Niccolò Machiavelli：The Prince, Excerpt 47

I was not intending to go beyond Italian and recent examples, but I am unwilling to leave out Hiero, the Syracusan, he being one of those I have named above. This man, as I have said, made head of the army by the Syracusans, soon found out that a mercenary soldiery, constituted like our Italian condottieri, was of no use; and it appearing to him that he could neither keep them nor let them go, he had them all cut to pieces, and afterwards made war with his own forces and not with aliens.

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1232
Locator：Excerpt 47 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Short excerpt

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