1. Introduction

The ancient Greek concept of kairos (καιρός) has recently undergone a revival of interest among historians of rhetoric.Footnote ¹ These scholars detail the importance that ancient writers placed on the concept of kairos as denoting both a sense of “adaptation and accommodation to convention” and, conversely, “the uniquely timely, the spontaneous, the radically particular.”Footnote ² They point to the prevalence of the first sense, often captured in the Latin concept of decorum, from the time of Cicero (106–43 BCE) onward, and especially in the Renaissance. Although involving the same understanding of adaptation to circumstance as kairos, decorum was highly moral — synthesizing the ends of utile and honestum in any given action — whereas kairos carried connotations of moral flexibility, even moral relativism. It is the moralized decorum that dominated much of medieval and Renaissance rhetoric and has held the attention of historians of the period ever since. In the words of James Kinneavy, the pioneering scholar on kairos in the anglophone tradition, “although the Ciceronian notion of propriety persisted throughout the medieval and Renaissance period, the residual influence of kairos is almost a negligible chapter in the history of rhetoric since antiquity.”Footnote ³ Although work has been done in recent decades to counter this view, the revival of the study of kairos in rhetoric has not yet been paralleled by its reception into the history of political thought.Footnote ⁴

As recent scholarship has shown, an understanding of the various elements in the classical ars rhetorica greatly illuminates a reading of political texts, especially in the Renaissance.Footnote ⁵ Kairos as a rhetorical theory — an understanding of how and, more importantly, when to speak in a given context — thus has a fundamental role to play in Renaissance political philosophy, especially given its preoccupation with questions of political counsel.Footnote ⁶ This paper will begin by focusing on the use of the kairotic tradition by one of England’s leading humanists of the sixteenth century, Thomas Elyot (ca. 1490–1546), in his 1533 Pasquil the Playne, a dialogue on the problem of giving appropriate political advice. In Pasquil, Elyot deliberately recalls the Greek tradition of kairos, and designates the ability to adopt an understanding of kairotic speech as the key talent of the effective political adviser.

As kairos is essential to rhetoric, and rhetoric essential to Renaissance political philosophy, kairos ought to form an important part of an evaluation of the period’s political thought. The political influence of kairos, however, does not end with well-timed political speech, for kairos also sets out a model of political action, both for Greek and for Renaissance writers. This theory is best explored in one of the sixteenth century’s most influential political theorists, Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527). In The Prince, written in 1513 and published posthumously in 1532, Machiavelli emphasizes the importance of a knowledge of occasione to his prince, without which his virtù will go to waste. This concept of occasione bears clear relation to that of kairos in the Greek tradition, a fact recognized by commentators in the decades that followed as they further developed a political theory founded on the concept of kairos.

In order to understand Elyot’s and Machiavelli’s use of kairos, this paper starts with an account of the history of the concept, including its etymology and earliest uses in Sophistic and Platonic philosophy, before moving on to its place in the works of two of the most prominent Greek philosophers of kairos, Isocrates (436–338 BCE) and Plutarch (ca. 46–120 CE).Footnote ⁷ Analyzing kairos in political speech and political action separately, the influence of the Greek tradition is shown first in Elyot’s Pasquil, before moving on to an examination of the ways in which Machiavelli too draws directly on the philosophies of Isocrates and Plutarch, especially regarding the lessons of seizing opportunity, of necessity, of moral flexibility, and the study of comparable historical moments. Finally, this paper ends by gesturing toward the political tradition of kairos in the works of late sixteenth-century thinkers, especially those associated with the spread of Machiavellianism and reason of state. By grasping the complex history of kairos in the classical (and especially Greek) works embraced in the Renaissance, a political theory of kairos emerges that is fundamental to a fuller understanding of Renaissance political thought.

2. Etymology and Uses of Kairos

The word kairos has its roots in archery, where it denoted a “penetrable opening, an aperture” through which Greek archers aimed, simulating the forest of shields and armor through which an arrow must pass to reach its target.Footnote ⁸ This origin explains the many meanings of kairos, such as mark and target, both literally, as in the Iliad where it indicates a place on the body to strike fatally,Footnote ⁹ and figuratively, such as in Sophocles’s Electra, in which Orestes urges, “Listen closely to my words and correct me, if I miss the mark in any way.”Footnote ¹⁰ The development of kairos from this source explains its dual meaning as an opening or opportunity and as due measure, for the shot requires not only accuracy, but also the right amount of power — neither too much nor too little — in order to pass successfully through the opening.Footnote ¹¹

In general, kairos carried a temporal connotation and has a complex relationship with the other Greek word for time, chronos (χρόνος).Footnote ¹² Whereas chronos denotes a linear and progressive sense of time, kairos stands in opposition as a rare singularity.Footnote ¹³ One of its standard uses is thus to describe the character of a segment of time, translatable even as when or while. It is from this use that kairos comes to signify season or the times — for example in Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War (431 BCE), where he notes that it was “at this crisis” that “Pisander and his colleagues” arrived into Athens.Footnote ¹⁴

For many thinkers, this use of kairos took on an ethical dimension as well. If one accepts kairos as a deviation from linear and universal time, any expectation that one must match speech or actions to the character of the times presents problems for universal or absolute moral systems. It is no surprise, then, that from the early centuries of Greek philosophy, the concept of kairos was linked to moral relativism, especially that of the Sophists of the fifth century BCE: Pythagoras, Protagoras, and Gorgias.Footnote ¹⁵ For such thinkers, kairos had the power of determining the moral value of human actions: something may be good or bad, honorable or dishonorable, based on its accordance with that particular moment.Footnote ¹⁶ For example, Gorgias in his Epitaphios praises those men who “preferred … many times the correctness of words to strict law, because they believed this to be the most divine and universal law: to say and not to say and to do and not to do the right thing at the right time.”Footnote ¹⁷ A similar lesson is expressed by the anonymous Sophist treatise Dissoi logoi: “there is nothing that is in every respect seemly or shameful, but kairos takes the same things and makes them shameful and then changes them round and makes them seemly.”Footnote ¹⁸

Much of what is known of Sophistic thought, especially regarding kairotic moral flexibility, comes, as it did to Renaissance writers, through the works of anti-Sophists such as Plato.Footnote ¹⁹ Plato was concerned to provide an alternative to the moral relativism of the Sophists, often aligning his character of Socrates against Sophistic straw men. He did, however, confront them on (or rather in) their own terms, that is, by providing a definition of kairos. For Plato, kairos undergirds the understanding of virtue as the universal golden mean between two extremes — a doctrine embraced by both Aristotle and Cicero, as well as (through such sources) philosophers of the medieval and Renaissance periods.Footnote ²⁰ Kairos also played a crucial role in Plato’s rhetorical and political philosophy. For instance, his construction of the ideal statesman in the Politikos is built upon a notion of kairos: “For what is really kingship must not itself perform practical tasks but control those with the capacity to perform them, because it knows when it is the right time to begin and set in motion the most important things in cities and when it is the wrong time.”Footnote ²¹ Plato, in the Politikos, gives his statesman the essential skill he had assigned to the rhetorician in his Phaedrus. In this latter text, Plato’s Socrates details the qualities of the ideal orator, noting that only once he has “added thereto a knowledge of the times for speaking and for keeping silence, and has also distinguished the favourable occasions for brief speech or pitiful speech or intensity” will his art be complete.Footnote ²²

3. Kairos and Rhetoric in Isocrates and Plutarch

Isocrates, a student of the Sophists and contemporary of Plato, and Plutarch, writing in the Second Sophistic, were particularly preoccupied with the questions of when to speak or to stay silent, and when certain topics should be broached, based on a consideration of kairos. In Against the Sophists, Isocrates outlines a similar set of skills for the rhetorician as Plato had, adding that oratory especially requires “fitness for the occasion, propriety of style, and originality.”Footnote ²³ It remains, however, unclear how one is to determine what is fit for the occasion: when one should speak, and when silence is to be preferred. For Isocrates, there are only “two occasions for speech — when the subject is one which you thoroughly know and when it is one on which you are compelled to speak.”Footnote ²⁴ It is “on these occasions alone [that] speech [is] better than silence; on all others, it is better to be silent than to speak.”Footnote ²⁵ However, of what this compulsion consists Isocrates is unclear; he does not, for example, tell his listeners whether a counselor ought to feel compelled to speak the truth to his king.

Plutarch gives a fuller treatment of these issues than Isocrates, divisible into two interrelated themes: the correct timing-propriety for specific topics and the timing-propriety of frank speech (παρρησία, parrhesia).Footnote ²⁶ He too emphasizes the importance of the orator’s knowledge of kairos, for “occasions arise quickly and often bring with them in public affairs sudden developments,” which explains why “Demosthenes [as an orator] was inferior to many, as they say, because he drew back and hesitated when the occasion called for the opposite course.”Footnote ²⁷ On the other hand, “the man who is so moved by the events which take place and the opportunities which offer themselves that he springs to his feet is the one who most thrills the crowd, attracts it, and carries it with him.”Footnote ²⁸ Thus it is that “he who knows how, knows also when to speak.”Footnote ²⁹

Plutarch’s views on kairos can be found in his Quaestiones Convivales (Table Talk), in which he asks, “Whether midst our cups it is fit to talk learnedly and philosophize?”Footnote ³⁰ The figure of Plutarch begins by recalling Isocrates’s discussion of kairos: “Isocrates the rhetorician, when at a drinking bout some begged him to make a speech, only returned: With those things in which I have no skill the time doth not suit; and in those things with which the time suits, I have no skill.”Footnote ³¹ The character of Crato agrees in principle with Isocrates’s statement, “if he designed to make such long-winded discourses as would have spoiled all mirth and conversation,” but suggests that it is possible to introduce at this time speech that serves to “regulate and adjust … our gay humours and our pleasures, to proportion the time and keep them from excess.”Footnote ³² The discussants agree that “topics fit to be used at table” are those stories and examples “fitted to … the juncture of affairs,” which “instruct … with persuasive and smooth arguments.”Footnote ³³ Thus they conclude that it “become[s] a philosopher to enquire which is the convenient and proper time” for all things.Footnote ³⁴

It is Plutarch’s treatment of parrhesia and kairos, however, that had the greatest impact on discussions of political counsel in the Renaissance, particularly his observations in Quomodo adulator ab amico internoscatur (How to Tell a Flatterer from a Friend).Footnote ³⁵ Plutarch employs kairos repeatedly throughout this text, marking its importance for those wishing to give truthful and virtuous advice for the honor and profit of the hearer. This is in contrast to the flatterer, whose speech is directed at the pleasure of the hearer and who has no notion of kairos at all. The flatterer, Plutarch suggests, “sheweth himself alwaies jocund, mery and delightsome, without crossing at any time.”Footnote ³⁶ By contrast, a true friend is willing to give admonishment as well as praise, so long as “it be done in time and place convenient.”Footnote ³⁷

Discussing parrhesia, Plutarch notes that “this libertie of speech where of I speake, is the nature of a medicine, which if it be not given in time convenient and as it ought to be, besides, that it doth no good at all, it troubleth the body, worketh greevance, and in stead of a remedie prooveth to be a mischiefe.”Footnote ³⁸ Without kairos, frank counsel is no better than flattery, and in fact may even be worse, for “fit opportunity overslipt and neglected doth much hurt.”Footnote ³⁹ On the other hand, “a faithfull and carefull friend” will not “reject such occasions,” but will “take hold thereof quickly, and make good use of them.”Footnote ⁴⁰ Such moments “open the doore and make way for us to enter, and give us leave to speak frankly.”Footnote ⁴¹ In short, “opportunitie a wise and skilfull friend will not omit, but make especial good use of.”Footnote ⁴²

He repeats the lessons of Quaestiones Convivales, writing that “we must take heed how we speake broad at a table where friends be met together to drinke wine liberally and to make good cheere: for he that amid pleasant discourses and mery talke mooveth a speech that causeth bending and knitting of browes” causes great disruption and even risk, for “this neglect of opportunitie bringeth with it great danger.”Footnote ⁴³ Given this hazard, Plutarch addresses the following questions: “In what cases and occurrences then, ought a friend to be earnest and vehement? and when is he to use his libertie of speech, and extend it to the full?”Footnote ⁴⁴ In other words, Plutarch seeks to determine what it is exactly that makes counsel kairotic and thus justifies free speech. The answer combines the virtuous ends of counsel with a consideration of kairos. One should give frank counsel “when occasion is offered, and the time serveth best to represse excessive pleasure, to restraine unbridled choler, to refraine intollerable pride and insolencie, to stay insatiable avarice, or to stand against any foolish habitude and inconsiderate motion.”Footnote ⁴⁵ Kairos exists in the opportunity to encourage virtuous action and bridle vice. For Plutarch this “define[s] … the opportunity of free speech.”Footnote ⁴⁶

4. Kairos and the Counselor in Elyot’s Pasquil

One cannot separate the treatment of kairos in Isocrates or Plutarch from the consideration of “oportunitie & tyme” in Thomas Elyot’s Pasquil the Playne.Footnote ⁴⁷ Elyot translated Plutarch’s De liberis educandis in 1530, and it has been suggested that he also produced a translation of Plutarch’s Quomodo adulator ab amico internoscatur for Henry VIII.Footnote ⁴⁸ In the same year that Elyot published Pasquil, he also published a translation of Isocrates’s Ad Nicoclem, a work of political advice to the Cyprian king Nicocles in which Isocrates notes that the crucial virtue of a counselor is the ability to speak in accordance with kairos. In Elyot’s words: “specyally they that be counsailors ought to haue consideration of the occasyon, tyme, and opportunyte.”Footnote ⁴⁹

This idea is played out in Pasquil. Pasquil is a dialogue between three counselors on the best method of giving advice to their prince. The title character must defend his frank speech against two other figures: Gnatho, who argues that flattery is the best way to counsel a king, and Harpocrates, who favors silent acquiescence. Gnatho chides Pasquil for “raylyng” on without considering “what, and to whome, and where thou spekest.”Footnote ⁵⁰ He suggests that Pasquil’s “libertie in speche” is “vnprofitable” as “nothing that thou blamist, is of one iote amended, and thou losest therby preferment” as well as wasting time.Footnote ⁵¹ This argument is based upon his interpretation of “Aeschylus counsaylle,” given in Pasquil as “holding thy thonge wher it behoueth the. And spekyng in tyme that which is conuenient.”Footnote ⁵²

The line quoted is from the second play of Aeschylus’s Oresteia, The Libation Bearers. The character of Orestes addresses the chorus, instructing them to “keep silent in places where there is need and speak that which is in the right place.”Footnote ⁵³ Elyot’s work in Pasquil is cut out for him, as neither the “places where there is need” to keep silent nor “that which is in the right place” to speak are defined. Like Plutarch, Elyot seeks to identify exactly what constitutes kairotic counsel, and so the rest of the dialogue concerns the proper interpretation of this line from Aeschylus — in other words, the proper interpretation of kairos.

Gnatho gives his reading first. He interprets the statement as meaning that “it behoueth a man to holde his tunge, whan he aforeseeth by any experience, that the thinge, whiche he wolde purpose or speke of to his superior, shall neyther be pleasantly herde nor thankefully taken.”Footnote ⁵⁴ He suggests that, when it comes to words, “oportunitie & tyme alwaye do depende on the affection and appetite of hym that hereth them.”Footnote ⁵⁵ Of course, anyone well read in their Plutarch, as Elyot was, would know that this was an interpretation of kairos completely at odds with the one that a good counselor was meant to adopt.

In response, Elyot has Pasquil reiterate much of the Plutarchan doctrine of kairos explored above. He begins with examples drawn from Plutarch’s discussion of table talk: “When men be set at a good soupper, and be busily occupyed in eatynge and drinkinge, though thou be depely sene in philosophie, holde thy tonge and dispute not of temperaunce.”Footnote ⁵⁶ This is juxtaposed with a more formal council setting: “Whan thou arte sittynge in counsaile aboute maters of weighty importaunce: talke not than of passe tyme or daliaunce, but omittinge affection or dreede, speke than to the pourpose.”Footnote ⁵⁷ If one takes account of the proper occasion, Pasquil tells Gnatho, then the counsel will be even more effective. For example, “Whan thy frendes be set downe to souper, before the cuppes betwise fylled: reherce the peryll and also dishonesti that hapneth by glotony.”Footnote ⁵⁸ When it comes to councils, the right time comes “after thou haste either herde one raisonne bifore the, or at the leest weye, in the balaunce of thyne owne raison ponderid the questio[n].”Footnote ⁵⁹ It is then that one should “spare not to shew thine aduise, & to speke truely.”Footnote ⁶⁰

Pasquil then proceeds to give Gnatho a full definition of the classical concept of kairos: “Oportunite consisteth in place or tyme, where and whan the sayd affections or passion of wrath be mitigate and out of extremitie. And wordes be called conueniente, whiche haue respecte to the nature and state of the person, vnto whom they be spoken, and also to the detrimente, whiche mought ensue by the vice or lacke that thou hast espied, & it ought not to be as thou hast supposed. For oportunite & tyme for a counsayllour to speke, do not depend of the affection and appetite of hym that is counsayled: mary than counsaylle were but a vayne worde, and euery man wolde do as hym lyste.”Footnote ⁶¹ As Plutarch had established, the affections should not be entered into a consideration of opportunity; in fact, the opportune time is when they are “out of extremitie.” Rather one should only consider those things that will ensure that truthful and virtuous counsel will be most efficacious.

Pasquil and the third member of the dialogue, Harpocrates, also enter into a consideration of kairos and counsel. Hearing that his master will “syt in counsail about waightie causes” after dining, Harpocrates declares that only after he too has dined will he give attendance.Footnote ⁶² This prompts in Pasquil a diatribe against the reversals of the world, which cause men to counsel after the day is done, instead of attending to such matters first thing in the morning.Footnote ⁶³ He reflects that “after noone is tourned to fore noone, vertue into vice.”Footnote ⁶⁴ This discussion of the importance of the timing of pleasurable pursuits (namely dinner) and counsel, following closely on the heels of Pasquil’s previous examples that juxtaposed the same, recalls the reader to a consideration of the importance of the opportune time to counsel, especially as regards the definition of virtue and vice.

These themes are continued in the ensuing debate. Challenging Harpocrates’s dedication to silence, Pasquil asks him, “If I perceyued one at thy backe with a swerde drawne, redy to strike the, woldest thou that I shulde holde my peace, or else tell the?”Footnote ⁶⁵ Harpocrates responds that “naye, sylence were than oute of season.”Footnote ⁶⁶ The proper season for speech was a rendering of kairos employed by English translators, and Plutarch himself had criticized those who employ “hurtfull and unholesome sauces” to “season their free language.”Footnote ⁶⁷ Pasquil does the same, and responds that Harpocrates “wyll season silence,” joking that “marye I wene my lorde shulde haue a better cooke of you thanne a counsayllour.”Footnote ⁶⁸ He asks Harpocrates, “Howe thou doest season thy sylence[?]”Footnote ⁶⁹ Harpocrates responds that he does so “with sugar, for I vse lyttell salte,” and Pasquil retorts that this “maketh your counsayl more swete than sauery.”Footnote ⁷⁰

Harpocrates’s seasoning of his silence with sugar, Pasquil suggests, makes it more appealing to the pleasurable appetites of his master, but less wholesome. The timing or season of his counsel alone changes its direction from virtuous ends to serving only the passions. Harpocrates concedes this point and so Pasquil asks him again, “Whan is your silence in season?”Footnote ⁷¹ Harpocrates admits that he “can not shortly tel” for he is “so abashed” by the “froward reson” of Pasquil.Footnote ⁷² Pasquil comes to an end by encouraging his listeners to “beare away the sayde sentence [of Aesychlus] with myne exposition, and vse it” — in other words, to take away his interpretation of kairos and apply it to their counsel.Footnote ⁷³

5. Kairos and Political Action in Isocrates and Plutarch

As mentioned above, it is in Isocrates’s Ad Nicoclem that he sets out kairotic timing as an essential attribute of a political counselor. This text also draws attention to a knowledge of kairos as crucial to the king himself, positing a theory of kairos distinct from that of rhetoric alone, and concerned with political action as well. Isocrates tells Nicocles that he must “keep a watch continually” both on his “words and actions… . The best thing is to hit the exact course which the occasion demands.”Footnote ⁷⁴ This view of kairotic political action is most clearly expressed in his Panegyricus (ca. 380 BCE), an appeal to the Greek people to unite in expelling the Persian barbarians. He tells them that “the moment for action has not yet gone by” and that they “must not throw [kairos] away; for it is disgraceful to neglect a chance when it is present and regret it when it is past.”Footnote ⁷⁵

The problem becomes determining these kairotic moments and the action that they require. For Isocrates, the answer is the exercise of phronesis, or prudence.Footnote ⁷⁶ The problem with the Sophists, he explains in his Against the Sophists, is not that they based their ethics on kairos, but that they had not developed the prudence necessary to utilize it.Footnote ⁷⁷ He accepts, as the Sophists had, that when it comes to political affairs such as peace and war, “nothing … is in itself absolutely either good or bad, but rather it is the use we make of circumstances and opportunities which … determine the result.”Footnote ⁷⁸ His own educational program is outlined in his Antidosis, in which he writes that teachers are to instruct students to “combine in practice the particular things which they have learned, in order that they may grasp them more firmly and bring their theories into closer touch with the occasions for applying them… . [Those] who most apply their minds to them and are able to discern the consequences which for the most part grow out of them, will most often meet these occasions in the right way.”Footnote ⁷⁹ He concludes, however, that “no system of knowledge can possibly cover all these occasions, since in all cases they elude our science.”Footnote ⁸⁰

However, one must still find a way to cultivate prudence — an understanding of how to act kairotically — without the use of universal laws or an absolute moral system. The answer rests in the nature of kairos as a segmented piece of time. As it is separable from the general progress of chronological time, it is possible to isolate two similar events — two kairotic moments — and compare them, drawing conclusions for present action. As Isocrates notes in his Panegyricus: “the deeds of the past are, indeed, an inheritance common to us all; but the ability to make proper use of them at the appropriate time … is the peculiar gift of the wise.”Footnote ⁸¹ For Isocrates the “educated” are those “who manage well the circumstances which they encounter day by day, and who possess a judgment which is accurate in meeting occasions as they arise.”Footnote ⁸²

This is precisely the approach applied by Plutarch in his Lives (ca. late first century–early second century), a method made explicit in the pseudo-Plutarchan Parallela minora: “since I have discovered that similar events [to those of the ancients] have happened in this modern era, I have singled out crises of Roman history; and, to parallel each ancient happening, I have subjoined a more modern instance.”Footnote ⁸³ Within the Lives themselves, kairos is a key element, determining the success or failure of the political figure in question.Footnote ⁸⁴ Plutarch makes clear that the character of the times has great effect on the fortunes of men, whose temperament should accord with the nature of the era in which they live. He gives the example of Cato, whose qualities, admirable though they were, did not accord with his times: he “fared just as fruits do which make their appearance out of season,” as his qualities were “look[ed] upon … with delight and admiration,” but not used or appreciated;Footnote ⁸⁵ he “enjoyed great repute and fame, but was not suited to the needs of men because of the weight and grandeur of [his] virtue, which were out of all proportion to the immediate times”;Footnote ⁸⁶ he “acted as if he lived in Plato’s commonwealth, and not among the dregs of Romulus,” and so he was defeated in his bid for the consulship.Footnote ⁸⁷

More often the character of the times offers a rare opportunity to assert one’s agency against the inevitable progress of linear time. By taking note of kairos, by being attentive to those crucial moments, an actor has a greater chance of success in an uncertain world. Caesar, for example, triumphed because he was a “man endowed by nature to make the best use of all the arts of war, and particularly of its crucial moments,” such as when he “took advantage of the favourable instant … and thereby … in a brief portion of one day he made himself master of three camps.”Footnote ⁸⁸ By contrast, Philopoemen “threw away his life … by hastening to attack Messene before occasion offered.”Footnote ⁸⁹ Being attentive to kairos may mean patiently enduring, as in the case of Agesilaus who waited “to find the fitting moment for [his] stratagem,” or acting speedily, as when Caesar took “advantage of the golden moment by showing amazing boldness and speed.”Footnote ⁹⁰ The lesson of Plutarch’s exempla is that “it is the critical moment which gives the scales their saving or their fatal inclination.”Footnote ⁹¹

This urge to act, whereby an actor can assert his agency against the press of chronos, often slips into a reverse relationship, where kairos forces action. Plutarch notes that Otho’s policies “were forced upon him by the situation” and that, for Manius, “the crisis forced action upon him.”Footnote ⁹² Kairos is thus inseparable from a consideration of necessity. This connection in turn gives rise to a form of temporally based relativism. Plutarch writes that Titus’s “natural gift of leadership” led him to realize that he should not only rule “in accordance with the laws,” but must also, “when occasion required it,” know “how to dominate the laws for the common good.”Footnote ⁹³ Plutarch takes such lessons even further, echoing the Sophists, in his treatment of Agesilaus, in which he writes that “honourable action has its fitting time and season: nay, rather, it is the observance of [these] due bounds that constitutes an utter difference between honourable and base actions.”Footnote ⁹⁴ Comparing Solon and Publicola, Plutarch notes that “we must view men’s actions in the light of the times which draw them forth,” for “the subtle statesman will handle each issue that arises in the most feasible manner, and often saves the whole by relinquishing a part, and by yielding small advantages secures greater ones.”Footnote ⁹⁵ This is even more explicitly expressed in the essay De Defectu Orculorum in his Moralia, where he notes that “every natural virtue produceth the effect to which it is ordained better or worse, according as its season is more or less proper.”Footnote ⁹⁶

6. Kairos and Occasione in Machiavelli

Isocrates’s and Plutarch’s development of a political theory of kairotic action should be familiar to any reader of Machiavelli, for his own view of political action is consciously derived from this tradition of thought.Footnote ⁹⁷ Machiavelli does not employ the term kairos, but throughout the Discourses (1531) and The Prince (1532) he repeatedly uses the equivalent term occasione to denote the key moment that must be seized by a prince in order to demonstrate his virtù, underlining the importance of acting according to the needs of the moment, adopting a flexible moral stance, and understanding politics through comparative histories rather than universal principles.Footnote ⁹⁸

Machiavelli draws attention to his use of this tradition in the first lines of the dedicatory epistle to Lorenzo de’ Medici, in which he borrows from Isocrates’s speech, Ad Nicoclem. Just as Isocrates had begun his speech by acknowledging that most courtiers bring “kings garments or brass or wrought gold or other valuable things of the kind,” Machiavelli tells de’ Medici that “they, that desire to ingratiate themselves with a Prince, commonly use to offer themselves to his view … cloth of gold, pretious stones, and such like ornaments.”Footnote ⁹⁹ Isocrates had argued that his advice was the “the noblest and most profitable gift and one most becoming me to give and you to receive.”Footnote ¹⁰⁰ Machiavelli likewise says that he has “found nothing in my whole Inventory, that I thinke better of, or more esteem” than his gift — The Prince.Footnote ¹⁰¹

The emphasis on occasione is expressed most clearly in the sixth chapter of The Prince. Like Plutarch, Machiavelli sets out examples of the “worthiest persons” to be imitated — in his case Moses, Cyrus, Romulus, and Theseus. He emphasizes that these exemplary leaders were dependent on Fortune only for the opportunity to demonstrate their virtù: “it will not appeare, that they had other help of fortune, than the occasion [occasione].”Footnote ¹⁰² Machiavelli sets out a mutually supportive relationship between occasione and virtù; neither can be realized without the other: “without that occasion, the vertue of their mind had been extinguish’d; and without that vertue the occasion had been offer’d in vaine.”Footnote ¹⁰³ Occasione for Machiavelli, as for Isocrates and Plutarch, functions as a rare opportunity in chronological time, which only the truly prudent can recognize and take hold of: “their excellent vertue made the occasion be taken notice of,” which “made these men happy” and “their country … enobled, and exceedingly fortunate.”Footnote ¹⁰⁴ Similar sentiments are expressed in the Discourses, where Machiavelli, drawing from Isocrates, notes that Fortune favors those whose “judgement and spirit … knows how to make use of those occasions shee presents him.”Footnote ¹⁰⁵

Just as with the Greek writers on kairos, necessity plays a strong role in Machiavelli’s political works. He writes in the Discourses that, because the times are always changing, “to many things that reason doth not perswade thee, necessity reminds thee,” and so he excuses acts, such as Brutus’s murder of his sons, on the grounds of necessity.Footnote ¹⁰⁶ As the ability to act according to virtú is based on occasione, there can be no praise nor blame for actions, and the moral valuation of such acts becomes neutral: all is dependent on “occasion … giving means to the one to behave himselfe vertuously, & quite bereaving the other of them.”Footnote ¹⁰⁷

It is this acknowledgement of necessity that lies at the base of Machiavelli’s revolutionary treatment of the virtues in The Prince. Machiavelli writes that “it is necessary for a Prince, desiring to preserve himselfe, to be able to make use of that honestie, and to lay it aside again, as need shall require.”Footnote ¹⁰⁸ The prince must be willing to employ the virtues as necessity and opportunity dictate, “to have a mind so disposd as to turne and take the advantage of all winds and fortunes; and as formerly I said, not forsake the good; while he can, but to know how to make use of the evill upon necessity.”Footnote ¹⁰⁹ Recalling that, for the Sophists, kairos allowed for the redescription of good or bad, just or unjust, one might wonder how much of the famous redescription of the virtues that Machiavelli details in these chapters are attributable to paradiastole, and how much to the theory of kairos that runs through them.Footnote ¹¹⁰

As with Isocrates, for Machiavelli prudence is the key skill in determining what action is kairotic.Footnote ¹¹¹ He defines this term in chapter 21: prudence, or “the principall point of judgement,” consists “in discerning between the qualities of inconvenients, and not taking the bad for the good.”Footnote ¹¹² Whereas for the Ciceronian humanists prudence was the virtue that brought universal precepts of the virtues down to earth, Machiavelli’s understanding of prudence is rooted in a focus on real-world circumstances.Footnote ¹¹³ This means that, despite the definition he gives in chapter 21, it is almost impossible to define what exactly constitutes prudence, what activities or behavior define prudent action or the prudential person, for it varies with the times.Footnote ¹¹⁴

Thus Machiavelli, too, turns to a comparison of lives and events taken out of chronological time in order to attempt to demonstrate his version of kairotic prudence. Machiavelli’s work is built upon such comparisons, both between diverse cases in ancient times, and, like Plutarch, between the distant past and contemporary situations, based on “the resemblance these accidents have with the auncient.”Footnote ¹¹⁵ From this treatment, he makes clear that two different and morally opposed actions may both be justifiable, depending on circumstances.Footnote ¹¹⁶ For example, from his comparison of Scipio and Hannibal in the Discourses, Machiavelli concludes that “it imports not much, in which of these two wayes [severity or mildness] a Commander proceeds, provided he hath so great worth in him, as may well season the one and the other.”Footnote ¹¹⁷ Likewise in the case of cities, “whosoever then considers what is sayd, will neither in this blame Athens, nor commend Rome, but will accuse only the necessity, because of the diversity of accidents, which did arise.”Footnote ¹¹⁸

All these lessons — seizing opportunity, the force of necessity, moral flexibility, and the importance of comparative history — are applied in the final chapter of The Prince, in which Machiavelli presents his exhortation to free Italy from the barbarians, directly echoing Isocrates’s similar plea in his Panegyricus. The Prince thus begins and ends with a kairotically timed reference to Isocrates’s counsel. Machiavelli frames his advice in line with his comments in chapter 6, suggesting that “the times might serve to honour a new Prince,” as “there were matter, that might minister occasion to a wise [prudente] and valorous [virtuoso] prince.”Footnote ¹¹⁹ He returns to his discussion of occasione, connecting it with his treatment of necessity: for, just as it was necessary for the Jews to be enslaved in Egypt in order that Moses’s virtue might be shown, likewise “now wee are desirous to know the valour of the Italian spirit, it were necessary Italy should bee reduc’d to the same termes it is now in.”Footnote ¹²⁰ He explains that “that warre is just, that is necessary” — the necessity of the time is what dictates the ethical valuation of the action.Footnote ¹²¹ Thus he appeals to his addressee, de’ Medici, to seize the opportunity presented and liberate Italy, based on the comparison with these kairotic exempla. In fact, de’ Medici has even more reason to be sure of his success than his predecessors because “every one of [these men] began upon lesse occasion” than the one currently before him: “Circumstances are now very favourable indeed, and the difficulties cannot be very great when the circumstances are propitious, if only your family will imitate the men I have proposed as exemplars.”Footnote ¹²² Just as Isocrates had implored that “we must not throw [kairos] away,” Machiavelli concludes with the exhortation that “this occasion should not bee let passe.”Footnote ¹²³

7. Kairos in the Later Sixteenth Century

Before moving on to the effects that a revival of kairotic thought had in the later decades of the sixteenth century, it is worth noting another tradition of kairos during this period: that of the visual representation of kairos present in the popular emblem genre of the time.Footnote ¹²⁴ For the ancient Greeks, kairos was not only a concept, but was also personified as a god, traditionally presented as a young athletic male with a short forelock. Usually represented in the nude, Kairos was always in motion, with wings at his heels, and sometimes on his shoulder. He often held a pair of scales and a razor, poised to strike off his forelock should he catch someone in the act of trying to seize it (fig. 1).Footnote ¹²⁵

Figure 1. Kairos. Marble relief. The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg. Photograph © The State Hermitage Museum / photo by Pavel Demidov.

By the sixteenth century, the figure had become a woman, but very little else had changed. One of the most popular emblem books of the period was undoubtedly that of Andrea Alciato (1492–1550). His Emblematum libellus, first published in 1531, went through dozens of editions in a number of languages, always including the visual representation of the concept of occasio, almost exactly as the Greeks had portrayed Kairos (fig. 2). The resemblance to the Greek figure, however, is not coincidental. Alciato’s description of the image begins by identifying it as “the work of Lysippus,” a Greek sculptor of the fourth century BCE and a contemporary of Plato and Isocrates. His famous image of Kairos bore an epigram by the poet Posidippus, which Alciato repeats in his caption of the emblem:

Figure 2. “In Occasionem.” In Andrea Alciato, Emblematum Liber. Augsburg, 1531. Alciato at Glasgow, by permission of University of Glasgow Library, Special Collections.

The figure of Occasio develops and changes over the course of the various editions of Alciato. In the 1531 first edition, for instance, the figure is shown with many forelocks, and no wings upon her feet. By the 1534 Paris edition, she has her wings, and a repentant man, mourning the loss of her, is figured in the distance to her right (fig. 3). In the 1549 Lyon edition, she is represented as standing upon a turbulent sea, and the item below her feet has been clearly drawn as a wheel (fig. 4). The major exception is the 1621 edition published in Padua, in which the figure is male, stands upon a ball, not a wheel, and is positioned on dry land (fig. 5). The text varies only slightly from edition to edition. Similar images and text can be found in other emblem books, such as that of Guillaume La Perrière in 1544 (fig. 6).

Figure 3. “In Occasionem.” In Andrea Alciato, Emblematum Libellus. Paris, 1534. Alciato at Glasgow, by permission of University of Glasgow Library, Special Collections.

Figure 4. “La Occasion.” In Andrea Alciato, Emblemes. Lyon, 1549. Alciato at Glasgow, by permission of University of Glasgow Library, Special Collections.

Figure 5. “In Occasionem.” In Andrea Alciato, Emblemata. Padua, 1621. Alciato at Glasgow, by permission of University of Glasgow Library, Special Collections.

Figure 6. “Occasion.” In Guillaume la Perrière, Le theatre des bons engins. Paris, 1544. French Emblems at Glasgow, by permission of University of Glasgow Library, Special Collections.

Other emblems of the period emphasize the regret that will come to those who do not manage to seize occasion. For instance, Gilles Corrozet’s Hecatomgraphie of 1540 shows Occasio, still on a wheel but missing her razor, in a boat and accompanied by a second figure, Repentance, also sitting in her boat (fig. 7). The caption encourages the reader to grasp her quickly when she comes, otherwise “thou shalt make penance.”Footnote ¹²⁷ Perhaps the most striking example comes from Jean Jacques Boissard’s Emblemes latins of 1588, in which Occasio is shown in the clutches of a fierce Roman soldier (fig. 8). Repentance is once again figured, bearing her whip, but it would seem that it is not required, for the virile soldier appears to have Occasio well in hand. The caption reads: “Grasp [her], if ever occasio offers herself: she is bald from behind: and she glides on winged feet. Following behind, Metanoea [Repentance] pursues with whip brandished: and grievous punishment comes only to the slothful.”Footnote ¹²⁸

Figure 7. “L’ymage d’occasion.” In Gilles Corrozet, Hecatomgraphie. Paris, 1540. French Emblems at Glasgow, by permission of University of Glasgow Library, Special Collections.

Figure 8. “L’Occasion.” In Jean Jacques Boissard, Emblemes latins. Metz, 1588. French Emblems at Glasgow, by permission of University of Glasgow Library, Special Collections.

The imagery of these Renaissance emblems, drawn from Greek mythology, was integrated with Machiavelli’s theory of kairotic political action by those writers who used Machiavelli’s ideas, and his language of occasion, in their works. It would be difficult to overemphasize how widespread this use of kairotic language in political thought was in the later sixteenth century, for one sees it employed by a variety of writers across Europe. The themes of seizing occasion, moral flexibility, necessity, and lessons learned from comparative history remain, tying this tradition to that of Machiavelli and his classical predecessors.Footnote ¹²⁹

For instance, Bartolome Felippe (d. 1590) in his Counseller (1568) often borrows from Machiavelli’s Prince in his attempt to establish the proper skills of a political counselor. He notes that history is especially useful to a counselor, whose role requires knowledge of “fit opportunitie, with occasion proportionable,” as “counsellers for the most part, depend vpon the occasions and circumstances.”Footnote ¹³⁰ Recalling the classical tradition, Felippe adds that “in ancient times past, the Image of opportunitie was set vp in many places, that men might remember to let no occasion slip, which might be to their commoditie when opportunitie was offered … they painted her on a wheele, because she neuer standeth still, nor remaineth in one place, with wings on her feete, because she passeth away swiftly, her face couered with the haire of her forehead, because she lets none know her, but such as be verie attentiue to looke on her: with a raser in her hande, because shee cuts of their hope that take no heede of her but let her passe: with the hinder part of her head balde, because if she once be gone, no man can catch hold of her, and with a Maid that waits vpon her which is called Poenitentia, for repentance doth accompanie them that cannot tell how to reape profit by occasion.”Footnote ¹³¹ Like Machiavelli and the Sophists before him, Felippe emphasizes that the important question is not whether an action should or should not be done — whether it is utile or honestum — but rather when it should be done: “many things in mans life are mard, not for that they ought not to be doone, but because they be not doone in time and place.”Footnote ¹³²

History, as it was for Machiavelli, was for Felippe and others like him the crucial source for this sort of knowledge.Footnote ¹³³ As Thomas Blundeville (ca. 1522–ca. 1606) writes in his True order and methode of wryting and reading hystories (1574), the historian gains “better knowledge of the opportunitie of affayres” of his own time by studying those whose “skill … causeth him to take occasion when it is offered, and to vse the meetest meanes to bring it to passe.”Footnote ¹³⁴ The reader of history learns that such an individual’s actions are “forced by outward occasion” and therefore “deserue neyther blame nor prayse.”Footnote ¹³⁵ Although his relationship with Machiavellian ideas was complex at best, here at least Francis Bacon (1561–1626) also agrees, detailing in his Aduancement of Learning (1605) the political “wisedome of pressiing a mans own fortune,” whereby a man may learn how “to frame the mind to be pliant and obedient to occasion.”Footnote ¹³⁶ The surest way to this is to follow Machiavelli’s method of the study of comparable histories, for “the fourme of writing which of al others is fittest for this variable argumente of Negotiation and occasions is which Machiauel chose wisely and aptly for Gouernmente: namely discourse vpon Histories and Examples.”Footnote ¹³⁷

The most influential adoption of this language comes with the reason of state discourse toward the end of the sixteenth century.Footnote ¹³⁸ The greatest example of this new political vocabulary is from Giovanni Botero (ca. 1544–1617), whose Ragione di Stato was first published in 1589.Footnote ¹³⁹ Having set out his desire to correct a political discourse corrupted by Machiavellian “lack of conscience,” Botero establishes a reason of state which seeks to identify the “knowledge of the means by which such a dominion [a state] may be founded, preserved and extended.”Footnote ¹⁴⁰ Although he states that he wishes to reject Machiavelli’s influence, he does so by adopting Machiavellian language, including the relationship between virtù and occasione. He notes that “circumstances [occasione], the weakness of the enemy and the deeds of others all play a considerable part in conquest,” and so it is only those with the virtù to counter and seize these occasions who “can hold what has been conquered.”Footnote ¹⁴¹ In his lengthy discussion of the maxims of prudence that a prince must embrace, Botero writes that every ruler must “learn to recognise the critical moment [occasioni] in war and affairs and to seize opportunities as they appear.”Footnote ¹⁴² He defines for the reader a “certain point of time when a fortunate combination of circumstances favours some piece of business, which both before and after that moment would be most difficult: this is opportunity, and it is of supreme importance.”Footnote ¹⁴³ He repeats these ideas in his I Prencipi of 1600 with direct reference to Plutarch’s Lives. In writing on Caesar, Botero notes that “Plutarch reporteth, That Caesar was indued by nature with a singular and extraordinary capacitie, in knowing how to take opportunities in all his actions and enterprises.”Footnote ¹⁴⁴ This “Oportunitie,” he goes on, echoing Plutarch once again, “is a most faithful friend to those, who duly & aduisedly go on in their proceedings; but an enemie vnto such as rashly & vnseasonably hasten their course, before their good houre be come.”Footnote ¹⁴⁵

Botero’s friend, the Savoyard diplomat René de Lucinge (1554–ca. 1615), applied Botero’s theories to his De la naissance, durée et chute des états, published a year before Ragione, based upon an early draft of Botero’s work.Footnote ¹⁴⁶ Lucinge uses Botero’s theories to analyze the Ottoman Empire, inquiring after the means by which they have attained their greatness, how they maintain their empire, and the possibilities for overthrow by European powers. Lucinge makes clear that the Ottomans have employed a number of Machiavellian tactics in order to gain and retain the power they hold in the world. These practices, however, are not to be wholly condemned, for “there is not any vice so detestable, or crime so hainous that sometime carrieth not with it a shew and colour of good, and proueth not profitable to him which in due season performeth it,” a lesson driven home in the chapter demonstrating that the Turk, to establish his state “hath laide hold on occasion.”Footnote ¹⁴⁷ Lucinge is even more direct in his allusion to the classical tradition than Botero, combining his Machiavellian language with the imagery of the Renaissance emblems as Felippe had done: “The ancient Romans signified vnto vs by the picture of occasion (whom they adored as a goddesse, putting wings to her feete, supported with a bowle, behinde bald, and before hairie) that we must bee diligent to apprehend her when shee presenteth her-selfe, and not in any case to let her slippe: considering that if she once escape vs, she leaueth vs nought but a vaine and vexing repentance.”Footnote ¹⁴⁸ There is “nothing more commendable,” Lucinge writes, “in all a mans actions” than the ability “to make the best vse of occasion.”Footnote ¹⁴⁹ Like Botero, Lucinge defines occasion, describing it as “an opportunity that the time more by accident then prouidence offereth vnto vs, for the well performing of what we haue in hand, and for the abstaining and well comming off from a dessine vnsesonably attempted.”Footnote ¹⁵⁰ It is not enough, however, simply to know the occasion; Lucinge makes clear that what sets the Turk apart is his “nimblenesse and celerity vpon his occasions,” for “that which most importeth, is to serue our turnes with it at an instant, when it presenteth it selfe, to guide out intentions to that perfection we aime at.”Footnote ¹⁵¹

It would be the work of a much larger study to demonstrate the multiple uses of this concept as it continued to be employed in the sixteenth and into the seventeenth centuries, applied to political actors such as Henry VII,Footnote ¹⁵² the Earl of Leicester,Footnote ¹⁵³ Catherine de Medici,Footnote ¹⁵⁴ Louis XIII,Footnote ¹⁵⁵ and the Elector Palatine,Footnote ¹⁵⁶ as well as political events such as the courtship of Elizabeth I,Footnote ¹⁵⁷ the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre,Footnote ¹⁵⁸ and the English Civil War.Footnote ¹⁵⁹ What should be clear, however, is that by the end of the sixteenth century there was a prevalent political discourse derived from the Greek tradition of kairos, without which a full understanding of the political theory of the period — especially the shift toward a prudential and flexible political ethics, the emphasis on historical example, and the language of necessity and emergency — remains irrecoverable. To analyze and understand the political discourse of the Renaissance period, an understanding of kairos as both a theory of political speech and political action must be developed. Given the recent scholarship on kairos by historians and theorists of rhetoric, and the work done by historians of political thought on the transmission of classical ideas in Renaissance political writing, there is perhaps no better time to begin such important work.