Key Arguments

• Openly declaring for one party is more advantageous than neutrality when powerful neighbors fight.
• If you remain neutral and the party you fear wins, you become the prey of the victor, who dislikes doubtful friends, while the vanquished rejects you for not sharing his fortunes.
• Historical example of the Achaians: the Roman envoy argues neutrality brings no 'favour nor fame' and leaves you 'the prize of the victor.'
• Irresolute princes choose neutrality to avoid immediate danger and are commonly destroyed by it.
• If you decisively support the winner, he is obliged and will not destroy a manifest helper; victories are never so complete as to ignore justice and gratitude.
• If your side loses, you still gain favorable regard and assistance from the defeated and share a cause that may recover.
• When both combatants are limited in strength and pose no existential threat, choosing a side is even more prudent, as you ruin one with the help of the other.

Source Quotes

But above all, he should strive by all his actions to inspire a sense of his greatness and goodness. A Prince is likewise esteemed who is a stanch friend and a thorough foe, that is to say, who without reserve openly declares for one against another, this being always a more advantageous course than to stand neutral. For supposing two of your powerful neighbours come to blows, it must either be that you have, or have not, reason to fear the one who comes off victorious.

In either case it will always be well for you to declare yourself, and join in frankly with one side or other. For should you fail to do so you are certain, in the former of the cases put, to become the prey of the victor to the satisfaction and delight of the vanquished, and no reason or circumstance that you may plead will avail to shield or shelter you; for the victor dislikes doubtful friends, and such as will not help him at a pinch; and the vanquished will have nothing to say to you, since you would not share his fortunes sword in hand. When Antiochus, at the instance of the Aetolians, passed into Greece in order to drive out the Romans, he sent envoys to the Achaians, who were friendly to the Romans, exhorting them to stand neutral.

The Romans, on the other hand, urged them to take up arms on their behalf. The matter coming to be discussed in the Council of the Achaians, the legate of Antiochus again urged neutrality, whereupon the Roman envoy answered—’Nothing can be less to your advantage than the course which has been recommended as the best and most useful for your State, namely, to refrain from taking any part in our war, for by standing aloof you will gain neither favour nor fame, but remain the prize of the victor.’ And it will always happen that he who is not your friend will invite you to neutrality, while he who is your friend will call on you to declare yourself openly in arms.

And it will always happen that he who is not your friend will invite you to neutrality, while he who is your friend will call on you to declare yourself openly in arms. Irresolute Princes, to escape immediate danger, commonly follow the neutral path, in most instances to their destruction. But when you pronounce valiantly in favour of one side or other, if he to whom you give your adherence conquers, although he be powerful and you are at his mercy, still he is under obligations to you, and has become your friend; and none are so lost to shame as to destroy with manifest ingratitude, one who has helped them.

But when you pronounce valiantly in favour of one side or other, if he to whom you give your adherence conquers, although he be powerful and you are at his mercy, still he is under obligations to you, and has become your friend; and none are so lost to shame as to destroy with manifest ingratitude, one who has helped them. Besides which, victories are never so complete that the victor can afford to disregard all considerations whatsoever, more especially considerations of justice. On the other hand, if he with whom you take part should lose, you will always be favourably regarded by him; while he can he will aid you, and you become his companion in a cause which may recover.

Key Concepts

• A Prince is likewise esteemed who is a stanch friend and a thorough foe
• this being always a more advantageous course than to stand neutral.
• the victor dislikes doubtful friends, and such as will not help him at a pinch; and the vanquished will have nothing to say to you, since you would not share his fortunes sword in hand.
• ’Nothing can be less to your advantage than the course which has been recommended as the best and most useful for your State, namely, to refrain from taking any part in our war, for by standing aloof you will gain neither favour nor fame, but remain the prize of the victor.’
• Irresolute Princes, to escape immediate danger, commonly follow the neutral path, in most instances to their destruction.
• victories are never so complete that the victor can afford to disregard all considerations whatsoever, more especially considerations of justice.

Context

Chapter 21, lines 1456-1523; counsel against neutrality with the Achaian-Roman-Antiochus episode as supporting evidence.