Syme was heir to a long and honourable tradition, one stretching all the way back to Machiavelli, who drew from the history of the Republic lessons both for his own native city of Florence, and for that namesake of the Republic’s destroyer, Cesare Borgia. ‘Prudent men are wont to say – and this not rashly or without good ground – that he who would foresee what has to be should reflect on what has been, for everything that happens in the world at any time has a genuine resemblance to what happened in ancient times.’
