contingent republics have the opportunity for reconstituting their own virtue that well-founded
ones do not.
So contingencies are both dangerous and felicitous. Most importantly, they offer the
possibility for action that would not otherwise arise. The gravi accidenti that plague imperfectly
founded cities are also possibilities and opportunities for renewal and transformation of
stagnating institutions, and potential sources of civic greatness.
Rome s Contingent Constitution
So far we have seen that Machiavelli has located contingency as a central category in politics,
and that in contrast to contemporary understandings of emergencies, he saw accidenti as both
potentially dangerous and sources of possible renewal and greatness. At this point I want to look
more closely at the relationship between accidents, agency, and institutions by analyzing
Machiavelli s portrayal of Rome as an accident prone city. My argument here begins with the
analysis of accidenti in each stage in the development of Roman institutions through his
reworking of the classical theory of regime cycles. Next, I develop the idea that contingency
increases the scope of political action by looking at Machiavelli s famous argument that the
conflict between the Senate and the Plebs was the source of Rome s liberty and greatness. My
interpretation of Machiavelli s defense of the discord between the plebs and aristocrats is
twofold: first, I show how the institutionalization of this discord is the outcome of contingency,
and the mixed regime embodied contingency in Roman institutions. Secondly, I show how these
institutions in turn nourish diverse desires and humors within the populace, and it is the
intensity of these clashing desires that not only keep Rome free, but give it a unique capacity for
action during emergencies.
But first let s turn to Polybius. Many commentators have remarked on the influence of
Polybius theory of regime cycles, according to which all regimes that are simple substances
republic remains, and indeed must remain, constantly open to the constituent power in order to preserve the
constituted one. Although I don’t pursue it, this seems to me a much more attractive source of thinking about the
constitution power in Machiavelli than Antonio Negri’s and Louis Althusser’s celebration of the absolute and
radically unrestrained constituent power of the new prince in The Prince. See, Antonio Negri, Le pouvoir
constituant (1997) and Louis Althusser, Machiavel et nous.
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Convention