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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli: Pertinax and Alexander, being new princes, to imitate Marcus, who was
heir to the principality; and likewise it would have been utterly
destructive to Caracalla, Commodus, and Maximinus to have imitated
Severus, they not having sufficient valour to enable them to tread in
his footsteps. Therefore a prince, new to the principality, cannot
imitate the actions of Marcus, nor, again, is it necessary to follow
those of Severus, but he ought to take from Severus those parts which
are necessary to found his state, and from Marcus those which are
proper and glorious to keep a state that may already be stable and
firm.
CHAPTER XX
The Prince |
