g the use of any necessary lies--as long as persuasion proves effective.
Mark Musa, the translator of the edition of The Prince used for this study, writes in his Introduction that Machiavelli uses the term "virt·" fifty-nine times. Musa writes that the most appropriate translation of this word is "ingenuity," meaning that the Prince
combines aptness and skill with inventive power and cleverness in originating and contriving. . . . When
[virt·] is not specifically capacity, strategy, courage, power, efficacy, strength, talent, resources, or capability, then it is ingenuity (Machiavelli xv).
Machiavelli argues that the effective leader must trust nobody--friend or foe, in private or public matters. Leaders who "depend on themselves and are able to use force, will [very seldom] find themselves in danger" (Machiavelli 45). His ideas can be used as intellectual justification not only for the brutali
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