| Dedication | ||
| Book | I | [Decisions made by the Romans pertinent to the internal affairs of the City] |
|---|---|---|
| Chapter | I | What have generally been the beginnings of some Cities, and what was that of Rome |
| II | Of the kinds of Republics there are, and of which was the Roman Republic | |
| III | What events caused the creation of the Tribunes of the Plebs in Rome, which made the Republic more perfect | |
| IV | That disunion of the Plebs and the Roman Senate made that Republic free and powerful | |
| V | Where the guarding of liberty is more securely placed, either in the People or in the Nobles; and which have the greater reason to become tumultuous either he who wants to acquire or he who wants to maintain | |
| VI | Whether it was possible to establish a government in Rome which could eliminate the enmity between the Populace and the Senate | |
| VII | How much the faculty of accusing (Judiciary) is necessary for a Republic for the maintenance of liberty | |
| VIII | As much as accusations are useful to a Republic, so much so are calumnies pernicious | |
| IX | How it is necessary for one man alone in desiring to organize a new Republic to reform its institutions entirely outside the ancient ones | |
| X | As much as the founders of Republics and Kingdoms are laudable, so much are those of a Tyranny shameful | |
| XI | Of the religions of the Romans | |
| XII | Of how much importance should be given Religion; and how Italy, because the medium of the Roman Church was lacking, was ruined | |
| XIII | How the Romans served themselves of Religion to establish the City and to carry out their enterprises and stop tumults | |
| XIV | The Romans interpreted the auspices according to necessity, and with their prudence made a show of observing Religion, even when they were forced not to observe it, and if anyone recklessly disparaged it they punished him | |
| XV | How the Samnites had recourse to Religion as an extreme remedy for the things afflicting them | |
| XVI | A People accustomed to living under a Prince, if by some accident becomes free, maintains its liberty with difficulty | |
| XVII | A corrupt People coming into their liberty can maintain itself free only with the greatest difficulty | |
| XVIII | In what way in a corrupt City a free State can be maintained, if there is one there, or if not, how to establish it | |
| XIX | A weak Prince who succeeds an excellent Prince can be maintained, but any Kingdom cannot be maintained if a weak one is succeeded by another weak one | |
| XX | Two continuous successions of Princes of virtu achieve great results; and that well organized Republics of necessity have successions of virtu; therefore their acquisitions and expansions are great | |
| XXI | How much blame that Prince and Republic merit who lack their own arms | |
| XXII | What is to be noted in the case of the three Roman Horatii and of the three Alban Curatii | |
| XXIII | That one ought not to put in peril all his fortune and all his forces; and because of this the guarding of passes is often harmful | |
| XXIV | Well organized Republics establish rewards and penalties for their Citizens, but never compensate one (at the expense) of the other | |
| XXV | Whoever wants to reform an ancient State into a free City, should retain at least a shadow of the ancient forms | |
| XXVI | A new Prince in a City or Province taken by him ought to organize everything anew | |
| XXVII | Very rarely do men know how to be entirely good or entirely bad | |
| XXVIII | For what reasons the Romans were less ungrateful to their Citizens than the Athenians | |
| XXIX | Which is more ungrateful, a People or a Prince | |
| XXX | What means a Prince or a Republic ought to use to avoid this vice of ingratitude, and what that Captain or that Citizen ought to do so as not to be touched by it | |
| XXXI | That Roman Captains were never extraordinarily punished for errors committed; nor were they yet punished when, by their ignorance or bad proceedings undertaken by them, harm ensued to the Republic | |
| XXXII | A Republic or a Prince ought not to defer benefiting men in their necessity | |
| XXXIII | When an evil has sprung up either within a State or against a State, it is a more salutary proceeding to temporize with it than to attack it rashly | |
| XXXIV | The dictatorial authority did good and not harm to the Roman Republic; and that the authority which Citizens take away, not those are given them by free suffrage, are pernicious to Civil Society | |
| XXXV | The reason why the creation of the Decemvirs in Rome was harmful to the liberty of that Republic, notwithstanding that it was created by public and free suffrage | |
| XXXVI | Citizens who have been given the higher honors ought not to disdain the lesser | |
| XXXVII | What troubles the Agrarian law brought forth in Rome; and how troublesome it is to make a law in a Republic which greatly regards the past but contrary to the ancient customs of the City | |
| XXXVIII | Weak Republics are irresolute and do not know how to decide; and if they take up any proceeding, it results more from necessity than from election | |
| XXXIX | The same incidents often happen to different People | |
| XL | The creation of the Decemvirate in Rome, and what is to be noted in it; and where it will be considered among many other things how a Republic can be saved or ruined because of similar accidents | |
| XLI | To jump from humility to pride and from mercy to cruelty without profitable means, is an imprudent and useless thing | |
| XLII | How easily man may be corrupted | |
| XLIII | Those who combat for their own glory are good and faithful Soldiers | |
| XLIV | A multitude without a head is useless, and one ought not to threaten first, and then seek authority | |
| XLV | It is a bad example not to observe a Law that has been made, and especially by the author of it; and it is most harmful to renew every day new injuries in a City and to the one who governs it | |
| XLVI | Men jump from one ambition to another, and first they seek not to be offended, then to offend others | |
| XLVII | Men, although they deceive themselves in general matters do not deceive themselves in the particulars | |
| XLVIII | Whoever wants a Magistracy not to be given to a vile or wicked one, will have it asked by a man more vile and more wicked, or by one more noble and more good | |
| XLIX | If those Cities which had their beginning free as Rome, have had difficulty in finding laws that would maintain them, those that had their beginning in servitude have almost an impossibility | |
| L | A Council or Magistrate ought not to be able to stop the activities of a City | |
| LI | A Republic or a Prince ought to feign to do through liberality, that which necessity constrains them | |
| LII | To reprimand the insolence of a powerful one who springs up in a Republic, there is no more secure and less troublesome way than to forestall him those ways by which he comes to power | |
| LIII | The People many times desire their ruin, deceived by a false species of good: and how great hopes and strong promises easily move them | |
| LIV | How much authority a great Man has in restraining an excited Multitude (mob) | |
| LV | How easily things are managed in that City where the Multitude is not corrupt, and that where there is equality a Principality cannot be established, and where there is none a Republic cannot be established | |
| LVI | Before great events occur in a City or a Province, signs come which foretell them, or men who predict them | |
| LVII | Together the Plebs are strong, dispersed they are weak | |
| LVIII | The Multitude is wiser and more constant than a Prince | |
| LIX | Which Alliances or Leagues can be trusted, whether those made with a Republic or those made with a Prince | |
| LX | How the Consulship and every other Magistracy in Rome ought to be (bestowed) without any regard to age | |
| Book | II | [That which the Roman people did pertinent to the aggrandizement of their Empire] |
| Chapter | I | Whether Virtu or Fortune was the greater cause for the Empire which the Romans acquired |
| II | With what People the Romans had to combat, and how obstinately they defended their liberty | |
| III | Rome became a great City by ruining the surrounding Cities and admitting foreigners easily to her honors | |
| IV | Republics have had three ways of expanding | |
| V | That the changes of sects and languages, together with the accident of deluges and pestilence, extinguished the memory of things | |
| VI | How the Romans proceeded in making war | |
| VII | How much land the Romans gave each colonist | |
| VIII | The reason why People depart from their national places and inundate the country of others | |
| IX | What causes commonly make wars arise between the powerful | |
| X | Money is not the sinew of war although this is common opinion | |
| XI | It is not a prudent proceeding to make an alliance with a Prince who has more reputation than power | |
| XII | Is it better, fearing to be assaulted, to carry out or await war | |
| XIII | That one comes from the bottom to a great fortune more by fraud than by force | |
| XIV | Men often deceive themselves believing that by humility they overcome haughtiness | |
| XV | Weak States are always ambiguous in their resolutions, and weak decisions are always harmful | |
| XVI | How much the soldiers in our times are different from the ancient organization | |
| XVII | How much the army ought to esteem the artillery in the present times, and if that opinion that is generally had of it is true | |
| XVIII | That because of the authority of the Romans and by the example of ancient armies, the infantry ought to be more esteemed than cavalry | |
| XIX | That acquisitions in Republics not well organized and that do not proceed according to Roman virtu, are the ruin and not the exaltation of them | |
| XX | What perils are brought to that Prince or that Republic which avails itself of auxiliary and mercenary troops | |
| XXI | The first Praetor which the Romans sent any place was the Capua, four hundred years after they had begun to make war (against that City) | |
| XXII | How often the opinions of men in judging things (to be) great are false | |
| XXIII | How much the Romans, in judging the matters for any incident that should necessitate such judgment, avoided half-way measures | |
| XXIV | Fortresses are generally more harmful than useful | |
| XXV | That the assaulting of a disunited City in order to occupy it by means of its disunion is an error | |
| XXVI | Contempt and insult generate hatred against those who employ them, without any usefulness to them | |
| XXVII | To prudent Princes and Republics, it ought to be enough to win, for often it is not enough if they lose | |
| XXVIII | How dangerous it is for a Prince or a Republic, not to avenge an injury made against the public or a private (citizen) | |
| XXIX | Fortune blinds the minds of men when she does not want them to oppose her designs | |
| XXX | Truly powerful Republics and Princes do not purchase friendship with money, but with virtu and reputation of strength | |
| XXXI | How dangerous it is to believe exiles | |
| XXXII | In how many ways the Romans occupied Towns | |
| XXXIII | How the Romans gave their Captains of armies uncontrolled commissions | |
| Book | III | [Preservation and governance of the State] |
| Chapter | I | To want that a Sect or a Republic exist for long, it is necessary to return them often to their Principles |
| II | How at times it is a very wise thing to simulate madness | |
| III | How it was necessary, in wanting to maintain the newly acquired liberty, to kill the sons of Brutus | |
| IV | A prince does not live securely in a Principality while those who have been despoiled of it live | |
| V | That which makes a King lose the Kingdom that was inherited by him | |
| VI | Of conspiracies | |
| VII | Whence that when changes take place from liberty to slavery, and from slavery to liberty, some are effected without bloodshed, and some are full of it | |
| VIII | He who wants to alter a Republic ought to consider its condition | |
| IX | How one must change with the times, if he wants to have good fortune always | |
| X | That a Captain cannot avoid an engagement if the Adversary wants to do so in every way | |
| XI | That he who has to do with many, even though he is inferior, as long as he resists the first attack, wins | |
| XII | How a prudent Captain ought to impose every necessity for fighting on his soldiers, and take them away from the Enemy | |
| XIII | Where one should have more confidence, either in a good Captain who has a weak Army, or in a good Army which has a weak Captain | |
| XIV | What effects the new invention and new voices have that appear in the midst of battle | |
| XV | That an Army should have one, and not many, in charge, and that many Commanders are harmful | |
| XVI | That true virtu is difficult to find in difficult times, and in easy times it is not men of virtu that prevail, but those who have more favor because of riches or (powerful) relation | |
| XVII | That one who has been offended ought not to be placed in any administration and government of importance | |
| XVIII | Nothing is more worthy of a Captain than to penetrate the proceedings of the Enemy | |
| XIX | Whether obsequies are more necessary than punishment in ruling a multitude | |
| XX | An example of how humanity did influence the Faliscians more than all the power of Rome | |
| XXI | Whence it happened that Hannibal, with a different method of proceeding than Scipio, achieved the same result in Italy as the latter (did in Spain) | |
| XXII | How the harshness of Manlius Torquatus and the humanity of Valerius Corvinus acquired the same glory for each | |
| XXIII | For what reason Camillus was driven out of Rome | |
| XXIV | The prolongation of (military) commands made Rome slave | |
| XXV | Of the poverty of Cincinnatus and many Roman citizens | |
| XXVI | How a State is ruined because of women | |
| XXVII | How a divided City is to be united, and how that opinion is not true which supposes that it is necessary to keep a City disunited in order to hold it | |
| XXVIII | That the actions of citizens ought to be observed, for many times a beginning of tyranny is hidden under a pious act | |
| XXIX | That the faults of the People arise from the Princes | |
| XXX | For a citizen who wants to do some good deed in his Republic on his own authority, it is first necessary to extinguish envy; and how the defense of a City ought to be organized on the coming of the Enemy | |
| XXXI | Strong Republics and excellent men retain the same courage and dignity in any fortune | |
| XXXII | What means some have had to disturb a peace | |
| XXXIII | In wanting to win an engagement, it is necessary to make the army have confidence both in themselves and in their captain | |
| XXXIV | What fame or voice or opinion which a people make begins to favor a citizen; and whether they distribute the magistracies with greater prudence than a Prince | |
| XXXV | What dangers occur in making oneself head in counselling a thing, and how much the danger increases when it is an extraordinary thing | |
| XXXVI | The reason why the Gauls have been, and still are, judged at the beginning of a battle to be more than men, and afterwards less than women | |
| XXXVII | Whether skirmishes before an engagement are necessary, and how to recognize a new enemy if they are avoided | |
| XXXVIII | How a Captain ought to be constituted, in whom in army can confide | |
| XXXIX | That a Captain ought to be one having a knowledge of sites | |
| XL | That to use deceit in the managing of a war is a glorious thing | |
| XLI | That one's country ought to be defended, whether with ignominy or with glory, but it can be defended in whatever manner | |
| XLII | That promises made by force ought not to be observed | |
| XLIII | That men born in a province observe for all time almost the same natures | |
| XLIV | Impetuosity and audacity many times can obtain that which, with ordinary means, can never be obtained | |
| XLV | What is the better proceeding in battle, either to sustain the first shock of the enemy, and having sustained it, hurl them back, or rather to assault him first with fury | |
| XLVI | Whence it happens that a family in a city for a time, have the same customs | |
| XLVII | That for the love of his country, a good citizen ought to forget private injuries | |
| XLVIII | When a good error is seen to be made by the enemy, it ought to be believed that it is done under deceit | |
| XLIX | A Republic wanting to maintain itself free has some need of new precautions, and it was by such methods that Q. Fabius was called Maximus | |
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