In Renaissance Italy, as in ancient Greece, a very high level of civilization was combined with a very low level of morals : both ages exhibit the greatest heights of genius and the greatest depths of scoundrelism, and in both the scoundrels and the men of genius are by no means antagonistic to each other. Leonardo erected fortifications for Cesare Borgia; some of the pupils of Socrates were among the worst of the thirty tyrants; Plato’s disciples were mixed up in shameful doings in Syracuse, and Aristotle married a tyrant’s niece. In both ages, after art, literature, and murder had flourished side by side for about a hundred and fifty years, all were extinguished together by less civilized but more cohesive nations from the West and North. In both cases the loss of political independence involved not only cultural decay, but loss of commercial supremacy and catastrophic impoverishment. 出典: Power, 1938. 詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/POWER06_190.HTM
ルネッサンス時代のイタリアは,古代ギリシアと非常に似たところがある。 しかし,ルネッサン期イタリアにおける混乱(状態)は,古代ギリシア時代よ りも,より大きくさえある。ルネッサン期イタリアには,ギリシアに倣った (模倣した)寡頭政治の商業的共和国があり,専制政体があり,封建主義的起源をもつ公国があり,さらに教会国家(the States of the Church)があった。 教皇はイタリア以外の地では尊敬を集めていたが,教皇の息子たちはそうはい かなかった。そうして,チェザーレ・ボルジア(注:1492年に父ロドリーゴは アレクサンデル6世として教皇の座を獲得)はむきだしの権力に頼らなければならなかった。
チェザーレ・ボルジアとその父アレクサンダー六世は重要人物であるが,それは,彼らが自身が重要であったからだけでなく,マキャヴェリに感銘を与えた人物としても同様に重要であった。彼らの生涯のなかのある一つの出来事を ,クレイトンのコメント(批評)とともに紹介することは,彼らの生きた時代を例証するのに役立つであろう。コロンナ家(Colonna:中世ローマで力を持 ったイタリアの有力貴族)とオルシーニ家とは何世紀かに渡って教皇たちの破滅のもと(災いのもと)であった。コロンナ家は既に衰退していたが,オルシ ーニ家はまだ命脈を保っていた。教皇アレクサンダー六世は彼らと協定を結び ,彼らの長である枢機卿のオルシーニをヴァチカンに招いた。それは息子のチェザーレが,オルシーニ家の重要な二人の人物を裏切りによって既に捕えてい たことを耳にしていた時のことであった。枢機官のオルシーニは,教皇の面前に出るやいなや逮捕された。オルシーニ枢機卿の母親は,オルシーニに食物を 差し入れる権利を得るために,二千ダカット金貨を教皇に支払い,彼の令夫人 (妻)は教皇に教皇がかねてから欲しくてたまらなかった高価な真珠を教皇 (His Holiness)に贈った。にもかかわらず,枢機官オルシーは獄中で亡くな った。彼の死はアレクサンダー六世の命令による毒入りの葡萄酒のせいだと言われている。この出来事に関するクレイトンの以下のコメント(批評)は,むきだしの権力をもつ政体の性格をよく示している。(原注:『教皇権の歴史』 (History of the Papacy)第5巻,四二頁)
Renaissance Italy presents a very close parallel to ancient Greece, but the confusion is even greater. There were oligarchical commercial republics, tyrannies, after the Greek model, principalities of feudal origin, and, in addition, the States of the Church. The Pope, except in Italy, commanded reverence, but his sons did not, and Cesare Borgia had to rely upon naked power.
Cesare Borgia and his father Alexander VI are important, not only on their own account, but as having inspired Machiavelli. One incident in their career, with Creighton’s comments, will serve to illustrate their age. The Colonna and Orsini had been the bane of the Popes for centuries ; the Colonna had already fallen, but the Orsini remained. Alexander VI made a treaty with them, and invited their chief, Cardinal Orsini, to the Vatican, on hearing that Cesare had captured two important Orsini by treachery. Cardinal Orsini was arrested as soon as he came into the Pope’s presence; his mother paid the Pope two thousand ducats for the privilege of sending him food, and his mistress presented His Holiness with a costly pearl which he had coveted. Nevertheless Cardinal Orsini died in prison — of poisoned wine given by the orders of Alexander VI, it was said. Creighton’s comments on this occurrence (note : History of the Papacy, Vol. V, p. 42) illustrate the character of a regime of naked power :
“It is amazing that this treacherous deed should have awakened no remonstrances, and should have been so completely successful ; but in the artificial politics of Italy everything depended on the skill of the players of the game. The condottieri represented only themselves, and when they were removed by any means, however treacherous, nothing remained. There was no party, no interest, which was outraged by the fall of the Orsini and Vitellozzo. The armies of the condottieri were formidable so long as they followed their generals; when the generals were removed, the soldiers dispersed and entered into other engagements. . . . Most men admired Cesare’s consummate coolness in the matter…. No outrage was done to current morality. … Most men in Italy accepted as sufficient Cesare’s remark to Machiavelli: ‘It is well to beguile those who have shown themselves masters of treachery.’ Cesare’s conduct was judged by its success.” 出典: Power, 1938. 詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/POWER06_180.HTM
His power in Sicily, for some time, survived all these vicissitudes. He (= Agathocles) took Aegesta, killed all the poorer males in that city, and tortured the rich till they revealed where their wealth was concealed. The young women and children he sold as slaves to the Bruttii on the mainland. His home life, I regret to say, was not altogether happy. His wife had an affair with his son, one of his two grandsons murdered the other, and then induced a servant of the old tyrant to poison grandpapa’s toothpick. The last act of Agathocles, when he saw he must die, was to summon the senate and demand vengeance on his grandson. But his gums, owing to the poison, became so sore that he could not speak. The citizens rose, he was hurried onto his funeral pyre before he was dead, his goods were confiscated, and we are told that democracy was restored. 出典: Power, 1938. 詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/POWER06_170.HTM
アガソクレスは,援軍が必要と感じて,キュレネ(注:Cyrene:現リビア領内にあった古代ギリシアの都市)に使節(団)を送った。当時のキュレネは,プトレミー一世(注:アレキサンダー大王の死後,エジプトを支配。天動説のプトレマイオスとは別人)の支配下のもと,アレクサンダー(大王)の指揮官の一人のオフェラスによって守られていた(was held by)。使節(団)は次のように言うように指示を受けていた。即ち,オフェラスの支援によってカルタゴを破ることができること,自分(アガソクレス)の望みはシシリーにおける安心安全だけであること,(従って)アフリカに対しては野心は何も持っていないこと,(アガソクレスとオフェラスが)共同で為しとげたアフリカでの征服地は全てオフェラスの取り分となること。このような申し出に動かされて,オフェラスは,自分の軍隊を率いて沙漠を越え,非常に苦労した後、アガソクレス(軍)との合流を成し遂げた(effected a junction with ~との連結を成し遂げた)。そこでただちに(thereupon),アガソクレスはオフェラスを殺害し,彼はオフェラスの軍隊に対して,もしお前たちが助かりたいと思うならば,今は亡きお前たちの指揮官オフエラスを殺害したアガソクレス(私)の下で,仕える他はないと指摘した(言い渡した)。
Agathocles, feeling the need of reinforcements, sent envoys to Cyrene, which was at that time held, under Ptolemy, by Ophelas, one of Alexander’s captains. The envoys were instructed to say that, with the help of Ophelas, Carthage could be destroyed; that Agathocles wished only to be secure in Sicily, and had no African ambitions ; and that all their joint conquests in Africa should be the share of Ophelas. Tempted by these offers, Ophelas marched across the desert with his army, and after great hardship effected a junction with Agathocles. Agathocles thereupon murdered him, and pointed out to his army that their only hope of safety was to take service under the murderer of their late commander.
He then besieged Utica, where, arriving unexpectedly, he captured three hundred prisoners in the fields; these he bound to the front of his siege engines, so that the Uticans, to defend themselves, had to kill their own people. Although successful in this enterprise, his position was difficult, the more so as he had reason to fear that his son Archagathus was stirring up disaffection in the army. So he fled secretly back to Sicily, and the army, in fury at his desertion, murdered both Archagathus and his other son. This so enraged him that he killed every man, woman, and child in Syracuse that was related to any soldier in the mutinous army. 出典: Power, 1938. 詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/POWER06_160.HTM
In war, Agathocles was resourceful and brave, but rash. There came a moment when it seemed as if the Carthaginians must be completely victorious; they were besieging Syracuse, and their navy occupied the harbour. But Agathocles, with a large army, sailed to Africa, where he burnt his ships to prevent them from falling into the hands of the Carthaginians. For fear of revolt in his absence, he took children as hostages; and after a time his brother, who was representing him in Syracuse, exiled eight thousand political opponents, whom the Carthaginians befriended. In Africa he was at first amazingly successful ; he captured Tunis; and besieged Carthage, where the government became alarmed, and set to work to propitiate Moloch. It was found that aristocrats whose children ought to have been sacrificed to the god had been in the habit of purchasing poor children as substitutes; the practice was now sternly repressed, since Moloch was known to be more gratified by the sacrifice of aristocratic children. After this reform the fortunes of the Carthaginians began to mend. 出典: Power, 1938. 詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/POWER06_150.HTM
Those of Agathocles’s party spent the day-time slaughtering the men, and at nightfall turned their attention to the women.
After two days’ massacre, Agathocles brought forth the prisoners and killed all but his friend Dinocrates. He then called the assembly, accused the oligarchs, and said he would purge the city of all friends of monarchy, and himself would live a private life. So he stripped off his uniform and dressed in mufti. But those who had robbed under his leadership wanted him in power, and he was voted sole general. “Many of the poorer sort, of those that were in debt, were much pleased with this revolution,” for Agathocles promised remission of debts and sharing out of lands to the poor. Then he was mild for a time. 出典: Power, 1938. 詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/POWER06_140.HTM
この当時のシラクサの政治(体制)は,民主政治と寡頭政治(少数独裁政治)の混じり合ったものであったように思われる。シラクサには600人の金持ちから構成される議会があった。アガソクレスは,これらの寡頭政治の支配者たちに対抗して,貧しい者たちの主張(cause)を支持した。彼は(600名から選出された)40名と会議をしている途中で,兵士らを奮起させこれら40名を皆殺しをし,(言い訳として)彼らは自分に対抗する計画を立てていたと述べた。それから彼は,軍隊を率いてシラクサ(の都)に入り,兵士たちに(議会構成員)600人全員を強奪するようにと告げた。(即ち)兵士たちは命令通り強奪行為を行い,また(しかも),何が起こっているのか見ようと自宅から出てきた市民たちを虐殺した。終には,多数の人が略奪のため(だけの理由で)殺害された。ディオドルスが述べているように,「否,神々の庇護を求めて神殿に逃げた人々さえまったく安全ではなく,神々に対する信心は人々の残忍な行為によって押しつぶされ,打ち負かされてしまった。自国においてはギリシア人対ギリシア人とが争い,平和な時に血縁者同時が争い,自然の綻も,同盟も,神々に対する尊崇も,何ら顧みるところなく,このように,あえて大胆にもこういった事柄(誤り)が実行された(犯された)のであった。そのために(On which account)味方の人々だけでなく,敵方の者たちさえも,また穏健な人々は皆,これらの痛ましい人々のみじめな状況について憐れまざるを得なかった。」
Chapter VI: Naked Power, n.13
The government of Syracuse at this time seems to have been a mixture of democracy and oligarchy. There was a council of six hundred, consisting of the richest men. Agathocles espoused the cause of the poor against these oligarchs. In the course of a conference with forty of them, he roused the soldiers and had all the forty murdered, saying there was a plot against him. He then led the army into the city, telling them to plunder all the six hundred ; they did so, and massacred citizens who came out of their houses to see what was happening; in the end, large numbers were murdered for booty. As Diodorus says: “Nay, there was no safety even to them that fled to the temples under the shelter of the gods; but piety towards the gods was crushed and borne down by the cruelty of men: and these things Greeks against Greeks in their own country, and kindred against kindred in a time of peace, without any regard either to the laws of nature, or leagues, or reverence to the gods, dared thus audaciously to commit: upon which account not only friends, but even enemies themselves, and every sober man, could not but pity the miserable condition of these distressed people.” 出典: Power, 1938. 詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/POWER06_130.HTM
Agathocles was a man of humble origin, the son of a potter. (Note: What follows rests on the authority of Diodorus Siculus. Some modern authorities say that he was biased, and that Agathocles was an admirable ruler. But it is difficult to believe that Diodorus is not correct as to the main facts.) Owing to his beauty he became the favourite of a rich Syracusan named Demas, who left him all his money, and whose widow he married. Having distinguished himself in war, he was thought to be aspiring to the tyranny; he was accordingly exiled, and orders were given that he should be murdered on his journey. But he, having foreseen this, changed clothes with a poor man, who was murdered in error by the hired assassins. He then raised an army in the interior of Sicily, which so terrified the Syracusans that they made a treaty with him: he was readmitted, and swore in the temple of Ceres that he would do nothing to the prejudice of the democracy. 出典: Power, 1938. 詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/POWER06_120.HTM
It used to be customary to lament the loss of Greek independence, and to think of the Greeks as all Solons and Socrateses. How little reason there was to deplore the victory of Rome may be seen from the history of Hellenic Sicily. I know no better illustration of naked power than the career of Agathocles, a contemporary of Alexander the Great, who lived from 361 to 289 B.C. (361B.C. to 289 B.C.), and was tyrant of Syracuse during the last twenty-eight years of his life.
Syracuse was the largest of Greek cities, perhaps the largest city in the Mediterranean. Its only rival was Carthage, with which there was always war except for a short time after a serious defeat of either party. The other Greek cities in Sicily sided sometimes with Syracuse, sometimes with Carthage, according to the turns of party politics. In every city, the rich favoured oligarchy and the poor favoured democracy ; when the partisans of democracy were victorious, their leader usually succeeded in making himself a tyrant. Many of the beaten party became exiles, and joined the armies of those cities in which their party was in power. But the bulk of the armed forces consisted of mercenaries, largely non-Hellenic. 出典: Power, 1938. 詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/POWER06_110.HTM
ギリシア史は,スパルタは例外として,古代ギリシアにおいては伝統の影響が驚くほど弱かったという点で特異である。さらに,古代ギリシアには政治道徳はほとんどなかった(という点でも特異であった)。ヘロドトスは(も),スパルタ市民で賄賂(をもらうこと)に抵抗できる者はまったくいなかった,と述べている。ギリシア全土を通じて,ペルシヤ王から賄賂をもらったということで政治家に異議を唱えても無駄であった。なぜなら,彼(自分)の政敵も,もし買収するだけの価値をもつほど権力を持つようになれば,やはり(同じように)賄賂をとったからである。その結果いたるところで,個人的な権力の奪い合い(争奪戦)が起こり,その争奪戦は,収賄や路上での喧嘩や暗殺によってなされた(conducted by 指揮された)。このような事柄においては,ソクラテスやプラトンの友人たちは,最も無節操な者であった。最終的な結果は,誰もが予見できたように,外国の強国による(ギリシアの)征服であった。
Chapter VI: Naked Power, n.10
Greek history is peculiar in the fact that, except in sparta, the influence of tradition was extraordinarily weak in Greece ; moreover there was almost no political morality. Herodotus states that no spartan could resist a bribe. Throughout Greece, it was useless to object to a politician on the ground that he took bribes from the King of Persia, because his opponents also did so if they became sufficiently powerful to be worth buying. The result was a universal scramble for personal power, conducted by corruption, street fighting, and assassination. In this business, the friends of Socrates and Plato were among the most unscrupulous. The final outcome, as might have been foreseen, was subjugation by foreign Powers. 出典: Power, 1938. 詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/POWER06_100.HTM