How The Prince drew on The Works of Cicero
A documented line of influence: Niccolò Machiavelli demonstrably engaged Marcus Tullius Cicero’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
The Works of Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero · c. 50 BCE
Ancient RomeThe influenced
The Prince
Niccolò Machiavelli · 1513
RenaissanceRelevance
7/10
On The Prince’s page
- Machiavelli's notorious counsel — be a fox and a lion — is a direct repudiation of Cicero's De Officiis, which used the same two beasts to forbid exactly that deceit
- The Prince's chapters on liberality and mercy are arguments with Cicero, not departures from him; Cicero is the orthodoxy being overturned
- Read Cicero on the duties of a good man first and you feel the floor drop out — Machiavelli takes the standard Roman handbook and flips every page
On The Works of Cicero’s page
- The Prince is Cicero's De Officiis with the moral signs reversed — Cicero is the shadow text Machiavelli writes against
- Cicero used the fox and the lion to forbid the very deceit Machiavelli would later prescribe; the famous "be a fox and a lion" is a point-blank reply to De Officiis
- Machiavelli's chapters on liberality and mercy engage Cicero's directly, then invert them — virtue that gets a prince killed isn't virtue