prince’s power and thus saving the whole state from sinking into despotic rule.〔3〕Since all people including ministers and officials in Turkey are the lord’s servants and submit to his discretions totally,the whole state structure has been compressed and reduced into a bleak dependency of all the subjects on the sole prince;while in France,with barons and local elites occupying different positions in a hierarchy,the tendency towards despotic rule can be effectively resisted,thus leaving more space for liberty to be preserved and pursued.

However,it is important to notice that Machiavelli doesn’t show his preference nor make any value judgement in this paragraph.It is more like an objective state typology.And unlike Montesquieu or Tocqueville who would regard the aristocracy as an indispensable intermediary power,Machiavelli holds a rather nuanced and even critical view about the relationship between an independent aristocracy and the maintaining of liberty.In Book One Chapter 55 of Discourses on Livy,Machiavelli argues that for any republic to maintain a political and uncorrupt way of life,it cannot “endure that any citizen of theirs either be or live in the usage of a gentleman”,and by gentleman he means those “who live idly in abundance from the returns of their possessions” (I.55,111).〔4〕In all kinds of gentlemen,a more pernicious kind “command from a castle” and have armed servants and subjects who protect and obey them (I.55,111).Instead of viewing these gentlemen as genuine guard of liberty,Machiavelli thinks that their wealth and idleness tend to make them ambitious and incite their desire of oppressing common citizens.Owing to the existence of these gentlemen in the kingdom of Naples,in Rome,Romagna and Lombardy,Machiavelli thinks that these regions of Italy are not suitable for the establishment of a republic,which is the vivere politico,the true political life,unless he who wants to make a republic “first eliminates all of them”;these regions are more appropriate for a far less perfect principality,because only a kingly power can keep these gentlemen in check (I.55,111-112).We know that through the Discourses,Machiavelli holds the view that republic is the most ideal regime type and only in a republic can liberty be maintained and flourish (cf.Viroli 1990,152-161).Machiavelli thus makes it very clear that for him the existence of an independent aristocracy or a feudal system is no guarantee for political liberty as envisioned by Montesquieu.〔5〕

But let’s return to Machiavelli’s main points in Chapter Four of The Prince.Different state structures,Machiavelli proceeds to argue,exert impact on the ease or difficult with which those states can be seized and held.While it is difficult to acquire the state of the Turk,“but should it be conquered,great ease in holding it”;in contrast,“more ease in seizing the state of France,but great difficulty in holding it”.This is because,a prince can easily enter a state like France with the help and catering of some malcontent barons,who “can open the way…and facilitate victory for you”.But in the kingdom of the Turk,“since all are slaves and bound by obligation”,there is rarely any rebellion or rift that can be taken advantage of and thus “whoever attacks the Turk must necessarily assume that he will find him entirely united (IV,17-18).Machiavelli later states in the Art of War that orientals made war with “the great obedience that those men had for their king” and this obedience was also the source their strength.(VI.162,131)〔6〕But once a prince has conquered the state and erased the bloodline of the old prince,the new prince becomes the beneficiary of this obstinate obedience and can maintain the state with ease.In the case of France,even if a new prince has captured the state quite easily,he is insecure because he has to rely on the half-hearted cooperation of these barons,who not only covet the throne themselves but can also bring in another invader to repeat what they have done to their old ruler.

Machiavelli’s line of reasoning does not end with this dichotomy between Turkey and France;in the last paragraphs of Chapter Four,we are surprised to find that the foregoing parallels have been turned into a description of how Romans have become “secure possessors” of France,Spain and Greece.Machiavelli admits that frequent rebellions arose in these states against the Romans,which verifies the difficult encountered when invading a country like France.Machiavelli states that “as long as their memory lasted,the Romans were always uncertain of their possession,but when their memory was eliminated with the power and long duration of the empire”,the Romans eventually held these states firmly and received those provinces’ absolute compliance and obedience (IV,19).The difficulty emphasized above in holding a state like France securely now seems more like a stratagem to elicit a description of the formidable strength of the Romans;and the sketch of the state of Turk provides some basic imaginations of how the Roman Empire would be governed and structured.In fact,later in Chapter 19 of The Prince.Machiavelli singles out one common characteristic shared by those emperors and the princes of the Turk.Since armies are “entrenched in the government and administration of provinces”,it becomes necessary for Roman emperors to “satisfy the soldiers rather than the people”.The solo entrenchment of armies may partly owe to the erasing of all the local elites and the old state structures of various nations which now have been transformed into Roman Empire’s provinces.Machiavelli goes on to state that,“now it is necessary for all princes except the Turk and the Sultan to satisfy the people rather than the soldiers.(…) I except the Turk from this,since he always keeps around him twelve thousand infantry and fifteen thousand horse on whom the security and strength of his kingdom depend” (XIX,81).

In the end of Chapter Four,Machiavelli returns to the question that he has proposed in the title of this chapter,i.e.“Why the Kingdom of Darius Which Alexander Seized Did Not Rebel from His Successors after Alexander’s Death”.He then answers that “the nature of Darius’s government” is similar to the kingdom of the Turk;and after Alexander made “an all-out attack on him (i.e.Darius) and drived him from the field”,Alexander himself then reaped all the obedience that was originally owing to Darius and thus steadfastlybecame “lord of Asia” (IV,18-19;cf.Sullivan 2013).There still remains one question:how did Darius get all this exhaustive obedience that could be inherited by Alexander? Did Darius also inherit it from someone else,then what about Darius’spredecessor? In case we may ask the question in a similar way ad infinitum,we find that we actually lack a pre-history telling us how the government of Darius or the kingdom of the Turk come into being,or more broadly,a pre-history telling us how Asia accommodated such a unique state structure befitting vast empires and became such a torpid material that could be passed between the hands of various princes or despots.This pre-history will only be conjectured from and supplied by Machiavelli’s description of Europe.And we have already got a hint from Chapter Four of The Prince.The Romans destroyed all independent principalities and republics in the west and established a vast Roman Empire,thus transforming the landscape of the occident similar to that of the orient.A detailed description this story can be find in the Discourses on Livy and thus leads us to the next part.

Ⅲ.Destroyer of liberty in Discourses on Livy

In Discourses on Livy,Machiavelli labels “oriental princes” as “destroyer of countries and waster of all the civilizations of men” (II.2,133),and some scholars point out that this is “the closest Machiavelli comes to an explicit ‘orientalism’” (Najemy 2009,136).This harsh but fleeting remark is embedded in a chapter focusing on the obstinate resistance the Romans confronted during their conquest and expansion,and the chapter itself in turn belongs to a grander narrative projected in the beginning of Second Book about “those that the Roman people made pertaining to the increase of its empire” (II.Preface,125).If we follow Machiavelli’s logic closely,we are only to find that the accentuation of Machiavelli’s reprimand does not fall on this inadvertent comment on oriental princes but is constantly aimed at the devastating effects brought about by the military expansion of the Romans.

From the very beginning of the Discourses,Machiavelli has portrayed himself as an admirer of antiquity,especially those ancient ways and modes of “ordering republics,maintaining states,governing kingdoms,ordering the military and administering war,judging subjects and increasing empire” (I.Preface,6).However,when Machiavelli actually comes to the issues of “ordering the military and administering war” and “increasing empire” in the Second Book,we may find him increasingly caught in a tension between an admirer of the Romans and a defender of freedom.“The love that many peoples in those times had for freedom” makes the Romans’ conquest extremely “laborious”,for “they defended it so obstinately that they would never have been subjugated if not by an excessive virtue” (II.2,129).

Machiavelli argues that,while it is easy to rule those used to a servile way of life,it is exceedingly hard to subjugate a free people once they have tasted the sweetness of liberty,it is as if their nature have been transformed.Their memory of liberty will long last and support their rebellion against every constraint that falls on them.In The Prince,Machiavelli already gives a very grim advice about how to rule a people used to living a free way of life:compared to people who used to live under a prince,“in republics there is greater life,greater hatred,more desire for revenge;the memory of their ancient liberty does not and cannot let them rest,so that the most secure path is to eliminate them or live in them” (V,21).This advice may do not quite stand out in a context not lacking amoral instructions when it appears in The Prince.It is only in the Discourses,especially in II.2 that Machiavelli brings into view the full scope of this advice,especially this time it was a republic that rigorously carried out Machiavelli’s advice.In this chapter,we thus see a tragic clash between equally vibrant republics,a head-on confrontation between “an excessive virtue” of the Romans and a profound love of liberty of the conquered peoples,and eventually the victory of the former and the servitude of the latter with their liberty vanished.〔7〕

It is in this context that “oriental princes” enter into discussion.Machiavelli argues that servitudes are of varying degrees,some harder while some more tolerable:

And of all hard servitudes,that is hardest that submits you to a republic.First,because it is more lasting and there can be less hope to escape from it;second,because the end of the republic is to enervate and to weaken all other bodies so as to increase its own body.A prince who makes you submit does not do this,if that prince is not some barbarian prince,a destroyer of countries and waster of all the civilizations of men,such as are the oriental princes.But if he has within himself human and ordinary orders,he usually loves his subject cities equally and leaves them all their arts and almost all their ancient orders.So if they cannot grow like the free,still they are not ruined like the slaves.(II.2,133)

It turns out that subjugating to a prince isgenerally more tolerable;while there is one special kind of princes,i.e.oriental princes,that has been singled out and placed on the same rank with republics.Or,we should say,republics,especially the Roman Republic when imposing servitude on other unyielding republics conquered by them,acts just like those oriental princes as “destroyer of countries and waster of all the civilizations of men”.The image of oriental princes is invoked to materialize the imagination of the atrocities brought about by the Roman Republic and then the Roman Empire.

Machiavelli asks in the same chapter that why “in those ancient times peoples were more lovers of freedom than in these”.After providing several explanations from the perspective of religion and education,he returns to the point that “still,I believe the cause of this to be rather that the Roman Empire,with its arms and its greatness,eliminated all republics and all civil ways of life” (II.2,131-132).The Roman Empire is condemned responsible for the loss of liberty in the west.This does not only mean the loss of independence and subjection to the dominion of Romans in many western countries,as liberty lost in an external way.For Machiavelli specifies that it is “love of freedom” that has totally lost,it is as if a passion and aspiration for liberty has been eliminated by the long and harsh subjugation and people’s nature has altered since they have long lost contact and memory of liberty.

From the history of Roman Empire’s conquest and consolidation,we seem to have also gathered some clues about the pre-history of Asia.There must have been equally violent and tragic conquests as that of the Roman Republic in the early history of the east before one empire established its hegemony and the history of Asia seems to reach a standstill.However,Machiavelli barely spent any ink on the first half of this Asian story and his limited descriptions of Asia were preoccupied with the servile scenario emerged from the conquest.For a fuller understanding of the consequences of Asia’s degradation and Roman’s subjugation of the west,we now turn to the Art of War.

Ⅳ.Decline of virtue in Art of War

Near the end of the Second Book of the Art of War,written in the format of a dialogue,Fabrizio Colonna,the main interlocutor,made a length comparison between Europe on the one hand and Africa and Asia on the other hand.In Fabrizio’s narrative,Asia is more intensively invoked as a foil to better illuminate the mutation brought about by the Roman Empire.

At the beginning Fabrizio tells that,there is a virtuous Europe and a debased Asia,“of the many men excellent in war,you know how there have been many so named in Europe,few in Africa and less in Asia” (II.285,58).Fabrizio proceeds to explain the reason,because Africa and Asia only “have had one or two principalities and few republics”,while “Europe alone has had several kingdoms and infinite republics” (II.286,58).This reminds us of the general difference between France and the state of Turk that Machiavelli has offered in The Prince.Here in the Art of War,Machiavelli provides a direct causal relationship between the circumstances into which a state places itself and the number of excellent men that rise in this country.Virtue needs to be practiced,used and brought forth.In Asia,“due to the magnitude (of the province of Asia),men excellent in their deeds could not arise,since (that kingdom) was idle most of the time”,and Machiavelli concludes that “for excellent men come from republics more than from kingdoms,because in the former most of the time virtue is honored;in kingdoms it is feared” (II.291-293,58-59).

After laying down this general principle,Machiavelli turns to the transformation brought about by the Roman Empire to the west and as we have seen rehearsed a few times before,the contrast between the east and the west is turned into a parallel between the occident and the orient.Fabrizio continues his narrative:

When the Roman Empire later grew,and when it had extinguished all the republics and principalities of Europe and of Africa and the greater part of those of Asia,it did not leave any way to virtue,except Rome.From this it arose that virtuous men began to be as few in Europe as in Asia.That virtue then came to ultimate decline.For,when virtue was brought to Rome,as it was corrupt,almost all the world ended up being corrupt.(II.303-304,59)

Europe fell form the plausible superiority it once enjoyed over Asia and both lands now proved to be equally inimical to virtue,for “virtuous men began to be as few in Europe as in Asia”.In Machiavelli’s opinion,the corruption of Rome and Europe has far more extensive influence than the corruption of Asia,for he states that as Rome corrupted,“almost all the world ended up being corrupt”.Rome as the center grew in virtue and strength only at the expanse of the periphery,and it nearly squelched every possibility of revival in these provinces.When Rome as the last resort of virtue became corrupted,with the periphery already enervated,the world ended up being corrupt.It is as if all stakes have been recklessly misplaced on one option and then are of necessity totally lost.Machiavelli wrote in a similar way in one paragraph of the Discourses:

I judge the world always to have been in the same mode and there to have been as much good as wicked in it.But the wicked and the good vary from province to province,as is seen by one who has knowledge of those ancient kingdoms,which varied from one to another because of the variation of customs,though the world remained the same.There was this difference only:that where it had first placed its virtue in Assyria,it put it in Media,then in Persia,until it came to be in Italy and Rome.And if no empire followed after the Roman Empire that might have endured and in which the world might have kept its virtue together,it is seen nonetheless to be scattered in many nations where they lived virtuously,such as was the kingdom of the Franks,the kingdom of the Turks,that of the sultan,and the peoples of Germany today — and that Saracen sect earlier.(II.Preface,124)

Several things are worth noting in this passage.Similar to the Art of War,Machiavelli holds that after the Roman Empire has led itself and the whole world into corrupt,there seems to be no longer existing a single nation that could concentrate onto itself and accumulate from other nations enough virtue to constitute an empire.The so-called translatio imperii (translation of empire) was interrupted by the Romans and came to a halt (cf.Najemy 2009,133).While the history of the west seems to have entered into a stagnation,there are some sparks of virtue sprouting in the east that may anticipate a possible reborn of both military excellence and territory expansion.And we are very surprised to find that “the kingdom of the Turks”is included in the sparse nations that “lived virtuously” after the demise of Roman Empire.Actually,nations from the east dominate the brief history provided by Machiavelli of the translation of empire,three (Assyria,Media,Persia) before the Roman Empire and another three virtuous nations (kingdom of the Turks,kingdom of the sultan,Saracen sect) surviving after the Roman Empire.So in the long historical term,Asia seems to be always far more superior than Europe,especially it has witnessed three succeeding empires which bring with them much military virtue and many virtuous men.However,it is also this dominance of three successive empires that constitutes the prehistory which can explain why Asia fell into degradation and became far behind Europe in virtue and vigor during the very period of the rise of the Roman Empire in which Machiavelli profoundly engaged himself.

Machiavelli believes in some sorts of historical cycle or historical dialectic,as he wrote in his poem The Ass,“ability makes countries tranquil,and from Tranquillity,Laziness next emerges,and Laziness burns the towns and villages.Then,after a country has for a time been subject to lawlessness,Ability often returns to live there once again(Machiavelli 1989,763).All things are governed by the goddess Fortuna and her wheels.Virtue can make a great empire,and empire in turn will bring with it license,corruption,and the evaporation of liberty.Both the east and west with their remarkable empiresjust offer us such two parallel lessons.

Machiavelli’s lesson becomes more laden and delicate once we recognize that the regeneration of virtue from corruption is far more difficult than its degeneration.Machiavelli is far less than a determinist and it’s impossible just to cling to the wheels of fortune and hope that the cycle of history will salvage liberty and virtue automatically.Machiavelli gives many instances of how the cycle of history was obstructed and thus did not complete its course (cf.Del Lucchese,2015,32-42).For this reason,Machiavelli is hardly optimistic for the revival of virtue in the west.Moreover,contrary to either orientalist prejudice or Eurocentrism conceit,it is several eastern countries and nations that seem to bear some hope,if there are any,of regeneration and exhibit some rare military virtue in a post-Roman world.

Ⅴ.Conclusion

Machiavelli concerns himself first and foremost with Europe,with its glorious past and corrupted present.He occasionally chooses Asia as a counterpart to convey his lessons to contemporary Europeans.However,this counterpart is not simply employed to highlight the superiority of the Europe;rather,as I have demonstrated before,Asia is invoked as a more sensible object to measure and compare the corruption of Europe.

In Machiavelli’s opinion,Roman Empire is largely responsible for this corruption.In this sense,instead of viewing Machiavelli as the modern inaugurator of the conception of oriental despotism,it is more appropriate to claimthat some aspects of his thought belong to the tradition of Tacitism,which is usually traced to the Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus and focuses on the deleterious effects and repercussions brought about by the Roman Empire (cf.Schellhase 1971).

However,Machiavelli is also an admirer of the antiquity,especially the Romans.Only when it comes to the relationship between empire and liberty,Machiavelli’s lesson becomes more intriguing and tangled.He admires empire and its marvelous virtue;but as a sober political writer who has learned much from history,he can foresee and feel regretful or even indignant about what may come from an empire:oppression,corruption,and the loss of liberty.We may say that Machiavelli’s work actually offers not one,but two such episodes,the explicit one of course is about Roman Empire,and the other implicit one which we have constructed from Machiavelli’s scattered comments is about Asia.Machiavelli’s lesson can be applied to both the east and the west,for the dilemma between empire and liberty has never ceased to hauntingthe Eurasian continent.

:

〔1〕For a concise history of the concept “despot” and “despotism”,see Koebner 1951.

〔2〕Quotations of The Prince in English are drawn from Machiavelli 1998 and refer to chapter and page number.

〔3〕The concept “intermediary powers”was first formulated by Montesquieu and later developed into a theory of aristocratic liberalism in post-revolutionary France,whose influence can also be seen in the texts of Tocqueville.Cf.De Dijn 2005.

〔4〕Quotations of the Discourses on Livy in English are drawn from Machiavelli 1996 and refer to book,chapter,and page number.

〔5〕Louis Althusser argues that “Machiavelli can set up his political problem only on condition of making a clean sweep of existing feudal forms as incompatible with the objective of Italian unity” (Althusser 1999,70).

〔6〕Quotations of the Art of War in English are drawn from Machiavelli 2003 and refer to book,sentence,and page number.

〔7〕This tragic clash between republicsmakes J.G.A Pocock argues that “virtue itself (…) has now become cannibal” and “the truly subversive Machiavelli was not a counselor of tyrants,but a good citizen and patriot” (Pocock 1975,217-218).

Notes:

〔1〕Althusser,Louis,Machiavelli and Us,Translated by Gregory Elliot,London:Verso,1999.

〔2〕Anderson,Perry,Lineages of the Absolutist State,London:Verso,1974.

〔3〕Curtis,Michael,Orientalism and Islam:European thinkers on oriental despotism in the Middle East and India,New York:Cambridge University Press,2009.

〔4〕De Dijn,Annelien,Aristocratic liberalism in post-revolutionary France,The Historical Journal,2005,48(3),pp.661-681.

〔5〕Del Lucchese,Filippo,Political Philosophy of Niccolò Machiavelli:Edinburgh University Press,2015.

〔6〕Hentsch,Thierry,Imagining the Middle East.Translated by Fred A.Reed.Montreal and New York:Black Rose Books,1992.

〔7〕Koebner,Richard,Despot and despotism:vicissitudes of a political term,Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes,1951,14 (3/4),pp.275-302.

〔8〕Lynch,Christopher,Interpretive Essay.In Art of War,Chicago:University of Chicago Press,2003,pp.179-226.

〔9〕Machiavelli,Niccolò,Machiavelli:The Chief Works and Others,Translated by Allan Gilbert.Vol.2,Durham and London:Duke University Press,1989.

〔10〕Machiavelli,Niccolò,Discourses on Livy,Translated by Harvey C.Mansfield and Nathan Tarcov,Chicago:University of Chicago Press,1996.

〔11〕Machiavelli,Niccolò,The Prince,Translated by Harvey C.Mansfield,Chicago:University of Chicago Press,1998.

〔12〕Machiavelli,Niccolò,Art of War.Translated by Christopher Lynch,Chicago:University of Chicago Press,2003.

〔13〕Najemy,John M,Machiavelli Between East and West,In From Florence to the Mediterranean and beyond:Essays in Honour of Anthony Molho,Firenze,Olschki,edited by Eric R Dursteler Diogo Ramada Curto,Julius Kirshner,Francesca Trivellato,Firenze:Olschki,2009,pp.127-145..

〔14〕Pocock,J.G.A.,The Machiavellian Moment,Princeton:Princeton University Press,1975..

〔15〕Rubiés,Joan-Pau,Oriental despotism and European orientalism:Botero to Montesquieu,Journal of Early Modern History,2005,9(1),pp.109-180.

〔16〕Schellhase,Kenneth Charles,Tacitus in the Political Thought of Machiavelli.Il pensiero politico,1971,4 (3),pp.381-391.

〔17〕Sullivan,Vickie,Alexander the Great as “Lord of Asia” and Rome as His Successor in Machiavelli’s Prince,The Review of Politics,2013,75(4),pp.515-537.

〔18〕Valensi,Lucette,The Birth of the Despot:Venice and the Sublime Porte,Ithaca and London:Cornell University Press,1993.

〔19〕Viroli,Maurizio,Machiavelli and the Republican Idea of Politics,In Machiavelli and Republicanism,edited by Quentin Skinner and Maurizio Viroli Gisela Bock,Cambridge:Cambridge University Press,1990,pp.143-171.