Essay Commanding Lady Fortune Machiavelli’s Theory of...

Commanding Lady Fortune: Machiavelli’s Theory of History Machiavelli opens his Discourses on Livy by declaring that what will follow will be entirely revolutionary—â€Å"a path yet untrodden by anyone†Ã¢â‚¬â€but then quickly backs down from such assertions, shifting his focus away from his own efforts to the modern views of the ancients, and leaving the nature of this revolutionary undertaking ambiguous (Discourses, 5) . Indeed, the purpose of the whole work is repeatedly skirted in the preface. Machiavelli instead focuses on the distinction between the moderns and the ancients, mourning the superficial modern adoption of ancient ideas in art and law that lacks a deeper understanding of the philosophical underpinnings of ancient thought. He†¦show more content†¦The implications of such a view of history for politics is Machiavelli’s claim that, because history is the study of the actions of great men with fixed natures, history itself is subject to a discernible method that may be used to understand the pres ent and predict the future. The man who understands the repetitive nature of history does not attribute the unexpected events of the present to fortune or God, but to his failure to find an accurate parallel to the present event in the past. In his outline of the proper education of a prince, Machiavelli suggests that â€Å"as to the exercise of the mind, a prince should read histories and consider in them the actions of excellent men, should see how they conducted themselves in wars, should examine the causes of their victories and losses, so as to be able to avoid the latter and imitate the former† (Prince, 60) . Philopoemen, by evaluating every possible military maneuver, achieved a state of expertise at which â€Å"there could never arise, while he led the army, any accident for which he did not have the remedy† (Prince, 60). In other words, the knowledge of all possibilities could head off the devastating effects of fortune. Thus, fortune is defined not as the sou rce of inexplicable events, but as the failure to predict events. Fortune—whether good or ill—is simply badShow MoreRelatedElizabethan Era11072 Words   |  45 PagesThe Elizabethan Age is the time period associated with the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603) and is often considered to be a golden age in English history. It was an age considered to be the height of the English Renaissance, and saw the full flowering of English literature and English poetry. In Elizabethan theater, William Shakespeare, among others, composed and staged plays in a variety of settings that broke away from Englands past style of plays. It was an age of expansion and exploration