Lehal Library

In fact the king who set up the country’s constitution was aware of the ambition and presumption of the nobles and reckoned they needed a bit in their mouths to rein them back. He also knew how much the people hated and feared the nobles and he wanted to protect them. But it was important that the king shouldn’t be personally responsible for doing this since then he might be blamed by the nobles for favouring the people or by the people for favouring the nobles. So he introduced an independent body, parliament, that could keep the nobles in their place and protect the people without the king’s being responsible. There really couldn’t be a better or more sensible institution, nor one more conducive to the security of the king and the realm. This prompts the following reflection: that a ruler must get others to carry out policies that will provoke protest, keeping those that inspire gratitude to himself. In conclusion, let me repeat that a ruler should respect the nobles but must make sure he is not hated by the people. Perhaps many readers familiar with the fate of certain Roman emperors will feel that their examples contradict these opinions of mine, in that they consistently behaved well and showed great character but nevertheless lost their empire or even their lives at the hands of subjects who conspired against them. To meet these objections, I shall consider the qualities of some of these emperors, showing how the causes of their downfall are not at all out of line with my reasoning above, and bringing into the argument some of the context that historians of the period consider important. I hope it will be enough to take all the emperors who held power from the philosopher Marcus Aurelius down to Maximinus, which is to say: Marcus, his son Commodus, Pertinax, Julian, Severus, Antoninus Caracalla his son, Macrinus, Heliogabalus, Alexander and Maximinus. The first thing to note is that, while in other states a ruler has only to guard against the ambition of the nobles and