of fortune; for surely, that was his frame of mind when he was killed.[1]
(b) A stranger said and proclaimed everywhere that he could inform Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, of a way to scent out and discover with absolute certainty the schemes that his subjects hatched against him, if he would give him a round sum of money. Dionysius, having notice of this, had him brought before him, to enlighten him about an art so essential to his preservation. The stranger told him that there was no other art in it than that he should order a talent to be given him, and should boast of having learned an extraordinary secret from him. Dionysius thought this device excellent, and had six hundred crowns counted out to him. It was not likely that he had given so large a sum to an unknown man except as recompense for very useful instruction;[2] and that repute served to keep his enemies in fear. For this reason, princes wisely make public the information they receive of secret plots devised against their lives, in order to have it believed that they are well warned, and that nothing can be undertaken without their smelling it.[3] (c) The Duke of Athens did many foolish things in establishing his new tyranny over Florence; but the most notable was this: that, having received the first notice of the factious combinations which the people were forming against him from Mattheo di Morozo, one of the conspirators, he had him put to death, in order to suppress this information, and to avoid its being perceived that any one in the city was weary of his sway.[4]
(a) I remember to have read at some time the story of some Roman, a person of rank, who, flying from the tyranny of the Triumvirate, had eluded innumerable times the grasp of his pursuers by his crafty devices. It happened one day that a troop of horse, who were commissioned to capture him, passed very close to a thicket in which he was lurking, and failed to discover him. But, at that juncture, reflecting upon the trouble and difficulties he had already endured
