Discourses on Livy by Niccolo Machiavelli--The Longer and More Complete Version of The Prince

 

Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy is the book where his real political mind is on full display. The Prince gets all the attention because it is sharp, cruelly observant, and short. But the Discourses—sprawling, rigorous, and grounded in the history of the Roman Republic—shows the full range of what he understood about politics, institutions, and the unpredictable push and pull of human ambition. Reading it after years of re-reading The Prince is like seeing the other half of the puzzle of politics.  I read The Prince every four years from 1980 to 2024. 

Where The Prince analyzes how rulers seize and hold power, the Discourses tackles something more ambitious: how free states are born, how they endure, and why they decay. Machiavelli uses Livy’s early books on Rome as his framework, not because he is nostalgic or idealistic, but because Rome’s long run of success offers hard lessons for every republic. He praises their mixed constitution, their willingness to balance competing interests, and their acceptance that conflict—especially between elites and the common people—is not a flaw but a source of vitality. That alone makes Machiavelli feel modern: he rejects the fantasy of harmony and insists that real politics is friction managed, not friction eliminated.

What stands out most in the Discourses is the same clarity that makes The Prince so readable. Machiavelli writes with a cold eye for how people behave, not how they ought to behave. His central conviction doesn’t change: ambition, fear, honor, resentment, and self-interest drive political life far more than abstract ideals. That blunt realism is exactly why Hannah Arendt drew on him in On Revolution. She recognized what Machiavelli saw clearly: republican liberty survives only when citizens are involved, vigilant, and willing to defend it. Passivity is fatal. Corruption metastasizes when no one resists it. A republic dies when its people stop caring enough to fight for it.

The Discourses also broadens Machiavelli’s view of power beyond single rulers. He analyzes why Rome rotated offices, why it punished powerful men who threatened equality before the law, and why it preserved civic religion and public rituals—not out of piety but because they reinforced unity and discipline. He argues that law is stronger than any prince because institutions outlast personalities. In that sense, the Discourses is a manual not just for leaders but for citizens who want their republic to endure.

For a reader who already read The Prince many times, the Discourses lands with a different kind of force. It confirms that Machiavelli wasn’t simply the teacher of tyrants he’s often caricatured to be. He was a defender of republican self-government who understood its fragility. His realism doesn’t smother hope—he just refuses to build that hope on illusions.

Reading the Discourses after years of reading The Prince I feel I missed a dimension of Machiavelli's thinking. I should have read Discourses decades ago. One book explains how power is taken; the other explains how political freedom is preserved. And in both cases, he tells you exactly how things actually work. No moralizing, no Platonic ideals, no Utopias—just the hard, clear truths of political life.

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My favorite translator of The Prince is Harvey Mansfield. Here is a sample of that translation with Machiavelli's advice on avoiding flatterers.  

Rome-ing The World, from Kansas, to Iraq, to Kosovo, to the Eternal City

 

Melanie Sanders Meier

The last time I saw Melanie Sanders Meier in person was in 2009 when we were both deployed to Camp Adder, Iraq.  She was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Kansas Army National Guard and was working as an Inspector General on the sprawling air base in southern Iraq.  

This morning we had coffee together in Trastavere, Rome, where she has been a college student since 2015. She messaged me on Facebook on yesterday to say she lived in Rome. It turned out to be not far from where I was staying.  

I knew that after she returned from Iraq (her second deployment) she ran for the Kansas state legislature where she served until 2014.  She then left politics and deployed again, this time to the staff of K4, the peacekeeping force in Kosovo.  She was assigned to be second assistant to the commander who was Italian. In fact, all of the twenty people working in her section were Italian except her.  She loved working with the Italian command staff.

At the end of the deployment, she found that she could use the GI Bill benefits she earned from post-9/11 deployments to go to college in Trastevere.  With the housing benefit from the GI Bill and low tuition, she was able to live comfortably in Rome. Next month she will finally complete the communication degree she has been working on since 2015 at the American University in Rome, and in no rush to finish.  

It will be a bachelors degree which she can add to another bachelors degree and two masters degrees. Melanie attended the Command and General Staff College and completed a masters degree in Strategic Studies at the US Army War College in 2015. She worked on the courses at night in Kosovo. 

She may stay in Rome. Melanie has considered Tunisia among possible places to live; she has never lived in Africa. We talked about Spain as a place many American and British expats live. America is not on the list of places where she wants to live. 

Melanie plans to travel Europe after graduation.  It's what college kids do.......

A Woman Who Took Charge Like a Drill Sergeant Meeting a Recruit Bus

On the 15th of February at the beginning of a five-week trip across Europe and Israel, my friend Cliff and I took an Al Italia flight from Frankfurt to Tel Aviv, changing planes in Rome. Because the first flight was between two European Union countries, there was no customs check. We had a two-hour layover and knew there would be a customs check before flying to Israel.

We landed about a half-hour late; the next flight was in another terminal. As we left the plane, Cliff and I wondered if we would be spending the night in Rome. As we cleared the Jetway, we saw a tall, blond woman wearing an Al Italia flight attendant uniform holding a sign that said: Tel Aviv.

When we joined the group, she made a quick count, then an about face and marched away holding up the sign and saying, "Follow please."  We followed, about 20 of us. Fast. Cliff and I made jokes about whether we could keep up. We also said if she were not ex-military, she had us fooled.

After a long march she swept up to the customs area and pointed at two lines we were to join.  We obeyed.  All 20 of us. Customs proceeded quickly under the eye of our leader.  When we were all through customs, she counted, turned and marched us to the gate. We made the flight in plenty of time.  Once we were in line, she turned and marched back to her other duties.

It is a small joy for an old sergeant to follow someone confident who knows exactly what she is doing.