What Means a Prince or a Republic ought to Use to Avoid this Vice of Ingratitude, and what that Captain or that Citizen ought to Do So as not to Be Touched by it

A Prince, to avoid the necessity of having to live with suspicion or to be ungrateful, ought to go on his expeditions in person, as those Roman Emperors did in the beginning, as does the Turk in our times, and as those of virtu have done and still do. For winning, the glory and the conquests are all theirs: and when they do not (the glory belonging to others) it does not appear to them to be able to use that conquest unless they extinguish that glory in others which they have not known how to gain for themselves, and to become ungrateful and unjust is without doubt more to their loss than to their gain. But when either through negligence or little prudence they remain idle at home and send a Captain, I have no precept to give them, then, other than that which they know by themselves. But I will say to that Captain, judging that he will not be able to escape the stings of ingratitude, that he must do one of two things: either immediately after the victory he must leave the army and place himself in the hands of the Prince, guarding himself from any insolent and ambitious act, so that he [the Prince] despoiled of every suspicion has reason either to reward him or not to offend him, or if he does not please to do this, to take boldly the contrary side, and take all those means through which he believed that that conquest is his very own and not of his Prince, obtaining for himself the good will of his soldiers and of the subjects, and must make new friendships with his neighbors, occupy the fortresses with his men, corrupt the Princes [Leaders] of his army, and assure himself of those he cannot corrupt, and by these means ............