In The Prince Machiavelli recommends that princes read histories and consider the actions of "excellent men" because men learn by imitation. Just as Achilles was the model for Alexander, and Alexander for Julius Caesar, new princes should imitate these men (The Prince, 60).(1) In the Discourses on Livy Machiavelli (1, Preface, 2) grieves that "no sign of that ancient virtue remains with us" because ancient "kings, captains, citizens, and legislators . . . are admired rather than imitated" (translation modified); his subsequent discussions aim to rectify this error and make such imitation possible in his times. This connection between reading history and imitation was commonplace in the Renaissance. When Poggio Bracciolini dedicated his translation of Xenophon's Education of Cyrus to Ferdinand of Aragon, he implied that simply by reading the life of Cyrus, Ferdinand would already be imitating another great prince, Scipio (A. Gilbert 1938, 75).(2) If Machiavelli's recommendation to read the lives of excellent men was commonplace, his reason for it was not, since this recommendation is soon followed by his decision "to go to the effectual truth of the thing rather than to the imagination of it" and to base his analysis of princely conduct on "how one lives" rather than on "how one should live," on "what is true" rather than "what is imagined about a prince" (The Prince, 61, emphasis added). Whatever the controversies over Machiavelli's influence on political thought, most agree that in this regard his teaching was novel (A. Gilbert 1938, 77-83; Strauss 1984, 59, 232-3; Skinner 1981, 37-8). By limiting the education of would-be princes to the actions of excellent men, he frees them from the impractical expectations laid out by inactive men of letters. He makes "utility and imitation" essential elements of reading in order to nullify its "contemplative or indolent dangers" (de Grazia 1989, 286); this criticism of the imagination gives expression to the "contempt" that "men of deeds" often have for "men of words" (Strauss 1984, 233). The Prince leaves no place for "writing as an heroic act"; words are valuable only as "initiators of action" (de Grazia 1989, 374-5).