Machiavelli's The Prince has been widely interpreted as representing violent and deceptive political behavior. As such, the term Machiavellian must be associated with deviousness, ruthlessness and power politics. The question of whether or not Machiavelli can be considered a Machiavellian is difficult to resolve due to the complexity of the arguments he presents in both The Prince and the Discourses. While the claims made in the first case are more focused on the individual, i.e. the “prince”, those made in the second describe phenomena on a broader spectrum, having to do with human nature and society in general. Despite the different emphases in these works, Machiavelli's explanations of his theories on politics, nature, and humans in each are consistent and understandable. The difficulty in answering the question of whether or not Machiavelli can be considered Machiavellian therefore does not arise from a simple inconsistency in his writing. Instead, the real reason this question is difficult to answer is because Machiavelli himself reformulates what it means to be moral. His statements in fact represent a departure from classical notions of morality, largely coming from Aristotelian and Christian foundations, thus invalidating – or at least reformulating – the issue at hand. Aristotle provides us with a moral philosophy that is no longer centered on the private sphere, but instead gravitates towards the public and political sphere. It is partly for this reason that Machiavelli is often misunderstood as an unquestioning advocate of violent and deceptive acts. The reality is that Machiavelli should instead be seen as a sort of messenger of his time. Through his works he depicts the king...... middle of paper...... Likewise, the future is not dictated by these external forces; the direction of individual human life and collective social well-being is dictated exclusively by humans. New crises, events, alarms or social movements are therefore all considered new developments on a political and historical timeline. His notion of political history therefore lends itself to his theory of what constitutes a good ruler, particularly regarding what such a ruler would do in reacting to such unplanned developments: a good ruler must learn from the past to deal with circumstances present. . Machiavelli considers this ability of a ruler to anticipate and have foresight as part of a larger prerequisite for becoming a good ruler: virtue; “a ruler who cannot foresee evil consequences before they have time to develop is not truly wise; but few have such wisdom” (The Prince 45).