He talked of ways that a prince could maintain his political power once he has acquired it. This was a new way of discussing political theory because in the past it was about how anyone who was a philosopher would be ruling due to the wisdom and knowledge that could allow him to lead. With a prince, he is born into the family and gains the title of prince through that. Machiavelli takes a family of whom the prince is struggling and basically writes this entire book because of them and presents new ideas of how a prince could stay the way he is and not have to necessarily worry about he or his family being rebelled against. This goes against Plato and Aristotle in more ways in one, but in general, it just goes against their ideas that the philosophers should be the one to rule compared to just one prince. Of course, there are many specific situations in which Machiavelli and Plato/Aristotle differ, but this is just the general idea and was a different viewpoint for many readers and philosophers of Machiavelli's time who knew and respected Aristotle and Plato's
He talked of ways that a prince could maintain his political power once he has acquired it. This was a new way of discussing political theory because in the past it was about how anyone who was a philosopher would be ruling due to the wisdom and knowledge that could allow him to lead. With a prince, he is born into the family and gains the title of prince through that. Machiavelli takes a family of whom the prince is struggling and basically writes this entire book because of them and presents new ideas of how a prince could stay the way he is and not have to necessarily worry about he or his family being rebelled against. This goes against Plato and Aristotle in more ways in one, but in general, it just goes against their ideas that the philosophers should be the one to rule compared to just one prince. Of course, there are many specific situations in which Machiavelli and Plato/Aristotle differ, but this is just the general idea and was a different viewpoint for many readers and philosophers of Machiavelli's time who knew and respected Aristotle and Plato's