To maintain your independence you must always be needed and wanted. The more you are relied on, the more freedom you have. Make people depend on you for their happiness and prosperity and you have nothing to fear. Never teach them enough so that they can do without you.

Sometime in the Middle Ages, a mercenary soldier (also known as condottiere), whose name has not been recorded, saved the town of Siena from a foreign aggressor.

The city was extremely grateful for this act, however no amount of money or honor could possibly compare in value to the preservation of a city’s liberty. The people thought of making him the lord, they said that wasn’t enough to recompense him. At last, one of them stood before the assembly and called to debate to this matter exclaiming, “Let us kill him and then worship him as our patron saint.” And so they did.

In another short story, The Count of Carmagnola was one of the bravest and most successful of all the condottieri. He served the city of Venice and eventually found himself convicted on some trumped-up charge where he was eventually beheaded before a horrified crowd who could not understand how his fate had changed so drastically.
Interpretation

Reading stories like these make me appreciate how thankful I am for living in this century. Our modern day ‘condottieres’ come in the form of military heroes and do not find the same fate of past condottieres, instead they are celebrated and praised, rightfully so. Many of the great condottieri of Renaissance Italy suffered the same fate as the patron saint of Siena and the Count of Carmagnola: They won battle after battle for their employers only to find themselves banished, imprisoned, or executed.

The problem was not ingratitude; it was that there were so many other condottieris as able and valiant as they were. They were easily replaceable. Nothing was lost by killing them.

No one was dependent on them because there was such a large endless supply of them. It was like sheep replacing more sheep.

Such is the fate of those who do not make others dependent on them. Sooner or later someone comes along who can do the job as well as they can — someone younger, fresher, less expensive, less threatening.

Be the only one who can do what you do, and make the fate of those who hire you so entwined with yours that they cannot possibly get rid of you.