3
summary fashion,
6
and, when fitting, to elevate their maxims to general propositions of political
realism.
The Historical and Intellectual Contexts
From the beginnings of agriculture, Chinese society had been ruled by lineages of warrior
aristocrats, each centered on a walled town and commanding the surrounding countryside, whose
authority over the both the people and branch lineages was sanctioned by their service of the
ancestors and communication with cosmic forces, which took place through warfare and
sacrifice.
7
Whereas ritualized violence was the norm between lineages, harmony and proper
conduct were supposed to govern relations within the clan, including its deceased members.
Having attained dominance in 1040 B.C., the Chou lineage established in addition a quasi-feudal
hierarchy of personal authority (feng-chien) by ranking the aristocracy into regional lords,
hereditary ministers, and ordinary nobles according to kin ties defined in lineage law and
endowing them with hereditary rights to rule towns, lands, and serfs (symbolized by bestowing
clods of earth from the Altar of the Soil). The holders of these rights, in turn, had to pay periodic
homage at the Chou court and grant favors to Chou kin. Their domains formed economically
sufficient units, with exchanges of goods being limited tribute and gifts. The crafts were the
hereditary practice of serfs. With each lord and minister having his own temples for sacrifice, his
own agricultural income, and his own army, the authority of the Chou kings over the lords and of
the lords over the ministers was based on their power and their status in the ritual order. To
5
Duyvendak, "Introduction," 141-59, 268, fn. 3.
6
For a full rendering of Machiavelli, see my Well-Ordered License: On the Unity of Machiavelli’s Thought
(Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2000).
7
For Shang’s historical context, see Herrlee G. Creel, The Origins of Statecraft in China, vol. I: The Western Chou
Empire (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970); John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman, China: A New
History, enlargened ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1998), pp. 37-71; Mark Edward Lewis, Sanctioned
Violence in Early China (Albany, New York: SUNY Press, 1990), pp. 15-96.
Convention