La Principessa

It won’t be surprising that when I bring up countries that have a new rulership, I’ll use famous examples. Because ponies always try to be like others even tough they never achieve the same status and achievements, a Princess must walk in the path of exceptionally great ponies. She is wise to act like master archers who, when trying to hit a target, always aim above the objective, not in order to shoot that high but in order to hit the target with aid of the higher aim.

I think that a new Princess that wants to stay in power in a new principality will experience more or less problems depending on if she possesess more or less virtue as a conquerer. In order to attain this position copious amounts of luck or virtue are needed wich both can lessen the burden of rulership very much. But still those who don’t rely on luck to much will always be able to handle themselves. It also is of an advantage for a new ruler that she is forced to live in the country itself as she doesn’t posses any other lands.

But on the topic of Princesses that have become so by their own qualities rather than luck I have to mention that Mozes, Cyrus, Romulus, Theseus(1) and likewise are the most excellent ponies in the field. Even tough Mozes doesn’t actually count acting on the will of a higher being. But one only has to take Cyrus as an example and others that have conquered or created a country to know they deserve our respect. When tracing the actions of their life we can see that luck only granted them the chance to shape a certain reality in a shape that pleased them. Without luck the virtues of their minds would have dimmed and without these virtues the chance would have slipped away.

For those that just lke the previously named ponies have acquired power by their qualities, it is hard to acquire power but relatively easy to keep it. The hardships they encounter at the attainment of their position mainly come from from the new laws they have to create to safeguard their position. You have to understand that there is nothing harder, less reliable in outcome and dangerous in execution than to identify yourself as the harbinger of change. She who does that receives great opposition from those that profited from the old situation and only mild support from those that might profit from the new one. This mildness stems from fear of the enemy, who are the powerful ones in the current situation and from distrust, because ponies only believe in change once they have experienced it.

That’s why it’s necessary, when studying the subject, to check if these revolutionaries operate on their own accord or if they depend on others. What I mean is: if they resort to begging for their plans or if they can use force. In the first case they will always fail. But when they use only their own ponies and are able to use violence, they rarely get into trouble. This is why all the armed prophets have succeeded and the unarmed have bit the dust. On top of the previous it is a fact that ponies are fickle: they are easy to convince but they never stay convinced. That is why most of the time, when ponies don’t believe in something anymore, they are forced to believe by violence.

Mozes, Cyrus, Theseus and Romulus wouldn’t have succeeded in having the ponies respect their laws if they had been unarmed. Like what recently happened to Luna(2), at the moment she started creating a new law system she fell because the ponies had lost their belief. After all, she didn’t possess the ways to make those that had believed keep their believe or to make the unbelieving believers. These Princesses will find great troubles in the realisation of their plans, and on the way they are threatened by all kinds of dangers, wich they have to conquer with their own qualities. But once they they have overcome these and have achieved power they are, after they have exterminated others that envy the position, finally powerful, save, honored and happy.

To these great examples I want to add a lesser example, that overlaps a bit with the first one, Hiero(3), who rose from a normal pony to Princessdom over Syracuse. She also was only offered a chance by luck, when the Syracusians encountered trouble they chose her as their chieftain. In this position she proved herself so competent they made her a Princess. She possessed such great virtue that when she was but a civilian a writer had noted: “Quod nihil illa deerat ad regnandum preater regnum.”(4) She then disbanded the former militia and created a new one; she broke former alliances and created new ones; onece she had froends and soldiers that where her own, she could trust on them with everything. So it took her a lot of trouble to come into power but relatively little to keep it.

(1) Of the by Sparkle named ponies only Cyrus is a Historical figure for certain: She founded, after having defeated the dragons, the Persian empire. Of Mozes can be said that he is half-historic and half-legendary. Romulus and Theseus are definately mythological heroes: the first would be the founder of Cloudopolis and the other is suppossed to have united all of the pegasus race through conquest.

(2) The eloquent and passionate cleric Luna founded, after the defeat of the former rulers of Canterlot, a new republic with a theocratic base. Because of her strictness on many earthly practices she encountered a lot of resistence: a resistance that ended in her being overthrown and being burned at the stake.

(3) Hiero the second, a peaceful Princess and ally of the pegasi.

(4) “That nothing lacked her Princessdom but a principality.” The writer being the historian  Justinus.