# Machiavelli: Menace to Societas

Michelle T. Clarke. Book chapter, 2021.
In The Ciceronian Tradition in Political Theory, edited by Daniel J. Kapust and Gary Remer, 86–102. University of Wisconsin Press, 2021.
Publisher: https://muse.jhu.edu/book/81818
Author's site: https://michelletclarke.com/

## Summary

Asks whether Machiavelli’s famous reversals of Cicero’s On Duties in The Prince (the lion and the fox, fear over love, cruelty well used) amount to a fundamental break. Cicero, the chapter argues, keeps the honorable (honestum) authoritative but redefines it as the preservation of societas, a social order rooted in natural human sociability and good faith. Machiavelli rejects societas as unsupported by history and politically dangerous, treating every state as a dominion imposed on its subjects, so that The Prince becomes a sustained attempt to think about politics without it.

## Topics

- Machiavelli
- Cicero
- On Duties
- The Prince
- Societas
- Honestum and utile
- Ciceronian tradition

## How to cite

Clarke, Michelle T. “Machiavelli: Menace to Societas.” In *The Ciceronian Tradition in Political Theory*, edited by Daniel J. Kapust and Gary Remer, 86–102. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2021.

```bibtex
@incollection{clarke2021societas,
  author    = {Clarke, Michelle T.},
  title     = {{Machiavelli: Menace to \emph{Societas}}},
  year      = {2021},
  booktitle = {The Ciceronian Tradition in Political Theory},
  editor    = {Daniel J. Kapust and Gary Remer},
  publisher = {University of Wisconsin Press},
  pages     = {86--102},
  url       = {https://muse.jhu.edu/book/81818}
}
```

## Related work by the author

- Style Is the Man Himself: Eloquence and the Revival of Roman Virtue in Renaissance Humanism (The Good Society, 2022): https://michelletclarke.com/articles/style-is-the-man-himself-humanism.md
- Liberty, the People, and Republican Constitutionalism in Cicero’s Pro Rabirio perduellionis reo (Polis: The Journal for Ancient Greek and Roman Political Thought, 2025): https://michelletclarke.com/articles/cicero-pro-rabirio-liberty.md
- Boni Gone Bad: Cicero’s Critique of Epicureanism in De Finibus I and II (Polis: The Journal for Ancient Greek and Roman Political Thought, 2023): https://michelletclarke.com/articles/cicero-de-finibus-epicureanism.md