ABSTRACT
Over the last several decades scholarly attempts to save Machiavelli's name from its popular connotations of immorality, fraud, and deceit have been untiring in energy and crusading in tone. One theme in Harrington's understanding of Machiavelli the republican is consistently overlooked in contemporary scholarship, the theme of empire. The arguments of Meinecke and Berlin are incisive and mark a clear advance in Machiavelli studies, yet their correctives beg a new round of corrections. At the center of contemporary discussion among students of Machiavelli stands the notion of republican political thought. With Machiavelli as with other thinkers who have provoked centuries of controversy, the leading interpretation of today is usually not without its precursors of yesterday. By contrast, the citizen-soldier of Machiavelli is part of a system of disciplined, organized fighting, and knows that to withdraw from his fellows in a search for individual glory is despicable vainglory, the kind that Roman leaders mercilessly punished.
