Niccolò Machiavelli started work with the chancery in Florence at the age of 29, traveling on diplomatic missions around Europe. In the 14 years he served the chancery, he met great statesmen and politicians, including Louis XII, Emperor Maximilian and Cesare Borgia, and gained great insight into the political workings of Europe. He gave Florentine generals successful military advice concerning tactics and organizing infantry forces. He even established a Florentine militia. When the Medici came back into power in 1512, Machiavelli was arrested, tortured and exiled from Florence. Work Machiavelli, having lost the one vocation he understood, turned to writing, the closest thing to being in office he could now experience. In his writing he drew from his years of experience and understanding of the working of a successful "prince." The Prince, published in 1513, was a how-to book on securing and maintaining political power. He did not censor his occasional inhumane methods and was entirely honest in his political advice, earning him an infamous reputation. In his work he wrote about the use of trickery and artfulness and how a ruler is sometimes compelled to do evil in order to maintain power. Machiavelli recommends, "one must know how to color one's actions and be a great feigner and dissembler." He concludes that "it is a general rule about men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, liars and deceivers, fearful of danger and greedy for gain." He states that a prince who acts virtuously will soon come to his end in a sea of people who are not virtuous themselves. Thus, the successful prince must be dishonest and immoral when necessary. He states that "we see from recent experience that those princes have accomplished most who paid little heed to keeping their promises, but who knew how to manipulate the minds of men craftily. In the end, they won out over those who tried to act honestly." Machiavelli advocates cunning political maneuvers as the best way to hold onto power. Machiavelli emphasizes that a ruler must be able to do evil, because to maintain political power sometimes requires one to act without scruples. Machiavelli uses the example of Agathocles the Sicilian. Agathocles had the entire senate of Syracuse killed in order to seize control of the government. Machiavelli admits that this is a way to gain power, but not glory, because criminal actions are never viewed in a positive light. The