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Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe: Machiavelli’s The Ass, Commentary3 0 1life as such is necessarily the unexamined life, measured by the standardof the transpolitical good and the transpolitical divine, civic life is drainedof all substantial worth. The life of the citizen, deprived of the gods of thecity and lacking the properly human good, is a non- or subhuman life. Thedenigration of political life by the apologetical rhetoric of ancient philosophypaves the way for the similar, if more effective, denigration of political life byChristianity and thereby for the depoliticization of man.Despite or because of its transpolitical character, therefore, ancient philosophypresents itself as the end of human life. Even if philosophy cannotrule in the cities of men, it governs in this sense: it is the highest good. ThisPlatonic teaching appears to prepare the ground for the Christian doctrinethat the divine or spiritual destiny of man is the proper end of man’s lifesimply and so also of his political life, which is justified or redeemed only asa means to the fulfillment of this end.Thus, in Machiavelli’s view, the character of the defense of philosophyoffered by the ancients made possible the illegitimate “alliance” of philosophyand the Christian religion and thereby paved the way for the latter’sacceptance. 44 Such a defense, however, is wholly self-defeating in the moderncontext. One can no longer provide advantage to philosophy by concealing itbeneath a cloak of moral idealism, let alone Christian piety.Here is the foundation for that opinion which is manifest on the face ofall of Machiavelli’s writings, especially the Prince and the Discourses, namely,the opinion that political philosophy may be preserved intact while jettisoningan appeal to a “purified” morality, the transpolitical divine, and the ruleof wisdom as the best regime. Machiavelli seems to take these to be aspectsof the apologetical intention of ancient philosophy alone and, therefore, anexternal “idealism” that may be peeled away and discarded without transformingthe core of political philosophy. One might be led to suspect on thesegrounds that he is insufficiently aware of the inseparability of the apologeticalfrom the philosophical intention of ancient thought. The “idealism” of theancients is the indispensible starting point of their inquiry, since that inquiryis guided by the insight that the speeches or opinions of political life are ofgreater weight than the deeds of political life or that what men say is a moreeffective clue to the nature of things than what men do. One cannot turn44Machiavelli also indicates that the fact that the apologetical rhetoric of ancient philosophy hasresulted in great harm to both the political community and philosophy itself shows that it is not possibleto benefit one’s friends while harming no one. Even or especially such remedies required for thedefense of the good ultimately result in both extrinsic and intrinsic evils.