CHAPTER XXXI.: how dangerous it is to trust to the representations of exiles.

It seems to me not amiss to speak here of the danger of trusting to the representations of men who have been expelled from their country, this being a matter that all those who govern states have to act upon almost daily; and I touch upon it the more willingly, as Titus Livius gives a most memorable instance of it, though in a measure foreign to the subject he treats upon. When Alexander the Great went with his army into Asia, Alexander of Epirus, his brother-in-law and uncle, came with his army into Italy, having been called there by the banished Lucanians, who had held out the hope to him that by their means he would be able to seize that whole country; and when Alexander, upon their assurances and the hopes held out by them, had come into Italy, they killed him, because they had been promised by the citizens of Lucania permission to return to their homes if they would assassinate Alexander. We see, then, how vain the faith and promises of men are who are exiles from their own country. As to their faith, we have to bear in mind that, whenever they can return to their country by other means than your assistance, they will abandon you and look to the other means, regardless of their promises to you. And as to their vain hopes and promises, such is their extreme desire to return to their homes that they naturally believe many things that are not true, and add many others on purpose; so that, with what they really believe and what they say they believe, they will fill you with hopes to that degree that if you attempt to act upon them you will incur a fruitless expense, or engage in an undertaking that will involve you in ruin. The example of Alexander of Epirus, just cited, will suffice to prove the truth of this; but I will add that of Themistocles the Athenian, who, having been declared a rebel, fled to Darius in Asia, and made such representations and promises to him if he would attack Greece, that Darius allowed himself to be persuaded to undertake it. But when Themistocles found that he could not fulfil those promises, he poisoned himself, either from shame or from the fear of punishment.

And if so eminent a man as Themistocles could commit so great an error, we may judge to what extent men of less virtue allow themselves to be misled by their desires and their passions. A prince therefore should be slow in undertaking any enterprise upon the representations of exiles, for he will generally gain nothing by it but shame and serious injury. And as cities are rarely taken by surprise or by means of secret intelligence with those within, it seems to me it will not be out of place if I treat of this in the following chapter, and at the same time give some account of the method practised by the Romans in taking cities.