The Spartans held Athens and Thebes, establishing there an oligarchy: nevertheless they lost them. The Romans, in order to hold Capua, Carthage, and Numantia, dismantled them, and did not lose them. They wished to hold Greece as the Spartans held it, making it free and permitting its laws, and did not succeed. So to hold it they were compelled to dismantle many cities in the country, for in truth there is no safe way to retain them otherwise than by ruining them. And he who becomes master of a city accustomed to freedom and does not destroy it, may expect to be destroyed by it.

–The Prince,
Niccolò Machiavelli

Which detail best supports the idea that princes who do not destroy or occupy their principalities will not keep them?

“The Spartans held Athens and Thebes, establishing there an oligarchy.”
“The Romans, in order to hold Capua, Carthage, and Numantia, dismantled them.”
“They wished to hold Greece as the Spartans held it, making it free and permitting its laws.”
“He who becomes master of a city accustomed to freedom and does not destroy it, may expect to be destroyed by it.”

Niccolò Machiavelli uses the well documented example of Roman expansion over various principalities to argue that anyone who conquers a place must destroy its existing political institutions otherwise they will not be able to control it.

This pragmatic idea is supported by the juxtaposition between the Greeks who were unsuccessful and the ruthless Romans who were.

However, this statement is persuasive but not entirely true as Rome also allowed considerable cultural freedom to its principalities and did not simply destroy them.

JackelineCasarez JackelineCasarez · Answer 2 · 2022-01-27T14:39:19+01:00

The detail that most adequately backs the idea that Princes who could not destroy or engage their principalities would not keep them would be:

B). “The Romans, in order to hold Capua, Carthage, and Numantia, dismantled them.”

The detail "The Romans...them" presented by Machiavelli backs the idea that the Princes who failed to ruin the pre-existing political organizations would not keep them and lose them.
The reason behind this is that they believed that they could not handle it.
This is displayed through the success of the Romans' failure to rule due to not being able to conquer the existing organizations while the Romans who adopted this policy were able to.

Thus, option B is the correct answer.

Learn more about "Romans" here:

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