The cities, thus, had a head start. But the very factors that had brought their early advantage were, by the 16th century, when Machiavelli was writing, turning them toward ruin. As the new world began to take more definite form, these first children of the world were already old and socially decadent. They were rich, easy, luxurious, “have” powers, for all their small number of acres. They were ready to let others do their fighting for them, to rely, as Machiavelli a thousand times upbraids them, on money and treaties, not on the strength and virtue of their own citizens.
