Romulus

Romulus serves in the treatise as one of the highest examples of a new prince: a founder who acquires power through personal merit rather than mere Fortune. His importance lies less in a narrated biography than in the political principle extracted from his origin and achievement. The circumstances that initially exclude him from an ordinary home become the opening through which he can become king and founder of Rome.

Identity and Exemplary Status

Romulus is named alongside Moses, Cyrus the Great, and Theseus as a model for rulers who establish entirely new principalities through their own arms and abilities. The narrator advises the wise person to follow the paths of great predecessors, just as a skilled archer aims above a distant target so that the arrow may descend upon it. Romulus therefore functions as a standard of imitation: a new ruler may not reproduce his exact accomplishments, but may learn from the qualities that made his founding possible.

Romulus belongs to the category of founders who rise by merit rather than by good fortune alone. Such rulers face difficulty when introducing new laws and institutions, because innovation creates determined enemies among those who benefit from the existing order and only hesitant supporters among those who might gain from change. Their eventual success depends on the capacity to recognize an opening, act decisively, and turn an unstable circumstance into a durable political foundation.

Origin and Opportunity

The account of Romulus compresses his early history into a single decisive circumstance: he found no home in Alba and was exposed at the time of his birth. That abandonment, which might ordinarily signify vulnerability or political exclusion, becomes the condition that permits him to become king and founder of Rome. The narrative thus treats adversity not as a destiny but as an opportunity whose value depends on the ability of the person who encounters it.

Romulus's case clarifies the distinction between opportunity and merit. Fortune provided the situation in which a future founder could emerge, but the situation by itself could not produce a kingdom. Without the capacity to recognize and exploit it, the opportunity would have been wasted; without an opportunity suited to his abilities, his force of character would have been spent in vain. His rise consequently illustrates a reciprocal relation between circumstance and agency rather than a simple triumph of luck.

Political Achievement and Foundation

Romulus is identified as a king and founder of Rome, and this founding role places him at the center of the treatise's account of how entirely new governments come into being. His achievement is not described through individual battles, reforms, or speeches; instead, the text uses the bare architecture of his rise to establish a general rule. A founder must possess the ability to shape political conditions rather than merely inherit an already functioning state.

The comparison with Moses, Cyrus the Great, and Theseus broadens Romulus's significance. Moses could lead the children of Israel because their bondage in Egypt made them ready to follow him. Cyrus could act because the Persians were dissatisfied with the Medes while the Medes had been weakened by prolonged peace. Theseus could display his qualities because the Athenians were divided and dispersed. Romulus likewise found the opening created by his own exclusion, and the founding of Rome becomes the Roman instance in a sequence of political opportunities transformed by exceptional capacity.

Fortune, Merit, and Political Foundations

The treatise repeatedly contrasts Romulus's kind of ascent with the rise of rulers who receive power through another person's favor, money, or fortune. Such princes reach their position easily but struggle to retain it because they depend on unstable supports and lack the knowledge or power needed to command independently. Romulus belongs to the opposite pattern: the virtuous founder acquires power with difficulty but can keep it with greater ease because his authority is rooted in his own capacity and in institutions he has helped create.

This distinction also informs the discussion of conquest and arms. The narrator later contrasts reliance on foreign or borrowed forces with the security of one's own resources, citing Cesare Borgia's rising reputation as he moved from French auxiliaries, to mercenary forces associated with the Orsini and Vitelli, and finally to troops of his own raising. Romulus is not presented as participating in these particular episodes, but his place among founders gives the comparison its larger standard: durable political power requires foundations that belong to the ruler rather than to the Fortune or instruments of another power.

Narrative and Thematic Significance

Romulus is a deliberately compressed character, constructed around the idea of founding through merit. The text does not develop him as a psychologically rounded figure or narrate a sequence of personal reversals. Instead, it makes him an exemplary political figure whose exposed birth and later foundation of Rome supply a compact causal pattern: exclusion creates an opening, and exceptional ability converts that opening into sovereignty.

His example also prepares the book's later appeal for an Italian leader capable of redeeming a divided and oppressed country. The final exhortation argues that Italy's abjection could provide the opportunity through which an extraordinary hero might reveal his worth, just as hardship created the conditions in which Moses, Cyrus the Great, and Theseus displayed theirs. Romulus therefore remains significant beyond his own founding story. He embodies the book's central proposition that Fortune offers occasions, while political greatness belongs to the person able to recognize, seize, and organize them into a new order.