"All states, all dominions that have had and do have command over men have been and are either republics or principalities ... "

- Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, 1532

OUR THEME FOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS comes from the first line of Niccolo Machiavelli's famous political treatise, The Prince, a book we first encountered in Chapter 11 of our textbook. In this statement, Machiavelli -- an intimate of the powerful Medici family of Florence and a sometimes collaborator of such famous thinkers as Leonardo da Vinci -- points to an essential tension in the political history of the West, between those who advocate a stronger, more centralized form of government (Machiavelli's "principality") and those who favor a more dispersed, decentralized form of government (Machiavelli's "republic.") This week we will examine some of the earliest debates over this issue, looking to sources from Ancient Greece and Rome for insight. Next week we will jump ahead to more modern times to look at the defining conflict of the French Revolution.

Before class on Wednesday, please read Chapters 1-3 of your text book. You should also review Chapter 4 (which we read earlier in the term) and watch video number two, "Ancient Greece & Rome: Society and Politics." Next read Pericles' Funeral Oration from Thucydides Peloponnesian War and Polybius' account of "Rome at the End of the Punic Wars".

There is no online exercise this week to give you time to work on your research paper, which is due on November 17, 2005.