Machiavelli completes the pair of paths from private station with the civil principality: a leading citizen becomes prince by fellow citizens' favor, through happy shrewdness rather than genius or fortune alone.
Every city holds two parties. The nobles want to rule and oppress; the people want not to be oppressed. Either faction may elevate one of its own when the other cannot be beaten outright. A prince raised by nobles keeps power with more difficulty because many around him consider themselves equals and will not obey as he wishes. A prince raised by the people stands almost alone among men ready to obey. You cannot satisfy nobles by fair dealing without injuring others, but you can satisfy the people because they ask only not to be crushed.
Machiavelli sorts nobles into those bound to your fortune and those who are not. Honor the loyal; use the timid for counsel; fear the ambitious unbound as open enemies who ruin you in adversity. A people-backed prince keeps them friendly easily. A noble-backed prince must above all win the people by taking them under his protection, because gratitude for unexpected good binds them tighter than if they had chosen him themselves.
Nabis of Sparta held off all Greece and a victorious Roman army because only a few had to be secured, which would have failed if the people had been hostile. The proverb about building on mud applies to private citizens who expect the crowd to save them, as with the Gracchi and Messer Giorgio Scali, not to an established prince who commands and keeps the people encouraged.
Civil principalities grow fragile when they shift from rule through magistrates to absolute rule: in crisis, citizens obey magistrates they know, not the prince, and quiet-time promises vanish when the state needs them. A wise prince makes citizens need the state and him in every circumstance, so loyalty can be tested before the one crisis that cannot be repeated.
Coming Up in Chapter 10
In the next chapter, Machiavelli turns to another crucial aspect of power and leadership Machiavelli asks how to measure a principality's strength: can the prince, in need, support himself with his own resources, or must he always depend on others? He divides rulers into two kinds..
