Machiavelli concludes chapter 8 by offering advice to someone who plans to “seize a state” and occupy it, although he no longer speaks of the modes, criminal or otherwise, by which it is acquired. Drawing on the example of Agathocles, he counsels this prince to commit all the necessary “offenses” all at once so that he does not have to keep committing them, and to thereby win the subjects over to himself “by benefiting them.” Whoever does not do so will have to keep his sword in hand and cannot rely on his subjects. Machiavelli promises that “adverse times” will arise, and a good prince should therefore act like the Romans of chapter 3 by preparing for adversity, in the present analysis by having won over his subjects and making them more reliable through cruelty “well used.” The theme of the relationship of a prince and his people continues in the next chapter.