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who from private individuals have become princes solely by the favours of fortune, meet with few difficulties in their progress, but a great many in maintaining themselves on the throne. Encountering no impediments during their journey, they fly; but all the difficulties spring up after they are quietly seated. In this predicament are those who acquire a state either by the means of money or by the favour of those who present it to them. Such were the men whom Darius placed in Greece, in the cities of Ionia, and of the Hellespont, whom, for his own security and his own glory, he made sovereigns. Such were those emperors who, from private rank, arrived at the empire by corrupting the soldiery. These sustained their elevation only by the pleasure and fortune of those who raised them to it, two bases equally uncertain and insecure. They had neither the knowledge nor the power to keep their rank. For admitting him to be a man of superior genius or courage, whoever has lived as a