《君主论·第十九章·应当避免受轻视与憎恨》第7节
It may appear, perhaps, to some who have examined the lives and deaths of the Roman emperors that many of them would be an example contrary to my opinion, seeing that some of them lived nobly and showed great qualities of soul, nevertheless they have lost their empire or have been killed by subjects who have conspired against them. Wishing, therefore, to answer these objections, I will recall the characters of some of the emperors, and will show that the causes of their ruin were not different to those alleged by me; at the same time I will only submit for consideration those things that are noteworthy to him who studies the affairs of those times. It seems to me sufficient to take all those emperors who succeeded to the empire from Marcus the philosopher down to Maximinus; they were Marcus and his son Commodus, Pertinax, Julian, Severus and his son Antoninus Caracalla, Macrinus, Heliogabalus, Alexander, and Maximinus.
注释摘要
马基雅维利在这一段里开始处理一个可能出现的反驳。他自己提出质疑：如果有人仔细考察罗马皇帝们的生平与死亡，会发现有些人品行高贵、灵魂卓越，却照样丢了帝国，或者被臣民密谋杀死。这不就推翻了他关于君主只要避免憎恨与轻视就能保全地位的论断吗？他接下来说，我正要回答这个反对意见，我会回顾几位皇帝的性格，证明他们败亡的原因正好就是我说的那两条：被人恨，或被人瞧不起。 …