History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire--vol. 1

I just kind of got sucked into this one. I saw a free version for the kindle and downloaded it. I thought I'd just look over the first few pages, but I stayed with it through the end, at least of volume 1. I had expected Gibbon to be dry, desiccated, and a bit of a bore, kind of the way I found Burkhardt. But the zingers just kept rolling off his pen: "the Roman world was indeed people by a race of pygmies, when the fierce giants of the north broke in and mended the puny breed." It's not exactly the picture of the Roman Empire I had come to expect, and reading Gibbon has turned out to be a delight so far.

Of course, we all know how the story is going to end, and it's not going to come out well. In this first volume, Gibbon covers from the accession of Augustus to the reunification of the empire under Constantine in 325, but really, the story begins with the death of Marcus Aurelius. The period leading to his death is the high point of civilization for Gibbon: "If a man were called to fix the period in which the history of the world, during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus." But this same period also sowed the seeds of destruction of the empire: "This long peace…introduced a slow and secret poison to the vitals of the empire. The minds of men were gradually reduced to the same level, the fire of genius was exterminated, and even the military spirit evaporated." Of course, during this time, the Roman legions were off on campaigns, either extending or consolidating the borders of the empire in Dacia, Mesopotamia, or other hot spots hundreds or even thousands of miles from Rome.

It seems a bit strange to me that the beginning of the decline has been laid at the feet of Marcus Aurelius, the philosophic emperor. "It has been objected to Marcus that he sacrificed the happiness of millions to a fond partiality to a worthless boy." That boy, of course, was Commodus, of "Gladiator" fame as portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix. He wasn't really killed in the middle of the Coliseum by Russell Crowe, but he spent his time "in a seraglio of three hundred beautiful women, and as many boys." Ain't it grand to be the emperor?

After that, the Praetorian guard and then the legions took control of the empire, even selling the office of Augustus to the highest bidder after Commodus was strangled in his bath by his sparring partner. After another bloody civil war, the empire landed in the hands of Septimus Severus, of whom Gibbon says, "Posterity…justly considered him as the principal author of the decline of the Roman empire." But I think that Gibbon makes clear that the groundwork was really laid by Octavian/Augustus when he took the reins of the empire: "whilst he thus restored the dignity, he destroyed the independence of the senate. The principles of a free constitution [were] irrevocably lost." And it was Augustus who brought the Praetorian guards into Rome to protect him from assassination. "The Praetorian bands, whose licentious fury was the first symptom and cause of the decline of the Roman empire:…the person of the sovereign the authority of the senate, the public treasure, and the seat of the empire, were all in their hands." 

The eminence and authority of the senate, degraded by August, became quickly irrelevant with the ascendancy of Severus. "The emperor was freed from the restraint of civil laws [and] could command by his arbitrary will the lives and fortunes of his subjects." Essentially, the city of Rome and its people became insignificant to controlling the Roman empire. Only those leaders who could pay legions well could run the show, and even that could prove insufficient when the Germanic peoples and the Persians began to besiege different parts of the empire. "The introduction of luxury had enervated the vigor, and a spirit of disobedience and sedition had relaxed the discipline of the Roman armies."

So at times appeared that the empire would topple under outside pressure or even collapse under its own weight. "The whole period was one uninterrupted series of confusion and calamity."

Yet it rose again under a series of emperors including especially Diocletian, who "deserved the glorious title of Restorers of the Roman World." Diocletian saw that the empire was not really one entity but at least four, and he split the empire--and more importantly, the command of the legions--under four separate rulers. This arrangement fell apart very quickly, however, when Diocletian resigned the office of Augustus, and it was up to Constantine to put the pieces back together under one rule--his. And what did he do but change the whole complexion of events and history by moving the capital elsewhere. But that's the story of the next volume.

In the final two chapters of volume 1, Gibbon goes back and covers the birth and development of Christianity up until the ascendancy of Constantine. And really, he doesn't have a whole lot of good to say about either Christianity or Judaism. First off, by refusing to any homage to the Roman gods and then condemning the rest of mankind to eternal torture, they sat out from the "common intercourse of mankind," disrupting the "religious harmony of the world." The Roman empire was a pastiche of many different beliefs and religious practices that were able to live in harmony by mutual indulgence of each other. All that was required was paying due homage to the gods of the state at civic occasions. Jews and Christians refused, and this left them open to persecution, "The rights of toleration…were justly forfeited by a refusal of the accustomed tribute." 

Romans found this refusal especially puzzling for the early Christians since they weren't following the practices and beliefs of their ancestors: "Christians…dissolved the sacred ties of custom and education, violated the religious institutions of their country and presumptuously despised whatever their fathers had believed as true or had revered as sacred." (Wait just a second. Isn't that the same thing that was said about me and my generation?) By doing so, Christians stood outside the life of the empire and "refused to take any active part in the civil administration or the military defence of the empire."

This refusal to take part in the everyday affairs of the commerce of life was driven, of course, by the apocalyptic nature of their beliefs. The world was coming to an end very shortly and affairs of this world were to be despised. "The ancient Christians were animated by a contempt for their present existence." This devaluation of life really bothers Gibbon: "The acquisition of knowledge, the exercise of our reason and fancy, and the cheerful flow of unguarded conversation…were rejected with abhorrence…as a criminal abuse of the gift of speech." Gibbon also disparages Christian belief in the afterlife, "The conduct of [the eminent persons of the age] was never regulated by any serious convictions of the rewards or the punishments of a future state," as well as the prevalent belief in signs and miracles. Why was it that none of these miracles and wonders were not observed by other thinkers of the age? Probably because only the totally incredulous saw them. No wonder, then, that Christianity was scorned by the most prominent thinkers of the times: "all these sages [Seneca, Pliny, Tacitus, Plutarch, Galen, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius] overlooked the perfection of the Christian system [and] those among them who condescended to mention the Christians consider them only as obstinate and perverse enthusiasts."

Finally, Gibbon takes up the issue of the persecution of the early church by the empire. After repeating the adage that the blood of the martyrs provided the seed for the growth of the church, he asserts that their numbers have been grossly overstated: "The learned Origen…declares…that the number of martyrs was very inconsiderable." Romans had some cause for their anger at the Christians, this "recent and obscure sect" who was willing to declare all of mankind except themselves in error and to condemn everyone to eternal torture and damnation. But in the end, Christians have done a lot more damage to each other than was ever experienced in the Roman empire: "Christians, in their course of their intestine dissensions, have inflicted far greater severities on each other, than they had experienced from the zeal of infidels." And if there were any doubts left about Gibbon's opinions on the church, he concludes the first volume with his take on the church's legacy: "The Church of Rome defended by violence the empire which she had acquired by fraud, a system of peace and benevolence was soon displaced by proscriptions, war, massacres, and the institutions of the Holy Office." It will be interesting to see where Gibbons goes with this as Constantine embraces the church and Theodosius outlaws all religions but the Church.

Author: Gibbon, Edward
Date Published: 1776
Length: 486 pp
electronic print