The Prince by Machiavelli

I think the theme of loyalty and service to a common "good", although all the rulers were not good, made sense. Take for example. the military. Military force is of great importance to Machiavelli. He writes that princes should be both men and animals, intellectuals and warriors. When it comes to animals, they should be both lions and foxes, with the lion representing sheer force and the fox representing wiliness. Machiavelli devotes many pages to an argument in favor of using one’s own troops and railing against the reliance on mercenaries and auxiliaries – which he blames for the weakening of Italy. The Prince is full of conquests and conquerors; it is a vision of politics as bathed, necessarily, in blood. He also believed in a unified Italy under one power.