Journal article
2013

The Virtues of Republican Citizenship in Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy

Michelle T. Clarke

Journal of Politics 75, no. 2 (2013): 317–329.

Argues that Machiavelli is skeptical of the Roman social virtues, especially aspects of fides (good faith), because they bound clients to powerful patrons and let elites gather power outside the law. Rereading the classic exemplum of Manlius Torquatus, he shows how personal loyalties endanger republican liberty and sketches a model of citizenship in which ‘unsociable’ traits are central. Republicanism, on this reading, is a politics of limits, and Machiavelli attacks the culture of personal trust from within the republican tradition itself.

  • Machiavelli
  • Citizenship
  • Fides
  • Patronage
  • Manlius Torquatus
  • Republicanism

How to cite

Clarke, Michelle T. “The Virtues of Republican Citizenship in Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy.” Journal of Politics 75, no. 2 (2013): 317–329. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022381613000030.

@article{clarke2013virtues,
  author    = {Clarke, Michelle T.},
  title     = {{The Virtues of Republican Citizenship in Machiavelli's \emph{Discourses on Livy}}},
  year      = {2013},
  journal   = {Journal of Politics},
  volume    = {75},
  number    = {2},
  pages     = {317--329},
  doi       = {10.1017/S0022381613000030},
  url       = {https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022381613000030}
}