The Prince summary

When Alexander the Great died in 323 BC after conquering the Persian Kingdom, everyone thought that without Alexander’s authority, the Macedonians would quickly lose control over the Persians. And yet, they managed to maintain their power for years to come. How?

Before the question can be answered, it’s important to understand that there are different kinds of principalities:

There are many ways a prince can gain control of a principality: military force is one common path and international treaties are another.

Yet, whatever the method through which you wish to acquire your principality, you’ll need to combine great virtue and good fortune to be successful.

In 317 BC a man named Agathocles who had grown up a mere potter’s boy assembled an army of mercenaries and took over the city of Syracuse, Sicily. Despite his oath that he would abide by the town’s democratic constitution, he killed 10,000 of his rivals and became a tyrant.

This story demonstrates that wickedness is one way to achieve power. Trickery and ruthlessness can help you gain control of a principality, even if treachery and violence toward your fellow citizens cannot be considered virtuous.

Although diplomacy is a useful tool, when push comes to shove an unarmed man will always have to obey the armed man. So it follows that mastering the art of war is key to becoming and staying prince.

Of course, it is crucial to gaining your dominion in the first place: most princes have won their principalities by conquering them through war. But even in peace, it is essential for you to keep up your skills in the art of war, because warfare is the most likely way you may lose your principality to rivals.

What do the Romans, Spartans and Swiss all have in common?

Historically, they had well-armed populations that enabled them to remain free independent states for centuries.

Once you’ve become a prince, the world will no longer look at you the same way. Your subjects will expect different things from their ruler than they would from a fellow citizen.

As a result, personal traits like politeness or generosity go from being mere private questions to matters of profound importance for the stability of your principality. As such, their desirability also changes, for traits that were clearly positive for a private citizen may no longer be so for a prince.

One of the greatest threats the Roman Empire ever faced was the war waged by Hannibal and his Carthaginian army. Hannibal’s success in this regard is attributed to his vicious cruelty: for example, he crucified his scouts for giving him wrong directions. He instilled a fear in his army that kept it unified in trying times, like when he and his army famously crossed the Alps.

For a prince, the lesson here is that cruelty, used right, can serve you well.

If one were to ask a prince what animal he identifies with most, the answer will often be the lion. Indeed, the lion’s raw strength is an important quality, but no prince should underestimate how beneficial the cleverness of the slick fox can be.

One way you can emulate the fox is in the promises you make: a prince need not keep his word all the time.

Though history has known many great leaders, all of them have at one time or another needed advisors, for no one man can be a master of all trades. Therefore how a prince assembles his advisors and deals with them says a lot about his leadership skills.

The quality of your advisors depends only on you, the prince. You know best what areas you lack knowledge in, so you will have to use your own prudence to pick the most suitable advisors and ministers.

By now you’ve read a lot of advice on how to succeed as a prince, and you may be thinking that it is all pointless because the destiny of any prince lies in the hands of fortune and God.

But that assumption is not totally true. You can influence how the future turns out.