Discourses on Livy

Machiavelli's longest political work, a commentary in three books on the first ten books of Livy's history of Rome. Where The Prince addresses a single ruler, the Discourses ask how free republics are founded, grow and last. Book I treats Rome's internal order: the cycle of constitutions taken from Polybius, the case for a mixed government of consuls, senate and tribunes, and the striking claim that the quarrels between the plebs and the nobles made Rome free rather than weak. It praises the civic use of religion and argues that a people is wiser and more constant than a prince. Book II deals with expansion, alliances and war, and asks how Christian values have weakened modern love of liberty. Book III turns to the deeds of individual citizens and to the need for states to return periodically to their first principles. Throughout, Machiavelli reads ancient history as a guide for his own divided Italy.

It shows the republican Machiavelli behind The Prince, and its case for liberty, conflict and civic virtue runs through later thought on republics, including the American founders.