Politicians have the reputation of being power-hungry manipulators. What you might not know is that the image of the modern politician may actually have roots in the 500-year-old document called &quot;The Prince&quot; by Niccol&ograve; Machiavelli. &quot;The Prince&quot; is a political treatise describing the less-than-honorable but all-too-realistic methods politicians (still) use to secure their power.<br /><br />Machiavelli wrote &quot;The Prince&quot; within two years after he was driven from office. A surviving letter indicates that the first title for it was &ldquo;On Principalities.&rdquo; The work was not published until 1532.