r to encounter him with
the same advantages. In Germany the Cimbrians routed a Roman army who
had there no means to repair their disaster; but when they came into
Italy, the Romans could collect their whole strength, and destroy them.
Out of their native country, whence they can bring no more than thirty
or forty thousand men, the Swiss may readily be defeated; but in their
own country, where they can assemble a hundred thousand, they are
well-nigh invincible.

In conclusion, therefore, I repeat that the prince who has his people
armed and trained for war, should always await a great and dangerous war
at home, and never go forth to meet it. But that he whose subjects are
unarmed, and whose country is not habituated to war, should always carry
the war to as great a distance as he can from home. For in this way each
will defend himself in the best manner his means admit.

CHAPTER XIII.--_That Men rise from humble to high Fortunes rather by
Fraud than by Force._

I hold it as most certain that men seldom if ever rise to great place
from small beginnings without using fraud or force, unless, indeed,
they be given, or take by inheritance the place to which some other has
already come. Force, however, will never suffice by itself to effect
this end, while fraud often will, as any one may plainly see who reads
the lives of Philip of Macedon, Agathocles of Sicily, and many
others like them, who from the lowest or, at any rate, from very low
beginnings, rose either to sovereignty or to the highest command.

This necessity for using deceit is taught by Xenophon in his life of
Cyrus; for the very first expedition on which Cyrus is sent, against the
King of Armenia, is seen to teem with fraud; and it is by fraud, and not
by force, that he is represented as having acquired his kingdom; so that
the only inference to be drawn from his conduct, as Xenophon describes
it, is, that the prince who would accomplish great things must have
learned how to deceive. Xenophon, moreover, represents his hero as
deceiving his maternal grandsire Cyaxares, king of the Medians, in a
variety of ways; giving it to be understood that without such deceit he
could not have reached the greatness to which he came. Nor do I believe
that any man born to humble fortunes can be shown to have attained great
station, by sheer and open force, whereas this has often been effected
by mere fraud, such as that used by Giovanni Galeazzo to deprive his
uncle Berna