Read this paragraph from chapter 5 of The Prince B.
There are, for example, the Spartans and the Romans. The Spartans held Athens
and Thebes, establishing there an oligarchy: nevertheless they lost them. The
Romans, in order to hold Capua, Carthage, and Numantia, dismantled them, and
did not lose them. They wished to hold Greece as the Spartans held it, making it
free and permitting its laws, and did not succeed. So to hold it they were
compelled to dismantle many cities in the country, for in truth there is no safe
way to retain them otherwise than by ruining them. And he who becomes master
of a city accustomed to freedom and does not destroy it, may expect to be
destroyed by it, for in rebellion it has always the watchword of liberty and its
ancient privileges as a rallying point, which neither time nor benefits will ever
cause it to forget. And whatever you may do or provide against, they never forget
that name or their privileges unless they are disunited or dispersed, but at every
chance they immediately rally to them, as Pisa after the hundred years she had
been held in bondage by the Florentines.
What idea is stressed in the passage?
O the desire for liberty
O the establishment of an oligarchy
O the dismantling of an acquired state
O the tendency toward rebellion