Bangers from Gibbon

Sampling the greatest prose stylist ever

I did an appearance on Shilo Brooks’s podcast about books, and picked Edward Gibbons’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire as my favorite. I have a seven-volume copy of this work that I obtained several decades ago. When I recently pulled it off my shelf and started flipping through it, I discovered that during previous readings I had marked certain passages with book darts (metal clips that grip the edge of the page, as shown above) and dogeared other pages when book darts weren’t handy.

To save others the trouble of pointing it out, Gibbon wrote this thing 250 years ago. In the meantime ten generations of scholars have come and gone, devoting their careers to uncovering new sources and studying history from different angles — just to name one example, Kyle Harper’s The Fate of Rome, which re-interprets the decline and fall through the lens of the modern sciences of climatology and epidemiology. My edition of Gibbon dates to 1909; it was painstakingly annotated by one J. B. Bury, who added many footnotes pointing out bits that Gibbon had got wrong. So as a document about what actually, factually happened, Gibbon has to be read with care. But his best bits aren’t just recitations of historical data, as I hope the following selections will demonstrate.

Rome’s conquest of Britain

After a war of about forty years, undertaken by the most stupid, maintained by the most dissolute, and terminated by the most timid of all the emperors, the far greater part of the island submitted to the Roman yoke. The various tribes of Britons possessed valour without conduct, and the love of freedom without the spirit of union. They took up arms with savage fierceness, they laid them down, or turned them against each other, with wild inconstancy; and while they fought singly, they were successively subdued.

Religion

This one is probably the most quoted passage from Gibbon, but I’m including it anyway!

The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful. And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord.

Letters

The last phrases here use one of Gibbons’s favorite and most distinctive stylings. I do not know the name, but I am an enthusiastic user, of this sentence structure.

…this age of indolence passed away without having produced a single writer of original genius or who excelled in the arts of elegant composition. The authority of Plato and Aristotle, of Zeno and Epicurus, still reigned in the schools, and their systems, transmitted with blind deference from one generation of disciples to another, precluded every generous attempt to exercise the powers, or enlarge the limits, of the human mind.

History

Another very widely quoted passage that is still worth repeating:

Antoninus diffused order and tranquility over the greatest part of the earth. His reign is marked by the rare advantage of furnishing very few materials for history; which is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.

Education

As mentioned in the podcast, Decline and Fall starts around 180 AD, around the time of the botched handoff from Marcus Aurelius to his worthless son Commodus. It is the same event that, in heavily fictionalized form, opens Ridley Scott’s movie Gladiator:

Nothing…was neglected by [Marcus Aurelius], and by the men of virtue and learning whom he summoned to his assistance, to expand the narrow mind of young Commodus, to correct his growing vices, and to render him worthy of the throne for which he was designed. But the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions there it is almost superfluous.

Here’s another one that shows up much later, when he’s talking about late Byzantine documents:

The battles won by lessons of tactics may be numbered with the epic poems created from the rules of criticism.

The Trump Administration

Suspicious princes often promote the last of mankind, from a vain persuasion that those who have no dependence except on their favour will have no attachment except to the person of their benefactor…[Cleander] was devoid of any ability or virtue which could inspire [Commodus] with envy or distrust. Avarice was the reigning passion of his soul, and the great principle of his administration. The rank of consul, of patrician, of senator, was exposed to the public sale; and it would have been considered as disaffection if any one had refused to purchase these empty and disgraceful honours with the greatest part of his fortune…the execution of the laws was venal and arbitrary. A wealthy criminal might obtain not only the reversal of the sentence by which he was justly condemned; but might likewise inflict whatever punishment he pleased on the accuser, the witnesses, and the judge.

Monarchy and Democracy

Here I am splicing together two passages from different parts of the work on the same topic. TL;DR Gibbon thinks that monarchy isn’t necessarily any worse than hypocritical faked-up democracy, but you can’t ever stop fighting back against despotism.

The obvious definition of a monarchy seems to be that of a state, in which a single person, by whatsoever name he may be distinguished, is intrusted with the execution of the laws, the management of the revenue, and the command of the army. But unless public liberty is protected by intrepid and vigilant guardians, the authority of so formidable a magistrate will soon degenerate into despotism…A martial nobility and stubborn commons, possessed of arms, tenacious of property, and collected into constitutional assemblies, form the only balance capable of preserving a free constitution against enterprises of an aspiring prince. Every barrier of the Roman constitution had been levelled by the vast ambition of the dictator [Augustus]; every fence had been extirpated by the cruel hand of the triumvir.

Of the various forms of government which have prevailed in the world, an hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope for ridicule. Is it possible to relate without an indignant smile, that, on the father’s decease, the property of a nation, like that of a drove of oxen, descends to his infant son, as yet unknown to mankind and to himself, and that the bravest warriors and the wisest statesmen, relinquishing their natural right to empire, approach the royal cradle with bended knees and protestations of inviolable fidelity? Satire and declamation may paint these obvious topics in the most dazzling colours, but our more serious thoughts will respect a useful prejudice, that establishes a rule of succession, independent of the passions of mankind; and we shall cheerfully acquiesce in any expedient which deprives the multitude of the dangerous, and indeed the ideal, power of giving themselves a master. In the cool shade of retirement, we may easily devise imaginary forms of government, in which the sceptre shall be constantly bestowed on the most worthy by the free and incorrupt suffrage of the whole community. Experience overturns these airy fabrics, and teaches us that in a large society the election of a monarch can never devolve to the wisest or to the most numerous part of the people.

Social Media

The most worthless of mankind are not afraid to condemn in others the same disorders which they allow in themselves; and can readily discover some nice difference of age, character, or station, to justify the partial distinction.

Professional vs. Liberal Education

The professions of law and [medicine] are of such common use and certain profit that they will always secure a sufficient number of practitioners endowed with a reasonable degree of abilities and knowledge; but it does not appear that the students in those two faculties appeal to any celebrated masters who have flourished within that period. The voice of poetry was silent. History was reduced to dry and confused abridgments, alike destitute of amusement and instruction. A languid and affected eloquence was still retained in the pay and service of the emperors, who encouraged not any arts except those which contributed to the gratification of their pride or the defence of their power.

Character sketches

In every art that [Gallienus] attempted his lively genius enabled him to succeed; and, as his genius was destitute of judgement, he attempted every art, except the important ones of war and government. He was a master of several curious but useless sciences, a ready orator, an elegant poet, a skilful gardener, an excellent cook, and most contemptible prince.

[Charlemagne’s] real merit is doubtless enhanced by the barbarism of the nation and the times from which he emerged; but the apparent magnitude of an object is likewise enlarged by an unequal comparison; and the ruins of Palmyra derive a casual splendour from the nakedness of the surrounding desert. Without injustice to his fame, I may discern some blemishes in the sanctity and greatness of the restorer of the Western empire. Of his moral virtues, chastity is not the most conspicuous; but the public happiness could not be materially injured by his nine wives or concubines, the various indulgence of meaner or more transient amours, the multitude of his bastards whom he bestowed on the church, and the long celibacy and licentious manners of his daughters, whom the father was suspected of loving with too fond a passion.

Bad Writing

Here Gibbon is talking about certain writers of the middle Byzantine empire.

In every page our taste and reason are wounded by the choice of gigantic and obsolete words, a stiff and intricate phraseology, the discord of images, the childish play of false or unreasonable ornament, and the painful attempt to elevate themselves, to astonish the reader, and to involve a trivial meaning in the smoke of obscurity and exaggeration. Their prose is soaring to the vicious affectation of poetry; their poetry is sinking below the flatness and insipidity of prose.

How to read Gibbon

Because this work is so vast, it’s easy to get lost in it and never advance beyond the first volume or so. It’s best treated as a library rather than as a single work. It covers a span of about 1300 years (he doesn’t stop with the fall of the Western empire circa 476 but keeps going all the way through the fall of Constantinople in 1453). Get an unabridged version and just pull volumes out at random and flip through them until you hit on something that pulls you into the narrative. That way, you can get his take on various topics out of Western Civ that you wouldn’t normally expect to find in a history of Rome, such as the Crusades, the rise of Islam, the formation of the Holy Roman Empire, and many others.