Book I, Chapter 2 Outline

I.              Free cities (republics AND principalities)

a.    Laws given by one alone and at a stroke (Lycurgus and Sparta)

                                          i.    Happy

b.    By chance at different times (Rome)

                                          i.    Unhappy and disordered—BUT

1.    If way off the road, probably no hope

2.    If beginnings were good and capable of improvement, accidents can lead to perfection; this requires danger because men won’t see the necessity without danger: Florence ruined by such danger

II.            Rome’s type through Polybius/cycle interlude

a.    What the writers say

                                          i.    Three states

1.    Principality

2.    Aristocrats

3.    Popular

                                        ii.    Six states (those who say this are wiser by the opinion of many)

1.    Three good (written above)

2.    Three bad (depend on the other three)

a.    Principally => tyrannical

b.    Aristocrats => few

c.    Popular => licentious

3.    Leap from one to the other; good ordered only for a short time

b.    Polybius’ cycle with NM’s changes

                                          i.    Variations of government arose by nature v. chance

                                        ii.    Men lived together like beasts v. dispersed like beasts

                                       iii.    Look to one who exceeds in bodily strength and daring of soul v. more robust and of greater heart

                                       iv.    First government derived from natural weakness and fear v. calculated for self-defense

                                        v.    Origin of justice in recognition of ingratitude but NM omits natural disgust at seeing ingratitude of children to parents and omits recognition of the noble in seeing some men defend others from wild beasts

                                       vi.    NM omits statement about distinctiveness of human reason

                                      vii.    P speaks of “first notion” of justice, implying higher understanding; NM stops at the first notion as if that is all there is

                                    viii.    P: success of the prince makes his successors act badly; NM says degeneration begins as soon as succession becomes hereditary, ignores P’s discussion of corrupting influence of wealth

                                       ix.    NM adds “feared” to “hated” to the consequences of princes acting badly

                                        x.    NM adds “wealth” to the traits that enable the few rebel against the prince

                                       xi.    NM says the prince is “destroyed”

                                      xii.    Aristocrats hate the “name” (NM) rather than the “form” (P) of king

                                    xiii.    NM changes “violating women” to “usurping women” and omits “raping boys”

                                    xiv.    Leader of the democrats has the daring to oppose oligarchs (P) v. designs to harm them (NM)

                                      xv.    NM again omits mention of corrupting influence of wealth and notes absence of fear in making men bad

c.    Can’t revolve forever because of foreign conquest

III.           “I say” that all six modes are bad

a.    Good because of brevity of life

b.    Bad because of inherent malignancy

IV.          Sparta v. Athens

a.    Lycurgus ordered Sparta with a role for people, the few and the kings

b.    Solon ordered only the popular state in Athens: was tyranny within his lifetime, then again 100 years after restoration; Athens then tried to mix elements but did so unsuccessfully

V.           Return to Rome

a.    Lacked “first fortune”: virtuous founder

b.    But had second fortune: chance

c.    Because beginning was good, could be perfected

d.    Romulus’ orders conformed to a free way of life

                                          i.    Senate already ordered by him

                                        ii.    Kings expelled, introduced consuls

                                       iii.    Then tribunes

e.    Thus all three parts had their place

f.     This “perfection” arose from the disunity of the senate and plebs which is the topic of next two chapters (3 & 4)

I 1: Mansfield

On p. 29, discussing the example of Florence as a city built by foreigners, Mansfield concludes that “Machiavelli implies that Florence learned to make advances regardless of the courtesy of the prince.” I don’t see that Machiavelli implies this at all. 

Mansfield makes the following puzzling statement (p. 30).  First he notes that NM tells us, at the beginning of the chapter, not to marvel at Rome’s success.  Presumably, NM’s point is that to understand Rome’s success, it is not necessary to have recourse to the divine (a la Livy).  It’s all perfectly understandable on rational grounds accessible to human reason.  (Cf. the comparison between the opening of the Cyropaedeia—rule is inherently marvelous—with P 4—one should not marvel at Darius’ success.)  Later NM says that with free cities, one can know the virtue of the builder and fortune of what is built, which is more or less marvelous as the one who was the beginning of it was more or less virtuous.  I’ve always wondered if that “and” should not be “in”?  Wouldn’t the sentence make more sense that way?  Since the topic of this paragraph specifies free cities, I suppose NM might mean that only with free beginnings can one know the virtue of the builder because with unfree beginnings the city is not the result of the builder’s action, hence his virtue is not visible.  This is in keeping with the later suggestion (I 8) about commissioner Guicciardini, who was not in charge of the army and thus could be neither praised nor blamed for its outcome. 

In any event, the Italian is “and.”  So Mansfield takes this to mean that we are “required to marvel.”  Odd, no?  Trying to unpack here.  NM says that the more virtuous the builder, the more marvelous the fortune of the building.  If one takes “marvelous” simply to be a synonym for “good” then this makes perfect sense.  However, if one takes “marvelous” more literally, as something to marvel or wonder at—something mysterious—then it makes less sense.  We should NOT marvel that a virtuous builder builds something that goes on to have a successful life (fortune).  It should be expected to be successful, unless bad fortune gets in the way.  But in what sense are we “required” to marvel? Is it simply that, as noted, the success should be rational and obvious yet NM calls it “marvelous,” implying that there is something inherently mysterious at work?  Mansfield goes on to say that the puzzle is solved by thinking of NM’s own enterprise.  He is the builder here.  His enterprise is the building.  How does that resolve the difficulty, which is, again, that we are “required” to marvel at something known.  Is it that we are actually required to marvel at something unknown, viz., Machiavelli’s enterprise?  Which is not yet known to us? 

He also notes here that Machiavelli uses the term “bearer of laws” rather than legislator (he also does this in the preface).  HM suggests this refers to someone higher than a mere legislator, and perhaps to a teacher of legislators. 

Mansfield (p. 31) notes the strangeness of NM’s appeal, in a passage on necessity, to the “apparently unnecessary human wish to seek to master others.”  He then compares this wish to original sin: NM, he says, wants men to have their cake and eat it.  Choosing a fertile site means to choose the Garden of Eden.  Choosing to live under laws is to choose “the divine punishment” that was the consequence of the fall.  So is the (unnecessary?) wish to master others NM’s replacement for original sin?  Except that NM does not present it as a choice, which original sin definitely was.  For NM, there was no fall, we are bad from the beginning.  But what does this mean: “his choice is fully compatible with his necessity and his natural desire to bring what he believes to be the common benefit of everyone coincides with the human wish to master others”? 

Another odd Mansfield passage here.  He says that the legislator must “legislate against the natural attractions of their ‘countries’,” which makes sense.  Then he adds “or perhaps of their own poetry.”  Huh?  I assume this is a reference back to a point he made in footnote 3 on p. 29, where he says that in Plato’s Laws the Athenian Stranger says that poetic tales make men forgetful of the dangers (natural cataclysm?) of living in the plain.  The purpose is to encourage men to live in the plain, or in NM’s terms, to choose the fertile site, which is both more desirable and therefore harder to defend.  So, “to legislate against their own poetry” perhaps means 1) that HM is taking a cue from Shelly—“poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world”—and 2) that having encouraged men to live in fat sites or in the plain with poetic tales of ease and grace, the poet/legislator must take care not allow men to take such tales so literally that they become lazy.  Is NM then a kind of poet whose advice to choose a fertile site is the equivalent of the Stranger’s poetic tales?  Certainly HM considers NM a legislator, or a “bearer of laws,” a kind of teacher of legislators or supra-legislator.

When Mansfield says (also p. 31) that NM “avoids giving the political lesson that could be shown in the conflict of choice and necessity,” what lesson does he mean? 

Finally, I note a cute, and very small, example of esoteric writing.  On page 31, Mansfield says the following (p.32): “The mention of Alexander for the third time in this chapter makes us think of the builder (as opposed to the architect) who was Machiavelli’s chief rival.”  “Alexander” here is Alexander the Great. There is a footnote to two pages in Strauss, one to the text, the other to a footnote. The textual reference is a paragraph culminating in Strauss’ suggestion that Machiavelli is a builder who constructs a new philosophical edifice. In other words, Mansfield is citing Strauss for support and, likely, to acknowledge that he learned the argument of “Machiavelli-as-builder” from someone else.  Strauss’s footnote makes the same point as Mansfield’s text but makes a puzzling reference to Solomon. Strauss notes that Alexander later appears in two chapters in the Discourses paired with Solomon, another great builder, but NM is silent on Solomon here.  So was it “Solomon” whom Mansfield has in mind as “Machiavelli’s chief rival”? I had not thought so. My conclusion was that he meant Aristotle. Aristotle was not only another “philosophic builder” but also a teacher of princes, in fact, the teacher of Alexander the Great (who is here mentioned three times). But Aristotle is not mentioned here.  Lo, however, look up Aristotle in the index and a reference is given to page 32

Deinocrates

Here is the meaning of the Deinocrates story in I 1, insofar as I understand it.

To recap: In that chapter, NM gives seven reasons why cities are built, the fourth (and central) being that they are built by a prince, not for himself to inhabit, but for his own glory. This of course echoes the reason that the prophet Isaiah gives for God's creating the world (a phrase that occurs frequently in the Bible). We must keep in mind that Machiavelli considers himself a kind of prince, and a kind of builder as well, one who builds in part for his own glory (but mostly "for the common benefit of everyone"; I proem).

The example of a prince building for his glory is Alexander's building of Alexandria. Then NM repeats the following story from Vitruvius. Alexander wanted to build a new city for his glory. His architect, Deinocrates, suggested building the city into the side of a mountain where it could take human form, which would be something rare and marvelous and worthy of his (whose?) greatness. Alexander then asked what the people would live on and Deinocrates replied that he had not thought of it. Alexander laughed and instead built the city in the plain where the fatness of the country and the convenience to the Nile and sea would make the people willingly stay because of its obvious advantages.

Deinocrates’ city in human form is Plato’s “city in speech” in the Republic, which is “the soul writ large,” i.e., the city in human form. That is, not physical human form, as Deinocrates’ proposed city in the mountainside would have been, but the city as a representation of the three parts of the soul: reasoning (guardians), spirited (auxiliaries) and appetitive (the producers or the people), with reason ruling. Deinocrates builds on high but builds too high: the people will have nothing to live on. This reminds us of Plato’s “city of pigs” (or “sows” in the Bloom translation) in which only the barest physical needs of the people are met, but which Socrates calls “the true city,” which is part means the city not in need of untruth: the noble lie comes after the introduction of greater wealth. The people having nothing to live on represents classical austerity, the recommendation of poverty over luxury.

Alexander is Machiavelli, the wise builder (as opposed to architect) who laughs at classical foolishness. To build in the plain means to build on “low but solid ground” (Churchill). It means to give up pretense and build for security, plenty, and necessity, for human needs rather than in accord with the human form. It is to satisfy, in other words, primarily the appetitive part of the soul, not perhaps to the exclusion of the others but certainly in preference to the others.

Note also that the people in Alexandria will “stay willingly” because of that city’s advantages, whereas in the Republic they have to be lied to. In Machiavelli’s scheme, the people can recognize utility and make rational calculations as to their own advantage. In the classical scheme, the people must be guided at all times. That’s because the goal is the perfect rule of reason, or the city in human form, which means that the highest part should rule. We are to abandon this conception and come down from on high.

In addition, this would seem to be connected to the founding of Florence, whose inhabitants came down out of the mountains above Fiesole to live in the plain “during the long peace that was born in the world under Octavian.”  But the nature of the connection is not yet evident to me.

Further Thoughts on I 1

So, I said I wanted to keep all comments on a given chapter in a single post, but that’s not going to work out. Sorry.

Let’s start with the title. Mansfield (p. 33) says that it asks question but I read it more as a declarative. Machiavelli is going to tell us “what have been universally the beginnings of any city, and what was that of Rome.” General to particular, I also note.

Regarding the friend/enemy distinction, Machiavelli uses his first “I say” (dico). Whereas there had been three “I believe”s (creda/credo) in the proem: 1) he “believes” he can bring common benefit to everyone; 2) he “believes” that the reason no one in his time imitates ancient deeds is owning “not so much to the weakness into which the present religion has led the world,” etc.; and 3) he “believes” that he can carry his enterprise far enough so that someone else can complete it with relative ease. I note that the central use refers to Christianity being the main cause of the world’s present troubles. 
What he “says” here is that all cites are built by foreigners and natives. The phrase “I say” obviously draws attention to Machiavelli himself, presumably to emphasize that he is here setting himself apart, presumably from the common opinion or the tradition or both. Although the statement in and of itself is inoffensive and almost tautological. Of course all cities must be built by natives for foreigners. Once you’ve divided the human race based on where they were born, native v. foreigner turn out to be exhaustive categories. So why distinguish this point at all?

I suspect he is trying to indicate the differences between his teaching and the classical/Biblical tradition. I made this point earlier in the discussion of Genesis 11. To elaborate that a bit, according to the Bible, God is the cause of political division. Man in His original creation is united. They anger him with their presumption. The Tower episode reminds us of Eden; they try to reach God or come to know what God does not want them to know (though it does not appear that they violated any express command). Interestingly, too, God’s concern about united man is that they appear to be capable of anything. On seeing the Tower, God says to Himself “now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.” So He divides them and then, in the next chapter, chooses one of them to be the patriarch of His chosen people. 
But also, when Machiavelli “says” that all cities are built by natives or foreigners, the implication is that the friend/enemy distinction is truly fundamental and NOT, as the classical philosophers would have it, a fundamental lie. There is no brotherhood of man. Division is not merely endemic but essential to the human condition.

Of the three reasons Machiavelli cites for the building of cities by foreigners—1) to relieve lands of inhabitants, 2) to defend a conquered territory; 3) for a prince’s glory—the first two relate to the common good whereas the third is a private good (though it may incidentally turn out to be good for the inhabitants).

There is a difficulty with the example of Florence, which is give as an example of a city built by foreigners. Either it was built by soldiers of Sulla or by people in the mountains above Fiesole: Machiavelli does not know or at least does not take a position. Either way, it had a foreign beginning. This is curious for at least two reasons. First, in Machiavelli’s account, Florence was built in the 1st century BC, when Rome had long (for centuries) held Tuscany. So in what sense were these people “foreign”?

Presumably the soldiers of Sulla were Roman citizens. One result of the Social War (91-88 BC) was to grant all Italians Roman citizenship. Be this as it may, even if they were not legally citizens, “foreigner” seems a stretch. I note also that Florence in NM’s account here was not built for any of those three reasons (relieve the lands, defend conquest, prince’s glory). Which brings me to the second reason why this example is curious: when NM spoke of Athens and Venice as cities built by natives, he says that they have to move, presumably not far, but move nonetheless to a site that is more advantageous to live in and easier to defend. Now, the builders of Florence in his account did not move for these reasons; at least not the latter reason, because the plain is harder to defend than the mountains, though it is a more advantageous place to live. But neither did they move very far. It’s barely five miles from the mountains above Fiesole to the plain of the Arno. So, again, how were they “foreigners”? Perhaps the answer lies in the clause “it was built under the Roman Empire.” That is, in what he has said so far, NM implies that all cities built by natives are free, whereas those built by foreigners may be dependent or free. In other words, all dependent cities are built by foreigners. But with that clause, perhaps NM is taking that back. The key point about Florence—no matter who built it—was that it was built under the Empire. It was not free, even if natives built it. Hence even native beginnings can be unfree. 

I can’t answer this definitively but I can suggest some reasons for what Nick is doing here. Machiavelli wants to do at least two things here. 1) Introduce Florence, which he will use with frequency as his representative of weak Christian modernity. So it’s in keeping with this that he gives Florence a rather pathetic beginning, not constrained by any necessity, not guided by and great virtue, it just sort of happened; hence it was ripe for the takeover by Christianity (?). Speculating as to that last part but the rest seems correct. Second, he wants to introduce the idea of men drifting into the plain. As noted, the three reasons he has stated so far (defense, overpopulation, preserve a conquest, prince’s glory) don’t exhaust the reasons why cities get built. He will shortly add three more reasons (disease, hunger, war) that also do not capture what happened in Florence. Sometimes cities are built just by chance or happenstance. Especially when times are good (“the long peace born in the world under Octavian”).

So, as noted, all told in this chapter, we are given seven reasons why cities are built:

1. Defense
2. Relieve overpopulation
3. Hold a conquest
4. For the prince’s glory
5. Fleeing disease
6. Fleeing hunger
7. Fleeing war

Five out of the seven might be said to be “negative” or at best solutions to problems. You could even say six, if you count holding a conquest, which is after all a solution to a problem if, in the terminology of our time, a “high class” problem. Only the central reason, “for a prince’s glory,” is an unmixed good that solves no problem. Machiavelli will later deny that there exists any unmixed good. But—assuming that this is at least in part a sly reference to himself—can we cite this as another example of Machiavelli’s confusion about himself, about philosophy’s place and role, that we noted in the dedication? He seems to think his enterprise is an unmixed good in the same way that the classical philosophers believed philosophy to be (perhaps the only) unmixed good. Strauss’ conclusion (insofar as I understand him) is that this fundamental contradiction is Machiavelli’s fundamental error. 

In any case, I do think it is safe to say that Machiavelli is thinking at least in part about himself, who builds through writing and who writes not merely for the common benefit of each but also for his own glory. There are several Biblical passages where God says that he created the world for His own glory. Remember that the example of a prince building for his glory is Alexander, so we shall have to look for instances where Alexander might be used as a stand-in for God or Christ, as he is in Prince 4.

We will have to look carefully as the book unfolds at Machiavelli’s discussion of nature. A variant makes its third appearance in this chapter, where NM discusses countries that are “naturally harsh and sterile.” The context is whether it is better to choose a fertile or sterile site. The advantage of sterility is that the necessity it imposes to be industrious will reduce discord and increase unity. So nature taketh away with one hand and giveth with the other. Nature is both flinty and benevolent at the same time. Conversely, a fertile site makes men indolent. In that case, nature gives all that man needs—and more—but in so doing corrupts him and makes him less for politics (and also less human?).

So we have here two conceptions of nature, but in both cases man seems to have what he needs to live. Absent (so far) is any conception of nature as a miserly enemy. Or is it? Interestingly, the bounteous version of nature seems to be harmful to man—that is, to his nature as a political being—while the flinty version is good for him, the opposite of what one would expect. In advising builders to choose the fertile site, NM is in effect advising them to choose the bad. 

Also, the teaching that a good builder chooses fertility and then replaces the necessity imposed by sterility with the laws foreshadows I 3, where he says that “where a thing works well on its own without the law, the law is not necessary.” The harshness of sterility acts in the same way as the Tarquins. And the remedy for its absence is the same: law.

So we notice, contra the classics, a denigration of law in Machiavelli. Law is a secondary consideration, necessary only “where a thing” does not work well. Human or political life can work very well without law. The classics did not believe this, except in the highest case, the rule of philosopher kings. Machiavelli is emphatically NOT talking about the highest case.

Book I, Chapter 1

I am going to try to post an initial outline of each chapter for ease of reference to the argument.  These are not meant in any way to reflect Machiavelli's intricate structure, which I don't think can be captured in outline form.  To mention only one difficulty, he frequently states things in a certain order and then proceeds to discuss them in an entirely different order.  Or drop certain topics altogether.  My outlines will follow the actual order as given, not the promised order.

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I.      All cities are built by

a.    Natives who build for security and who are moved to build either by

                                  i.    Themselves (Venice); or

                                 ii.    One among them (Athens under Theseus)

b.    or foreigners; these can be:

                                  i.    dependent on others; i.e., colonies--Example: Florence, which was built either by the soldiers of Sulla or by mountain men who came down into the plain: either way, it was not free and therefore unlikely to become great)

1.    Colonies are sent by:

a.    Republics (as were many Roman colonies)

b.    or a prince (e.g., Alexandria)

2.    Their purpose is to:

a.    Relieve their lands of inhabitants

b.    Defend conquered territory

c.     Built for the prince’s glory (again, Alexandria)

                                 ii.    Free cities (given first in the outline but actually discussed second)

1.    Reasons people leave ancestral place

a.    Disease

b.    Hunger

c.     War

2.    Origin of these cities

a.    Inhabit existing (i.e., conquered) cities (Moses)

b.    Build anew (Aeneas)

II.     Virtue of the “builder” can be seen in:

a.    Choice of site

                                  i.     Sterile

1.    People constrained to be industrious

2.    Less opportunity for discord

3.    Choice would be wiser IF

a.    men were content to live off their own

b.    Did not wish to dominate others

                                 ii.    Fertile—better choice since men can’t secure themselves without power

b.    Ordering of the laws

                                  i.    Need laws to impose the necessity that sterility would have imposed

                                 ii.    Examples: Egypt, Sultan, Mamelukes; Alexander and Deinocrates story

III.    Who built Rome?

a.    Those who say

                                  i.    Foreigners: Aeneas

                                 ii.    Natives: Romulus

b.    Doesn’t matter; either way it was free, not dependent on anyone

c.     Romulus, Numa and others imposed good laws conducive to freedom and eventual perfection

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Thee are several notable things here.
 
Here is the first instance of Machiavelli telling us not to marvel.  We are not to marvel at Rome's beginning.  Livy marvels but that's because Livy believes, or pretends to believe, or at least puts out there for those who want to believe, the divine aspects which Machiavelli simply ignores.  There is nothing marvelous about Rome—which is in a way Machiavelli's promise for this book.  He will explain it all.

Machiavelli asserts that the fundamental purpose of politics is security.  He will actually elaborate this more fully in Chapter 2, which is itself odd, because that is supposed to be a chapter on a specific type of regime (republics) whereas this one is on the origin of cities, but he begins here later in the order of nature than he does there.  Not sure why.  In any event, security, not any natural sociability nor the fulfillment of any teleology, is the fundamental purpose of politics. He later in the chapter cites hunger, disease and war, as the reason people flee their ancestral country.  Which may well be true, but nowhere does he describe politics as necessary to fulfilling of human nature or as the coming together of men in a positive joint effort to do together what cannot be done alone.  Politics appears to be all about the avoidance of evils.
 
Also, he goes straight to the friend-enemy distinction.  Mansfield notes (p. 28) that “he cannot go back to the first beginning before Rome’s when men were not divided into natives and foreigners.”  Well, why not?  Also, as noted above, in the very next chapter he DOES go back to such a point, as we shall see. 

Alvarez, in audio recordings of a lecture course I have, calls the friend-enemy distinction the “fundamental lie” of politics and the basis for Plato’s noble lie.  Nature does not divide men into nations.  As an aside, I am not quite sure what to make of this.  On a certain level it is doubtless true.  But on another level, the ties of race, ethnicity, kin, language, etc. can be extremely powerful—almost natural in their effects, you might say.  There are several places where Machiavelli acknowledges as much, at least tacitly, for instance in Prince 17, where he says that Hannibal’s cruelty was essential to holding together his diverse army. 

### 

The meaning of a “free” city is unusual here, in that free cities can live under princes.  The true meaning seems to be a city that is not dependent on “anyone”; that is, not a colony sent by an established power, but also—I believe we are led to surmise—not dependent on any kind of divine beginning.  Is this, incidentally, the reason why Machiavelli cannot go back to a time that pre-dates the friend-enemy distinction?  Because it points to a divine beginning?  As far as I know, the classical tradition does not have any myth in which there is a united humanity.  But the Bible famously does.  After the flood, but before the Covenant, men were united and spoke one language.  They tried to build the Tower of Babel and God scattered them and confused their speech (Genesis 11).  The Covenant is made in the very next chapter. 

I note as well that Moses is included in the builders of free cities, which implies that he did not in fact act with any warrant or assistance from God.  And Moses is said to be one who inhabited an existing city (i.e., he was not a builder?); the implication being, he was a thief and murderer.  This will be stated more bluntly in III 30 but the blasphemy begins early. 

He says that free cities are built when men abandon their ancestral country.  This implies that free cities are always built by foreigners.  However, he takes that back at the end when he says that whether one takes Romulus (a native) or Aeneas (a foreigner) as the founder of Rome, either way it was free.  So not only does the native-foreign distinction not matter, his implication that free cities are built by foreigners also turns out to be wrong.  So why does he make it? 

### 

Interesting, too, he uses the world “build” or a variant 21 times in this chapter but “found” or “founder” not even once even though he discusses several notable founders.  Now, as we shall see, in I 9 he will say that it might appear that he has gone on a while without discussing founders, at which point and beyond he will discuss them thoroughly in many chapters.  So perhaps he is saving the discussion of founders for that.  But the difficulty remains that he is still talking about founders in I 1, while avoiding the word.  Why?  To indicate that on some level this chapter is not about founding?  Then what is it about?  Now, as we shall also see, for Machiavelli “founder” turns out to be a rather ambiguous terms that means something like “ruling class.”  Founding in his new state must be continuous, with acts of renewal committed with frequency.  As we know from The Prince, founding not only reveals the character of society and the nature of politics (and of man), the act of founding and what it represents (essentially, cruelty well used) must present in all states all the time.  So perhaps the reason is that he wants to disconnect in the reader’s mind the link between founding and the first beginning.  Founding is always, in a way, a return to the beginnings but it is not always or even primarily to build anew, from scratch, ex nihilo, etc. 

Machiavelli here also lays the first foundation of a rather unconvincing argument that he will develop further in I 5 and 6 (and perhaps elsewhere), viz., that conquest is simply necessary.  He speaks of the benefits of choosing a sterile site in ways that make it sound very attractive: you have as it were a built-in generator of virtue.  But then he says that men are not content to live off their own and that they wish to master others.  OK, but this is a wish, right?  Not a necessity.  So it seems.  No, NM insists, “men cannot secure themselves without power.”  Well, OK.  He makes no attempt to demonstrate this beyond his appeal to men’s wishes but let’s stipulate it for the sake of argument.  Why does “power” require both domination over others and a fertile site?  It’s easy to see how a fertile site is conducive to power, and how power can be used to dominate others—but it can just as easily, in fact more easily, be used for defense. Not convincing—and I suspect not meant to be.  But then what’s the purpose? 

Here we have also the first, or at least the first glaring, example of NM undercutting his teaching with one of his own examples.  He recommends choosing the fertile site and then imposing that necessity that the sterile site would have imposed by itself through laws that require soldiers to exercise.  Interesting that he recommends such laws on narrow grounds for only a part of the population,  Anyway, he gives three examples, the last being the Mamelukes, only to add immediately that the Mamelukes were eliminated by the Turks (the central example).  So this is a mode that apparently works for some but not for others, or at least not every time.

Finally, note that whoever the founder of Rome is taken to be, it had a princely beginning, it was not like Venice or Florence (notably both modern examples) where people just came together.  Machiavelli does not give an ancient example of a people simply coming together without princely guidance.