Nabis of Sparta

Nabis of Sparta is presented as a prince whose survival under extreme external pressure illustrates the political value of maintaining the people’s good will. Attacked by the united forces of Greece and a victorious Roman army, he defended both his country and his crown because only a small number of his subjects had to be watched for disloyalty. His example turns popular allegiance into a practical instrument of security: a prince who is not hated at home can withstand dangers that would overwhelm a ruler surrounded by hostile subjects.

Identity and Historical Placement

Nabis is identified as the Prince of Sparta and is invoked within a wider comparison of rulers who acquired or defended states under different political conditions. The discussion places him alongside Alexander the Great, Darius III, Francesco Sforza, Cesare Borgia, and other historical examples, not as the central protagonist of a continuous narrative but as a test case for a general argument about princely power. His importance lies in what his conduct proves: the disposition of a population can matter more than the sheer size of the forces arrayed against a ruler.

The text’s comparison is deliberately selective. Alexander the Great was able to secure the kingdom of Darius III because its centralized structure left no independent barons capable of organizing resistance after the ruling line was removed. By contrast, states divided among hereditary lords, or cities accustomed to freedom, preserve political memories and alternative centers of allegiance. Nabis belongs to the later argument about a prince’s direct relationship with his subjects, where internal consent or acquiescence becomes the decisive condition of survival.

Defense of Sparta

Nabis was attacked by the whole host of Greece and by a Roman army that had been strengthened by victory. The scale of the threat makes his defense significant: he did not merely survive a minor revolt or a limited border conflict, but preserved his country and crown while confronting a coalition that combined broad Greek opposition with Roman military prestige.

His advantage was not described as the absence of danger. Rather, the danger within Sparta was limited because only a few subjects required guarding. The implication is that an unpopular prince would have faced a second war behind his own defenses: the external enemy could have relied on domestic hostility, and every military setback might have opened the way to rebellion. Nabis’s position was different. Because the body of his subjects was not broadly hostile, he could concentrate on the invading forces instead of treating the entire population as a potential enemy.

This example gives concrete force to the principle that a prince must remain on friendly terms with his people. The people need not be portrayed as enthusiastic participants in every policy; what matters is that they do not regard the ruler’s downfall as their liberation. Under those conditions, external attack does not automatically become an internal uprising, and the prince retains a political base from which to resist.

Popular Support and Political Security

The account of Nabis answers the old maxim that a ruler who builds on the people builds on mire. That saying may apply to a private citizen who expects popular favor to rescue him from enemies or magistrates. A prince capable of command is different. If he possesses courage, sustains the community in adversity, and neglects prudent precautions, popular support can become a durable foundation rather than unstable ground.

Nabis therefore functions as evidence for a distinction between passive popularity and organized princely authority. The people’s favor is not enough by itself; it must be joined to the ruler’s ability to command and to the practical measures that make the state depend upon its existing political order. When a prince animates the community through his bearing and remains prepared for danger, the people are less likely to betray him when the state is tested.

The example also shows why peaceful times are unreliable evidence of political strength. In tranquil conditions, citizens may promise to defend the state and even declare themselves ready to die for it because danger remains distant. Once peril arrives, however, many of those promises disappear. Nabis’s case is offered as the opposite possibility: his subjects were not broadly hostile when the crisis came, so the prince did not have to fear that the state’s apparent defenders would become its internal enemies.

Relation to the Prince’s Wider Strategy

Nabis’s defense is connected to a broader theory of princely security. A prince faces threats from foreign powers and from his own subjects. Good arms and good allies help against external enemies, but external security is not enough if domestic resentment leaves the ruler exposed to conspiracy. A prince who avoids hatred and contempt reduces the incentive for conspirators, since those plotting his death cannot confidently expect the people to welcome the result.

In this framework, Nabis is the culminating example of a ruler who can withstand both military pressure and political danger. His endurance under attack shows that popular allegiance is not merely a moral ornament or a source of reputation. It is a strategic resource. When the people do not wish to be oppressed and do not see the prince’s removal as an advantage, the ruler can survive a crisis with fewer internal safeguards and can direct his attention toward the foreign threat.

Nabis also contrasts with rulers who rely on forces they do not control. Cesare Borgia’s reputation increased as he moved from French auxiliary troops, to mercenary forces associated with the Orsini and Vitelli, and finally to troops of his own raising. That military comparison reinforces the logic of Nabis’s example: security is strongest when the ruler’s decisive support is neither foreign nor merely hired, but rooted in forces or subjects whose interests are tied to his continued authority.

Narrative and Political Significance

Nabis is a recalled historical example rather than a fully dramatized character. The text gives no extended biography, dialogue, personal motive, or account of his later fate. Instead, his brief appearance is shaped by argumentative compression: the pressure of the Greek and Roman attack, the preservation of Sparta and its crown, and the small number of subjects who had to be guarded together establish the entire political lesson.

That lesson is that a prince’s safest fortress is the absence of hatred among his subjects. Nabis demonstrates the principle in its most demanding form. External enemies may be numerous, victorious, and united; yet their advantage can be blunted when the ruler has not made his own people eager for his defeat. His significance therefore lies less in individual personality than in the contrast he creates between a state defended with popular acquiescence and a state whose ruler must fight both invaders and his own population.