Who is Machiavelian?

When Niccolò Machiavelli wrote The Prince, the sixteenth-century manual for seizing and holding political power through cunning manipulation, he took for granted that the aspiring ruler had only his own interests at heart, caring not at all about the people he rules nor those he crushed to gain power. For Machiavellian, the ends justify the means, no matter what human pain he may cause.