Machiavelli, Hellenistic Kingship, and the Legitimacy of the Modern State

2 I prefer the term "immoralism" to that of "realism," which has now come back into fashion thanks to (Williams 2005).In both cases, one is speaking about the priority of the question of legitimacy over morality.For a recent, extended treatment of Machiavelli's conception of the modern state, see (Ardito 2015).Ardito's approach avoids the question of legitimacy; her argument is that Machiavelli identifies politics with the acquisition and maintenance of "sovereign power" in the meaning given to this term by contemporary international relations and foreign policy discourses that assume a condition of "anarchy" between states in permanent competition.She argues that this "anarchic" idea of international relations obtained in early modern Italy, and that Machiavelli sought to retrofit ailing Italian Renaissance republics with the Roman "art of war" and its constitutional form characterized by a hegemonic Senate in order to withstand the challenges imposed the nascent monarchical states."If rule can be defined as an authoritative but not absolute power in foreign policy, then he does approve of the rule of an elite body such as the Roman senate on matters of foreign policy provided the senate's power is limited by the powers of the consul and popular assemblies" (Ardito 2015: 159).