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Atomic War: The Influence of Lucretius on Machiavelliâs Art of War
1. Introduction
Sergio Bertelli first wrote of the 1961 discovery in the Vatican Library of Machiavelliâs hand transcription of De rerum natura (Rossiana 884),1 which contained a copy of Lucretiusâ text bound with the Eunech of Terence.2 Scholars accept that Machiavelli began transcribing his copy of Lucretiusâ De rerum natura around 1497.3 Alison Brown, Paul Rahe, Robert Roecklein, Ada Palmer, and Vittorio Morfino, among others, have argued convincingly that the influence of Lucretius and Epicurean philosophy can be discerned in Machiavelliâs texts like the Discourses, the Prince, the Florentine Histories, and his long poem, The Golden Ass, and that Machiavelliâs notions of free will, religion, and natural philosophy exhibit Epicurean influence.
For instance, Brown argues that Lucretiusâ influence on Machiavelli spans his works and shows up especially in Machiavelliâs reasoning on ethical themes.4 Weighing the marginal notations Machiavelli made in the De rerum natura,5 Brown establishes numerous parallels between the Roman poet and the Florentine, especially in their understandings of free will and the role they ascribe to religion as an instrument of politics. Brownâs analyses detect Lucretian influence throughout Machiavelliâs works, from texts like the Discourses to his plays, and she concludes that Lucretian Epicureanism forms the cornerstone of Machiavelliâs philosophy.6
Paul Rahe also argues that Lucretius influenced Machiavelli and locates in the Roman poet the reason for Machiavelliâs break from the Aristotelian political tradition. Rahe finds the clearest sign of Lucretian influence in Machiavelliâs repudiation of religion and natural teleology.7 In addition, he highlights passages where he sees Machiavelli to be critical of Lucretius and Epicureanism in general. For instance, Rahe hears irony behind Machiavelliâs setting the Art of War in the sheltered gardens of the Oricellari family given the observations the condottiere captain, Fabrizio Colonna, makes in Book 1 about the softness of those accustomed to fight in the shade. Rahe assembles evidence that Machiavelli would not support the withdrawal from political life necessary to achieve Epicurean ataraxĂaâi.e., the pleasures taken in calmness of mind and freedom from the pains of emotional disturbance advocated by both Lucretius in the De rerum natura and Epicurus as transmitted through Diogenes Laertius.8
Rahe goes further and argues that Machiavelliâs silence on the question of the famous Epicurean atomic swerveâthe clinamenâshould also be read as his rejection of this Epicurean position and his willingness to embrace natural determinism.9 However, Rahe does not work with Machiavelliâs transcription of the De rerum natura directly. Raheâs analysis does not acknowledge Machiavelliâs marginal comments in Book 2 of De rerum natura, where Machiavelli clearly links the possibility of freedom of the will to Lucretiusâ description of the atomic swerve.
On the other hand, Ada Palmer analyzes the fifty-four manuscripts of the De rerum natura that remain from this period, including Machiavelliâs manuscript. Her investigations show that Machiavelli is the only one of the Renaissance Lucretian annotators to include in his copy extensive marginal notes on the section of De rerum natura Book 2 that addresses the technical details of Epicurean atomistic physics, including the nature of the primordia and the discussion of the clinamen.10 Palmerâs study shows that Machiavelli was unusual among Renaissance transcribers of Lucretius in the attention he gave to passages in the De rerum natura that discuss atomistic natural principles like the clinamen.
Robert Roecklin would extend Palmerâs line of reasoning even further.11 Roecklin hears the reference to mixed bodies in these chapters as a challenge to approach Machiavelliâs philosophy âfrom the vantage point of the theory of body that underlies his philosophy.â12 For Roecklin, Machiavelliâs references to the physics of mixed bodies in these chapters are important because in them it is evident that Machiavelli relies upon Epicurean terminology.13
Vittorio Morfino argues that Machiavelli accepts the Epicurean physics of mixed bodies. Morfino contends that Lucretius and, following him, Machiavelli, adopt a notion of corporeality that subordinates considerations of a bodyâs form to its susceptibility to mutate and change. On Morfinoâs reading of Lucretius, an individual body occurs as an event generated from the ongoing exchange of relations among the aggregated primordia that compose it and those in its environment that support it. Morfino argues that agency in a Lucretian context must be understood from this basic fact.14 For Morfino, Machiavelliâs narratives describe the actions of agents like Cesare Borgia from several different perspectives because multiple layers of different kinds of interacting bodies take part in the event. As with Roecklin, Morfinoâs readings of Machiavellian exemplars like Borgia would depend greatly on accepting the thesis that Machiavelli unconditionally adopts Lucretian atomism.15
A notable lacuna in these analyses concerns the Art of War, composed during the same time period as these other texts. The difficulty of establishing potential lines of influence between the De rerum natura and the Art of War is compounded due to the highly technical nature of the discussions on warfare that dominate the latter text. Scholars often neglect the Art of War on the basis of its focus on the minutiae of Renaissance military practice, which they judge a limitation of the text when measured against Machiavelliâs more genuinely political works.
On the other hand, scholars like Gabriele PedullĂ argue that the Art of War is critical to understanding Machiavelliâs notion of the political, not despite, but because of these highly technical discussions; argues PedullĂ : âTo be a good political leader is not enough, because you have to become a military expert as well: this is Machiavelliâs fundamental belief.â16 For PedullĂ , Machiavelliâs obsession with saddle construction, the angle of wagon wheels, and the proper width of roads and ditches in fortified towns and encampments shows his concern for the âmicrophysics of actionâ and how the concrete domains of practice and discipline serve as vectors for understanding his political thought.17 Machiavelliâs attention to the filigree of warfare signals his conviction that the spheres of practice and discipline forge chains of association that map onto subjectivity itself.18 On this reading, military discipline acts as the foundation for the domain of subjectivity by generating, and then capturing, that domain.
Machiavelliâs historical concerns with the atomistic physics and psychology spelled out in the De rerum natura offer a powerful vantage point through which to re-examine Machiavelliâs treatment of the transformational power of military discipline as spelled out in the Art of War. This chapter and the next examine Fabrizio Colonnaâs discussion of the differences between the phalanx form utilized by the Greeks and the Swiss and the manipular legion of the Romans in Books 2 and 3 of the Art of War from a Lucretian framework. This chapter investigates two points of contact with Lucretius that emerge from the mercenary captainâs analyses. First he favors his neo-Roman brigade over the Macedonian phalanx and Swiss pike squares on the basis of âits greater life,â which it owes to materialist principles immanent to its organization. Second, the greater effectiveness of the brigade over the phalanx consists in its capacity for renewing itself, a theme that links Machiavelliâs discussion of battalion organization to passages in the Discourses and the Florentine Histories where the Florentineâs reasoning also exhibits a strong atomist influence.
As we will see, of all Machiavelliâs texts, the Art of War most offers itself to being read as a project of Lucretian bioengineering.19 As a dialogue between young Florentines and a mercenary captain, it begins by enumerating the ills following from the current state of military affairs on the Italian peninsula that stem from the reliance princes and republics have on professional mercenary and auxiliary troops, or what he discusses exhaustively in the Prince and the Discourses as the dangers of relying on arma alienis. It concludes by relying on both narrative and diagrammatic elements to generate a function...