`  : Thank you for your reply.  That ``Machiavellian`` has certain connotations, and that they were formed as a result of what people took from the Prince and the Discourses, is a verifiable fact and not, so far as I am aware, the subject of any dispute.  Statements about whether it accurately captures Machiavelli's thought, on the other hand, touch upon a matter of dissension.  My point was that it does not violate NPOV to point out the former, while it does to insist upon the latter.  : As to your argument regarding Agathocles, it is neither here nor there whether interpreters who say Machiavelli was more Machiavellian than his modern apologists acknowledge are right.  The debate exists, and we are not supposed to take sides.  Making the sentence more idiomatic is one thing:  casting it in a particular light is another.  : I will say, however (entirely off-topic), that in the very sentence after saying that we cannot call it virtue to do these things, which you quote, Machiavelli speaks of Agathocles' virtue and objects that one cannot see why he has to be judged inferior to any most excellent captain.  Machiavelli never says that what Agathocles displayed is not virtue, just that it cannot be called, cannot be celebrated, one cannot attribute, etc.; he does say that it is virtue.  Then, after showing a modern, Christian failure, he asks why it was that Agathocles never came to any harm, and notes that those who proceed like Agathocles, who used cruelty well, can have some remedy ``with God and with men.``  It seems that Machiavelli is being clever.  ''''''  `