The Discourses

Roman military leaders have plenty to worry over during warfare, including humiliation in battle: “Judging, therefore, that the disgrace of having lost was more than enough punishment, the Romans did not want to demoralize their commanders with other penalties” (89). 

States must treat their people generously in peacetime as well as in war. Giving them benefits merely to get their help during battle will make them think invasion is good for them:

Any state […] that acts otherwise and really believes it can win men back with benefits the instant danger arises deceives itself, because not only will this fail to make the state secure, but it will accelerate its own ruin (91). 

Men often rise to prominence in ways that seem good, and by the time it becomes clear that some such men are bad, it is too late to stop them. Trying to remove them causes more harm than good, as with Caesar, whose enemies realize too late that he is a danger, and whose efforts to stop him destroy the republic. It is better to wait, “because when you put off dealing with them, they either fade away by themselves or at least the evil is postponed for a longer time” (93).