J. R. ELLIS
POPULATION-TRANSPLANTS
BY PHILIP II
Whoever becomes prince of a city or state, especially if the foundation of his power is feeble, and does not wish to establish there either a monarchy or a republic, will find the best means for holding that principality to organize the government entirely anew (he being himself a new prince there); that is, he should appoint new governors with new titles, new powers and new men, and he should make the poor rieh, as David did when he became king,
“who heaped riches upon the needy and dismissed the wealthy empty-handed”.
Besides this, he should destroy the old cities and build new ones, and transfer the inhabitants from one place to another; in short, he should leave nothing unchanged in that provinee, so that there should be neither rank, nor grade, nor honour, nor wealth that should not be recognised as coming from hirn.
He should take Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander, for his model, who by proceeding in that manner became, from a petty king, master of all Greece.
Machiavelli, Discourses I. xxvi