1. Whether it be expedient for a city to have few or many citizens
The ancient founders of cities, considering that laws and civil discipline could not be easily conserved and kept where a mighty multitude of people swarmed (for multitudes do breed and bring confusion) they limited the number of citizens beyond which they supposed the form and order of government they sought to hold within their cities could not else be maintained. Such were Lycurgus, Solon and Aristotle. But the Romans, supposing power (without which a city cannot be long maintained) consisteth for the most part in the multitude of people, endeavoured all the ways and means they might to make their country great and to replenish the same with store of people, as we have before and more at full declared in our Della Ragion di Stato.
If the world would be governed by reason, and all men would content themselves with that which justly doth belong unto them, haply the judgment of the ancient law-makers were worthy to be embraced. But experience shows, through the corruption of human nature, that force prevails above reason, and arms above laws, and teacheth us besides the opinion of the Romans must be preferred before the Grecians; inasmuch as we see the Athenians and the Lacedemonians (not to speak of other commonweals of the Grecians) came to present ruin upon a very small discomfiture and loss of a thousand and seven hundred citizens or little more where, on the other side, the Romans triumphed in the end though many times they lost an infinite number of their people in their attempts and enterprises. For it is clear more Romans perished in the wars they had against Pyrrhus, the Carthaginians, Numantians, Viriathus, Sertorius and others, than fell without comparison of all their enemies. And yet for all that they rested always conquerors by means of their unexhausted multitude, with the which, supplying their loss from time to time, they overcame their enemies as much, though they were strong and fierce, as with their fortitude and strength. In these former I have sufficiently declared the ways and means whereby a city may increase to that magnificency and greatness that is to be desired, so that I have no further to speak thereunto, but only to propound one thing more that I have thought upon, not for the necessity so much of the matter as that because I think it will be an ornament unto the work, and give a very good light unto it. And therefore let us now consider.
2. What the reason is that cities once grown to a greatness increase not onward according to that proportion
Let no man think the ways and means aforesaid, or any other that may be any way devised, can work or effect it that a city may go on in increase without ceasing. And therefore it is in truth a thing worth the consideration how it comes to Pass that cities grown to a point of greatness and power pass no further, but either stand at that stay, or else return back again. Let us take for our example Rome.
Rome, at her beginning, when she was founded and built by Romulus (as Dionysius of Halicarnassus writeth) was able to make out three thousand three hundred fit men for the wars. Romulus reigned thirty-seven years, within the compass of which time the city was increased even to forty-seven thousand persons fit to bear arms. About one hundred and fifty years after the death of Romulus, in the time of Servius Tullius, there were numbered in Rome eighty thousand persons fit for arms. The number in the end, by little and little, grew to four hundred and fifty thousand.
My question therefore is, how it comes to pass that from three thousand and three hundred men of war the people grew to four hundred and fifty thousand, and from four hundred and fifty thousand they went no further. And in like matter, since it is four hundred years since Milan and Venice made as many people as they do at this day, how it doth also come to pass that the multiplication goes not onward accordingly.
Some answer the cause hereof is the plagues, the wars, the dearths and other suchlike causes. But this gives no satisfaction. For plagues have ever been, and wars have been more common and more bloody in former times than now. For in those days they came to hand strokes by and by, and to a main pitched battle in the field, where there were within three or four hours more people slain than are in these days in many years. For war is now drawn out of the field to the walls, and the mattock and the spade are now more used than the sword. The world besides was never without alteration and change of plenty and of dearth, of health and of plagues. thereof I shall not need to bring examples, because the histories are full. Now if cities with all these accidents and chances begun at first with a few people increase to a great number of inhabitants, how comes it that proportionably they do not increase accordingly?
Some others say it is because God the Governor of all things doth so dispose. No man doth doubt of that; but forasmuch as the infinite wisdom of God, in the administration and the government of nature, worketh secondary causes, my question is with what means that Eternal Providence maketh little to multiply, and much to stand at a stay and go no further.
Now to answer this propounded question I say, the selfsame question may be also made of all mankind, forasmuch as within the compass of three thousand years it multiplied in such sort from one man and one woman as the provinces of the whole continent and the islands of the sea were full of people. thence it doth proceed that from those three thousand years to this day this multiplication hath not exceeded further.
Now that I may the better resolve this doubt I purpose to answer it, as mine answer may not only serve for the cities, but also for the universal theatre of the world.
I say then, that the augmentation of cities proceedeth partly out of the virtue generative of men, and partly out of the virtue nutritive of the cities. The virtue generative is without doubt to this day the very same, or at least such as it was before three thousand years were passed, forasmuch as men are at this day as apt for generation as they were in the times of David or of Moses. So that if there were no other impediment or let therein, the propagation of mankind would. increase without end, and the augmentation of cities would be without term. And if it do not increase in infinite I must needs say it proceedeth of the defect of nutriment and sustenance sufficient for it.
Now nutriment and victuals are gotten either out of the territories belonging to the city or out of foreign countries. To have a city great and populous it is necessary that victuals may be brought from far unto it. And that victuals may be brought from remote and foreign parts unto it it behoves that her virtue attractive be of such power and strength as it be able to overcome the hardness and the sharpness of the regions, the height of the mountains, the descent of the valleys, the swiftness of the rivers, the rage of the seas, the dangers of the pirates, the uncertainty of the winds, the greatness of the charge, the evil passage of the ways, the envy of the bordering neighbours, the hatred of enemies, the emulation of competitors, the length of the time that is required for transportation, the dearths and necessities of the places from whence they must be brought, the natural dissension of nations, the contrariety of sects and opinions in religion, and other suchlike things, all which increase as the people increase and the affairs of the city: to conclude, that it grow to be so mighty and so great as it can overcome all the diligence and all the industry that man can use whatsoever. For how shall merchants be persuaded they can bring corn, for example, out of the Indies or Cathay to Rome, or the Romans expect to have it thence? But admit that either of them could so persuade themselves, who can yet assure them the seasons will be always good for corn, that the people stand to peace and quietness, that the passages be open and the ways be safe? Or what form or what course can be taken to bring provision to Rome by so long a way by land, in such sort and manner as the conductors thereof may be able to endure the travel and to wield the charge thereof? Now any one of these impediments or lets, without adding more to overthwart and cross it more, is enough to dissipate and scatter quite asunder the people of a city destitute of help and subject to so many accidents and chances. Even one dearth, one famine, one violence of war, one interruption or stay of trade and traffic, one common loss to the merchants, or other suchlike accident will make (as winter doth the swallows) the people to seek another country.
The ordinary greatness of a city consisteth in these terms, with which it can hardly be contented. For the greatness that dependeth upon remote causes or hard means cannot long endure. For every man will seek his commodity and ease where he may find it best. We must also add to these things aforesaid that great cities are more subject unto dearths than the little, for they need more sustenance and victuals. The plague also afflicteth them more surely and more often, with greater loss of people. And to speak in a word, great cities are subject to all the difficulties and hardness we have before declared because they need a great deal more.
So that, although men were as apt to generation in the height and pride of the Romans, greatness as in the first beginning thereof, yet for all that the people increased not proportionably. For the virtue nutritive of that city had no power to go further, so that in success of time the inhabitants, finding much want and less means to supply their lack of victual, either forbare to marry or, if they did marry, their children oppressed with penury, their parents affording them no relief, fled their own country and sought abrfor better fortune. To the which inconvenience the Romans willing to provide a remedy, they made choice of a number of poor citizens and sent them into colonies, where, like trees transplanted, they might have more room to better themselves both in condition and commodity, and by that means increase and multiply the faster.
By the selfsame reason mankind grown to a certain complete number hath grown no further. And it is three thousand years agone and more that the world was replenished as full with people as it is at this present, for the fruits of the earth and the plenty of victual doth not suffice to feed a greater number. In Mesopotamia mankind did first begin to propagate. From thence by success of time it increased and spread apace daily both far and near and having replenished the firm land they transported themselves into the islands of the sea; and so from our counties they have at length arrived by little and little to the counties we call the New World. And what is there under the sun that doth make man, with more horrible effusion of blood, to fight for, and with more cruelty, than the earth, food and commodity of habitation? The Suevians accounted it an honour and a glory to them to bring their confines by many hundred miles into a waste and wilderness. In the New World, in the isle of St. Dominic and the borders thereabout, the people chase and hunt men as we do deer and hares. The like do many of the people of Brazil, especially they whom we call Aymores, who tear in pieces and devour young boys and young girls alive, and open the bellies of the women great with child, and take the creatures out, and in the presence and sight of the fathers themselves eat them roasted upon the coals -- a most horrible thing to hear, much more to see it.
The people of Guinea for the most part live so poor and needy as they daily sell their own children for very vile price to the Moors, who carry them into Barbary, and to the Portugals, who send them to their islands, or sell them to the Castilians for the New World. The people of Peru do the like, who for little more than nothing give their children to them will have them, which proceedeth of misery, and of the impotency they have to bring them up and to maintain them. The Tartars and the Arabians live upon stealth and rapine; the Nasamoni and the Cafri, the most savage and barbarous people of all Ethiopia, live upon the spoils of others' shipwrecks, as the Portugals have many times felt.
It is also a thing known to all men how oft the French, the Dutch, the Goths, the Huns, the Avari, the Tartars and divers other nations, unable through their infinite multitude of people to live in their own countries, have left their confines and possessed themselves with other men's countries, to the utter ruin and destruction of the inhabitants therein. Hence it came to pass that within few ages all the provinces of Europe and of Asia became possessed, in a manner, of strange people, fled and run out of their counties and habitations either for the mighty multitude of people their country could not sustain, or for desire they had to lead a more commodious and easy life elsewhere, in greater plenty of good things.
The multitude again of thieves and murderers, whence doth it, I pray you, for the most part grow, but of necessity and want? Differences, suits and quarrels, whence do they proceed but out of the straitness and the scantness of confines, boundaries, ditches, hedges and enclosures which men make about their farms and manors? Watchmen of the vineyards and of ripe fruits, gates, locks, bolts and mastiffs kept about the house, what do they argue else but that the world is hard and either ministreth not sufficient to our necessities or satisfieth not our greedy covetous desires? And what shall I remember arms of so many kinds and of so cruel sorts, what shall I speak of continual wars both on sea and land, that bringeth all things unto utter ruin, what of forts on passages, what of garrisons, bulwarks and munition?
Neither doth this lake of mischiefs contain all, for I must add to these the barrenness of soils, the scarcity and dearths of victual, the evil influence of the air, the contagious and dangerous diseases, the plagues, the earthquakes, the inundations both of seas and rivers, and such other accidents which destroy and overthrow now a city, now a kingdom, now a people, now some other thing, and are the let and stay that the number of men cannot increase and grow immoderately.
3. Of the causes that do concern the magnificency and greatness of a city
It now only resteth, having brought our city to that dignity and greatness which the condition of the site and other circumstances afford unto it, that we labour to conserve, to maintain and uphold the dignity and greatness of the same. And to speak all at a word, these helps may very well serve to do it: that is, justice, peace, and plenty. For justice assureth every man his own. Peace causeth tillage, trade and arts to flourish. And plenty of food and victual sustaineth the life of man with ease and much contentment to him. And the people embrace nothing more gladly than plenty of corn. To conclude, all those things that cause the greatness of a city are also fit to conserve the same. For the causes, as well of the production of things as also of the conservation of them, are ever all one and the same, whatsoever they be.
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