Discourses on Livy

The Discourses on Livy (Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio, Discourses on the First Ten of Titus Livy) is a work of political history and philosophy written in the early 16th century (c. 1517) by the Italian writer and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli, best known as the author of The Prince. The Discourses were published posthumously with papal privilege in 1531. The title identifies the work's subject as the first ten books of Livy's Ab urbe condita, which relate the expansion of Rome through the end of the Third Samnite War in 293 BC, although Machiavelli discusses what can be learned from many other eras including contemporary politics. Machiavelli saw history in general as a way to learn useful lessons from the past for the present, and also as a type of analysis which could be built upon, as long as each generation did not forget the works of the past. Machiavelli frequently describes Romans and other ancient peoples as superior models for his contemporaries, but he also describes political greatness as something which comes and goes amongst peoples, in cycles. Discourses on Livy comprises a dedication letter and three books with 142 numbered chapters. The first two books (but not the third) are introduced by unnumbered prefaces. A good deal has been made of the coincidence that Livy's history also contained 142 books in addition to its introduction and other numerological curiosities that turn up in Machiavelli's writings. At the end of I 1, Machiavelli indicates the structure of the work. In the work of Livy, Machiavelli says that the things worked by Rome were divided into two dichotomies: things done either through public counsel or private counsel, and things occurring either inside the city or outside the city. The first book will concern things inside the city and by public counsel. The second book, as he later indicates at the end of the second preface, concerns public counsel of things outside the city. The plan would seem to require two more books, but there is only one, which concerns private counsel of things inside and outside the city.