It is not a Prudent Proceeding to Make an Alliance with a Prince who has More Reputation than Power

Titus Livius, wanting to show the error of the Sidicians in trusting to the aid of the Campanians, and the error of the Campanians in believing themselves able to defend them, could not say it with more forceful words, saying, The Campanians brought a greater name in aid of the Sidicians, than they did men for protecting them. Where it ought to be noted that leagues made with Princes who have neither the convenience of aiding you because of the remoteness of their location nor the strength to do so because of disorganization or other reasons of theirs, bring more notoriety than aid to those who trust in them: as happened in our times to the Florentines, when in one thousand four hundred seventy nine [1479] the Pope and the King of Naples assaulted them, that being friends of the King of France derived from that friendship more notoriety than protection; as also would happen to that Prince who should undertake some enterprise trusting himself to the Emperor Maximilian, because this is one of those friendships that would br............