Last year I began reading Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy anew. After a short while I conceived the notion that I should follow his example and comment on the Discourses in the same way that the Discourses comment on Livy. Soon I had several very rough pages summarizing and commenting on Machiavelli's ideas. After a while, however, this grew tedious. Around the same time I discovered that there already was a published commentary on the Discourses. Faced with my growing boredom with the format I was utilizing but still charged by the idea of a discourse about Machiavelli's ideas, I suddenly realized that a dialogue might be a better format.
So, several months ago I began a dialogue between a "young lawyer" and Machiavelli on aspects of the Discourses. This project did not get very far before I realized that it might be a good idea to familiarize myself with pre and post-Machiavellian thought on the issues in the Discourses. Since then I have been reading Tacitus,Sallust and other ancient authors and preparing to read "modern" work such as Cato's Letters and Montesquieu. Eventually I plan to use my reading experience as source material for referencing in the dialogue with Machiavelli.
I mention all this, Dear Reader, because I may post this dialogue serially on this blog for your perusal and criticism. Stay tuned.
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