Strauss argued that Machiavelli may indeed have been influenced by pre-Socratic philosophers, but he felt it was a new combination :-

While fear of God can be replaced by fear of the prince, if there is a strong enough prince, Machiavelli felt that having a religion is in any case especially essential to keeping a republic in order.

One of the most important early works dedicated to criticism of Machiavelli, especially The Prince, was that of the Huguenot, Innocent Gentillet, whose work commonly referred to as Discourse against Machiavelli or Anti Machiavel was published in Geneva in 1576.

The early 16th century works of Machiavelli ( especially The Prince ) played a central role in popularizing the use of the word " state " in something similar to its modern sense.

One of the most important early works dedicated to criticism of Machiavelli, especially The Prince, was that of the Huguenot, Innocent Gentillet, Discourse against Machiavelli, commonly also referred to as Anti Machiavel, published in Geneva in 1576.

Machiavelli made a copy early in his life.

In the early 16th century, Castiglione ( The Book of the Courtier ) laid out his vision of the ideal gentleman and lady, while Machiavelli cast a jaundiced eye on " la verità effettuale della cosa "— the actual truth of things — in The Prince, composed, humanist style, chiefly of parallel ancient and modern examples of Virtù.

It was for Florentine public celebrations that Intermedii came into their own ; several were organised by Machiavelli when he was part of the government of the Republic of Florence in the early 16th century, and the returning Medici adopted a policy of keeping the aristocracy occupied by involving them in productions.

This continued interest in Machiavelli as a military thinker was not only caused by the fame of his name ; some of the recommendations made in the Art of War-those on training, discipline, and classification, for instance-gained increasing practical importance in early modern Europe when armies came to be composed of professionals coming from the most different social strata.

He has written on the early political writers Niccolò Machiavelli and Étienne de La Boétie and explored " the Totalitarian enterprise " in its " denial of social division ... of the difference between the order of power, the order of law and the order of knowledge ".

Machiavelli however, along with some of his classical predecessors, saw ambition and spiritedness, and therefore war, as inevitable and part of human nature.

Much of Battleline Publications line, including Wooden Ships and Iron Men and the Diplomacy variant based on Renaissance Italy, Machiavelli was republished by Avalon Hill, along with the popular Diplomacy.

The death of the duke is also mentioned, by the ghost of Machiavelli himself, in the opening lines of The Jew of Malta.

Leo Strauss, an American political philosopher, declared himself more inclined toward the traditional view that Machiavelli was self-consciously a " teacher of evil ," ( even if he was not himself evil ) since he counsels the princes to avoid the values of justice, mercy, temperance, wisdom, and love of their people in preference to the use of cruelty, violence, fear, and deception.

Najemy shows how Machiavelli's friend Vettori argued against Machiavelli and cited a more traditional understanding of fortune.

Allan Gilbert wrote: " In wishing new laws and yet seeing danger in them Machiavelli was not himself an innovator ," because this idea was traditional and could be found in Aristotle's writings.

It was at this time that Machiavelli introduced a standing army in Florence, replacing the traditional use of hired mercenaries.

Machiavelli does say that the Prince must override traditional moral rules in favor of power-maintaining reasons of State, but he also says, particularly in his other works, that the successful ruler should be guided by Pagan, rather than Christian virtues.

Besides being a statesman and political scientist, Machiavelli also translated classical works, and was a dramaturge ( Clizia, Mandragola ), a poet ( Sonetti, Canzoni, Ottave, Canti carnascialeschi ), and a novelist ( Belfagor arcidiavolo ).

Strauss argued that Machiavelli may have seen himself as influenced by some ideas from classical materialists such as Democritus, Epicurus and Lucretius.

Strauss however sees this also as a sign of major innovation in Machiavelli, because classical materialists did not share the Socratic regard for political life, while Machiavelli clearly did.

While Christianity sees modesty as a virtue and pride as sinful, Machiavelli took a more classical position, seeing ambition, spiritedness, and the pursuit of glory as good and natural things, and part of the virtue and prudence that good princes should have.

While Machiavelli's approach had classical precedents, it has been argued that it did more than just bring back old ideas, and that Machiavelli was not a typical humanist.

argues that the way Machiavelli combines classical ideas is new.

Despite the classical precedents, which Machiavelli was not the only one to promote in his time, Machiavelli's realism and willingness to argue that good ends justify bad things, is seen as a critical stimulus towards some of the most important theories of modern politics.

It was a novel meaning to the term ; representative democracy was not an idea mentioned by Machiavelli and did not exist in the classical republics.

With the revival of classical learning in Renaissance Europe, Laconophilia re-appears, for examples in the writings of Machiavelli.

It should be noted that classical writers such as Thucydides, Machiavelli, Hobbes and Theodore Roosevelt, are often cited as " founding fathers " of realism by contemporary self-described realists.

Nevertheless Machiavelli was heavily influenced by classical pre-Christian political philosophy.

On this matter, gives evidence that Machiavelli may have seen himself as having learned something from Democritus, Epicurus and classical materialism, which was however not associated with political realism, or even any interest in politics.

Ferguson was influenced by classical humanism and such writers as Tacitus, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Thomas Hobbes.

One of the first reintroducing classical republicanism was Niccolò Machiavelli ( 1469 – 1527 ) in his later reflections.

It has been argued that Machiavelli was not a classical republican, since he described mostly medieval political relations.

Machiavelli makes liberal references and allusions to the other surviving books of Ab urbe condita, as well as to other works of classical literature.

Art of War is divided into a preface ( proemio ) and seven books ( chapters ), which take the form of a series of dialogues that take place in the Orti Oricellari, the gardens built in a classical style by Bernardo Rucellai in the 1490s for Florentine aristocrats and humanists to engage in discussion, between Cosimo Rucellai and " Lord Fabrizio Colonna " ( many feel Colonna is a veiled disguise for Machiavelli himself, but this view has been challenged by scholars such as Mansfield ), with other patrizi and captains of the recent Florentine republic: Zanobi Buondelmonti, Battista della Palla and Luigi Alamanni.

Agathocles was cited as from the lowest, most abject condition of life and as an example of “ those who by their crimes come to be princes ” in Chapter VIII of Niccolò Machiavelli ’ s treatise on politics, The Prince ( 1513 ).

Machiavelli goes on to reason that Agathocles ' success, in contrast to other criminal tyrants, was due to his ability to mitigate his crimes by limiting them to those that " are applied at one blow and are necessary to one's security, and that are not persisted in afterwards unless they can be turned to the advantage of the subjects ".

Machiavelli was at Borgia's court from 7 October 1502 through 18 January 1503.

Machiavelli attributes two episodes to Cesare Borgia that were at least partially executed by his father: the method by which the Romagna was pacified, which Machiavelli describes in chapter VII of The Prince, and the assassination of his captains on New Year's Eve of 1503 in Senigallia.

The Education of a Christian Prince was published in 1516, three years after Niccolò Machiavelli ’ s The Prince.

Machiavelli in particular was scornful of writers on politics who judged everything in comparison to mental ideals and demanded that people should study the " effectual truth " instead.

Furthermore, it has been established that a substantial portion of it was taken, without citation, from a 1864 satire on Napoleon III by one Maurice Joly ( his French language work, The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu )-so that it also constitutes plagiarism.

A second individual of unusually acute insight was Niccolò Machiavelli, whose prescriptions for Florence's regeneration under strong leadership have often been seen as a legitimization of political expediency and even malpractice.

In other words, Machiavelli was a sort of political thinker, perhaps most renowned for his political handbook titled, The Prince, which is about ruling and the exercise of power.

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (, 3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527 ) was an Italian historian, diplomat, philosopher, humanist and writer based in Florence during the Renaissance.

Machiavelli was born in Florence, Italy, the first son and third child of attorney, Bernardo di Niccolò Machiavelli, and his wife, Bartolomea di Stefano Nelli.

Machiavelli, like many people of Florence, was however not a full citizen of Florence, due to the nature of Florentine citizenship in that time, even under the republican regime.

Machiavelli was born in a tumultuous era — popes waged acquisitive wars against Italian city-states, and people and cities might fall from power at any time.

Machiavelli was taught grammar, rhetoric, and Latin, and became a prolific writer.

In June 1498, shortly after the execution of Savonarola, Machiavelli, at the age of 29, was elected as head of the second chancery.

Between 1503 and 1506 Machiavelli was responsible for the Florentine militia, including the City's defense.

Machiavelli was deprived of office in 1512 by the Medici.

It has been suggested that due to such things as this and his style of writing to his superiors generally, there was very likely some animosity to Machiavelli even before the return of the Medici.

While Gilbert emphasizes the similarities however, he agrees with all other commentators that Machiavelli was particularly novel in the way he used this genre, even when compared to his contemporaries such as Baldassare Castiglione and Erasmus.

One of the major innovations Gilbert noted was that Machiavelli focused upon the " deliberate purpose of dealing with a new ruler who will need to establish himself in defiance of custom ".

Machiavelli was critical of catholic political thinking and may have been influenced by Averroism.

Leo Strauss argued that the strong influence of Xenophon, a student of Socrates more known as an historian, rhetorician and soldier, was a major source of Socratic ideas for Machiavelli, sometimes not in line with Aristotle.