Discourses on Livy
Machiavelli's commentary on the first ten books of Livy, and the source of the argument that republics endure only by being drawn back to their beginnings.
Book · 1883Sources & confidence: High confidence
Checked 2 October 2026 · AI-assisted review
Thomson edition title page, language and Book III, chapter 1 passage.
- Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius — Thomson translation
1883 English translation, Ninian Hill Thomson, Kegan Paul, Trench & Co.; Book III.1 on renewal through a return to beginnings.
- Wikidata entity API: Discourses on Livy
Inspected entity label and description for identifier matching only; does not validate the work’s argument.
- OpenLibrary work API: Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius
Inspected work title and linked author identities; catalogue identity does not establish a particular edition or validate the content.
- OpenLibrary linked author record
Author identity checked against the linked catalogue work; not used to establish the work’s factual argument.
- OpenLibrary linked author record
Author identity checked against the linked catalogue work; not used to establish the work’s factual argument.
What this check doesn’t establish
- The cited passage was inspected, not the whole book. Original composition dates are approximate.
- The OpenLibrary work aggregates Machiavelli and an audiobook narrator; it is not evidence for the specific Thomson print edition.
Confidence applies to the scope above, not every claim made by the underlying source. How confidence works
Book III opens with the chapter the essay draws on, titled in Thomson's translation: "For a Sect or Commonwealth to last long, it must often be brought back to its Beginnings."
Those States consequently stand surest and endure longest which... can renew themselves... Now the way to renew them is, as I have said, to bring them back to their beginnings.
The essay's paraphrase is faithful. Its extension, that a state's first principles live in its law and no state can return to what it cannot read, is the essay's own.
In the essays
- For the Love of Law
Read the essay
People
- Niccolò Machiavelli
Author
Record history
Catalogue source: knowledge/works/machiavelli-discourses.md
Generated by claude-code/claude-opus-5 on 2026-07-25